Introduction Water brings life, and living water more so. We have spoken before on the importance of “assuming the center,” and one of the central ways to do this is to create a place where living water can flow. Water is a gathering force. The Text: “Afterward he brought me again unto the door of …
Working on a Building II
Introduction A basic truism of modern design is that form follows function. This is self-evidently true, but the reason modern men have found themselves living, working, and worshiping in overgrown shoeboxes is that we have allowed ourselves to drift into a truncated and reductionist view of what our actual function as human beings truly is. …
Working on a Building I
Introduction As you know, our desire is to build a sanctuary that is more conducive to worship than the temporary quarters that God has graciously given us up to this point. Because we want every aspect of our lives to be governed by Scripture, this means that we must turn to Scripture for guidance and …
The Face of Jesus Christ
We honestly have very little idea what Jesus Christ looked like. We worship Him as the visible image of the invisible Father, and yet we do not know what that visible image looks like. What kind of visible image is that? We know what the paintings of Him look like, and they generally all have …
State of the Church 2014
Introduction It is our custom to have a “state of the church” message every year around this time. Sometimes the message has to do with the church nationally, and other times the point is more local, pertaining to our own congregation. This year I want to focus on this congregation, and the point of this …
Why Children Matter (4)
Introduction Biblical parenting is much more than a bag of tips and techniques. Techniques are helpful if you are learning to paint-by-numbers, but that is not the kind of thing we are doing when we are bringing up little children. Godly parenting is a function of becoming more like Jesus in the presence of little …
Why Children Matter (3)
Nurture and Admonition in the 21st Century Introduction Last week we distinguished discipline from punishment. That initial distinction was that discipline is corrective and punishment is concerned with retribution. But once we have accepted the duty of administering parental discipline, we discover that discipline falls naturally into two categories—corrective and formative. The Text: “And, ye …
Why Children Matter (II)
Nurture and Admonition in the 21st Century Introduction This is a message on “discipline basics.” Remember that we not only want to learn how to discipline our children in a biblical fashion, but that we also want to do so in a biblical context. This means that we are not using the Scriptures as a …
Why Children Matter
Nurture and Admonition in the 21st Century I Introduction A family is a divinely-ordained community. It is a set of defined relationships, with obligations and privileges assigned by God accordingly. It is not an arbitrary collection of individuals, and it is not something that we get to define. God created the family—it was not invented …
Remembering the Lord Your God
Introduction We are looking at a passage this morning which is familiar for many reasons. The Lord Jesus quotes it when He tells us what the greatest commandment in all Scripture is (Luke 10:27). This passage contains the great Shema, recited by the Jews constantly—“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” This …