Practicing Grateful Rest

Introduction

As we come to the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we often think about what we are thankful for. We think about how the year has gone ...

Count Your Blessings

Introduction

The Chamber of Commerce invited a pastor to offer the blessing at a banquet honoring elected officials. The master of ceremonies forgot to ...

A Feast Without End

Introduction

This morning as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday, I wanted to talk about the importance of contentment. And who better to ...

Reasons to Be Thankful

Introduction

As a little boy I recall thumbing through an old church hymnal. I came across a piece that has become one of my favorite Thanksgiving songs. ...

A Heart of Gratitude

Introduction

Stone Mountain is a very large, naked hill of solid granite that is located about 15 miles northeast of Atlanta. If you've been there, you ...

Becoming a 'Thanksgiver' at Thanksgiving

Introduction

"Don't forget to say 'thank you.'" If you are like me, then you probably heard this phrase often when you were a child. If you are a parent, ...

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. ...

An Unthankful Life

Introduction

I want to begin by actually playing a little game. It's called the Opposite Game, and the way it works is I'm going to say a word and then ...

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 ...

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 ...

We Can Do This the Easy Way or the Hard Way

Introduction

For most of my time in college, I attended a small church in Chicago with my now wife, Jamie. The pastor of this church had been commissioned ...

The Joy You've Always Wanted

The topic today is joy. And the chief question is: how do we get it? How do we have more joy more often? How can we be happy?

We are looking at Paul's ...

The ABCs of Praise

Introduction

This is a Psalm that begins with a commitment that on the surface seems rather simple: "I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise ...

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 ...

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 ...

Praying the Savior's Way

From the editor:

The Lord's Prayer is one of the more popular passages in all of the New Testament—believers and non-believers alike have even taken ...

Lessons from Lepers

Introduction

We often look at thanksgiving backwards. We think of thanksgiving as thanking God for something that has happened to us already. The real ...

Giving Thanks for God's Enduring Love

Introduction

I want you to imagine a special, highly festive event. Psalm 118 was written for such an occasion. It began with a blare of trumpets, the ...

An Attitude of Gratitude

Introduction

Not long ago, as I was talking with one of my teenage sons, he recounted an experience he had on a commuter train outside of New York City. ...

Elements of Worship

Introduction:

One of the most interesting points of a pastor’s week is greeting people after Sunday morning worship. People say the most interesting things ...

Eternal Worship

Introduction:

I want to begin this message on worship in eternity by sharing with you a line from a hymn by William Cowper. One of the great hymns of our ...

Thanksgiving: The Truth About Thanksgiving

Introduction:

The first Thanksgiving dinner I ever ate outside of the United States was in Belgium. The people of Belgium are as thankful as any other ...

Cultivating a Thankful Heart

Introduction:

My wife and I watched a sitcom the other evening, where the plot revolved around the old standby device called “the flashback.” The show’s ...

Only the Grateful Believe

Thankfulness is difficult for most of us. An elementary school teacher was trying to teach thankfulness to her students, so she asked them to write down ...

A Contrast of Thanksgiving

Introduction

It seems to me that appreciation is often related to contrasts. We are told the beauty of art is not just in color, but it's in contrast. ...

The Praise of an Old Man

Shortly after David came to power, he brought the ark to Zion. The ark was a box about the size of a piano bench, and in it were some famous artifacts. ...

How to Behave in a Worship Service

When I was a boy, I grew up in a war zone. I lived halfway between Chicago and St. Louis, in the heart of baseball country. I remember many playground ...

Thanksgiving and Faith

In a yard near us, a sign recently appeared with these words on it: MOM ON STRIKE. Michelle had "moved" into her children's tree house and vowed she wasn't ...

Overcoming Disappointment

There once lived a little girl who really liked Beanie Babies. In fact, one day when she and her parents were at the store, she saw the newest Beanie ...

The Contrast of Thanksgiving

Introduction

It seems to me that appreciation is often related to contrasts. We are told the beauty of art is not just in color, but it's in contrast. ...