When we make sure the cross is at the center of the gospel, we realize that the way of Christ is one of redemption through sacrifice and struggle and that those on the inside are those who humbly trust him with the whole of their lives and entrust themselves wholly to his agenda and his plans for the world.
Category: Sermons
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June 6, 2011
The Way of the Christ, the Way of the Cross
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December 18, 2010
God is With Us.
Immanuel. God is with us. Wait. Stop. Listen again… Immanuel. God is with us. God. Is. With. Us. Wait. God is with you. Sure. But God is with me? Yes. Really? Yes. You don’t need to come to Jesus. He’s has come to you. He has pursued you. Loves you. Yes, you. The wait is over.
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March 7, 2010
Reflections on Romans 8:31-39
This morning at The Well we came upon Romans 8:31-39 in our study of the book of Romans. Paul begins this section by saying, “What shall we say about all these things…” Of course, the obvious question here is “what are all of these things?” Now, it could be all of what Paul has talked about in Romans or just the last few chapters, 5-8. But, I’m happy to say its all of Romans up to this point. Here’s a quick snapshot of some of “all of these things…” Salvation has been revealed and God has remained faithful to his covenant! God’s wrath was revealed to man by giving him over to their desire to worship the creation rather than God himself, who made the...Read More →
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October 14, 2009
Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion…
Trying to decide what I think of this interview, some provocative thoughts. For example, “The problem is that evangelical/fundamentalist faith revolves around two directives: Be successful and evangelize. That leads to bad choices.” Probably a lot of good stuff that is true to a point but might be an over-reaction on some level. But, this section really caught my eye: I can’t prove this, but I think that any person who remains a “professional Christian” in the evangelical/fundamentalist world for a lifetime, especially any pastor, risks becoming an atheist and/or a liar. Such individuals put on an act of certainty. Sooner or later they become flakes faking it, or quit. Worse yet, some just stop asking questions. The very fact that a preacher can fool...Read More →
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September 6, 2009
Broken Eikons, Being Made New
We are made in God’s image. As eikons of God our role in this world is to point others to what God is like. This is our role in this world individually. This is our role in this world communally. “That’s community, a fellowship of little people who together make God visible in the world.” ? – Henri Nouwen One thing I think is important to get in this is the individual and unique nature of you being an image. One of the truths that has changed my life more than anything in recent years is for me to understand that who I am and have been created to be is good. In fact, its very good. I can’t tell you how freeing it is...Read More →
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December 15, 2008
Surprised by Scripture
I never cease to be amazed at how scripture surprises me. Over the last two years we’ve preached through Exodus, Acts and now we’re finishing up Ephesians. Each of these books (especially Exodus and Acts) have had some seemingly difficult, boring or irrelevant passages in them. Exodus and Acts had more because they are narratives. Each time I would come to one of these passages I would get frustrated that I had to preach it. But, like I said, the scripture never ceases to amaze me. I have found that out of those passages come some of the most amazing truths, stories and thoughts about faith and mission. Yesterday morning at church I had the “privilege” of having one of these difficult passages again. This...Read More →
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September 22, 2008
Pastors and Devotions.
I am sitting here doing some study / preliminary work on my sermon for this weekend. We’ve starting the book of Ephesians and I’m taking in Ephesians 1:3-10. Its a quite a full passage and I’m looking forward to the challenge of preaching on it. But for some reason, my mind is going to the idea that pastors need to be doing their own personal reading (call it devotions if you want) outside of the text they are preaching for the week. I get the concept behind that. But now I’m wondering, is this because we’re trained to approach the text that we are preaching in a way that doesn’t effect or transform our lives? We encourage those who are part of The Well to...Read More →
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September 16, 2008
The Narrative of the Kingdom and Witness?
This past week we finished up our nine month journey through the book of Acts together at The Well. I had the privileged of preaching and summarizing the whole thing up this weekend. Part of my sermon was on how challenging its been for me to watch the early church and see how everything that the early church did revolved around the task of witness. This is the narrative that defined their entire way of life. The text that really shaped this was in Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Sprit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” I asked these questions: How fair...Read More →
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July 2, 2008
Are You Rioting with the Suburban Mob?
Okay, its been about a half a week since I’ve been back from Zambia. I’ve not done much deep writing around the trip because there is so much in my head that I am just trying to sort it all out. Sunday morning, I preached a mess of a sermon that I am hoping made sense. I really tried to share my heart and what God is doing with Melanie and I since I’ve returned. The sermon didn’t record for some reason so I’m going to try and lay it out in a shorter version here: Thought #1 – The culture in Zambia is beautiful and they get worship, prayer and community better than we ever have. Its part of their DNA. It’s beautiful really....Read More →
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February 21, 2008
William Willimon on Acts 5
I am preaching the ever dreaded passage on the death of Ananias and Sapphira this week: Acts 5:1-11. At the risk of giving away some of the big points of my sermon on sunday, let me share this quote from Willimon, “If money is some how linked to our idolatrous attempts to secure immorality for ourselves, it is also the occasion for much self-deceit. There is something quite natural about the lies of Ananias an Sapphira, for we all know the way we rationalize and excuse our own covetousness, acquisitiveness and greed. “I am not really that well off,” we say. “I have all I can do to just make ends meet.” “I worked hard for this and deserve it.” Our lies are a correlate...Read More →
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January 18, 2008
Leadership in Acts 2?
I’ve been studying Acts 2:42-47 for the past week. I’m realizing that I could preach this passage 20 weeks straight and wouldn’t run out of material. So, I am trying to narrow my sermon down to the thing that I think is most pertinent for our specific community. While this likely won’t make it into my sermon , I had some interesting reflections on the leadership situation in this passage. (I guess you can consider this a sermon outtake). So, think about this for a second, if there are 12 apostles and there were 3000 people total, we now have 12 groups of 250. Hmmm… likely this isn’t how it worked since we see that they met in homes. Let’s say then that they split...Read More →
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December 10, 2007
God is Here. Let it Rock Your World.
This is my sermon manuscript from Sunday, December 10. I had the daunting task of preaching Exodus 35-40 this week. While the text looked to be a bore, it turned out to be a very, very fun text to study and preach. As always, this manuscript is only a glimpse of what I actually said. I leave my notes a lot. But, it should give you a good idea of what I said. The title of this post comes from someone in my community who, after the sermon, said I should have titled it, “God is here. Let it rock your world.” Hope you enjoy. Don’t feel sorry for me. Sure this text is filled with a bunch of boring facts. Its about the building...Read More →
