What's With All These Names?

When we were first married, my wife Susan worked for a bank in Deerfield. You could get your license plates there at the time. The bank was issued a stack ...

Amazing Faith

Story behind the sermon (from Steve Mathewson)

Every so often, a particular sermon stirs a congregation—and their pastor!—in stronger ways ...

Deep Walk

A real Christian?

How do you know if someone's a real Christian? Is it the fish sticker on the car, or Bible on the desk? Is it that they don't use bad ...

Deep Certainty

How do you feel about the future? What kind of world will our children and grandchildren, grow up in? What can we count on to give us any kind of confidence ...

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 ...

The Gloria in Excelsis Deo

Introduction

Today we're going to look at Luke chapter 2. There is a Christmas song tucked within this Christmas story that I want to uncover—a song ...

Heart Worm

Over these past weeks we've been looking together at some conditions of the human heart that obviously need help. When we meet somebody whose life is ...

The Dark Side of Grace

Introduction

In the structure of John's gospel, John 11 serves as a hinge between two halves. The first 10 chapters are concerned with the ministry of ...

Satan Strikes Out

From the editor:

In the second half of Mark's sermon, he shares that C. S. Lewis once wrote that we often fall prey to two equal yet opposite errors concerning ...

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, ...

Strong Grace, Hard Word, Good Memories

Introduction

Be strong. Suffer hardship. Remember Jesus Christ. These are Paul's words of counsel to Timothy in a fallen world and imperfect church. Timothy ...

Loss, Loyalty, & Lament

Introduction

I've never been one to read romance novels, but lately I've been reading one. It's been a good one, too. Believe it or not, it's a book I ...

The Shortest Distance Between Two Points is a Zig Zag

Early in geometry we learned that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. That means if I'm at point A and want to get to point B, ...

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 ...

Jesus and John - Together to Trust

Introduction

The year was 155 AD and the place was Smyrna, in the Roman province of Asia. There was a new wave of persecution that was sweeping against ...

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 ...

What to Do with Trouble

The continuing dilemma of the Christian life is how to cope with recurring instances of trouble and travail in our lives. There is a prevailing notion ...

A Day with Simon of Cyrene

Introduction

My time on the road of history was brief. I came suddenly and left just as suddenly. But it was an important time. It was that time. For you ...

Memorial Service for Robert Huizenga

Introduction

Even if we're Christians, life involves some enormous contradictions. Doesn't it? We pray for one thing, and the opposite seems to happen. ...

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? ...

Look, the Great White Horse!

Introduction

We cannot seem to comprehend some things in the Book of Revelation. But there are other things that are clear, and we may understand them ...

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 ...

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, ...

What Do Christians Think About Jesus?

Introduction

From the standpoint of world history, Jesus Christ looms as the most incredible and significant person who's ever lived. Yale historian ...

Life After Victory

Introduction

Early in his career, the great American playwright Eugene O'Neill wrote an imaginative play called "Lazarus Laughed" about Lazarus's life ...

Worship and Love

Text: Malachi 1:1-5
Topic: The first steps toward restoring right worship

Click here to listen to the audio.

The Story Behind the Sermon (from Steve Mathewson)

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: ...

And Grace Will Lead Me Home

Introduction

What would you say if you knew you were going to die and had a chance to sum up everything that was most important to you? That's how the ...

Let's Get This Straight

Introduction

The first thing I noticed about our story today was the stories on either side of it. When we last saw Jacob, he finally had been reconciled ...

The Blessed Limp

Introduction

A blessing is a mysterious thing. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's narrator is an elderly pastor named John ...

Your Arm's Too Short to Box with God

Introduction

Jacob was facing the biggest crisis of his life. Esau, the twin brother he had conned out of both birthright and blessing, was coming his ...

Journey Mercies

Introduction

Unless you go to the theater regularly, you may not be used to thinking of stories in terms of acts. But most of the stories you read, or ...

Happy Trails

Introduction

The prospect of wrestling with God is not all that pleasant. Consider the man who knows God is calling him out on his abrupt and unfeeling ...

Good Riddance

Introduction

"Isn't there somewhere else you're supposed to be?" Has God ever said that to you? God seems to be saying that a lot around here lately. He ...

The Really Good Shepherd

Introduction

According to the United States Social Security Administration, Jacob was the number one male baby name for the year 2007. In the Bible the ...

The Messy Family of God

Introduction

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." So reads the first line of Leo Tolstoy's famous novel, Anna ...

A Fine Mess

Introduction

What a great promise from God: "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go." We talked about this great promise in the last sermon—a ...

The Voice from the Top of the Stairs

Introduction

There's a story oft-told on the Internet—true or not, I don't know—about Susan, a 34-year-old woman who lost her sight due to ...

Odd Man Out

Introduction

Some wedding requests pose a dilemma for pastors. Most of us will not officiate at a wedding between a believer and an unbeliever, believing ...

The Strange Blessing of God

Introduction

Do you live a blessed life? I did a Google search on the phrase, "I live a blessed life." I stumbled upon one guy who wrote, "I live a blessed ...

The Stew Is Divine

Introduction

Jacob, at 130 years of age, stood before Pharaoh, the great ruler of Egypt. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and the son of Isaac. He was ...

A Ministry of Reconciliation

From the editor:

In this week's featured sermon, John MacArthur says, "Never has the world seen a God who by nature is a lover. Never has the world seen ...

The Basic Need

From the editor:

Here's a great sermon from one of our featured preachers, Haddon Robinson.

Introduction

T. S. Elliott, in one of his poems, asked a penetrating ...

The Joy Network

Introduction

Several years ago a German researcher studied a thousand churches of every size and denomination all over the world. His goal was to identify ...

Facing North When the Market Goes South

Text: 1 Kings 17:7–16
Topic: Claiming God's promises in the midst of hard times

From the editor:

Though many experts believe we've entered an economic ...

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Introduction

"No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear." That is how C. S. Lewis begins his book A Grief Observed, a compelling account of ...

Less is More, More or Less

Introduction

A few months ago my two teenage sons came to me and asked if they could go camping for a week … on Lower Wacker Drive in the city of ...

The Long Tomorrow

Introduction

An 85-year-old couple died in a car crash after having been married almost 60 years. They had been in good health the last ten years mainly ...

A Brand New You

Introduction

I've got hundreds of things around the house that I would like to see made new—sofa cushions that have begun to sag, kitchen cabinets ...

Halos, Wings, and Harps

Introduction

I want to explore another person you meet in heaven. I use the term "person" loosely because of who we're talking about today: Angels. When ...