Over the course of a Christian's life, many sermons will be heard. It is rather simple to hear much. It can also be easy to listen for what others may need to benefit from. But you need to take care how you hear, that you might hear for the good of your own soul. Listen to Pastor David's exhortation for more.
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Those well known words of commission from the end of Matthew's gospel are not just a powerful motive or fitting conclusion. They are a necessary bookend to a gospel that conveys the coming of long-expected king. An expectation that was built in part by Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 9. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on Isaiah 9:6-7 for more.
You sit down to partake of a wonderful feast, but you don't chew the food. You don't digest it all. What gain would you receive? Do this over weeks, and you would be malnourished. The same is true if we take in sermons, Bible reading, and songs if there is no meditation. Listen to Pastor Zach's exhortation to digest the Word.
A photo of an alpine lake surrounded by mountains looks like it is a solid wall of rock. In reality, the mountain peaks are miles apart. When you look at the glorious peaks of the sign of a virgin-born son, we can see it with the same kind of perspective. When we do, we see that both Isaiah and Matthew direct our gaze to the salvation that comes through judgment. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on Isaiah 7:14 for more.
A significant contributor to the nostalgia we experience each December are the familiar things: traditions, songs, foods, etc. That is true as well for the Scripture passages we come back to time and again each December. But what are these prophecies really about? Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on Numbers 24:17 and the expectation of a kingly star that would be seen by the magi of Matthew 2.
All the world is a stage, and we are players in it. Do you know your role in it? Yes, that includes knowing your lines, but you need to do them. However, on this stage, we don't have the full script the Author has written. We need to prepare and be ready when our time to act comes. Listen to Michael Urch's exhortation to rehearse the truth for more.
As you gather with family and friends around your Thanksgiving table, there is plenty of fuel for discontentment: jealousy over another's material success, pride over political victory, envy of giftedness not possessed. Such discontentment might even seek to twist the gospel into a means of gain. Consider instead Eric's exhortation to pursue godliness with contentment.
What is the Bible? In all of its diversity and distance from our place in history and geography, why do we give it the focus and consideration that we do? Ahead of our Advent sermon series, “Foretold: The Prophecies of Advent,” why do we read the Old Testament Scriptures and have a worthwhile connection? Listen to Pastor David’s sermon on 1 Peter 1:10-12 for more.
If the President pardoned inmates and invited them to a banquet, it is right for him to be angry if some are prohibited from joining while others lack all decorum and decency at the buffet line. A similar scenario was playing out in Corinth as the church abused the gift of the Lord's Supper. But the foundational issue is that they missed the heart of the Supper. Listen to Pastor David's sermon on 1 Corinthian 11:17-34 for more.
Is the essence of "friendship" clicking a button to associate profiles online? Certainly not. But it also goes beyond casual time together at activities or events. If we will love the not-yet-glorified church, we must pursue biblical friendship. And that likely will entail repenting of self-focused fears. Listen to Pastor Brett's exhortation for more.
Love is not one of our aims—love is the aim. Yet what is it that we are loving? Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter." Jesus loved the not-yet-glorified Church by dying for her while still sinners. Will you? Listen to Pastor David's exhortation for more.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Benedict of Nursius formed Christian communities that preserved what was good, true, and beautiful through the Dark Ages. Our time may not be so bleak, but what good do we do our neighbors if our gatherings are shaped by their values? The Church must hold out something better, something different. We cultivate a compelling counter-culture by embracing the glory of differentiated worship as men and as women. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:4...
Jesus told the demon-possessed man of the Gerasenes to "declare how much God has done for you." While his story may be hard for us to relate to, we all once were "following the prince of the power of the air." We have as much motive to declare God's work for us, if we will immerse ourselves in it. Listen to Gabe Johnson's exhortation for more.
There is a decided effort to undermine our free exercise of religion by limiting it to a freedom to worship. It is a subtle shift. It is one that does not want to see Christians following Christ in all of life. Yet as we look at 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, we see God's design for men and women does touch all of life. It is a design that we ought to glory in. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon for more.
A houseplant withers, looking like it needs watering. However, a week goes by and the leaves drop, revealing it has actually been overwatered. Are our hearts not the same? They express a craving for something that actually will only be detrimental. They aren't reliable but are deceptively wicked. Who can know them? Listen to Pastor Brett's exhortation for more.
Fifty years ago Francis Schaeffer identified two impoverished values our culture was moving to embrace as it abandoned a biblical outlook on the world: personal peace and affluence. Such values have only been set aflame since, giving rise to full fledged expressive individualism. What is the Christian response? Flee from such idolatry. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 for more.
