Sermon Series (Page 2)

I am writing this article to the LifeWay family New York City. To be a bit more specific, I’m writing from Brooklyn, New York. Patty and I are with our mission team working alongside some amazing Gospel workers in Brooklyn and in New York as they reach out to the college students on multiple college campuses in the greater New York City area. We have been blessed beyond measure this week, and we are not finished yet. Specifically, Josh and…

Did you know some people say the military salute in all the world’s armies originated from the medieval knights who needed to raise their helmet visors when they talked to one another? Even after the use of helmet visors ended, modern day soldiers kept the tradition, and that is how we came to know the military salute. I didn’t know that. Others say because the knights carried their weapons on their right, this is how we came to drive our…

What does it mean to be a part of family? Is it just about blood relations? Or maybe about living situations? How do you define family and what does it mean for someone to be a part of your family? My family is pretty big and we grew up all over. I don’t necessarily feel very close to my extended family, many of whom I haven’t seen in person since I was a young child. In a lot of ways,…

Have you noticed that the mention of the devil is not insignificant in our culture? I am not exactly a movie person, but even I know the movie, “The Devil wears Prada”. Can you think of other movies with the word, “devil” in the title? When my high school classmates wanted to form a band, and play “The Devil went down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band, they asked me to play the violin. It was not Mendelssohn or…

Track and Field is a great sport, but honestly much different than most other sports. It really is not a team sport at all, as it is pretty individual by the way it is set up. Let me explain: But Track and Field is very different. It is a solo sport for the most part. Yes, there are relay teams, but most of it track and field is very individual. There is one person at the starting line, and when…

The Beatles, the prominent 60’s and 70’s British rock and roll band, and specifically Paul McCartney, wrote and released a song in 1967 on their “Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, called “When I’m 64.” It’s a very clever and fun song about growing older and the expectations and fears we have about aging. An interesting fact about the song is that Paul McCartney wrote the tune to this song when he himself was about 14 years old. In 1966 as…

As I have stated many times, I have developed a personal habit of reading the Bible in multiple locations simultaneously.  Old Testament books then New Testament books, and always a Gospel story. Because of this way of reading from many locations I find many common themes throughout. One of those themes that always pops out at me is the theme of “Where is God in the Tragedy?” Every book in the Bible; in every time period of history; it doesn’t…

Whenever you use the words “prosperity” alongside the word “Gospel” it can be toxic!  For those of you who are astute in modern world church lingo, the phrase “Prosperity Gospel” is almost a curse phrase, and for good reason. Let me give a simple explanation. There have been many over the years who have abused the point of the Gospel when it is shared with the world. Some have taken truths, and strained them out to use only partial truths…

As an American, many of us have come to understand that the most important piece of paper document we possess is that American passport. Of course this is very much in the news every day now. I will not be able to address all the questions and issues politically in this article, but this might come to mind when you read it. No doubt, that document is of great importance — humanly speaking. Now let’s stress that last line —…

I am the youngest child of three boys that my parents have. My oldest brother is 4 ½ years old, and my middle brother is 2 ½ years older. I remember vividly when one by one my two older brothers left home for college, and the house got quieter and quieter. My first night at home when my middle brother left was a bit odd – honestly weird, and I remember it well to this day. But for my parents,…

Do you know how many percent of the adult US population are grandparents? Take a guess. If you answered one-third, you get a lollipop! Up to one third of all adults are grandparents. That means that if we were to walk about in our cities of Federal Way or Northeast Tacoma, one out of every three adults we see are grandparents. In 1900, there were only 3.1 million people 65 years and older. By 1999, one hundred years later, that…

I love visual illustrations! Tim (one of our church piano players) has a real gift of being a cartoon style artists. During that long, drawn-out season of Covid a few short years back, many of my sermons were in front of a camera and the only audience was online (I sure hope to never go back to that again!). But one of the funny things that emerged out of that time was that after every sermon that I delivered, Tim,…

This is a common phrase used on wall hangings for many of us at the front door or in the kitchen. Some of you may have it in your home. It is found in the Old Testament book of Joshua, chapter 24:15. Many of us might be familiar with the quote, but we often don’t know the context of when and why it was written, and we might miss the deeper meaning. Let me give you a simple background to…

