divine love on The Nations

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? Dissolving the Divisions Generally speaking, the Psalms divide the people of the earth into two groups: “Israel” and “the nations.” Psalm 98 surpr...

Leader: For the gift of divine peace and of pardon, with all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord. People: Lord have mercy Leader: For the holy Christian Church, here a...

Preaching Commentary Dissolving the Divisions The Psalms divide—we would call it an over-simplification—the earth’s inhabitants into “Israel” and “the nations” (the earth). Psalm 98, quite interest...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens “ What’s the historical context?” The Fruits of a Loving God Wine, grapes, vines, vineyards, fertile hillsides, are all products of a loving creator God. All are ...

preaching commentary The Seemingly Outmoded Judgment of God Judgment is not en vogue these days. Well, a form of it is, the kind one sees on NextDoor, FB, Twitter, and any slew of other social m...

Preaching Commentary Rediscovering the Wonder of Jesus’ Birth It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, but sometimes familiarity breeds something far less intense, but equally as destructive—co...

Pastor: O Lord, we are in over our heads. So many are the sins that we’ve committed this past week, and they condemn us in your presence. Only because you love us with a never-ending, unbreaking, alwa...

Ancient Lens “ What’s the historical context?” The Fruits of a Loving God Wine, grapes, vines, vineyards, fertile hillsides, are all products of a loving creator God. All are also elements of ...

Preaching Commentary God expressed Himself J.B. Phillips paraphrases the first line of John 1:1, “At the beginning  God expressed himself ”. God’s word is more than mere speech. His word is action....

Preaching commentary Questions for Consideration What does a prayer reveal about a person? What do you most often pray for/about and what might that reveal about you? A Beautiful and Compel...

The Seemingly Outmoded Judgment of God Judgment is not en vogue these days. Well, a form of it is, the kind one sees on NextDoor, FB, Twitter, and any slew of other social media platforms where nei...

Questions for Consideration What does a prayer reveal about a person? What do you most often pray for/about and what might that reveal about you? A Beautiful and Compelling Gospel Prayer The...

Karl Barth arguably was the greatest theologian of the twentieth century. His twelve-volume Church Dogmatics, alone, consists of over ten thousand pages of systematic theology. Toward the end of his l...

Preaching Commentary A Christmastide Community A recent podcast reminded me that there is no such thing as a “neutral” marking of our time—our minutes and our hours, our days and our weeks, our mon...

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is his faithfulness. ‘The Lord is our portion,’ says our souls, ‘therefore, we will hop...

ANCIENT LENS What’s the historical context? Historical Background The Songs of Ascents celebrate the journey from Babylonian captivity to freedom in the homeland of Judah, and ultimately celebrat...

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...

God of glory, you sent Jesus among us as the light of the world, to reveal your love for all people. We confess that our sin and pride hide the brightness of your light. We turn away from the poor; we...

The Love of Christ has gathered us as one. Let us rejoice and be glad in him. Let us fear and love the living God And in purity of heart let us love one another. Where charity and love are, there is...

Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration Death to Life Bonus Content: Video prep session with Gabe Fung on Ephesians 2:1-10 . Password: 943!KJRs AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn fr...

Preaching Commentary A Clash of Kingdoms Just as with the lectionary passage next week, our text takes place in the temple courts during Holy Week. Jesus’ Kingdom of God is now clashing head on wit...

Preaching Commentary The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved ps...

Eyes of Faith Verse 17 summarizes the Apostle Paul’s argument in this passage: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Throughou...

Preaching Commentary A Letter from Exile To understand this section of Revelation, we have to remember that it was written by someone in exile to communities who were suffering for their faith. Whe...

A Clash of Kingdoms Just as with the lectionary passage next week, our text takes place in the temple courts during Holy Week. Jesus’ Kingdom of God is now clashing head on with the religious authori...

Lord God, We confess the smallness of our faith. At those times when our lives seem stormy we worry that you are asleep and don’t care about what happens to us. When things are going well, we are quic...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Historical Background We need to understand several things about Psalm 107 before we can put it all together. First, it is the beginning psalm of Book...

ANCIENT LENS What’s the historical context? Historical Background The Songs of Ascents celebrate the journey from Babylonian captivity to freedom in the homeland of Judah, and ultimately celebrat...

Yet, while Your love is consistent, eternal and strong, Our love is fickle, finite and easily swayed. So, we confess today that we have not loved You as You deserve, with our whole selves – heart, min...