We have been looking at how Jesus fulfills the temple imagery that we have been reading about in these early chapters of 2 Chronicles. We have seen the glory of God in the temple and a forgiving God in the temple. We noticed in our last lesson that we are in the middle of a dedication ceremony. The temple that God promised David’s son would build h…

We are starting a sermon series from the book of Ecclesiastes which is going to deeply consider the ways of the world and teach how to not waste our lives. Please open your copies of God’s word to the book of Ecclesiastes. This is a book that is often neglected and I think it is neglected for two reasons. One reason is that it seems depressing. But…

When we build important buildings, we have dedication ceremonies to inaugurate its completion. People assemble together and a speech is given to speak to the meaning and purpose of the building. When the construction of the Freedom Tower in New York City commenced, there was a dedication ceremony. The governor of New York proclaimed, “Let this grea…

John has been writing this letter so that its readers can know that they have eternal life (cf. 1 John 5:13). In particular, John has been helping us know if we are walking in the light or in darkness. John has given us various tests so that we can evaluate our faith and know where we stand with God. But John has been writing to encourage us to wal…

Please open your copes of God’s word to 2 Chronicles 2 and we will be there is just a moment. There is an interesting and unique process that happens when you are preparing to have your first child. The pressing need is that the room has to be ready for the baby’s arrival. We need the crib built. We need the walls painted. We need the car seat inst…

We have been looking at how we can know that we have eternal life from the teachings of the apostle John. John wants us to have a confidence in our relationship with God so that we can have complete joy in Christ. The picture that the apostle John has given to us is that if we see that we are walking in the light, then we have fellowship with one a…

We have been spending our evenings looking at various people of faith in the scriptures to give us encouragement and hope to continue to follow our Lord and Savior. We have looked at Joseph, Jacob, and David most recently. For our next series I would like us to look at the life of Solomon as told by the Chronicler. I have noted before that there ar…

John has proclaimed amazing words of encouragement and hope. In the second chapter of 1 John the author has declared that he is writing so that we will not sin. But if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. God has provided the defense attorney we need. Jesus is the advocate and helper needed because of our sins…

How do you handle being told that you are doing something wrong? How do you respond when someone is willing to confront and tell you that you are wrong? I think all of us would like to think that we always do things right. In fact, we might first want to show how the other person is wrong and or does not know what they are talking about rather than…

John is writing his letter so that his readers can know that they have eternal life (cf. 1 John 5:13). John is also writing so that his readers would experience complete joy as they have fellowship with God and the apostles (cf. 1 John 1:4). The name of this short series is Complete Joy: Live In Light. In our last lesson we noted that God is light …

We are completing our study of taming the tongue from James 3. James taught us at the beginning of chapter 3 that the tongue sets the direction for our lives. Use your tongue in righteous ways and this will set your life direction toward righteousness. Use your tongue in evil ways and this will set your life direction toward sinfulness. The tongue …

John writes the book of 1 John so that Christians can know that they have eternal life (cf. 1 John 5:13). Not only this, but John proclaims that he is writing these things so that our joy may be complete (cf. 1 John 1:4). True joy and pleasures forevermore are in the presence of God (cf. Psalm 16:11). We were made for relationship. Ultimately, we w…

We are in short series on how to tame the tongue. In our last lesson we looked at the direction that the tongue provides. The tongue is like the bit in the horse’s mouth and like the rudder of a ship. The tongue has the power to set the direction for your life. Therefore, we need to control our tongues so that we can go forward in the direction of …

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13 ESV) Do you know that you have eternal life? The apostle John says that this is something you can know. You can know if you have eternal life. Our walk with God does not need to be a mystery. We do not have to wonder abo…

Last year we did a short series from the book of James called Authentic in which we looked at the practical teachings James gives to Christians from chapter 1. It is my plan to come back to this book from time to time to listen to the wisdom and critical teachings James has for us. One of the areas that James spends quite a bit of time talking abou…

Our theme for 2024 is We, Not Me. We have spent some time in the first part of this year looking more about how to think about each other over ourselves. But for the second half of 2024, Lord willing, we are going to lean and push into this theme even stronger than we have so far. Our upcoming series in 1 John and in James are looking at scriptures…

