matthew on Out of Our Control

Almighty God, we bow before You, humbly able to admit how small, fragile, and dependent we are. Unfortunately, for many of us, it takes a disaster to convince us that we are not in control. Over the p...

God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are always and forever for us: We can’t run away from Your presence; nor out-sin Your amazing grace and forgiveness. We can’t exhaust Your unconditional love nor ...

Almighty and loving God, all of us here today are hurting. Some of us are hurting as the result of circumstances beyond our control. Some of us are hurting because of our own choices. Some of us are f...

Save us, Glorious Christ, from every false understanding and motivation Save us from the temptation to just stay on the mountain Save us from the temptation to never engage Save us from the temptation...

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 to 1556, played a pivotal role in the English Reformation. A key figure in Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, Cranmer...

We delude ourselves into believing that if we can just get everything done, if we can only tie up all the loose ends, if we can even once get ahead of the crush, we will prove our worth and establish ...

In recent decades, many Christians have tried to make sense of the tension between our bodies and spirits by swinging to the opposite pole. Instead of saying, “The body doesn’t matter,” they have said...

Sometimes, even if we're "doing everything right," life just turns upside down and we're left scrambling to find our footing. This is one of those stories. In Luke's gospel, ...

An Applicable Passage There are a number of passages in God’s Word, both in the Old and New Testaments in which the original context no longer bears much resemblance to our own. In those cases, preac...

We all go through desert seasons and have the opportunity to determine how we will respond. The cyclical frustrations I faced in regard to my desire for control, fear, and the longing to feel chosen w...

Every year at Christmastime, the world looks back two thousand years to the birth of a baby. But for more than four thousand years, people living on the other side of that birth looked forward to the ...

Preaching Commentary An Applicable Passage There are a number of passages in God’s Word, both in the Old and New Testaments in which the original context no longer bears much resemblance to our own...

A Psalm of Trust Psalm 4, the lectionary psalm for this third Sunday of Easter, follows a psalm of lament (Psalm 3) in which David bemoans his political enemies, who included his own rebellious son A...

Preaching Commentary A Psalm of Trust Psalm 4, the lectionary psalm for this third Sunday of Easter, follows a psalm of lament (Psalm 3) in which David bemoans his political enemies, who included h...

Pastor: Our Savior Jesus Christ commanded baptism saying, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” God’s Word teach...

Context Jesus’ lesson on prayer in Luke’s gospel comes not in the context of a longer sermon (as with Matthew’s parallel in the Sermon on the Mount), but rather in response to a request from one of h...

Adapted from Ch 4 of On Getting out of Bed. Why is Existence Good? Living for the sake of living—doing things so that you can continue to efficiently do things—begs the question, Why live? To live...

Introduction What does it mean for God to be our refuge and strength? The context in which this psalm was written is vastly different than our own, and often we carry on our lives as if nothing trul...

Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: John Arrested, Jesus Preaches the Kingdom The major event in redemptive history which immediately precedes this passage is Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness....

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “formed” s...

One of my favorite movies is Hoosiers (1986). It tells the story of a small-town basketball team from Hickory, Indiana, that finds greatness under the leadership of their coach, Norman Dale. The...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Which Interpretative Lens Should You Use? I have a general rule of thumb when studying a text. If I can read the early...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Which Interpretative Lens Should You Use? I have a general rule of thumb when studying a text. If I can read the early Christian commen...

A. W. Tozer once wrote,  Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him. We want a ...

The Old Testament was the lens through which the early church saw the life of Jesus. Holding the Old and New Testaments together offers us a kind of “binocular” vision instead of the lack of depth per...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Waiting Hurts For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is ...

Matthew 2:13–23 sits within Matthew’s infancy narrative (chapters 1–2), which serves as a theological introduction to Jesus’ identity and mission. Unlike Luke’s account, which emphasizes the humble bi...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Worldviews Collide In this passage, we have a clash of worldviews similar to some that we find today.  While the Sadducees were not mat...

One of the beauties of the lectionary is that it brings together the Old and New Testament in the way the first Christians saw them. It gives us “binocular” vision instead of the lack of depth percept...

Matthew 2:13–23 sits within Matthew’s infancy narrative (chapters 1–2), which serves as a theological introduction to Jesus’ identity and mission. Unlike Luke’s account, which emphasizes the humble bi...