You are accustomed now to all the liturgical changes we have made over the course of this last year. You must now be exhorted to remember the point of all such orders of worship. The fact that you know the order of events frees you to concentrate on worshiping the Lord Himself, just as learning …
Palm Sunday 2006
Introduction: We are seeking to recover a Christian sense of time, and in some sense this means a recovery of the Church year. But though we are seeking to escape a secularized calendar, we must never forget that we got this secular calendar (in part) because of a reaction away from the problem of “saints …
Staying Out of the Deep End
Once there was brother and sister, and they were on a vacation with their parents, driving across the country. One evening, after a long day’s drive, the family checked into a motel, and both the kids were very excited about the prospect of swimming in the motel pool. “You can get into your suits,” their …
The World Is Full of Losers
The world is full of losers, and there is no one who is not a loser. And yet, left to our own devices, we always construct religious systems based on work, striving, earning, winning. Perpetual losers, bred to the bone losers, we insist on devising and pursuing the calculus of success and winning. Jesus is …
For Food and Wine
Gracious Father in heaven, we thank You for the arrival of another Lord’s Day. We thank You for the fellowship we share around this table. We praise Your name for the food and wine. We are grateful for the opportunity to sing to You and prepare our hearts for worship in the morning. We ask …
Believing Is Seeing
After Jesus told His followers that they must believe God since this was the work of God, they immediately asked for a sign. They were asking for a sign when the one signified by any possible sign was standing right there in front of them. And from this we learn that without possession of the …
You Were Baptized in Water
When we gather together as the people of God, remember that we are the redeemed of the Lord. Our characteristic note should therefore be one of exuberance and joy. Accept no substitutes, particularly the substitute of carnally generated joy. We are called to worship God in the joy of the Holy Ghost. We are commanded …
Ezra Nehemiah 17
Introduction: Nehemiah and those with him have continued to make good progress. When they have nearly completed their work, their adversaries try a few remaining tricks. The Text: Now it came to pass when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and Geshem the Arabian, and the rest of our enemies, heard that I had builded the wall, and …
For the Small Stuff
I am on the road this Lord’s Day, and will be preaching at Christ Church in Cary. At home in Christ Church, the pulpit will be filled by Francis Foucachon. Thus, as it turns out, I am not responsible for the exhortation in the call to worship this morning, or for the homily that accompanies …
Grace in a High Chair
When Jesus taught His disciples that they should not labor for the meat that perishes, their response was to ask what work they should do in order to work the works of God. Jesus replied that the work of God was that they would believe on the one whom God had sent. They asked what …