Blog (Page 5)
The King’s Royal Speech
Knowing God: The King’s Royal Speech In our study series we have titled “Knowing God,” we are now at the place in the story where God gave the Ten Commandments to His people. Moses brought tablets down from the Mountain of God with God’s handwriting on them of these Ten Commands for His people to follow. You will recognize the Ten Commandments at least in part, and we know them in Scripture as the ‘LAW OF GOD.’ But much of…
A Plan for the New Year
Starting the New Year 2023 with a Bible-Reading Plan Maybe you are spending your week cleaning up 2022 and getting your new 2023 calendar all ready. It’s about this time every year, between Christmas and New Year, that we all hear statements like… “I sure hope ’23 is better than ’22!” “I’m ready to turn the calendar over to 2023, because I was disappointed in 2022!” “I’m determined to make the new year better than last year.” “I’m starting healthier…
The Dawn of the Incarnational God
Christmas Eve, Candlelight, and Silent Night John 1:14 (NIV) The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. This coming Saturday evening is Christmas Eve. My favorite service of the entire year is the 11 p.m. candlelight service at our church building. (We will hold this service once again this coming Saturday. Please realize that we have a 7…
Doesn’t Anyone Know What Christmas is All About?!
Remember the old Christmas cartoon from Peanuts? Charlie Brown is going crazy with all the confusion of a Christmas tree that isn’t working out, a play that’s going badly, and life somehow just falling apart. Frustrated with the chaos of the Christmas season, he yells out to the crowd, “ISN’T THERE ANYONE WHO KNOWS WHAT CHRISTMAS IS ALL ABOUT?” It is his young friend Linus who stops in the middle of all the hectic activity and, in his innocent little…
Three Portraits
Three portraits to understand the incarnate God we find in John 3 As you may know, Patty and I have been in eastern Europe for a couple weeks, visiting our daughter and son-in-law and, of course, Pollyanna, one of our precious granddaughters (now 10 months old!). While in three eastern European countries—Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland—we attended a significant missions conference (which I will tell about later), but we’ve also visited some amazing tourist sites, namely medieval castles and majestic church…
The Vision that Changed a Whole Course of Ministry
How many of you enjoy the Prophetic Books in the Bible? If I am honest, the Prophets is not the easiest section in the Bible for me. Much of the time, I find it necessary to also study the history along with the chronological order of kingdoms in order to understand the Prophets, and I tend to get my dates mixed up. In addition, I am also someone who easily gets lost when I read poetry. And since there is…
Getting a Glimpse of God
Hello, LifeWay Family! This week marks the start of Advent! I am super-excited for the Christmas season (maybe equally excited for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner!). I just love the lights, the brisk air, and a hot tea between my hands! The memories this time of the year brings up for everyone are wonderful, and I pray that you’re building those memories for you and your family this year. As we work through the series, “Knowing God,” I want you to meditate…
The Firstborn (Part 3)
The Lord taught the Israelites to observe the Passover once they entered into the Promised Land so they would always remember how the Lord killed every Egyptian firstborn to deliver them. Year after year, the Israelites observed the Passover, and they became more and more familiar with the Lord’s teachings on the firstborn—the firstborn belongs to the Lord, the firstborn must be redeemed, and redemption always required blood. Then came one day many years later, a Passover unlike any other.…
The Firstborn (Part 2)
After refusing nine times to let the Israelites go, it is remarkable that on the tenth time, Pharaoh told them to get out, and that in the middle of the night. He couldn’t even stand to wait until daylight. It took the murder of all the Egyptian firstborns to bring Pharaoh to his knees and to let the Israelites go. The tenth plague was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Every one of the nine plague struck the Egyptians,…
Preparing for Our LifeWay Thanksgiving Service
This Sunday morning, November 20, we are dedicating our normal 10 a.m. service time to giving thanks: to one another, for our daily provision and, most of all, to God! There will lots of wonderful musical worship, but each of us is also to play an important part in this service. How to prepare for Thanksgiving worship For example… Psalm 106:1 Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. This Sunday morning service will be…
Stand Firm and See the Deliverance of the Lord!