Hiking to the top of a canyon overlook with four young children and a fresh, thin coating of slick snow—it is no surprise to hear a father warn of the danger of presuming to have good footing lest you fall. That very danger is present in our engagement with culture and its idols as well. It is a point the Apostle Paul makes by looking to the example of Israel in the wilderness. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 for more.
As we reflect on our own Christian lives in witnessing baptism, what is it that is pleasing to God? What would the Lord have mark us as we walk faithfully before him? James 1:27 says it is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep yourself free from the stain of the world. Does such compassion and holiness so mark your life? Listen to Pastor David's exhortation to pursue pure and undefiled religion for more.
Living with purpose and significance will undermine both the disillusionment of lesser "gospels" and the boredom of a ho-hum Christianity. That is, if purpose and significance is found in doing all for the gospel. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 for more.
What parent would celebrate the benchmark of potty training and be content for their child to stay at that level of maturity? Neither is the Lord satisfied until we are fully mature in Christ. Listen to Pastor Zach's exhortation to be satisfied with full maturity.
Our culture is beholden to "rights"—voting rights, animal rights, civil rights, women's rights, human rights. We clamor and vie for our rights. But what if there was something more important than rights? Something that would make "my rights" diminish, being eclipsed by something greater? Listen to Pastor David's sermon on 1 Corinthians 9:15-18 to see why the Apostle Paul has been so eager to establish rights, what reward he seeks, and what we ought to learn from his example.
The coffee in your cup is quite the story. It takes scores of people and industries to get the handful of seeds from Kenya all the way to being brewed in your cup. When we gather for public worship, there similarly are many people and processes involved. Listen to Pastor Brett's exhortation to make Sunday like coffee and consider one another unto love and good works.
The end goal of our exhortations is not conviction but transformation. We want not merely feel remorse but holiness. That change needs to come to our speech as well. Do you relish the denigration of a person's character? Do you share derogetory information about someone in a tone of confidentiality? Listen to Pastor David's exhortation to lay aside gossip for more.
You have probably made a poor decision if you hear the words, "You have the right to remain silent." It would be wise to make use of that right, but is there ever a time it is good to forgo your rights? If it means not putting an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ, yes! Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on 1 Corinthians 9:1-14 for more.
What is the one practice in the Christian life where if you did it, it would have the single greatest impact on your walk with Christ? What is it? What is the one thing whereby if you devoted yourself to it, this one thing would have the most outsized impact on your progress in holiness? J.C. Ryle says it is the habit of diligent private prayer. Listen to Pastor Zach's exhortation to pray in private for more.
This year the kids in our Discipleship Classes will be memorizing Romans 8. Will you join them in committing to memory longer sections of God's Word? Having a storehouse of verses to meditate on is good but how much richer to have an entire chapter to chew on to get the full context and import that a verse cannot convey. Listen to Pastor David's exhortation for more.
"Hear O Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one." That is the central confession of the Old Testament, found in Deuteronomy 6:4, that undergirds and gives rise to the only right response, "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." And it is what Paul has in mind as he turns to address another church problem by reframing the problem and giving a reorienting principle. Listen to Pastor Brett's sermon on 1 Corinthians 8:1-6 for more.
We are all on a persistent quest for what is new. There is an allure to it that summons us. It's a desire that goes back millennia. And it is one we see spoken to in Psalm 96 as the psalmist draws attention to God's new plan: to judge in righteousness. And the right response to this new plan is to sing, acknowledge, and rejoice. Listen to Jon Hoglund, Associate Professor of Theology & Global Studies at Bethlehem College & Seminary, as he declares from Psalm 96 that the LORD reigns....
It seems like wherever you make a commercial interaction, it must be followed up by some review, evaluation, survey, response to provide feedback. But this isn't just an attribute of businesses, we all do it. We all look for approval and affirmation. We all look for praise. How can we get out from under the controlling force of others' opinions? Seek praise to stop seeking praise. Listen to Pastor Brett's exhortation for more.
Stargazing is an awe-inspiring activity but one that requires a fixed starting point. The constellations we are familiar with in the northern hemisphere would not be visible in the southern hemisphere or from another point in space. Similarly, seeing Scripture rightly requires a fixed starting point: Jesus Christ. This is no clearer than in Psalm 110. Listen to Pastor David's sermon for more as we consider the King, the Priest, and the Warrior of this most-cited psalm.
