Your Life Force

Introduction

I found a text the other day that describes stages of success:

At age 4, success is not peeing in your pants. At age 12, success is having ...

Your Super Power

Introduction

I grew up reading comic books: Fantastic Four, Spider Man, Hulk, and Iron Man. The last decade has been fun, as comic book hero after hero ...

You're the App for That

Introduction

Steve Jobs has been in the news this week after announcing that he was stepping down as the CEO of Apple. When Jobs announced the original ...

How a Servant Thinks

Introduction

Today I want to talk about how a servant thinks. Let's read Luke 17:5-10:

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" And the Lord ...

Blessed Forever

Introduction

In his book Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor tells a fictional story about a family from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Grace Tollefson married Alex ...

The Power of a Blessing

Introduction

Nancy and I had gotten married and were celebrating our first Christmas together. I was in grad school. We had no money at all. There was ...

Deep Love

I want to know what love is.

Sooner or later, it had to come around to love. For six weeks now, we have been considering tests of true faith—the ...

Jesus Christ, Our Lord

"Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God-the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in ...

Brother, Interrupted

Introduction: A tale of two brothers

In 1989, two brothers from Boston started a T-shirt business. For five years Bert and John traveled the East Coast, ...

Consequential Strangers

Introduction: Everyday people

So who have you bumped into lately? Think for a minute about the multitude of people—strangers or acquaintances—whose ...

A Hard Saying

Introduction: A hard saying

This morning we come to one of the hard sayings of Jesus. There are quite a few of them, actually. I have a book on my shelf ...

No Strings Attached

Introduction

For the last several weeks, we've been sowing the seeds of a revolution around here. Being in Massachusetts, this area is familiar with ...

What Can One Person Do?

Introduction: What now?

For five weeks we have been teaching ourselves to see what Jesus sees and feel what Jesus feels, as we make our way through our ...

WWJS?

Introduction: Shouldn't we be saying something?

There are certain words or phrases that are almost guaranteed to make people really uncomfortable: root ...

If Jesus Lived in My Neighborhood

Introduction

Mark 10:35–45 offers several reasons why we should be servants in our community, in our work environment, and in the neighborhood in ...

Looking in the Mirror

From the editor

Mother's Day is this Sunday (May 10), and should you decide to offer a message for the occasion, you might get a few general ideas from ...

Good News in America

Introduction

The Roman empire was a pagan place where Christian values were little known or honored, where corruption was pervasive in business, where ...

Lifestyles

Introduction

A group of scientists got together who wanted to win the Nobel Prize. They thought, What can we do that's never been done? How can we use ...

The Discipline of Communal Examination

From the editor

Next week we start to roll out all of our new Easter sermons, but seeing as many congregations have just begun observing the Lenten season, ...

Brothers, Interrupted

The story behind the sermon (from Bryan Wilkerson):

This sermon was preached early in September to launch our ministry focus for the year, which we're ...

What Is This Thing Called Love?

From the editor:

Over the next few months, PreachingToday.com is going to run an entire transcript series from Haddon Robinson on 1 Corinthians 13. The ...

Purpose

Introduction

What would you do if you suddenly won $34.5 million? It happened to a family from Hauppauge, New York, this week. Dad spent $5 on a winning ...

A Better Peace Prize

Introduction

At the turn of the 20th century, a man named Alfred was one of the preeminent scientists and entrepreneurs of his day. He made his fortune ...

Balcony People

From the editor

John Ortberg points out that we are surrounded by basement people—folks who drain the life from us. This reality makes it all the ...

Don't Just Do Something, Sit There

Introduction

Have you ever wondered how Jesus spent his evenings and his nights? Some of his disciples came to him early on to ask about the fringe benefits ...

Follow the Leader

Introduction

A church fails for one of two reasons.

The first reason is poor leadership—the failure of those whom God has called to lead, to lead well, ...

The Problem of Discrimination

Introduction

The physician of the soul, as of the body, must be capable of doing three things. He must be able to diagnose the malady, to prescribe the ...

God's Backward Logic

Introduction

As we all sit here this morning, a good friend of mine lies in the hospital in Gallup, NM, waiting to die. His name is Johnny Womack. Johnny ...

How To Expierence Everlasting Joy

Often, when I read a passage of Scripture, I ask myself two questions: Is there something here that God wants me to know? And, Is there something here ...

The Heart of a Servant

Introduction

We're in the final week of a series called Fuel for the Soul. We've been talking about things you can do to turbo-charge your spiritual life—to ...

Jesus' Formula for Success

Introduction

The University of Chicago did a five-year study of leading artists, athletes, and scholars. The research was conducted by Dr. Benjamin Bloom, ...

Triumph of the Self-giving One: Meditations for Holy Week from the Book of Isaiah

Triumph of the Self-giving One:Meditations for Holy Week from the Book of Isaiah

by Kevin Conrad

Introduction: God responds to suffering.

As long as humans ...

And Justice for All

Have you ever noticed that sometimes this world just doesn't make sense? We live in a nation that takes pride in providing "justice for all"—but ...

Overcoming Spiritual Stubbornness

We're in the second week of a series in Matthew called "Breaking Through to Freedom." In this series we are taking a look at some of the warnings Jesus ...

Others-Oriented Living

There's an old hymn we used to sing in a church I attended long ago that goes like this:

Lord let me from day to day In such a self-forgetful way That ...

How to Prepare for Your Final

Today we're finishing the series "Outlasting the Darkness." We've been looking at Jesus' teaching about the second coming and the last days. When he ...

Life in the Penalty Box

I'd like to just read an excerpt of someone who wrote to me from out of state and addressed the letter to me personally.

He said, "I'm 31 years old." ...

Lord of the Ten Cities

Can you believe? They're interested in me now. Two days ago, they would not have noticed a slave, but now they're interested. You see, I rule their city. ...

Great People Do for Others

In the recent NCAA basketball Final Four playoffs here at Dallas, I was interested in the statement made by one of the coaches prior to the game. He was ...

Loving God With All Your Heart

I'd like to read from the Scriptures a very familiar story. Sometimes when we hear familiar stories, we get a little disappointed. We think the speaker ...