A Great Big Snake Story

Introduction

Elijah, my son, really likes The Jungle Book. One of the characters in that story is a big and sneaky snake named Kaa. He’s a python, ...

A Better Blessing

Introduction

The theme of the Book of Hebrews is that we are to keep moving forward, we can't turn back. That we're to move forward in faith, constantly ...

More Than Your Personal Savior

Introduction

For over three decades, Paul Harvey made a name for himself by telling “the rest of the story.” Day after day he came on our radios ...

The Church at War

Introduction

If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, I invite you to open with me to 1 Timothy 6, as we prepare to finish out tonight our journey through ...

Take Me to Your Leader

Let's look at today's text together:

Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount ...

Heroes

You may be familiar with the St. Crispin Day speech in Shakespeare's Henry V. King Henry is rallying the ragtag army—stirring them to fight a seemingly ...

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 ...

If Christ Had Not Come

Several years ago, a group of historians met and asked a number of intriguing questions. What if the Moors had won in the great historic battle in Spain? ...

The World's Greatest Step

The story behind the sermon (from John Ortberg):

For Easter I wanted to present some of N. T. Wright's material on the Resurrection. I love his work on ...

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 ...

Death Is Life

From the editor:

Easter draws closer and closer (April 4), and we're here to help out with sermon ideas to inspire you in your own preaching. This week ...

Worth Your Attention

From the editor

More helpful resources for Easter! This week we're featuring a message from Mike Woodruff, pastor of Christ Church Lake Forest in Lake ...

The Last Enemy

From the editor:

This week we continue to roll out great Easter resources to help inspire ideas for your own preaching. Below is a sermon by Donald Sunukjian ...

Easter: The Benefits Package

From the editor:

This week we are featuring Leith Anderson's Easter sermon from 2009 to help inspire ideas for your own sermon for Easter 2010. As you ...

If God Is Great, Where Is He in World of Suffering?

Introduction

Of all the reasons for rejecting the claims of Christianity, the one most frequently offered comes in the form of a question: "If God is so ...

If God Is Great, Where Is He in a World of Suffering?

Text: Matthew 27:27-46
Topic: Dealing with the reality of suffering

From the editor

Easter really isn't that far away—April 4, 2010—so we'll ...

God's Protection and Delight

Just Say Yes

Introduction

Back in the 1980's, when drug use became epidemic among young people, and teen pregnancy and AIDS were on the rise, and gangs were turning ...

Big God/Little God

Introduction

When our first child was quite small, we used to ask her, "Laura, how big are you?" She wasn't even a year old—couldn't even hardly ...

What Have We Done?

Introduction

After the Chicago Cubs lost their 96th baseball game in 2006, manager Dusty Baker, was called in to meet with the general manager. We all ...

Prepare for God's Visitation

Introduction

I have a friend named John who is a medical doctor. He was once making a commercial flight across the Atlantic Ocean, when a teenage boy who ...

Expect God's Visitation

Introduction

In Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge lies down on Christmas Eve hoping to enjoy a good night's rest. In the course ...

Secrets of Financial Contentment

Introduction

When I was a kid, my dad told me two stories all the time.

In the first one, a couple goes to Harvard University and asks to see the president, ...

A Strange Résumé

Introduction

It's the most dreaded question of the job interview, and when the time comes, you can't seem to push the words out of your mouth. "Tell me," ...

Beyond Comfort

Introduction

Where do you turn for comfort when you encounter loss, pain, or disappointment? Some people turn to food. For some reason, certain foods—like ...

Unbreakable?

Introduction

M. Night Shyamalan's film Unbreakable begins with a train wreck. Everyone on board is killed—over a hundred people—except for ...

Facing Off Without Falling Apart

Introduction

In Acts 4 we witness an epic battle between a David-like underdog and a behemoth giant. In one corner you have two unschooled, unimpressive ...

Warriors on Their Couches

Introduction

The account of David and Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 begins this way:

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David ...

Life on Wings

Introduction

The biblical image of the kind of life Christians are called to live is, "The way of an eagle in the air." I have lots of experience with ...

How to Live Beyond Yourself

Introduction

I don't know if you are like me, but I imagine you are. I imagine there are times in which you feel boxed in by life; not only by what others ...

All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Suffering Triumphantly Until I Died

Introduction

In All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert L. Fulghum writes:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do ...

Where's the "Gift Return" Receipt?

Introduction

Let's suppose there's a small town on the edge of Iraq, near the Saudi border. Let's call the town Mosel. It's a small community with no other ...

It's All About You, Lord

Introduction

A poet once complained to a friend, "Life's not fair. A banker can write a bad poem, and nobody says anything about it. But if a poet writes ...

I Will Build My Church

Introduction

I entered the ministry with my eyes wide open. Two great-grandfathers were preachers—one a circuit rider, the other a lay preacher. Both ...

The Process of Transformation

Text: 1 John 3:1–10
Topic: How to attain holiness

Introduction

Imagine that you've been asked to write a book on marriage. Your publisher says, "We ...

If Jesus Had Never Been Born ...

Text: John 1:14–18
Topic: What the world would be like if Jesus had not been born

Introduction

Several years ago, a group of historians met and asked ...

The Most Unlikely One

Introduction:

An organization advertised for climbers interested in setting new records for climbing the highest point in each of the fifty United States ...

What's So Great About Easter?

As we have been engaged in the war with Iraq over the past several weeks, one thing that our leaders have said again and again is that our purpose in ...

Bouncing Back From Defeat

In the final days of Jesus' ministry, it appeared to the disciples that everything they worked for had fallen apart. During the course of his ministry, ...

We're More Than Conquerors

I grew up in Oklahoma, where Oklahoma Sooner football was (for some) not just a way of life, but the very meaning of life. That's because in the 1970's ...

Your Greatest Victory

 

It's an exciting thing to be loved by God. And 1 Corinthians 15 is an exciting part of God's Word because it tells how God loves us and how ...

The Great Escape

Look in your Bibles at 1 Corinthians 10:13. Paul says, "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not ...

How to Triumph Over Temptations

 

Somebody will lay out something and tell you, "Don't touch it." Every one of us at one time has been in that situation. ...