My daughter asked me to solve a riddle the other day. She said the riddle is this; “As I get older, it gets weaker.” What is it that gets weaker? Well, I told her that from my experience there are a whole lot of things that get weaker as I get older. Some of which I can talk about in public and some perhaps are better kept private. But I told her the answer which I think she wanted, and that was my eyesight. The older I get, the weaker my eyesight becomes. But as I thought about it later,

Read More…

The subject of sexual impurity of various sorts is at the forefront of evangelical debate these days. For many, the questions surrounding sexuality and immorality are the defining issues of our times. And without a doubt, there are some very serious debates going on in the public arena which may have a great impact on our society, which I would say have already influenced our culture for the worse and will have tremendous negative consequences. So I want to be clear at the outset that what we are going to say today about this particular response of Christ to immorality

Read More…

  In this section of scripture, John records for us, at first glance, the highlights of what transpired on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and in that context, a few seemingly disconnected declarations of Christ and various remarks from those in attendance. And though it might be possible to give a running commentary on those disparate statements and try to tie them together into a sermon of sorts, I wanted instead to focus on primarily one statement of Jesus found in vs.37-39, which I believe is the main point of this section of scripture. In this declaration,

Read More…

I am going to put to the test your spiritual acumen this morning. I know it’s early, and maybe you can’t think all that well first thing in the morning. Todays message is not a story, maybe not so easy to understand, but nevertheless it is essential doctrine that must be understood and followed if we are going to be true disciples of Christ. So consequently, I am not going to approach this text today in my typical fashion of exegeting each verse in order, but I’m going to expound on a few verses from the text, not focusing so

Read More…

  Jesus Christ is without a doubt the most important figure in the history of the world. He was born more than 2000 years ago, contrary to the laws of life. He lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He exchanged a royal robe for a pauper’s ragged coat. He did not travel extensively. Only once did He cross the boundary of the tiny country in which He lived; and that was during His exile in childhood. 

He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His relatives were inconspicuous and He had neither training nor formal education. Yet in infancy He startled

Read More…

We are considering today one of the great sermons of Christ. This message marks a turning point in the ministry of Jesus. It reveals the moment when the vast throngs of people that initially followed Him in response to His miracles, turned away and rejected Him when confronted with the truth of the gospel. It would be foolish for me to think that I can add anything new to this message. But I do hope that we can exegete the text in order to make it’s meaning more clear. Jesus was speaking to a large group of disciples, or followers,

Read More…

I think that quite often, the greatest difficulty in living the Christian life of faith is being able to distinguish between the physical and the spiritual distinctives of our faith. By that I mean, how does God operate in the physical realm, and how does God operate in the spiritual realm, and by extension, how are we to operate in both? I have said from this pulpit repeatedly, that every physical healing or miracle presented in the gospels, is given to illustrate a spiritual principle. And that seems to be accepted by most Christians. You may not have thought of

Read More…

I don’t know what it is about religious holidays, but I just can’t get too enthusiastic about them. I guess I’m less concerned about formalities, and more concerned about realities perhaps. Somehow, the more ceremonial and religious it gets, the less it does for me. So that’s my excuse why I’m not too concerned that my message this morning is not a typical Easter message. I guess I’m not your typical preacher, and this isn’t a typical church for that matter. The fact is though, we celebrate Easter every Sunday. If it were not for the reality of the resurrection,

Read More…

This miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is probably one of the best known miracles in the Bible. Perhaps that’s because it is the only miracle that is presented in all four gospels. And as such it is perhaps difficult to provide new insight that hasn’t already been presented elsewhere at some point in the past. But that’s not really my job anyway. A pastor’s job is not to try to find out new information, or a new perspective and show everyone how smart he is because he has something different. But the pastor’s job is just to

Read More…

As we continue in this study of the fifth chapter of John, I would remind you of the claims that Jesus made concerning Himself in the second half of this chapter. They really are amazing. He claims to be the Son of God, equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life, the one in perfect unity with the Father, the judge of all the world, and that He would raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or that He would give them eternal life. Now those are

Read More…