Our theme this year is Hope Starts Here as we go to the scriptures to find hope in hard times. All of us need some hope especially after a year like 2020 and this year seems to just be 2020 part 2. We have talked about how to have hope after failure, when tempted, when crushed by trials, when hopeless, and when feeling alone, and when anxious. In o…

Our theme for 2021 is Hope Starts Here. After a year like 2020 we could use some hope as we go forward. Hopeless is a tough word and yet who has not felt some degree of hopelessness in their lives? Life can feel hopeless. We will speak about a hopeless situation. Without hope, life devolves into depression and despair. So God gives us pictures of h…

The scene at the burning bush ends. Moses has asked for the Lord to send someone else which kindled the anger of the Lord. It is time for Moses to go to Egypt and be the deliverer of God’s people by the power of God. But the narrative does not immediately bring us to Egypt. When we read Exodus 4:18-31 you are likely asking why this is recorded for …

In Exodus 3 we have seen Moses express two concerns about his calling to go and deliver the people of Israel from Egyptian slavery. The first concern was a humble recognition that he is a nobody. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (3:11). God’s response was very simple. “But I will be with you” (3:…

How do you convince people to put their trust in the Lord? How do you convince people that the idols they are holding on to are empty and worthless? Even more, how do you convince God’s people to fully put their trust in the Lord? There are many places in the scriptures where we are told to not act like the world but to put our trust in the Lord. T…

God through the prophet Jeremiah has been proclaiming the abominable sins that Israel has been committing. The prophet is broken because of the judgment that is coming against his people because of their sinning against the Lord. Sometimes we think of sins that are worthy of God’s wrath and judgment as just the “big sins.” We usually have some kind…

We have seen the book of 1 Chronicles highlight David’s desire to build a temple for the Lord. But the temple was to be constructed during a time of peace, representing the establishment of God’s kingdom. David was a man of war with enemies that constantly surrounded him (1 Kings 5:3). So God prevented him from building this temple. But David’s son…

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice …

The book of Proverbs contains a significant section in which Solomon is giving instructions to his son for life. It is a natural desire for parents to want their children to succeed in life. Parents want their children to fail where they failed and to have an even better life than they might have experienced. In 1 Chronicles we also read King David…

We have been looking at the life of David through the lens of 1 Chronicles. Israel would have known David’s life story, including his spiritual successes and spiritual failures. Up to this point in the book, the only recorded failure has been in Israel’s attempt to worship God. David noted that they did not seek the Lord according to his commands (…

There are these moments in the book of 1 Chronicles where we are given a flurry of names or a number of consecutive short narrative accounts. It is easy to read 1 Chronicles 18-20 as a bunch of short stories without meaning to just keep moving on. But there is a reason for the Chronicler to tell us about David’s wartime activities. So we need to co…

If I were to ask Christians where they would want to improve in their discipline to the Lord, I would expect one of the commonly given answers to be the discipline of prayer. We are always looking for ways to improve our prayer life. Even the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1). John the Baptizer also taught his disciples how to…

I think that every person questions their purpose in life. Everyone seeks the meaning of life and what to know why he or she is here. Further, we try to do things in life that will give us fulfillment and satisfaction. Many times we think that we cannot find satisfaction because we do not have enough resources. For example, we may think that if we …

One of the teachings that Jesus gave to his disciples was that it was necessary and important for him to go to the Father. You may remember Jesus telling his disciples that he must go away and where he is going they cannot follow. Why was it so important for Jesus to leave and ascend to the Father? The ascension of Jesus is sometimes not considered…

We started our series on Discipleship a few weeks back and we are looking at what the apostle Paul says to the Galatians about what it looks like to follow Jesus. We began with Paul telling us that this is a winnable war against the sins of the flesh. Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). We talked a…

…The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God. (Isaiah 61:1–2 ESV) Isaiah pro…

David’s desire was to assemble all Israel together in worship as God was coming to be with his people in Jerusalem. After a failed attempt to bring the ark of God to Jerusalem (1 Chronicles 13), David has inquired of the Lord and brought the ark successfully to Jerusalem because he followed the instructions given concerning the ark (1 Chronicles 15…

