Mar 30, 2009 
This is my sermon on the prodigal son, from Luke 15, on March 29, 2009.
Do not lose hope. Continue to pray and look for your prodigal. Pray for his (or her) return. Trust in the Lord.
worshipping God, building up His church, reaching the world
Browsing the blog archives for March, 2009
No Comments Make sure you scroll all the way down when you visit the website. Our new feature, “Unreached people group of the day” is in the lower right side. This comes from the Joshua Project and features a different unreached people group each day to learn about and pray for. I hope you are blessed as you learn and pray about the different unreached people groups of the world.
http://www.fallenandflawed.com/tricks-memorize-scripture/
This is a good article on how to memorize more Bible.
What will mark your last days? What will mark your life? How will you be remembered?
This is my sermon from March 22, 2009, looking at David’s last days, giving us direction on how to live our last days.
As part of my sermon on Sunday, I talked about King David’s last days, and what marked his last days as king. He focused on God’s character and sovereignty, His forgiveness and mercy, and the appropriate response to such things: our worship of Him alone.
I said that no one knows when their last days are, no one schedules their death, maybe today is your last day? I know my 4 year old daughter was listening because later on she asked if I would be alive when she became an adult.
What a sobering reality. How could I respond? I gave her a hug and said, “I don’t know, no guarantees, it’s up to God, my time is in His hands. If I am, we will praise Him, and if I die before then, I’ll be in heaven, and when you get there, we will praise Him together. It will be OK either way.” She hugged me back and said I was her best daddy. Wow.
Are these your last days? Are you prepared? What attitudes and actions mark your days?
I pray you trust Christ as Lord and Savior, you will know for sure where you will be after your last days.
I ask you how your daily reading and praying times are and how are your personal studies and growing in knowledge and application of the Word?
We need to be fed every day through reading and praying. We need to be studying and reading a book or taking on class and growing.
If left to ourselves, with no prayer and study time, being led and taught by God and men and women of God who are further in their walks, we languish and rot and grow cold and stagnant.
I pray you have strong reading and prayer times, I pray you read a good Christian book or take a class or study with a group of brothers and sisters.
There is hope after failure. This hope is in Christ.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. GALATIANS 1:3-5
I read this this morning and found it very praise-worthy and glorifying of God and a great comfort for 5 reasons.
- “Grace” and
- “peace” from God Himself is enough, but it gets better.
- Jesus gave himself for my sins
- and delivers me from this present evil age (just look at the news headlines and you’ll see what he’s talking about).
- This is accoring to God’s will – he purposes to do these things to us and for us.
Praise God and give Him thanks!
I am excited this past week to see and hear of people in the church taking steps in their growth:
- reading a book on theology
- reading the Bible in a new translation and seeing truths in a new light
- commitment to give and witness
- coming back to church after a long time of wandering
- new avenues of ministry and outreach
In many ways, we are not “healthy”, and I’m sure we can always be about growing in the Lord and being more healthy, but how do you measure the health, really? As pastor it is easy to fall in love with the “idea of a healthy church” or “ways to get more healthy” or “if we can only get to this point, then we will be healthy.”
God calls me to love you for who you are now, and I do. I don’t do this out of duty or service, but you are all my brothers and sisters and family to me. In many ways I am closer to you than my own flesh and blood.
I pray we would all grow more in our walks and in Christ-likeness and in our spiritual health. Regardless, I love you.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884760,00.html
I would categorize this also in response to the ARIS survey. I think the both articles point to a return to solid Biblical preaching and worship and “doing church” according to the Word.
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