In this special Fourth of July edition, allow me to share my message from our community patriotic service this past Sunday evening. Here, with the help of Jesus’ declaration of where real freedom lies, I talk about what freedom is and how we can preserve it for future generations. Happy Fourth of July!
Where Real Freedom Lies
I have a confession to make: I love the Fourth of July. Now, I don’t necessarily think I’m more patriotic than anybody else. I think the reason I love the Fourth of July so much is because growing up my family always made such a big deal out of it. We’d cook out. We’d have friends over. We’d enjoy hanging out with neighbors. And we’d blow stuff up. A lot of stuff. That’s the real reason I love the Fourth of July: I love fireworks. Read the rest…
In this second part of our series, Hard Sayings, we looked a bit more closely at the hard saying from last week that following Jesus is hard. Here we have reaffirmed for us the difficulty of remaining faithful over the long haul, but we also get a bit of a reprieve: The rewards are pretty good as well. Keep reading to see how this unfolds.
A Difficult Journey
When was the last time you did something that was hard, but which left you feeling like you’d done something worthwhile? That’s a really good feeling, isn’t it? You work hard, make some sacrifices even, and come out on top. Like you, I’ve done this kind of thing a few times, but probably the thing that stands out the most to me was learning to play the drums. I started when I was in seventh grade. I had played the trumpet in sixth grade, but then I got braces. Braces and the trumpet do not play well together. Drums didn’t hurt. I started taking lessons almost immediately from a teacher in my neighborhood. That teacher moved. I found another one. I didn’t like him at all. Found a third teacher who was great and stuck with him all the way through high school and into college. And I practiced. Much to my parents’…and probably the neighbors’ too…chagrin, I practice a lot. Then I got to college. I took more lessons and played with the percussion ensemble. In fact, I played a lot, not only with the various university ensembles, but I also started playing with different bands including getting to tour and cut a cd with a rock band of some friends when their previous drummer quit. Read the rest…
This past Sunday we began a new teaching series called Hard Sayings. For the next few weeks we are going to be examining some of the hard things Jesus said to see if we can’t make some sense out of them. We’ll see if perhaps even though they are hard, they’re also just as important for us to know as some of the easier things like, “For God so loved the world…” Stay tuned in the weeks ahead as we journey together to see that everything Jesus said is important…even if we don’t like the way it sounds at first.
Steep Rates
What are some of your favorite sayings of Jesus? Just shout them out as you think of them if you are willing. As I was sitting writing this a few stood out to me: “I am the good shepherd;” “I will be with you always, even to the very end of the age;” “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest;” “Do not be anxious about your life;” “For God so loved the world…” “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do;” “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it;” and there are probably more, but these are what came to mind first. Those are all really nice and encouraging sayings. It would be great if the things Jesus said were pretty much limited to these kinds of things. You know what I’m talking about: things such as, “I love you,” “I’ll take care of you,” “I’ll give you eternal life,” and the like. Read the rest…
This past Father’s Day I issued an encouragement and a challenge to dads. If we take the Scriptures at face value, we are the ones primarily invested with the responsibility of passing on our faith to the next generation. In what follows, I talk about how exactly to do it. Thanks for reading.
Job One
As most of you know, I am a Kansas City Royals fan. I know…this has been a tough summer. But three years ago, it wasn’t. Three years ago was the best summer to be a Royals fan since…well…the summer before (there’s even a children’s book about that one that is on the shelves at home). But before that you have to go back 1985 to find one of comparative excitement. As for the summers in between, I’ll be honest: They were pretty rough. There were four seasons when we lost more than 100 games (for my non-baseball fans that’s a notable mark of having had an exceedingly bad season)…three of which were back-to-back-to-back. There were many more when we were just generally bad. The badness occurred at pretty much all levels from the top of the organization to the bottom. Read the rest…
This Sunday I focused my attention specifically on the graduates we were honoring. If you’ve got a graduate in your life, this is a great message to share with them. Even if you’re not a graduate, though, this is a message you need to hear. In what follows I offer an answer to the question of how we can be prepared to give a reason for the hope we have in an increasingly non-Christian context. Thanks for reading.
The One Thing
I don’t know about you, but new things always make me at least a little bit nervous. I thrive in environments that are stable and consistent. I can tolerate a little bit of change…a very little bit of change…but it’s got to be within preset limits. Beyond that, I’m outside my comfort zone. Perhaps the most nervous I have gotten at various points in my life is when I have started a new job. I remember starting work at OfficeMax in seminary. The first week was nice because I got to sit in the back office and take training courses on the computer. They were functionally meaningless since I didn’t remember any of them once I left the room and in any event I learned everything I needed to know while I was actually doing it, but I did get to spend the whole first week hiding out. Once I hit the floor, that’s when things got scary. Read the rest…
The Nexus 