Sermon Series (Page 8)
King for the Day
When our son was a toddler, my wife made up a song to make his bath time a little more fun. The song went something like this: “King for the day—I am the king for the day!” She would put a towel over his shoulders, which he felt for sure was a royal robe, and she would sing it loud and proud: “I am the king for the day!” It was quite cute and highly entertaining. (He’s a grown man now…
Preparing for This Sunday: Building His Church
This Sunday, September 12, marks the official beginning of our academic year. We are launching the teaching series for the year—“Building His Church,” the focus of study that will take us through Easter 2022. The series is constructed on the foundation of last year’s series, “The Book of Jesus” (September 2020 – May 2021). How are we going to do this? Well, we are going walk through the building process together. Let me illustrate: If you were building a new,…
An Overview of Our Summer Study in Proverbs
We have spent twelve Sundays over the course of the summer taking a good look at the book of Proverbs. You may not have spent much time in this book of the Bible before this summer, but I do pray that the series has helped opened up a wealth of wisdom for you. If it has, then mission accomplished! If you missed any of these summer services, you can find them in the sermon archive (or in the list below).…
This Fall at LifeWay
This Sunday is Labor Day weekend, and then next Sunday, September 12, we officially launch into the new academic year. Where are we going this new year? you might ask. What will Fall at LifeWay look like? What is our new schedule? What are we teaching? Read and find out! 3 Doors to LifeWay Church When COVID-19 began, we moved our worship gathering time to 10 a.m. each Sunday, which will continue for both in-person and online worship this fall.…
The Word of God—How Does It Shape You?
Proverbs 30:5-6 (NIV) Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar. We are nearing the end of our summer series focused on Proverbs, and God’s wisdom merged with our real lives. This Sunday we are coming into what I consider one of the most important proverbs, all about the wisdom of God’s Word. To shape…
Iron Sharpens Iron
Have you ever worked with a dull tool? I have a chainsaw. In fact, I have had many chainsaws in my life. My friend always warned me to be careful to keep the chain away from the dirt because it will grow dull quickly. I have struggled with heeding his warning. The last time I used the saw, it seemed like it took forever to cut through a piece of firewood that normally would have taken me just a quick…
Making Plans: Does It Really Matter?
If we have learned anything over the last 17 months, it’s that when we make a plan of any kind, we’d better be prepared for the reality of needing to change those plans. Just about every plan you’ve made over the course of this year and half has probably needed to change. We’ve changed vacation plans, financial plans, school plans, work location plans, wedding venue plans, and more. Our summer study in Proverbs is all about learning to merge God’s…
Wisdom and Wealth
How impressed with money are you? Imagine for a moment that you are at a large gathering of people—a wedding, or some kind of party. Then a wealthy person walks into the room, someone famous and super-rich! (Insert a name here.) Would you notice? Would you be impressed? Most of us would. But why? I think it is because we are impressed with money and those who make lots and lots of it. Somehow we equate wisdom and success with the accumulation…
God’s Wisdom in My Parenting
We are continuing to study Proverbs all summer, which is a merging of God’s wisdom with our real lives. Many of the proverbs we have highlighted are not well known at all. I encourage you to continue to read through the book of Proverbs for the summer, and highlight some that stand out to you. Some you will find interesting—and a few you will even find odd-sounding. But this coming Sunday’s focus verse is actually one of the most famous…
Talking in the Proverbs
There are more than 7.7 billion people living on this planet, but as you know, there is not one culture. There are many different cultures, and this makes our planet a most interesting place to live. Because there are many different cultures, we do many things differently, of which one is how we talk to each other. Did you know that not everyone talks in the same way Americans do? People from different parts of the world talk with each…
Gossip
In a 2019 study published in a journal named Social Psychological and Personality Science, 467 adults were asked to wear electronic devices on their bodies that recorded their verbal conversations over the course of several days. The researchers listened to the recorded audio files and hunted for conversations or anything that could be identified as gossip. The results were very interesting. Practically everyone engaged in some form of gossip. Only 34 individuals showed no evidence of gossip at all. Seventy-five…
God’s Wisdom and My Pleasure
What does God’s wisdom say about my pleasure and leisure? Rarely do we discuss what God says about “pleasure” and “leisure” in church—but Proverbs does have a quote about it. Proverbs 21:17 (NIV) Whoever loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich. There it is. We have already learned that Proverbs has many wise sayings about many subjects that are all over the board. Some make perfect sense to us logically; some challenge…
Integrity in the Proverbs
