The Training of the Twelve, Pt. 1

“The Training of the Twelve” Pt. 1Luke 9:1-11December 14, 2025 It’s Christmas season. And there is a common question being asked these days: “Do we have enough?” E.g., Do we have enough food? Do we have enough cookies? Do we have enough gifts? Do we have enough decorations (lights on the house, tinsel on […]

The Tale of Two “Daughters”

“The Tale of Two ‘Daughters’”Luke 8:40-56November 30, 2025 Pain is universal. Suffering is common. Illness, though frequent and normal, often surprises us. Death is one out of one. We recoil against all of these. And God uses pain, illness, and death to sanctify us. Samuel Rutherford wrote that believers should “praise God for the […]

The Son of Man, Demons, and Rejection

“The Son of Man, Demons, and Rejection”Luke 8:26-39November 23, 2025 We have an enemy. He is intelligent — “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder” (Js. 2:18). He is strong — “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm […]

Jesus, in the Storms of Life

“Jesus, in the Storms of Life”Luke 8:22-25November 2, 2025 Call it what you want — affliction, calamity, difficulty, disaster, disease, hardship, horror, illness/sickness, pain, persecution, suffering, tragedy, trial, trouble — life is filled with events and circumstances that seem contrary to us. It has always been that way, the Bible is filled with it: Murder […]

Having Seen God’s Salvation

Having Seen God’s SalvationLuke 2:21-38September 15, 2024 At least for some things, I am not the most patient person in the world. I have been known to get a little hangry while waiting for dinner to cook. I don’t like waiting for traffic lights or for accidents to clear. I don’t like waiting in checkout […]

Sermon: Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus

Fixing Our Eyes on JesusHebrews 12:1-3July 31, 2022 In 1948, Dutch physicist Hessel de Vries began doing some research on the two daughters of a colorblind father and discovered that their eyes perceived colors differently from both their father and others with normal color perception. Our eyes perceive color through the cones in our eyes; […]

Ordinary People

Yesterday I wrote about ordinary people. In preparing to write, I rummaged through my files and found several helpful statements about being ordinary and how God uses us in our humility. Alas, I wasn’t able to work those quotations into the article. But they are helpful and worth reading. So here are a few things […]

We are all ordinary and that’s the way God planned it

Several years ago, as part of the release of a new pen, the Bic corporation developed a project called “The Universal Typeface Experiment.” The intent was for individuals around the globe provide handwriting samples for each letter of the alphabet and that those samples would be compiled by an algorithm into a single universal typeface. […]

Sermon: Victorious Faith

Victorious FaithHebrews 11:32-40July 24, 2022 They have been called “The Most Crushing Losses in Sports History,” “The Hall of Flameout,” and “Snatching Defeat from the Hands of Victory.” They are sports events that are considered major failures, gaffs, and defeats. For years, ABC captured the sense of loss on Wide World of Sports with an […]

Sermon: Living by Faith in Our Great God

Living by Faith in Our Great GodHebrews 11:30-31June 19, 2022 In his book Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? Robert Wells exposes the size of the universe in understandable terms: The largest animal on earth is the blue whale.… But a blue whale isn’t anywhere near as big as a mountain. If […]

Sermon: Choosing to Live by Faith, Pt. 2

Choosing to Live by Faith: Living with UncertaintyHebrews 11:27-29June 5, 2022 In Malaysia there is a relatively small group of people (59,000) called the Semai. They might be fairly typical of what you might think about a Southeast Asian culture: they are sustained economically primarily through farming and hunting, they live in small, isolated […]

When threatened with persecution

Injustice, suffering, and persecution are normal and will happen in this world. That doesn’t mean persecution is right; but it does mean that nothing unusual has happened when someone is ostracized, condemned, persecuted, or even martyred for having faith in Christ. To be a follower of Christ is to live with the expectation that one […]

Sermon: Choosing to Live by Faith

Choosing to Live by FaithHebrews 11:23-26May 29, 2022 In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz tells of a trip to his local moderately sized grocery store. He found 285 varieties of cookies, 13 sports drinks, 65 box drinks, 85 kids’ juices, 75 iced teas, 95 types of chips and pretzels, 15 kinds of bottled water, […]

Sermon: Blessings and Dying Words

Blessings and Dying WordsHebrews 11:20-22May 8, 2022 The legacy of people’s final words is fascinating. What were the final words and thoughts on people’s minds as they departed this life for eternal life (or eternal death)? These words are significant because death is the ultimate enemy of all men. There are more harsh and less […]

Remember God’s Promises

Trials are regular and normal. Disappointment is inevitable. Failure is common. One skeptic rightly noted, “In times like these it’s good to remember that there have always been times like these.” If we expect a trouble-free life, we will never be satisfied. However, the goal in life is not to avoid trouble and trial, […]