I remember at the beginning of our look at the book of James, Joe described how reading James is a bit like opening yourself up for a bit of a beating. That’s been my experience as we’ve been exploring this book these past few weeks. James isn’t trying to gently woo hi...

For the past number of weeks, we’ve been exploring together how the Bible fits together into one big story. And before we get into our text for today, I want to pause for a moment to share some of the reason that we’re doing this. It’s important to be familiar with the...

We’re continuing our walk through the book of James.  We’re reading James as a manual for how to live as a follower of Jesus as we wait for God’s Kingdom to fully come here on earth.  Last week, we began this by looking at James’ advice for how Christians are to live i...

Today we begin a study of the book of James, which we’ll be reflecting on throughout the summer.  In our last series, we looked at the big picture of Scripture, we began in Genesis and worked our way to the grande finale in Revelation.  Throughout the series we were tr...

Those of you familiar with the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis probably remember how in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, four children mysteriously travel through a wardrobe. They grab for the fur coats that were hanging in the wardrobe and wrap themselves up...

Last Sunday at Youth, they read the story of the Last Supper in Matthew and the story of the Passover in Exodus.  I then asked them to find out what these two stories had in common and why it matters.  The goal was for them to basically research this Sunday’s sermon fo...

For the past number of weeks, we’ve been exploring together how the Bible fits together into one big story. And before we get into our text for today, I want to pause for a moment to share some of the reason that we’re doing this. It’s important to be familiar with the...

I’d like to begin this sermon with a definition form modern psychology that will help explain why I’ve been troubled by the book of Joshua.  (Slide 1) A Wikipedia article defines “Cognitive dissonance as the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a per...

Genesis chapter 3 is the story of the conflict that began all conflicts that began all problems, the problem that began all tragedies, the tragedy that devastated the world.  Christians refer to this chapter of the Bible as “The Fall”.  Before the Fall, Adam and Eve li...

During today’s sermon I’d like to reflect on church membership, but I’d like to do so in a way that isn’t anachronistic.  What I mean by that is I don’t want to try and say our church’s membership practices are exactly what Peter or Paul had in mind when they were esta...