This month we are approaching Easter Sunday which we often call Resurrection Sunday, for it is a remembrance of that first Easter Sunday on which Jesus Christ our Lord rose from the grave. While it is good and right for us to celebrate Easter each year, perhaps we also need reminding that every Sunday is a resurrection Sunday. Indeed, each Sunday that we gather is a continued celebration of the Risen King and of our expectation of His return to rule and to reign forevermore.
Christians are sometimes accused of having a head in the clouds or pie in the sky sort of theology, especially when it comes to the future and our hope of bodily resurrection. A belief in a future, bodily resurrection may seem somewhat impractical to the here and now. How does believing that one day I will raise from the dead make any difference to me today? All theology should inform my head, my heart, and my hands. It should transform what we think, believe, and do in the here and now. To that end, professor and pastor Mitchell Chase has written an excellent short article to help connect the doctrine of the resurrection to this present life and the nature of the local church.
Slow and often unnoticed changes in our decisions and habits can have astounding accumulative effects over time. We rarely notice the progress and impact of these changes because they happen over weeks, months, and sometimes years instead of over minutes and days. We drift into them. Drift is the unintentional effect of slow changes over time. We don’t mean to drift. We do it because we aren’t paying enough attention and exercising enough self-discipline. Before we know it, we look up to find ourselves way off course.
Graduation season is upon us! For students, this is an exciting time of transition and possibility. You are looking forward to college, careers, and the newfound freedom of (almost?) adulthood. For parents, this is often stressful, scary, and sorrowful while also being fun, exciting, and relieving (among a whole host of other sentiments). You have, by God’s grace, managed to get your child through school and are about to send them out into a world full of possibility and peril.
For seven weeks leading up to Easter this year, I preached on the seven last sayings of Christ from the Cross. The goal of this series was to help people understand the true nature of the Cross, the seriousness of sin, the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice. I wanted people to be impressed by the love and glory of God. I have linked to the videos of these sermon if you would like to hear this series too.
The unfortunate reality is that the cure of our ills is ultimately its cause. Expressive individualism is the cause of our hopelessness not the solution to it. If indeed the highest goal in life is happiness (as this worldview asserts) then “be true to yourself” becomes self-defeating. It does not grant what it promises because it cannot grant what it promises. According to the Apostle Paul, hopelessness is a product of godlessness. Ephesians 2:11-12 tells us that before we come to know Christ in faith we have “no hope and without God in the world.” Again, apart from God there can be no hope and no happiness. You cannot have those things if you are cut off from their Source. If you start with the wrong foundation you can only get the wrong results. This is a basic truth that the world is unwilling to believe. The answer to the world’s hopelessness has nothing to do with the expression of our “true selves” but everything to do with us finding God by faith in Christ.
Did you know that a majority of people would respond positively to an invitation from a friend or family member to attend church? In fact, a personal invitation is by and far the most effective means of getting someone to attend a church service. Additionally, Easter is one of the top three times during the year that people are willing to go to church (with Christmas and Mother’s Day).
My challenge to YOU: take a chance and invite someone to church this Sunday.
There are so many poignant and moving songs on Prepare Him Room, but I wanted to highlight one that I find particularly beautiful to listen to. “There Blooms a Rose in Bethlehem” is a magnificent song that is subtle in sound yet powerful in message. As with the other songs on the album there is a great effort to show the movement from prophecy to fulfillment to salvation. But in addition, this song brings out the future hope of resurrection that we have in Christ.
This Christmas I would love for you to behold the wonder and mystery of Christ’s love and work for you by coming into the world to save you from sin and death. The true meaning of Christmas is found in the person of Christ rather than in presents under the tree. We all know this to be true, but it can be hard to find tangible and practical ways to look beyond the presents to the Person. Using an Advent resource that can guide you and your family through the various passages and themes that make up the Christmas story of Christ come to save people from sin. To that end, I have curated a list of resources that you can use for this very purpose. Some of these are freely available online while you can purchase others from a bookstore or online store. I hope that these resources will be a blessing to you and that they will guide you in worshiping Christ this Christmas.
Celebrity culture is a problem for Christianity just as it is for the wider society. We have a tendency to esteem some men and women above others and fall into the faulty notion that somehow they are better than everyone else. Without doubt, God has granted to some singular and spectacular gifts, and those to whom He has entrusted such things should use them powerfully and wholly for His glory. But we must resist the temptation to think that some person is the source of power and therefore should receive the honor due to God alone.
This past Sunday, I mentioned in my sermon about an interaction that people sometimes have with the preacher after church. The interaction is well-meaning, and folks are generally trying to tell you, “Good job preacher!” However, if we really think about the comment that is said, we may want to rephrase our praise for the preacher.
We’ve finished our I AM series at Lakewood, and I wanted to share it with you too! Follow the link to access the entire sermon series.
At Lakewood, I’ve been preaching through the I AM statements in the gospel of John. My hope for this series is that it would help those who listen to understand Jesus from His own words. Jesus is the center of Christianity, the center of His church, and hopefully the center of our lives. As such, we must perceive Him as He is so that we might know, worship, and serve Him as we should. In studying for my sermon on John 10:11-21 where Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd” I came accross this section from one of C. H. Spurgeon’s sermons. It says beautifully what I am trying to communicate in this series of sermons.
One of the significant motivations for a typological interpretive framework is to help us see just how unified the Old and New Testaments are. So often, we think of ourselves as “New Testament” Christians. But truly, we are people of the entire Word. While there are many aspects of the Old Testament that have been fulfilled in Christ, we can’t excise the Old Testament from our Bibles—or at least we shouldn’t. I fear that we actually do become modern-day Marcionites at times. Not confessionally, but practically in the way that we read the Bible.
If deconstruction is impossible for a true believer, then what’s up with so many who seem to be “deconstructing?” The short answer is that those who truly deconstruct (and I am not here talking about doubt or even struggling through church hurt) are actually abandoning the faith. They have given the appearance of belief while all along failing to prove that faith with fruit.
At Lakewood, we are currently working through the letter of Paul to the Colossians. The central themes of the letter and of Paul’s exhortation to the Colossians are built on the centrality, supremacy, deity, and lordship of Jesus Christ. As such, I began to try to trace out what practical significance the doctrine of Christ’s lordship had for our everyday walk in Christ. Here are seven practical ways that the Lordship of Jesus matters to us day by day.
The word "Gospel" has often been hijacked in Christian culture. It is basically a buzz word that churches and ministries often use but in such a fuzzy or undefined way that it is virtually meaningless. This is a tragedy because the "Gospel" is priceless and powerful. Indeed, Paul writes, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." (Rom. 1:16-17) The Gospel stands as the center of Jesus's ministry (Mark 1:15) and of His Word. It is not something that is fuzzy, foggy, or sentimental. It is good news of great joy!
Perhaps the reflection of “all that we say and do” is not merely limited to our children but extends to all of those that we significantly influence in our lives. I know this to be the case in my own home and not just with my children. This is the case all around us, whether at home, work, church, or any other venue where we carry influence. People reflect what we show them.
