God's Consuming Fire

Text: 1 Kings 18:16–39
Topic: What we learn about God and ourselves from fire

Fire. It was there from the beginning of God's creation. He said, "Let ...

Inquiring of the Lord

Introduction

I want to read to you an obscure little verse from an obscure part of the Old Testament. Very few people know this story, but it has a lot ...

God's Noninterventions

Introduction

When I was a boy, my sister left our home in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, and traveled to Central Bible College. She had a lifelong problem with ...

Back to Reality

Introduction

Do you know what it is like to have a mountaintop experience and then come down hard when necessity forces you to get back to reality? Maybe ...

A Day in the Life of Simon of Cyrene

Text: Mark 15:21
Topic: What it might have been like for Simon of Cyrene to take up Jesus' cross.

Introduction

My time on the road of history was brief. ...

The Cry of Mystery

Text: Matthew 27:39–49
Topic: The meaning of the fourth word of Jesus from the cross, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Introduction

The ...

A Christmas To-Do List

Introduction

Most of us have heard the Christmas story so many times that we think we know what it's all about, but the fact is we might have passed over ...

For Better, but Worse

Introduction

When the great Chicago Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this past summer, he began a speech as ...

The Valley of Death's Shadow

Everyone walks through valleys.

Donald Barnhouse was the pastor of Philadelphia's Tenth Presbyterian Church when his wife died and left him with young ...

My Name Is Harbona

My name? Harbona. My job? The title depends on what country you're in. In Britain, I would be called a personal valet. In America, I would be a male private ...

A Mind-Expanding Faith

Introduction

Some time ago, my wife got me a unique birthday present: a ride in a hot-air balloon. We went together to the field where all of the hot-air ...

Can Jesus Trust Us?

Introduction

The year was A.D. 155, and persecution against Christians had swept across the Roman Empire and come to the city of Smyrna. The proconsul ...

Who Do We Think We Are?

Introduction

"Who do we think we are? How do we know we're right? Can every other religion be wrong?" I would hazard a guess that this is the number one ...

Show Me

Introduction

In the United States, each of the 50 states has a nickname. Florida is known as "The Sunshine State." New York is called "The Empire State." ...

What's Holding You Back

Shortly after returning home from World War II, a fellow named Earl decided to buy a television set. He went to the store and asked for a demonstration. ...

The View From Up Here

Introduction

I love mountains. I love to gaze upon them and I love to climb them. For the last few years, I have taken an annual hunting trip to the Rockies ...

Preparing for Battle-Part 2

Introduction

The soldier who stepped out of the ranks and issued the challenge was an incredible sight. He was over nine feet tall – a giant among men. ...

A Life Worth Saving

Introduction:

There’s a story of a man who risked his life to save a boy trapped in a burning building. The doorway was blocked, the room was filled with ...

Praying Through God's Silence

Introduction

Hear these words from the Word in Matthew 15:21–28:

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman ...

You're In Good Hands

Introduction:

Have you ever noticed that the fear of getting a shot is often worse than the shot itself? You dread the moment, dread the moment, dread ...

What to Do When God Seems Far Away

When I became a Christian, at the age of 16, I experienced an incredible change in my life. It was like I became a new person. The most profound change ...

It's a Good Thing You've Got Problems

I was at a camp meeting revival a few years ago. The evangelist was preaching away at full throttle when a big fly zoomed by him. He swatted at it and ...

Harassed but Hopeful

Introduction

On November 14, 1999, thousands of churches around the world observed the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. This day ...

Stop Worrying and Start Living

Introduction

The average American is in a bad mood 110 days out of the year, according to Harper's Index. That means that for about 30 percent of the ...

Walking on Water

Introduction

For over a hundred years, since 1889, in the last week of July, Canadian Indians from many different tribes--Cree, Chippewa, Blackfoot, ...

When You Need a Miracle

As we continue in the Matthew series, we begin to see glimpses of the greatness of Jesus.

In the first few chapters of Matthew we saw how he was destined ...

Learning to Live On a Higher Level of Faith

A pastor was hired by a church, and the youth leader and music director took him fishing so they could spend some time together getting to know one ...

The Making of Great Faith

In recent weeks we've talked about faith—trusting God to meet your needs, moving to a higher level of faith—and today in Matthew 15 we'll look ...

How God Supplies Your Needs (Pt 2)

Today we're taking a look at one of the most popular events in the life of Jesus: the feeding of the 5,000. (Actually, it was 5,000 men, not including ...

More Faith More Power

There's a story that's been told about Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th century revival preacher, that goes something like this: He was approached by ...

How God Will Answer Your Prayers

Today we will look at the story of miraculous healing that Jesus performed on a man who could neither hear nor speak. Mark's purpose in writing this ...

How to Make God Happy

Throughout history, people have tried all kinds of crazy things to make God happy. Many devout people from all religions have tried to get on God's ...

Open the Window of God's Blessings

I'm always a little amused at the messages on church signs that I see when I'm traveling across the country. Now, I would think that if a church paid ...

Stepping Into Freedom

When my friend Russ Martin preached on this passage, he titled the message "Who's Yo Mama?" As you may have noticed, I'm a little more timid when it ...

Jesus Loves Me This I Know

Today we're beginning a new series called "Soul Survivor." It's about getting through life with your faith intact. In this series we will examine four ...

The God Who Is There

Note: this message follows the lectionary reading for December 27, but obviously can be preached before Christmas if you change the introduction.

Do you ...

Practice of Patience

Someone handed me a little clipping this past week. A couple of young men from Chicago decided they were tired of the hustle and bustle of city life. ...

Christ the Center

"He is before all things and in him all things hold together."

This passage, a hymn to Christ, has drawn to itself a considerable body of studies ...

Come! See! Go! Tell!

This morning you have heard the Easter story as it comes to us from the Gospel of Matthew, and I want to walk our way through it this morning as a background ...

A Faith that Functions

Not long ago one of our British playwrights had a characteristic Christian line in one of his plays: "It's not death, it's life that defeats the Christian ...

Jesus Is Alive

If Jesus is not alive, then what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15 is really true. It says, "If Jesus be not raised from the dead ... we are of all ...

The Foolish and the Wise

Jesus teaches a parable at the close of the most famous expositional sermon ever givenour Lord's exposition of the Torah, the Lawwhich is recorded in ...

What About Sudden Conversion?

I am very intrigued by the new invention that is now being foisted upon some parts of the American people, whereby on closed-circuit television they ...

Equipped to Face the Two Biggest Fears in the World

I would like to ask you a question this morning: What are the two biggest fears in your life? If I get boring, where will your mind wander? That's one ...

Practice of Patience

Someone handed me a little clipping this past week. A couple of young men from Chicago decided they were tired of the hustle and bustle of city life. ...

Finding Significance in Obscurity

I would expect 99 percent of the people in our society feel very obscure; the kind of feeling that whatever I do doesn't really matter. Nobody ...

Because

It was his first day on the job. He was a new clerk in the green goods department of a supermarket. A lady came up to him and said she wanted to buy half ...

Running Through the Cemetery

Have you noticed how much running there is in this text? This is a breathless text. It's got sweat all over it. Everybody in this text is running. You ...

Trusting God in Times of Crisis

 

What do you do when life takes you all the way out to the ragged edge of reality?

I grew up with a guy named Craig Stillwell. We were good friends ...

Making Sense Out of the Storm

We are approaching a time meteorologists have identified as hurricane season, storm season. As we read the papers, we see storms in a variety of shapes ...