Most of us associate thanksgiving with the holiday we celebrate on the fourth Thursday in November. But for followers of Christ, thanksgiving should permeate all of our walk in Christ. In fact, we are called to abound in thanksgiving as we are rooted and built up in Christ. What exactly is thanksgiving, and what does it look like for thanksgiving t…

The gospel of Jesus Christ is truly amazing. Not only are we forgiven of our many sins by God's grace through the atoning death of Jesus, but we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit when we put our faith in Christ. The Holy Spirit is not only at work within us, transforming us into the image of Christ, but the Spirit is also at work through us to bu…

Why did God choose to give differing gifts to Christians? His divine eternal plan is to create one household of faith, where His children share the love of the Father with each other. But our sin natures make this hard to live out. How do the biblical passages on spiritual gifts encourage us to think and act in such a way as to preserve the unity o…

Since spiritual gifts are the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in and through the believer, it is natural that we have some questions about how this works. But, we don’t want to allow the mystery of spiritual gifts to keep us from the mystery of spiritual gifts. Join us for a conversation about the top questions that many Christians have about spir…

At the end of Moses’ life, he wrote down all the words of the law in a book and placed it beside the ark. Yet, many scholars today believe that Moses was not the principle author of the Pentateuch, but that it was written hundreds of years later to support the new monarchy and temple worship in Jerusalem. Why is it important that we believe Moses w…

The story of Balaam and his talking donkey is surely one of the weirdest stories from the exodus. As we look deeper than the surface story, we find that Israel was supposed to learn that God is sovereign over all of His creation and present and active in creation. It should have encouraged them to move boldly toward the Promised Land because if God…

After all that Moses had to endure leading a grumbling group of people through the wilderness, he was disqualified from entering the Promised Land himself for the simple crime of hitting a rock with a stick. Why was the sin of Moses such a big deal in the eyes of God? And what can we learn about being an Ambassador for Christ from his mistakes? (Nu…

The Bible teaches us that we are to submit to authority, but most of our favorite Bible stories are about godly people resisting authority. The story of Korah's rebellion against Moses makes us think about what the Bible has to say about authority. (Numbers 16) September 4, 2022

When we come face to face with the Giants in our land, whom do we fear? Do we fear the giants or fear the Lord? How does the presence of God, the Word of God, the ways of God, and our relationship with God impact those life changing moments? (Numbers 13-14) August 28, 2022

Many of the stories from the exodus experience involve the wrath of God being poured out upon His people in response to their sin and rebellion. How does the wrath of God relate to the grace of the new covenant? As we think through the gospel, we see that the wrath of God drives us to the grace of God and calls us to rest under the discipline of a …

Why did God spend so much time giving specific instructions to Moses about how to build the tabernacle? What was God communicating to His people by gifting them with the tabernacle? How does the tabernacle point to Jesus? By reading Exodus 40 and Hebrews 9-10, we learn that God wants to dwell with His people, that our sin separates us from a holy G…

Guest preacher Matt Miller takes an in-depth look at the Golden Calf story in Exodus 32 (August 7, 2022).

The Ten Commandments are one of the most iconic passages of Scripture in the entire Bible, but they present an interesting question for gospel loving Christians. What is the relationship of the law to the gospel of grace? How are we both “no longer under the law” and yet called to obey “all His commands”? Why do we embrace these commands that God g…

After delivering His people from slavery in Egypt, the Lord took the children of Israel on a long journey of a changed manner of life to root out the evils of their past. And while it is easy to look down on them for their constant grumbling, the truth is that we are on the same journey of sanctification, and often don’t fare any better. But the go…

The crossing of the Red Sea is the most well-known of all the stories of Exodus, and it can be explored from many points of view. But it is ground zero for what we believe about God, about the Scriptures, and how we walk in faith with Him. The crossing of the Red Sea forces us to answer three important questions: Do we believe that God is sovereign…

The call of Moses was both unique and common to all people of God. If you are a follower of Christ, you have both been called and are being called. That is why learning from the excuses Moses gave to God as to why he could not do what God was telling him to do is so important for us today. We give the same excuses, but God calls us to His own purpo…