Right now, all over America there are graduation exercises in the months of May and June. We see signs in yards in our community that highlight a High School or college graduates that lives there. There are parties, there are graduation trips, and there are graduation ceremonies.  At those ceremonies proud family members and friends watch a loved one as their name is announced, they walk across the stage, get a handshake from the Principal or University president, then are…

I remember when I was young, I was finally introduced to what we call ‘chapter books.’  Do you remember that? Like most children, I loved being read to by my parents or a teacher. But in those early days all my books had one basic story, one main point, and were loaded with pictures to keep me interested. I couldn’t read the words anyway, but I began connecting the words that were read to me with the pictures I was…

This coming Sunday May 18 is a unique day in our church family. We have invited in some guests that we all need to meet and get to know them. We have talked of this for weeks now, but just in case you didn’t get it, they are coming for a visit to LifeWay and the NW with the possibility that Tim would join our Sr Pastor team in a few months, and eventually take the role of the next Sr…

This coming Sunday, May 11, is Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you. At church this Sunday I’m using this day to begin a new series of messages that somebody might even consider Christian counseling. I would really consider it to be Christian discipleship in all of the different phases of life. Let me explain.  I’ve been in some form of ministry either as a youth director for the first few years or as a pastor here now…

Two Sundays ago, we completed our study of the Gospel of Mark when Billy gave us a message on the Resurrection. If you recall my message on the introduction to the Gospel of Mark back in September 2024, I said that the whole gospel was likely based on Mark’s conversations with the Apostle Peter. Peter and Mark were close friends, and Peter was likely a mentor to Mark. Peter comes up a lot in the gospel. Peter was the first…

As a missions pastor, naturally I am always willing to speak about the Great Commission. So, when Billy asked me to finish up our series in the book of Mark by preaching the Great Commission, it was kind of a no-brainer…at least until I started really working on it.  In my head, the Great Commission was a natural follow-up to the resurrection: Jesus is alive, our sins are forgiven, he is victorious—therefore, we should go tell everyone! However, unlike Matthew’s…

Are you familiar with this old children’s prayer? Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen. The first appearance of this poetic prayer was in Thomas Fleet’s New England Primer in 1737. It soon became widespread in its use in Christian households, and was referred to as one of the “Common Prayers” that can be used by families to teach…

This Sunday we are studying the story and the message of the Cross that Jesus died on.  The Christian Cross might be the most recognizable physical symbol in all the world. You will find in virtually every cemetery in the westernized Christian background world rows and rows of crosses over the burial site of the dead.   On our first ever trip to Europe Patty and I took our young kids to plenty of memorable historical sites. The most striking…

While preparing for this Sunday’s story, it made me think of famous trials in history and the sentencing the followed.  There is no shortage of interesting ones in history. Here’s some examples:   As I have been studying the story out of the Gospel of Mark for this coming Sunday’s message, it led me think about accusations, judgements, evidence and ultimate verdicts from historically famous trials. I then looked up a list of ‘famous trials’ of the past, and believe…

My dad was an extrovert extraordinaire and often the life of social events. He was deeply dedicated to the cause of Christ, the work of the Church, and had a tremendous love for community at large where he lived. He was my dad first, and the Pastor of the church I grew up in second. Certainly, he had his flaws like the rest of us, but was a really good dad, a well-respected Pastor, and a well-known community figure. He…

In the early days of our planting this Church, somewhere around 1986, we had several people who had recently come to faith in Christ and had never attended or been engaged with a Church of any kind. Everything we did as a congregational practice was new to them. I have wonderful memories during these years of explaining why we did what we did, but it was the first time I had ever been around people that knew nothing about Church…

I titled this article in a way to hopefully force you to do a double take – “A Bloody and Violent Parable!” One of the preachers from the past that I enjoy reading used this title for the story that we are focusing on this week. When I saw it, it certainly captured my attention, and I hope it does the same for you. Parables are one of the most popular and wonderful tools of teaching that Jesus used during…