A Worship Service God Hates?

Introduction

(Read Amos 5:21-6:7)

Imagine that you move out of state. In that new place, you must find a new church, which can be challenging. Finally, ...

What Do We Worship?

Introduction

I have a lot of baggage with a specific word, which is probably a little ironic because I “lead it,” and that word is ...

What’s Your Eau De Toilette?: An Extravagant Example for an Extraordinary God

Introduction

If you had one opportunity to show Jesus how much you loved him, what would you do? What might you say? What offering might you bring? ...

A Parade Fit for a King

Introduction

Batman was my boyhood hero. Truth be told, in many ways he still is. He transformed his grief over his parents’ senseless murders into ...

How to Appreciate the Book of Leviticus

Introduction

As we begin our trek through the Book of Leviticus, some of you might be excited. You might only be excited to see what in the world ...

When the Heat Is On

Introduction

Have you seen the famous photo from 1936 of a huge crowd of people all saluting Hitler, but one man stands out. Why? He keeps his ...

What Shall I Bring Him?

Introduction

A Christian comedian once said this story would be far different had these been women instead of men. For one thing, women would have asked ...

Living Between the Tick and the Tock

Introduction

Before Tik Tok was a social media phenom, Tick Tock was the way old clocks sounded. Mechanical, wind up clocks sounded a TICK and then after ...

Worthy of Worship

Introduction

How many of us have had the thought that if we had this one particular thing, then our life would be better than it is now? I can remember ...

The Characters of Christmas: Wise Men

This sermon is part of “The Characters of Christmas” sermon series. See the whole series here.

Introduction

Every manger scene includes the ...

Majestic Beauty, Incomparable Glory

Introduction

Recently while riding on an airplane, I was doing some light reading. As usual, this book had endorsements on the back, and one caught my ...

A 7-11 Song

Introduction

Psalm 118 is a type of psalm this is what is known as an antiphonal psalm, which means it has echoes whereby God’s people respond to ...

Jesus: A Power Greater than the Angels

Introduction

The focus of the Book of Hebrews is perseverance. It’s about finding strength to press on in the faith when things get difficult. Our ...

Greed and Envy: The Twin Terrors

Introduction

Let's begin with a story I read in The New York Times. It's a story told by a young Wall Street trader who found himself addicted to money—not ...

It's Not About Me

Introduction

"What is it, Doc? What do I have? What's wrong with me?"

It's a question we all ask ourselves from time to time. When we ...

A God-Centered Vision of Politics

Introduction

(Read Matthew 22:15-22)

"Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" (Matt. 22:21). This is certainly one of the most famous ...

God with Skin

Introduction

I don't know if you saw the story in the CBC News about the data from NASA that was recently published. This data shows that in our galaxy, ...

Oh Christmas Three

Introduction

We have been reflecting on the birth of Jesus, and what we found in this season that we celebrate is that when God chose to enter his own ...

A Thankful Life

Introduction

We're going to be thinking about Thanksgiving Day today. You may be thinking to yourselves, Why? Because Thanksgiving Day is important. ...

A Picture of Praise

Introduction

Thanksgiving Day was near. The first grade teacher gave her class a fun assignment—to draw a picture of something for which they ...

Brand New Image of God

Introduction

Go with me to Matthew chapter 7. We are going to look at the last three warnings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7, verse 13 ...

What Kind of Heart Does God Desire?

Introduction

David is often described as "a man after God's own heart." That is how Samuel described him at the point that he was going to be anointed ...

The God Who Answers By Fire

Introduction

Read 1 Kings 18:16-46

I want to praise God very much for Jesus who came into my heart when I was eighteen. I was [raised in the church]. My ...

Zechariah's Song

Introduction

Starting last week, this week, and next week, we are taking some time in our preparation for and anticipation of the holiday season to look ...

A Psalm for Giving Thanks

Introduction

Psalm 100 reads:

A psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence ...

A Journey of Hope

Introduction

Today I'd like to look at Psalm 84. Someone once called the book of Psalms "the soul's medicine chest," and I think that's a good description. ...

Crime, Punishment, and Vindication

Introduction

A few years ago I got an unexpected phone call from an old college friend. She had given up a promising medical career to get married, put ...

God Knows What He's Doing

Introduction

There is a pattern in the New Testament Epistles of Paul. He begins by explaining doctrine and then exhorts us to duty, reminding us that ...

The Offering

Introduction

Today I want to talk about how the difficulties and disappointments of our life can deaden our heart, making them cold and inward-focused. ...

The "Unbelievable" True Story of Christmas

Introduction

One of the ironies of modern history is that the majority of people who celebrate around Christmas have never really heard the real Christmas ...

The Invitation

Introduction

We're starting a new series today called The Heart of Christ. Let's begin by looking at Psalm 96. Psalms are actually songs, and Psalm 96 ...

Punctuating Our Lives with Thanksgiving

Introduction

We recently looked together through the lens of the story of Job at the great question marks that fill our lives: Why do bad things ...

God Is Worthy

Introduction: Every minute together

This past week I stood at a graveside with a small circle of people as we laid to rest one of the great saints of ...

Renewing Work: Cupcakes and the Glory of God

Introduction

We're in a series called (re)new and we're looking at how the gospel makes everything new again. How does the gospel change the way I look ...

Good Music

A few years ago I read a story in the Chicago Tribune with the headline, "City Tries to Pump Up Its Crews Down Under." There was a new guy in charge of ...

Jesus Christ: His Resurrection from the Dead

"The gospel of God … regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendent of David according to the flesh, and who was declared to be ...

When the Bottom Falls Out

I remember the events that led to her tears. My wife, Kathy, had come home from a weekly grocery trip with more than groceries to be concerned about. ...

Faith in the Furnace

How do you win the World Series? A few decades ago, when the New York Mets were the underdog darlings of the National League, two young pitchers told ...

It's Not About You

Introduction

Today we're going to look at Matthew 8:23-27:

And when he got to the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm ...

More

Introduction

As we continue in our series in the book of Exodus, today we are in chapter 33, and in chapter 33 we encounter Moses at prayer. And I think ...

The Right God, the Wrong Way

Introduction

Last week we began a series on the Ten Commandments. We saw that the Ten Commandments weren't given as a requirement for salvation, but rather ...

God Only

Introduction

This morning we're beginning a series on the Ten Commandments. These are familiar to just about everybody. Well, sort of. I heard about a ...

Rediscovering the Sabbath

Introduction

While I was leading some pastor training in the Philippines, I broke the pastors up into small groups and had them share various things ...

God's Jealousy

If you've been to London, you probably have been to Westminster Abbey. In the shadow of Westminster Abbey is a little church, St. Margaret's. Edward Pearse ...

The Uncomfortable Truth of Easter

From the editor:

At the 2008 National Pastors Conference in San Diego, Preaching Today got to interview N. T. Wright about his book Surprised by Hope and ...

A Vision to Worship

A few years ago I had the opportunity of traveling to Rumania to preach. I spent the next fourteen days in a borrowed car with five other full-grown men. ...

The Whats and the Why of Worship

Introduction

What does God want? What would please him? Did you ever ask those questions about worship? If I only knew, I would do it. If I only knew what ...

Beholding the King

Introduction

This past week, I was looking at my calendar to see what events I could look forward to for the rest of the year. As I was looking at the ...

Worship: What We're Doing & Why

Introduction

If a visitor from another planet attended a service of Christian worship anywhere in the world, he wouldn't have to be especially perceptive ...

Why Worry?

Introduction

We're probably all familiar with the story of Howard Hughes. Hughes was a big-time businessman who dabbled in oil, entertainment, and ...