Costly, Messy, Beautiful Obedience

Introduction

The key word in the title of this message is "obedience." When I did a Google search on obedience, the most popular sites fell into two categories: ...

The Glory and the Muck

Introduction

A few months ago, I officiated my father-in-law's funeral. We arrived in Fresno and prepared for the first official gathering—the viewing. ...

The Hardest Part of the Journey

Introduction

Today marks the beginning of a four-week series on the one book of the Bible that perhaps is read less often than any other. If we took a ...

Pledging Love

Introduction

We have been learning how to deal with difficult people from the story of Saul and David. Today we come to the central theme of the whole ...

Showing Grace

Introduction

We are taking four Sundays to consider the subject of loyalty and what it takes to keep faith in a broken world. Our particular emphasis in ...

Understanding Providence

Introduction

A loyal person understands providence. In order to understand this, by way of contrast, consider our culture today. If there's one word that ...

God's Noninterventions

Introduction

When I was a boy, my sister left our home in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, and traveled to Central Bible College. She had a lifelong problem with ...

Why Is There So Much Suffering and Evil in the World?

Introduction

Here are two photos, both showing scenes from two earthquakes of similar magnitude that happened within just days of each other just last ...

Getting In the Last Word

Introduction:

When we began this series, I mentioned that First Peter deals with some topics that Americans don't always immediately relate to. Peter ...

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 ...

How to Keep UP in a DOWN Economy

Introduction

Recent downturns in the economy and corporate crime have resulted in lower pay raises, loss of jobs, loss of stocks, and nationwide hiring ...

Path of Preparation

Introduction

One of the great tragedies of this century is the number of high-profile people who have professed faith in Christ and suddenly found themselves ...

Sleeping Through the Storm

Introduction

Have you ever noticed how babies can fall asleep anytime, anywhere, in any position? They simply go to sleep when they get tired! As long ...

Born to Live

Jesus is enjoying the most exhilarating moment of his life. He has just finished being the guest of honor in the Palm Sunday parade. His archenemies, ...

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." ...

God and the Hebrew Midwives

Many of you perhaps were shaped the way I was in terms of where I really learned my first Bible pictures of the Exodus story. I didn't get mine in Sunday ...

Passing the Test

"Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, 'Lord, Son of David, ...

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 ...