Renewing Your Commitment to Christ’s Call

We all love to beat up on Peter. He is unbridled, braggadocios, embarrassingly bold and at times violent. He is also a man who was greatly used of God: to preach at Pentecost, to lead the Church at Jerusalem, to minister to the Church at Rome, to minister to suffering saints in Asia Minor.

What is the Unforgivable Sin?

When I served as pastor of a church in North Alabama during the early 1980s, there was an usher in our church named John. He was a sweet man who was always present in his regular spot to greet people and hand out bulletins, but John was a very troubled man. On several occasions, I met with him, and he began to weep as he told me that during World War II he had done something he thought was so evil that he was certain he had committed the unforgivable sin.

God’s love: Two-a-Penny

I am touched by the love of God. When I see the suffering of so many in this tortured world of ours, I am prone to ask myself, "Where is there even an iota of justice?" But I rarely ask myself, "Where is God?" I know God is there and He is in love with His world. He has promised his presence and that is adequate for me, but He has declared His love in the most simplistic and proverbial way. God loves sparrows. And if sparrows, why not us? Sparrows in Jesus' day were sold for a penny, yet not one of them could fall to the ground without the Father's leave.

Creation Care: Can Our Planet Survive?

The oceans, forests, plains, rivers, lakes-all of that-it all belongs to God. You heard the old hymn earlier, "This Is My Father's World." In the early chapters of Genesis, God gives instructions as to how we're supposed to take care of this planet. There are really four key instructions that He delivered. He said He wanted us to subdue it, rule over it, work it and take care of it.

No Bones About It

If Christ is not raised, the death of Christ on the cross was without redemption. The ramification of a worthless faith is that you remain in your sins. If there is no resurrection, we should leave the church and go to the synagogue and eat the Seder meal. If Christ is not raised, then up is down and down is up. If Christ is not raised, right is wrong and wrong is right. If Christ is not raised, north is south and south is north.

A Question in the Crowd: Who Is This?

According to the Gospel of Matthew, Palm Sunday was the first time Jesus ever appeared in the great, bustling city of Jerusalem. Jesus knew that His ministry would not be complete and His mission would not be successful unless and until He took His gospel message from the small towns of Galilee in the northern part of Israel and declared it in the great Temple in Jerusalem.

Preaching the Resurrection

Imagine with me Washington, D.C., without the White House, St. Louis without the Arch, Atlanta without the Varsity, New York without the Yankees, and L.A. without the Lakers. You begin to get a remote idea of what it means to have a gospel without the doctrine of the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is more than a historical fact; it's the main motif and high watermark of the historical drama known as God's redemptive story.