One of the key messages of the scriptures that the religious world seems to forget is that our first priority is worship. In 1 Chronicles, the first thing we see King David desiring to do after taking the throne and settling his kingdom is to worship the Lord. Our morning and evening lessons today are going to be about worship. David shows us that …

The title of our lesson is, “Why We Don’t Repent.” Why don’t we repent? Why don’t we have radical repentance? But this is not a question that merely I am asking each of us. It is a question that God is asking. Listen to how God presents his case to his people in Jeremiah 8. You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD: When men fall, do they not rise …

I have an important question for you as we begin our lesson today. What gives you confidence that you are right with God? What would you point to so that you know that you are in right standing with God? As you think about this, I would like for you to open your copies of God’s word to the book of Jeremiah and we are going to look at Jeremiah 7. Je…

We noticed in the prior lesson that 1 Chronicles is quickly bringing us to the life of David. After moving through an important genealogy in which accounts of faithfulness and unfaithfulness are recorded to show the people how to move forward and remind them of their past. Moving forward with God means not breaking faith. King Saul’s kingship and d…

We have been looking at some common problems people experience in which they go through a deconstruction of their faith. This series is put forward as a way to help reconstruct the faith of those who are considering leaving God, leaving Jesus, leaving the faith, leaving the church, or leaving the scriptures. In our lesson we talked about the challe…

We are beginning a new series for these two months called Restoring The Fallen. One of the amazing pictures about God is that he did not send all of his prophets condemning his people for their wickedness, only to leave them forever. God sent his prophets and his people rejected God’s message. So the people were punished and taken into exile. Yet G…

We are in a series called Deconstructing and Reconstructing Faith. My goal in this series to answer some of the questions that I have seen and heard people facing, which is moving people to consider leaving the Lord, leaving the faith, leaving the scriptures, or leaving the church. In this lesson I want to talk about the church. There are a number …

We have the tendency to drown out noise that becomes loud and repetitive. Car alarms fall into this category. We hear a car alarm and after a few seconds we can ignore its sounds. You might have seen parents do this with their screaming or nagging children. The child is just yelling but the parent does not even to seem to notice it anymore. But it …

We have been in a series called Deconstructing and Reconstructing Faith. Our effort has been to consider some of the common reasons people question their faith and walk away from God, Jesus, the scriptures, or the faith. As I noted in the first lesson, there is not any way for me to address every concern that people have. But I wanted to talk about…

When we were children, it was fun to pretend. I used to watch cartoons and pretend to be the characters that I saw in those cartoons. Halloween is a time for children to pretend to be something that they cannot be in real life. It is fun to be able to pretend. But Jeremiah has a message for people who are pretending with God. Jeremiah is a prophet …

We have been spending time in this series working through deconstruction. What I mean by deconstruction is that something happens that causes us to reconsider our Christian beliefs. I would like to remind us from the first lesson that we should always be rechecking our beliefs in light of the scriptures to make sure that we are believing what God s…

How do you forgive a person who has ruined your life? How do you forgive people who have spent their lives working harm and evil against you? We have a saying, “Time heals all wounds.” I don’t know that “heal” is the right word. Maybe the word “forgets” may be more accurate because once the harm is brought back to mind, the hurt from the wound quic…

We are in a series in which we are looking at deconstructing and reconstructing faith. What I mean when I say “deconstruction” is that something happens in your life that causes you to reevaluate your faith and your understanding of Christianity. Then, sometimes that reevaluation leads to a complete abandonment of the faith. The reason for this ser…

Joseph has revealed himself to his brothers in Egypt. The brothers have changed over the years and now are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of their brother, Benjamin. Joseph has invited his family to move to Egypt where Joseph promises that he can care for them during the famine. Joseph told them that there were five more years of the …

We are starting a new series today called Deconstructing and Reconstructing Faith. Right now there are many who have grown up in pews of various Christian denominations and churches who are going through a process that they call “deconstruction.” Brian Zahnd defines deconstruction as “a crisis of Christian faith that leads to either a reevaluation …

Joseph’s brothers are back in Egypt to buy grain for the family due to the severe famine occurring at that time. Joseph enacts his plan to keep Benjamin with him. He has his silver cup placed in his bag and sends the brothers away, fully expecting the brothers to abandon Benjamin like they did to him. Joseph likely sees himself as trying to rescue …

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