Behold: Surrender

Introduction

Welcome to our Advent series that we’re calling Behold. Remember, Advent is a season of waiting, anticipating, and hoping. It’s ...

The Unsuccessful Successful Prophet

Introduction

I’ve read Jeremiah many times over the years, but never got much out of it, apart from various passages. There’s something ...

Believing Is Seeing

Introduction

As our tour comes to an end, we will watch one more story featuring an important discussion between Jesus and Thomas, the disciple who doubted. ...

Building Up Your Faith

Introduction

The Book of Hebrews is about Christians persevering in faith. It’s about understanding all that Jesus accomplished and walking by faith ...

How Do I Escape the Christmas Traps?

Introduction

Advent is about enjoying and admiring Jesus. It's a season we observe each year at this time, during which we endeavor to do something intentional: ...

Blessed Are Those Who Do Not Stumble over Jesus

Introduction

If you pay close attention to the Advent wreath, you'll notice that it contains three purple candles. We talked last week about how the purple ...

Doubters Anyonymous

Introduction

"He is risen": it's the heartbeat of the message of the Christian church. These three English words are translated from one Greek word, egeirō, ...

The Neglected Joseph Davidson

Introduction

I think I had better introduce myself. My name is Joseph Davidson. Many of you already know me. I've been hanging around Christmas for a long ...

Yet Will I Praise Thee

Introduction

Have you ever asked God questions and felt you haven't received a good answer? I heard about a little boy once who said to his father, "How ...

Listen, Look, and Stop

From the editor

Doubts, a "dark night of the soul," a feeling of divine absence, isolation (either voluntary or involuntary), disappointment, disillusionment, ...

Literalism: Isn't the Bible Historically Unreliable and Regressive?

From the editor:

Anyone who has heard Tim Keller preach or has read any of his books knows how effective he is at offering an apologetic for just about ...

Divine Revelation

Introduction

We've been in a series called "Can Smart People Believe in God?" Last week we had Dallas Willard with us to answer some tough questions, and ...

Asking the Tough Questions

Introduction

We're in the series called "Can Smart People Believe In God?" and we're thinking through some really important issues. Today we'll be talking ...

Without Knowledge We Perish

The story behind the series (from John Ortberg):

This series actually was inspired by Dallas Willard's book, Knowing Christ Today. The title of the series ...

The Power of Hope

Introduction

In this Advent season, we are looking at the theme of God's promise of better days for our lives. That is the hope of Advent and Christmas: ...

Faith in Tough Times

From the editor

I'm confident we all would agree that 2008 was a tough year: war, a tumbling stock market, natural disasters, the continued threat of terrorism, ...

Winter

Introduction

Confession: I've lived nearly 50 years and, for most of them, have never heeded the truth of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. For everything there is a ...

I Don't Believe It!

From the editor

One of the first things you'll probably notice about this sermon is how short it is. DelBene simply reads his text—the story of Thomas ...

Asleep at the Wheel

From the editor

Chances are, you've probably preached the story of Jesus calming the storm. The account is recorded in three of the four Gospels (Matthew, ...

The Unseen Footprints

From the editor:

Timothy George packs a lot into this sermon. Besides showing us an effective way to preach an individual psalm—paying careful attention ...

Trust Me

From the editor

As Marshall indicates in his introduction, few people ever rummage around in the final few chapters of Genesis. But the final events recorded ...

Cross at God

Introduction

For the longest time, I hoped that my brother, Jeffrey, would return to the Christian faith. He once was an active Christian, but something ...

Finding God in Desperate Places

Introduction

I'd like to write a book someday called Desperate Places: How God Shines Through Our Weakness. These desperate places are places of weakness, ...

Doubters Anonymous

Text: John 20:19–29
Topic: Dealing with doubt

Introduction

"He is risen": it's the heartbeat of the message of the Christian church. These three English ...

What Have We Done?

Introduction

After the Chicago Cubs lost their 96th baseball game in 2006, manager Dusty Baker, was called in to meet with the general manager. We all ...

Redneck Christmas

Editor's note: The following monologue is delivered in character by a shepherd named Larry. There was a live nativity scene on stage for the Children's ...

Secrets of Financial Contentment

Introduction

When I was a kid, my dad told me two stories all the time.

In the first one, a couple goes to Harvard University and asks to see the president, ...

Doubts in Belief

Introduction

I once participated in a very interesting conversation. A group of sixteen evangelical pastors, who believed the Bible and had good ministries, ...

Sense Out of Nonsense

Text: Luke 24:1–11
Topic: How to make sense of chaos and suffering

Introduction

Ancient sailors puzzled over why some of their colleagues who sailed ...

We Don't Have Men Like That

Introduction

[Editorial comment: Sunukjian delivers this sermon as a first-person narrative. References to props or stage directions will appear in italics.] ...

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 ...

The Neglected Joseph Davidson

Text: Matthew 1:18–25
Topic: The Christmas story from Joseph's perspective

Who was Joseph?

I think I had better introduce myself. My name is Joseph ...

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 ...

I Struggle With a Certain Sin Often. Will God Forgive Me?

Introduction

Here is today's question in the complete words of the person who submitted it: "I struggle with a certain sin often. Will God forgive me? ...

Handling Your Insecurities

Introduction

I've been checking on the United States Constitution recently, especially when I found out that the Bill of Rights is now 200 years old. I ...

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." ...

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 ...

Dealing with Doubts

I asked our Bible study group, made up of veteran believers, new believers, and a few seekers, to tell me what doubts they struggle with, and what questions ...

Scars from an Old Wound

It was the most important day of his life. At long last he was going to be able to enter into the Holy of Holies. Zachariah was a descendant of Aaron; ...

Yet I Will Praise Thee

Have you ever asked God questions and felt you haven't received a good answer? I heard about a little boy once who said to his father, "How many people ...