Exodus 14:13 (NIV) “Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today.” In 1998 my wife, Patty, and I had accumulated a bunch of airline miles, so we took our two children on a wonderful adventure to Europe for four full weeks! We did a lot of camping and last-minute, drop-in bed and breakfasts. We’ve got lots of fun stories; our kids to this day refer to this as the most memorable family trip we…
The Firstborn (Part 1)
How many of you are the eldest among your brothers or sisters? Are you a firstborn in your family? According to some studies, the oldest in the family are usually high achievers, excellent problem solvers, born leaders, independent thinkers, and the brains in the family! If you are a firstborn, have I just described you? How many of those things I listed are true of you? On the flip side, as with many things in life, being the firstborn comes…
Escape from a Trapped Life
Knowing God the Deliverer For Christmas a few years ago, our kids bought us one of those escape room events. The whole family went into a locked room, and we had to work together to figure out the clues on how to get out. It was very fun, but I found it very frustrating! I can promise you that if I had been put in that room by myself, I would likely still be in that room even now. I…
Annual Family Meeting: An Invitation
This Sunday at 5 p.m. we will have our annual all-church Family Meeting. I am asking as many of you as possible to attend this gathering time. What is the big deal about an annual church meeting? We will affirm new LifeWay elders. Over the last few months, three new names were submitted as possible elders. An interview team has independently vetted these three candidates and is now recommending their acceptance into the Council of Elders. The three recommended…
Knowing God—The Great Deliverer
The Denzel Washington movie from 2000, “Remember the Titans,” portrayed the true story of an underdog high school football team coached by an African American man who took them to the state championship. It is an inspiring story and worth a watch, for sure. But the center of the movie was that they, as a whole team, had to have confidence in what the new head coach was doing with them and where he was leading them. They had to…
Let’s Mourn
Let’s be honest. No one likes mourning. Mourning that is, not morning (many don’t like that too). None of us looks forward to something that gives us a reason to mourn. Just hearing the word makes us feel sick. To mourn assumes one is already experiencing some kind of a deep grief, and he or she is expressing that deep grief outwardly. Genesis 23:2 Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan; and Abraham went in…
Global Impact Celebration: A historical review
Where have we been and why do we do this? Eleven years ago at LifeWay Church, we began dedicating one week of the year to a Global Impact Celebration, or GIC. It is a week on our calendar, but if that is all the annual GIC is for you, then you’ve totally missed the entire point. Let me explain. Why did we start this, and what’s the history of GIC? To be honest, most churches, when they are involved in missions,…
A Global Mandate from Our Global God
If you had a dream of going somewhere in the world where you have never been—seeing something with your own eyes instead of seeing just tourist photos—where would it be? It’s a bit of a “what’s on your bucket list?” question. A cruise through the inside passage to Alaska? The tropical islands of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean? The fjords of Norway? The glaciers and penguins of Antarctica? The Gobi Desert of Mongolia? The Great Wall of China? Machu…
The Global Need
What’s the greatest need in the world today? Clean water? A secure food supply? Access to education? Each of those needs is significant, and they are also universal—meaning that everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, has these needs. But the greatest need we all have is a Savior. The Bible tells us that every person is dead in their sin until they accept the gift of Christ as their Savior. He is the solution to our…
Global
Have you ever met someone who is constantly focused on themselves? Maybe they aren’t actively mean or uncaring; they are just simply too occupied with their own lives to notice the people around them. They don’t notice if someone needs help or care if someone is celebrating a milestone. Their lives are about themselves. Sadly, a lot of churches and a lot of Christians can be inward-focused as well. We get caught up in our own church activities and issues,…
Asking “What If…?” of the Great I AM
Exodus 4:1Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?” Does God—the Great I AM, YHWH—take questions? In the classic 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy and the band of misfits that she had collected along the yellow brick road finally come into the throne room of “Oz the Great and Powerful,” she begins to ask him basic questions. The first questions are met with anger, fury…
Let’s Be Poor!
In Matthew 5:3, Jesus introduced us to something called being poor in spirit. In this introduction, he added that those who were poor in spirit were blessed. Matthew 5:3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” What does that even mean? Over in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said it even simpler. He didn’t even say poor in spirit. He said, “Blessed are you who are poor.” How can being poor in spirit be a…
Awed, Not Overwhelmed
Be in awe of God more than overwhelmed by anything else that comes your way! This was the essential theme laid out last Sunday as we launched into a year of study we are calling, Knowing God. Just contemplate that for a minute: Be in awe of God. The story from which we are launching our year is Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3). Essentially, Moses was just minding his own business, tending the sheep. He…
Peace in Making Decisions (Part II)
If it is true God’s choice for us is as simple as the choice that offers us the least pain and the most comfort, then we should find God’s people all over the Bible making choices that are the least painful or the most comfortable. But we don’t find that. We find the opposite. Consider the apostle Paul. In Acts 20, he told the Ephesians he was traveling to Jerusalem and he did not know what would happen to him…
Knowing God: The Great I Am
This Sunday, September 11, we are launching into our third year of study and sermons to help us grasp the whole of Scripture. To remind you… Year 1 (2020-21) — The Book of Jesus We explored the idea that ALL of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is ultimately about Jesus and God’s rescue plan. Do you remember our memory verse? Colossians 1:15Christ, the visible image of the invisible God… Year 2 (2021-22) — Building His Church We sought to…