There is a fascinating story in 2 Kings 7 which takes place during the long and impressive ministry of the prophet Elisha, the successor to Elijah. Here's the setting: The city of Samaria, the capitol city of Israel, is suffering through a severe famine. The famine has come as a result of the Syrian army laying siege to the city. No one could come into the city, and no one...

It seems there is no escaping the pressure. In the broader culture, we are under pressure to keep our faith in Jesus to ourselves. And in the evangelical culture, we feel the pressure to share our faith with the whole world. One way or another, if you are a believer in Christ, you are bound to feel some pressure. Or are you? This week we will engage in the second sessio...

It's a good questionthe kind of question we should be asking. But before responding to this question, I have another question for you: What image comes to mind when you hear the word church?" Most people are likely to think of "church" as an institution. The dictionary defines asocial institution as a group of people who have come together for a common purpose. An inst...

Over the past several weeks we have focused on some of the attributes of Godthe omniscience of God, the omnipresence of God, the omnipotence of God, the goodness of God, the immutability (unchanging nature) of God, to name a few. We could easily spend the rest of the year considering the attributes of God. But even if we were to consider a different attribute of God each w...

A few weeks ago I preached on the incomprehensibility of God. The key concept there is that God is infinite, so we cannot understand Him fully (even though we can know Him truly). This Sunday I plan to preach on the holiness of God, and as I began preparing for that I came across the following quote from A. W. Tozer, under the heading "We Cannot Understand Holiness." I su...

Whenever a plane goes down, there is inevitably a news story about the people who were supposed to be on the plane but weren'teither because their alarm didn't go off or there was a traffic jam or they switched travel plans at the last minute. When we hear stories like that, we Christians tend to say, "Wow! Isn't God good!?" We say that a lot"Isn't God good!?" when we hear...

It has been said that the only thing constant is change. Think about the number of things that have changed over the course of your life. Take the way I'm composing this article, for instance. I'm using a word processor on the computer. If, make that when, I make a mistake, all I have to do is hit the backspace button a few times and correct my errors. In the old days, t...

I know what you're thinking. How is that different than any other sermon Jared has preached? But I assure you, this time will be different. This Sunday, instead of focusing on what we know about God, I want to think about how much we don't know about God. I figure I am just as qualified as anyone to talk about things no one knows anything about. Throughout this sermon ser...

A 747 jetliner was halfway across the Atlantic when the captain got on the loudspeaker and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we have lost one of our engines, but we can still reach London with the three we have left. Unfortunately, this will make us one hour late.” An hour later the captain made another announcement, “Sorry, but we lost another engine....

Mothers’ Day is coming up this Sunday. It’s a time to express love and appreciation to our mothers, which of course we should do often, not just on this particular day. Mothers’ Day evokes an outpouring of sentiment for our mothers, expressed through cards, flowers, a nice meal out, and a phone call if you and your mother are separated by distance. When sentiment...