Learning from Ecclesiastes

Introduction

You are going to die. And no one is going to remember you. The stuff you’re working hard on is going to be completely undone. As if ...

Community: The Context for Change

Story behind the sermon (from John Ortberg)

I am a huge N. T. Wright fan, and I think some of his material on the role and destiny of human beings is a ...

A Little Lower Than the Angels

There are times when the church of Jesus Christ needs to confront straightforwardly a supreme national tragedy. On Wednesday of this week we will mark ...

The Good News Is the Bad News Is Wrong

Introduction

I'd like you to use your imagination this morning and picture our world, your world, as a terrarium. You know what a terrarium is. My version ...

Equipped to Face the Two Biggest Fears...

Introduction

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? ...

Putting the Kingdom First

Introduction

In an article entitled "A new kind of urban Christian," Tim Keller argues that "Christians should be a dynamic counterculture. ...

The Flames of Heaven

Text: Revelation 21:1–3
Topic: What would happen if heaven crashed into earth

Introduction

In Revelation 21:1–3, John gives us a glimpse—a ...

The Good News Is, the Bad News Is Wrong

Text: Ecclesiastes 3:1-14; 1 Corinthians 15:17-20
Topic: How Christ frees us from the meaninglessness of life on our own

Introduction

I'd like you to use ...

Don't Ask Me, I'm Only Visiting This Planet

Introduction

Have you ever put down the newspaper—after reading about genocide in Sudan and beheadings in Iraq and shootings in Dorchester and sexual ...

Losing Our Minds

Sermon One

Introduction

How do you put together the pieces of the puzzle of life? When a terrible storm sweeps over your life and blows your careful constructions ...

Reality Shows

Sermon Two

Introduction

Imagine a report comes on the television that a terrible tragedy has just befallen a group of people beyond your town. Person "A" ...

Quantum Communion

Sermon Three

Introduction

For more than 1600 years, Christianity occupied the head seat at the vast communion table that came to be called Western Civilization. ...

Image is Everything

Sermon Four

Introduction

One of our church members recently recounted to me the story of a woman named Lorena, who directs the Onessimu Brother's Home in ...

Choosing Sides

Sermon Five

Introduction

The year was 536 B.C., the third year after the great Persian king, Cyrus, had overthrown the vast kingdom of Babylon, and a new ...

Payback Time

Sermon Six

Introduction

Almost everyone I know wants to believe what the Bible says in the first verse of Psalm 73—that "surely God is good to … ...

Bad to the Bone

Sermon Seven

Introduction

On all sides today we are reminded that something in this world has gone wrong. Women are abducted in increasing numbers. Precious ...

Superhero

Sermon Eight

Introduction

When I was five years old, I was sent to the school nurse by my kindergarten teacher, who was very concerned that I was ill. The ...

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 ...

Crumbling Clay

In Isaiah 64:8 we read, "But now, O Lord, thou art our Father and we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we are all works of Thy hands." This verse ...

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 ...

The Message of Ecclesiastes

As I look back in my life over the last several years there was a period in which I lived in the dark night of the soul. I spent several months of my ...