One day, a mother brought her young boy to an old man, and asked him to tell her boy how he was never to eat sugar again because of its harmful effects on his teeth and overall health. The old man didn’t say anything to the little boy that day. However, he asked the mother to bring the boy back again to him one month later. When she returned with her boy, the old man did what he was asked…
A Proverb of Personal Alignment
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. I have many, many Bible passages that I review, pray through, think about, and from which I apply truth at different times in my life’s journey. But this passage, Proverbs 3:5-6, ranks in the Top 2 for me. (The other is 1 Peter 5:6-11.) This proverb is a cornerstone. It seems to…
Merging God’s Wisdom with Real Life
Merging God’s Wisdom with Real Life: Our summer study in the Proverbs Have you ever read the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament? There’s lots of quotes and sayings that go all over the place. But do you know why Proverbs is in the Bible? Here’s how the book opens to help us understand why this is here for us: Proverbs 1:1-7 (NIV) The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel: for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight;…
Until We Walk Again
Well, we’re almost there! It’s been a slow (but hopefully good!) walk through 2 John—a book that many of us have probably overlooked for most of our Christian walk. We have so far seen that the elect are those who remain in obedience to walk in truth and love and who will receive the reward of Christ. Through our faithfulness to allow God’s Word and our relationship with him to change every aspect of our lives, we will receive the…
The Walk Continues
If you think of this sermon series as a ham and turkey sandwich, the first week was the piece of bread laid down with some condiments, last week was the Black Forest Ham (only the best for LifeWay), and this week is the delicious deli turkey that we’re going to lay on top. That is to say, we are continuing the meat of the message with the second part of the body of the letter, verses 7-11. Next week, we’ll…
Let’s Start the Walk
This Sunday, we will be continuing in our series through “The Postcard Epistle.” Last week, we started by diving deep into the first three verses. That whole sermon was definitely more on the head knowledge side of things, but I hope that you found it helpful in understanding just how rich scripture is and how much is there. In understanding the context of the book we saw that, most likely, the Elder was John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee,…
An Introduction to the Postcard Epistle
This Sunday we are beginning a slow, four-week sermon series through one of the shortest books of the Bible: 2 John. It’s a book that is so small (about 245 words and only 13 verses!) that I’ve titled this series, “The Postcard Epistle.” You may be wondering why we seem to be jumping over 1 John and going straight to 2 John, and the reason for that is really two-fold: Unlike other books such as 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians,…
Women of Valor
Last week Billy finished up our series on the Book of Jesus. We were reminded of the foundational truths on which we build our lives. In the last few weeks of the series we learned how Jesus, after perfectly reflecting God in humanity, handed off his mission to us. We, as the church, have been restored so that we can reveal God to others. This coming Sunday is Mother’s Day. It’s not necessarily a biblical or Christian holiday, but it…
A Test from the Book of Jesus
Many of our college students from LifeWay are in finals week right now. They are collecting all the information from the class notes and all their readings from the year, and they are sitting at a desk or a computer and having the lay out the mounds of information they have learned over the whole semester to prove how well they know the subject. Well, this coming Sunday morning, May 2, I am finishing the year of teaching that we…
Why are You Looking Into the Sky?
As you get ready for Sunday’ teaching, I am asking you to read ahead in two places: Luke 24:45-53 Acts 1:6-11 As you heard Scott J. teach last Sunday morning, the book of Acts is actually “Luke Part 2.” Luke finished the story of Jesus’ earthly life, and then continued it with the story of the work and mission of the Church in the book of Acts. This whole year we have been teaching a series called, “The Book of…
Easter is Over—I’m Going Fishing!
That’s the statement (in the title above) Peter made in the days after the Easter resurrection of Jesus. I think when we have a tremendous time of failure in our lives, we will often say something like this: “I am just going to do something else and try to take my mind off of the failures that are mine.” Peter was a fisherman by trade. That’s what he was doing when he met Jesus the first time (see Luke 5).…
From the Lowest Possible Place to the Highest Peak
Getting ready for Easter Sunday — John 20 I don’t believe that, humanly speaking, you can get any lower than the events of Good Friday. In fact, even calling it “Good Friday” seems bizarre. There was nothing good about a thrown-together courtroom and trial to convict the totally innocent Jesus to a brutal death on a cross. To top it off, almost all of those who had sworn they would stand by Jesus to the bitter end actually ended up…
Preparing for Palm Sunday and Holy Week
Jesus enters Jerusalem on the way to the cross—John 12 As you get ready for this coming Sunday, March 28, let me remind you that you are not just preparing for a normal Sunday, but much more: you are preparing for what is traditionally called Holy Week, Passion Week, or Passover Week. We all need to read ahead—not just for Sunday, but for each day of the week leading all the way to Easter Sunday. Your assignment for the whole…