When I was in school, I used to hate tests. Usually, that was because I had either forgotten to study for it, or I was too preoccupied with sports or other activities to study for it. So consequently, when the teacher would say, “now put away everything off your desk and take out a pencil and a blank sheet of paper for your test,” I would get this horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and look around in a panic at my classmates all calmly putting away their books, in hopes that somehow this was all

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In Hebrews 1:3 the scripture tells us concerning Jesus that “He is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” And to that end, in the last couple of chapters we have seen Mark present Jesus in various ways, each displaying a dimension of the character of God. In chapter 10 we see Jesus presented as the Good God, as the Savior, as our Sacrifice, as the Suffering Servant, as the Son of Man, and as the Son of David. In chapter 11, we see Jesus

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The events that are recorded before us today are probably very familiar to many of you. If you’ve been at church at all on the major holidays during your life then you’ve probably heard a few messages on Palm Sunday, and may have been given little palm branches to take home. Well, today is not Palm Sunday, but we are going to be looking at events that start on what is called Palm Sunday and continue to Tuesday in what is known as the Passion week. However, I would like to forego a lot of the traditional emphasis that is

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  Today is the Super Bowl. It’s where one team gets to claim that it is the greatest team of that year. I have to confess, I’m not really into football. And I am especially not that interested in supporting the NFL these days. But I am interested in the subject of greatness. Not that I will ever achieve it, but nevertheless, it is a worthwhile goal, if it is sought after in keeping with Biblical principles. And the Bible has a lot to say about greatness. So, as I said, I’m not much of a football fan. My sport

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  The question before us today is without a doubt, the most important question in the world. We find it articulated by the rich, young ruler in vs 17. And it is understood to be main thought of the whole passage. The question asked by the young man is this: “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” It is a question that should be of concern to everyone here, to everyone in every age. It is the question of the ages. If you have not asked this question yourself, then you are either naive in hoping that it is

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  Today is my wife and I’s 29th wedding anniversary. So it’s particularly ironic that we find ourselves looking at the subject of divorce. Twenty nine years is a long time. It’s a life sentence. Seriously though, the secret to our long marriage is that divorce was never an option. We made a promise to God for life. When I told someone the other day that I was going to be speaking on divorce at this Sunday morning service their response was that I would most likely offend most of the people in the congregation. Last week I already managed

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In the section of Mark we are studying, we have been watching Jesus through a variety of ways instruct the disciples in the true nature of the Kingdom of God. We have seen that Jesus makes it clear that the cross comes before glory, but this is a difficult thing for the disciples to comprehend. And this lesson is very applicable to us, because, if you are like me, you do not like the cross in your life. Christians often make much about the blessings and the glory of Christianity. But usually we avoid the thought of suffering and persecution,

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  As most of you know, our family went to Santa Barbara, CA to spend the holidays with our kids. And it truly was a great time that we had there together. The weather was fantastic, we had all our children under one roof, the house we stayed in was cool, overlooking the ocean. You just couldn’t ask for a nicer time together. And I have to admit, that just the thought of getting on the plane to come back to Delaware during the middle of the winter here was kind of tough. Little did we realize just how tough

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  I suppose that in many ways, the transfiguration is the greatest miracle given in the Bible. To see Jesus in His human form, and then unveiled to reveal His true nature and glory, glory as of the Only Begotten Son of God, and to have the appearance of both of the greatest prophets from history appear to give credence to His majesty, and then to cap it all off with nothing less than the shekinah glory of God envelop them all and to hear God speak from the cloud, all of that combined must equal the greatest miracle recorded

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I don’t normally go out of my way to preach a topical holiday message. And I don’t plan on doing that today either. But I did want to tie the Christmas story which Nick read for us a few minutes ago in Luke 2 to our text for today, because I feel it helps us to better understand the text as well as the true meaning of Christmas. And the main thing I want to point out about the account in Luke is that it is simply a proclamation of the gospel. It’s not just a story about baby Jesus

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