The truth that we are justified by faith is more than a doctrine to debate. It is a life changing experience. Those who are justified by faith are crucified with Christ, our old selves die with Christ, and we are made alive, born again. The life we now live, we live by faith in the Jesus Christ who lives in us and for us. And if God is for us, who …

When we are justified by faith in Christ Jesus, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Those who belong to God have the Spirit dwelling in them. And since we have new life through the Spirit, we should walk in the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit. This is the way that followers of Christ put to death the flesh. But how do we walk by the Spi…

Scripture tells us that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free. In fact, we have been called to freedom. But what does that mean? Does that mean that since our sins are forgiven we are now free to do whatever we want? No, what we discover is that we have been set free from sin so that we can belong to Christ and bear fruit for God. (Galatia…

The Scriptures tell us that the “righteous shall live by faith,” but what does righteousness mean? Righteousness describes the person and character of God. Righteousness also describes the righteousness of Christ imputed by faith. But righteousness also describes the pursuit of those who have been justified by faith. How do we pursue righteousness …

The Scriptures tell us that we are justified by faith and not by works, and that this is a gift that we receive by faith. But when the Bible uses the word “faith,” what exactly is it talking about? As we continue to explore Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia where he clarifies the genuine gospel of Jesus Christ, we find out that faith is beli…

Galatians 1.1-9

How do you draw the undrawable? The hope of eternal life, the new heavens and new earth, where God makes all things new, is the indescribable future that is difficult to describe. The prophet Isaiah helps us learn to draw the undrawable by contrasting the hope of the Eternal Kingdom of God with the vanity and futility of this world, as described by…

“Dear Lord, I need you to rip open the gates of heaven and come down here and do the kind of things you used to do in the Bible days!” If you have ever prayed like that, you are praying the words of Isaiah 64. The good news is that God did rent the heavens and came down at the incarnation, and He will rend the heavens again and come down at the Sec…

The Scriptures teach us that the Old Testament prophets (like Isaiah) bore witness to the gospel and the apostles (like Paul) proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ. Isaiah prophesied about the coming “arm of the Lord” who would bring salvation, righteousness, redemption, and a new covenant, and the apostle Paul not only saw Jesus as the fulfillment…

One of the many reasons why our fellowship with God is broken, our prayers are hindered, and God’s gracious work in our lives is thwarted is because of unconfessed and unrepentant sin. The prophet Isaiah confronted God’s people with this hard truth centuries ago, but God’s people still need to hear it. This is why the spiritual discipline of confes…

What does it take to make us happy? Since the dawn of time, we have been searching for happiness, meaning, contentment, and satisfaction in places that are powerless to satisfy. The prophet Isaiah asked the question, “Why do you labor for that which does not satisfy?” God invites us to find satisfaction in Him through Christ in us, but we must make…

Fasting is abstaining from food for a spiritual purpose, and it has been practiced as a spiritual discipline by the people of God since the very beginning, and continues to be today. Fasting is often connected with mourning and confession, but usually it is associated with desperate prayer. The prophet Isaiah described how fasting can become disple…

In what might be the most important chapter of the entire Old Testament, the Word of the Lord came through the prophet Isaiah, speaking of Jesus, the Servant of the Lord. These 15 verses lay out the truth about Jesus: His incarnation, substitutionary atonement, and imputed righteousness to those who believe in Him. (Isaiah 52.13-53.12) February 20,…

One story keeps playing itself over and over throughout the history of God’s relationship with His people: God’s people forget their calling, forsake His ways, and go after other gods. Isaiah 48 is a vivid reminder that our rebellion might lead the Father to put us through the “furnace of affliction,” to refine us for His name’s sake. But the proph…

How big is our God? Is God big enough to reveal to the prophet Isaiah the name of the king of a kingdom that wouldn’t exist for another 70 years, to name the king by name 130 years before he took the throne, to claim that God would cause this kingdom to become the largest the world had ever known, and to claim that this king would accomplish His pu…

In the words of the apostle John, followers of Christ are to “keep ourselves from idols.” But is idol worship really a sin that modern day Christians who live in a western, scientific world really need to concern ourselves with? What we can we learn from the prophet Isaiah and the apostle Paul about idol worship? What does modern day idolatry look …

