The gospel story of the paralytic and his friends is a story many of us heard in our early Sunday School years.  What does this story mean for us today?
There are four sets of characters in the story: the four friends, the one man who was paralyzed, Jesus himself, and the religious scribes.  Let’s [...]

Theme:  A healing of leprosy or a healing of the heart?
The Biblical text says, “the leper came up to Jesus, fell on his knees and begged, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.”
I guarantee you, that will be the prayer of every single person here in this room sometime during our life [...]

Theme:  Stress causes illness, the power of belief brings healing.
A word that is part of our vocabulary is the word, hypochondriac.  It comes from the word, hypochondriasis. I want you to know immediately that I am a hypochondriac. A hypochondriac is a person who goes to the doctor over and over again, convinced that they [...]

Theme:  God’s forgiveness and mercy is stronger than God’s anger and punishment.
Four themes are present in the story of Jonah and the whale.  The first theme has to do with being less than our best. A temptation in your life is for you not to be the kind of man that God wants you to [...]

Theme:  Fishing for Christ
How did Peter and Andrew, James and John, become good fishermen for Christ?  Like Peter, we need to learn to fish for people.
We discover that the principles for good fishing are the same principles involved in good evangelism or fishing for Christ. 
What are some of the marks or characteristics of a [...]

When I moved to my first job, my first call on the West coast in Eugene, Oregon, I knew that we weren’t far from the Pacific Ocean. On the first day that I had off work, my wife, new little baby and I were going to go west and over to the coast and Pacific [...]

For some people, baptism is “just joining the Jesus club.”  Everyone knows what it means to join a club such as Brownies or Boy Scouts,  the Chamber or Kiwanis, the Elks or Elephants. We have all joined clubs and every club has its rules and regulations. Baptism is joining the ‘Jesus club” and we now [...]

Theme:  giving all your gifts to God.
Every January we approach the story of the three Wise men, bringing gifts for Jesus. What gifts do we have to bring the Christ child?
What are the gifts that God has given to you?  They are your talents, abilities, aptitudes, events that have happened to you.  These have shaped [...]

Theme:  Christ has identified himself with the poor and needy and we will be judged on how we respond to his need.
The people of the nations will be gathered before him, and he will divide the people into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put one group [...]