The Dinner Guests of God

Sermon Two

Mary Poplin, professor of education and Dean of the School of Educational Studies at Claremont Graduate University, attended a Methodist church ...

Where the Battle Is Fought

Sermon Three

Here's a surprise: Most incompetent people don't know they are incompetent. In fact, researcher Dr. David A. Dunning of Cornell University ...

Blasphemy!

Sermon Four

Years ago Bill Hybels told about seeing a newscast of a big Vietnam veterans parade in Chicago. Part of the commemoration was a mobile Vietnam ...

The Faces of Failure

Sermon Five

There was a clip on the sports last night that was painful to watch. College basketball between Memphis and Louisville, championship game—the ...

The Agony of Victory

Which Watchers?

Sermon Seven

Robert Russell, pastor of Southeastern Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, told about sitting behind a 5-year-old boy at their church's ...

The Difference-Making Difference

Introduction:

Have you ever noticed that some passages of Scripture are crystal clear and easy to understand—the previous passage, for example? And ...

Get Ready for a Rough Ride

Introduction:

This is the sixth message in our series on First Peter: Living Bold in Tough Times. Peter wrote this letter to encourage believers to live a ...

Lectio Divina

A few months after I became a Christian, my youth pastor taught me a method of Bible study that has provided the foundation of my spiritual life ever ...

Reflections on the Lord's Prayer

Introduction

Most of us have had the experience of putting together something that we bought unassembled. Whether it was a swing set, a bicycle, a radio ...

Keeping Stress From Becoming Distress

Introduction:

I want to talk about keeping stress from becoming distress. Not all stress is bad. We need a certain amount of stress in our lives in order ...

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 ...

The Key to Praying with Power

Today, as we conclude our series on prayer, we'll look at a story Jesus told that teaches the most important principle of all regarding prayer. This ...

How to Pray for Anyone and Everyone

When I became a Christian I was made aware of my responsibility to pray for the people in my life. So I put together a list, starting with everyone ...

What We Need More Than Money

When it comes to sermons, there is one thing Christians and non-Christians typically agree on: they don't want to hear one about money. A common complaint ...

How to Develop a Prayer Lifestyle

Today we are beginning a new series called "Prayer: The Ultimate Lifestyle." For the next few weeks that's what we'll be focusing on: prayer as a lifestyle. ...

How to Pray in the Coming Days

The drama that is currently unfolding in our country is more serious than anything we have experienced in our lifetime, or, in fact, in this century. ...

The Basics of Prayer

Dwight L. Moody once commented that he would rather learn to pray than preach. "After all," he said, "Jesus never taught his disciples how to preach, ...

Guidelines to Answered Prayer

Today, as we continue our series on prayer, we will look at the guidelines for answered prayer. One "phenomenon" about prayer is that it is answered. ...

How to Pray for Yourself

When you read prayers in the Bible, the overwhelming majority of them are prayers that are prayed for the benefit of someone else. When Paul talks about ...

The Silent Treatment

In February 1968 the Beatles collectively decided that material success was not enough to fill the void in their lives, so they traveled to India to ...

Salt and Light

Alienation was originally a Marxist word and Karl Marx meant by it the alienation of the worker from the product of his labors. When what he produces ...

Victorious Prayer

"From which comes wars and fightings among you? Come then not hence even of your lust that war in your members? Ye lust and have not. Ye kill and desire ...

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; ...

God's Training Program

Once again I want to look with you at what I have called one of the great texts of the Bible: "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you ...

Friendship

In this passage our Lord calls us his friends and gives us four tests or proofs, or signs of the friendship. Two signs or proofs are on his side and ...

Prayer as Surrender

Prayer as Surrender

The main condition of successful prayer is seeking God's plans rather than our own.

by John Powell

I have to make a disclaimer right ...

The Disciple's Prayer

There are times when I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I don't get no respect.

I have a friend who likes to call me in the middle of a weekday morning, ...

Serving a Glorified Christ

We live in a culture that is increasingly out of step with the gospel. This has never been a Christian nation, but for most of its history, its underlying ...

Mustard Seed and Moving Mountains

In the neighborhood where I live children come around to sell thingsGirl Scout cookies, candy or peanuts to have the band take a trip or to earn some ...

The Shame-less Father

I am fortunate in that I have loved Jesus of Nazareth all my life. That love has not always issued in trust and obedience, but I have had a deep and tender ...

Living Above the Crowd

One of the most stirring passages in literature is Polonius's advice to Laertes in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Laertes has won his father's consent ...