preach-itSermon Archive

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December 2020

Why the Manger

What an Incredible Story We Are Living In! (Matthew 1:21; Philippians 2:6-8; Isaiah 9:6; Luke 2:7, 10-12, 52; John 13:5; Matthew 26:39 NIV)
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins…Jesus Christ- King of kings, Lord of lords, Son of God
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,…For to us a child is born, to us a s



November 2020

Christams Surprise

The Christmas story is an old familiar one to most of us, isn’t it? In sermons and Sunday school lessons, Christmas pageants, carols and Bible readings, we have all heard the story loads of times. And besides just hearing the story, sometimes I feel like I have actually seen it. That’s probably because of all of the Christmas cards and nativity scenes I’ve seen that depict the old familiar images of a cozy stable, a newborn wrapped and laid on a bed of hay, awe-struck shepherds, and e



Pouring It Out

In this message we dive into the twelfth chapter of John which begins in a very seasonally appropriate way with a Thanksgiving dinner. This Sunday we’ll be studying verses 1-8 of John 12 and thinking deeply about the nature of Christian Thanksgiving. One thing is for sure, a quick survey of all the Bible says on the subject reveals that God often commands His people to thank Him. Why do you think God command us to thank Him? I mean, if I gave you a gift and then immediately demanded that yo



Sovereignty

It has been a few weeks since we were last in the Gospel of John, but this Sunday we’ll be picking things up where we left off in chapter 10. From beginning to end this chapter illustrates powerfully the perfect sovereignty of Jesus. By sovereignty I mean the absolute right of Jesus to do whatever He wills according to His own good pleasure, and the inability of anyone or anything to thwart or even delay the doing of His will. The tenth chapter of John reveals a Jesus who is supreme in



Together

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says, Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

We are all invested in the same difficult work (verse 9). We all




The Politics Of It All

I can still remember the moment when I first understood that Ronald Reagan wasn’t going to be president anymore. I was downstairs in the fellowship hall at the Advent Christian church in Hyattsville, MD. It was 1988, and I was swilling down some punch with a big glob of vanilla ice cream in it. As I sat on the edge of the stage I listened to my Mom and some of her friends talking in the nearby kitchen. There was a little window in the wall between the fellowship hall and the kitchen and thr



October 2020

We Are The Body

Back in 2010 I was riding my bicycle after dark, when I made an unexpected and violent exit from my normal, day-to-day routine. An enraged dog charged out of nowhere and became entangled with the smoothly whirring operation of my 10-speed, which, in turn, caused me to proceed over the handle bars and land with a sickly thud on the road. The result was a broken collar bone and weeks in a sling.

I have suffered a few injuries like this over the span of my years on planet earth, and in




The Good Shepherd

Sheep are the animal most often mentioned in the Bible, and although many analogous comparisons are employed in the Bible to describe the relationship between God and His people, that of shepherd and sheep is definitely a favorite among the biblical writers. In John 10, the next portion of John’s Gospel that we will begin studying together, Jesus will describe Himself as the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep.



Free Slaves

I once had a friend who told me the unorthodox story of how he first came to put his trust in Jesus for salvation. His Dad had unexpectedly pulled him and his younger brother out of school one day to take them on an impromptu field trip. He was just a young boy at the time, still in elementary school, and his Dad had not informed them ahead of time that they would be getting out of school early. They drove across town to a funeral home of all places. If I remember the story correctly, the o



Is The Bible Reliable

If you turn in your Bibles to the next section of the Gospel of John you will find the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), which contains one of Jesus’ most memorable quotes, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” If you look closely you will see, depending on what version of the Bible that you use, that these verses are either bracketed off or printed in a footnote with some kind of a notation explaining that this account was no





 
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