We take for granted the truth that God loves us, but when life gets real and painful, we often doubt His love. Isaiah 43 reminds us of God’s steadfast love, that we are precious to Him because He created us, formed us, called us, and redeemed us. God’s love for us is not based upon our worthiness but upon His eternal character, and the cross is the…

One of our favorite Christmas songs, O Holy Night, features the line, “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.” Isaiah prophesied that a child would be born, and the angel confirmed to Mary that Jesus was in fact that child. His birth was, and is, good news of great joy, for He is the Prince of Peace and of the increase of His peace there will …

When the gospel of Matthew tells the Christmas story, it presents the virgin conception as the fulfillment of a prophecy of Isaiah. However, it also says that His name should be called “Immanuel.” What does it mean to call Jesus “Immanuel”? By looking at the context of the original prophecy, we hear that calling Jesus “Immanuel” is a confession tha…

The first section of the book of Isaiah is all about trusting the Lord. This section ends with the story of Hezekiah, a king who was challenged to trust the Lord to deliver Judah from the Assyrian army. But the story is complex, and serves as a reminder to us that we should keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, give God the glory when given the opportunity…

As we prepare for a week of thanksgiving, we spend some time reflecting on why it is good to be a child of the king. (Isaiah 35.1-10) November 21, 2021

When the king of Judah found himself in a difficult situation, facing a much more powerful nation, he naturally thought of making an alliance with another nation to help him in the fight. But the Lord was adamant that they should not go down to Egypt. The prophet explained why the Lord did not want them to go down to Egypt: (1) because God had alre…

One of the great promises in all of Scripture is found in Isaiah 26. God will keep us in perfect peace when our mind is stayed on Him and we trust in Him. This is possible because of who God is, how God has worked in the past, the testimony of how God is working in our own lives, and His promises to us for the future. In this sermon, we see how the…

The only place in the Bible where “Lucifer” as a name for Satan appears is in Isaiah 14. Or is it? A look at the text and the context makes it clear that the prophet was speaking about the king of Babylon and not Satan. However, we should not dismiss this text as something unrelated to us. The reason Isaiah 14 sounds so much like the fall of Satan …

Isaiah chapter 13 begins the Oracle Against the Nations, which is the pronouncement of judgment upon eight nations that surrounded Judah in addition to Judah itself. This section, which is thirteen chapters long, is a difficult section to read, and forces believers to wrestle with how this passage of Scripture if profitable to new covenant believer…

Will heaven be boring? Will the boredom of heaven be worse that the tortures of hell? These are questions that unbelievers ask, but the truth is that our imaginations of heaven are often trite or even unbiblical. The prophet Isaiah paints a picture of what heaven looks like when God makes all things new, when the old order of things passes away. Bu…

After Isaiah had been speaking the Word of the Lord to the people in Judah, God encouraged the prophet and renewed his calling with an incredible vision. This vision not only foreshadows the atoning death of Christ, but it also speaks to the danger of hardening our heart when we hear the Word of the Lord. Twice Jesus quoted the tough words spoken t…

Jesus was a great storyteller, and many of His parables used the image of the vineyard. One such parable was a retelling of the Parable of the Vineyard told by the prophet Isaiah. The fact that Jesus retold this same parable should cause the people of God to pay special attention to these words from the prophet. The parable makes it very clear that…

For the Old Testament prophets, “the Day of the Lord” refers to anytime the Lord dramatically intervenes in human history, but the people of Isaiah’s day assumed that God would act to defeat their enemies. They could not conceive of the truth that they would be on God’s enemy’s list. The prophet Isaiah made it clear: “The Lord has a day against all…

When the Old Testament prophets spoke of “the latter days,” they could be speaking of the restoration of Jerusalem after the exile, or the first coming of the Messiah, or the second coming of the Messiah, or even the eternal heaven. And it does make reading great passages like Isaiah 2 a challenge, but this prophecy does remind us that because of t…

After the prophet Isaiah described the people of God as “a people laden with iniquity,” we can almost hear the crowd rejecting this message. “Look at how religious we are! Look at all the offerings, solemn assemblies, and Sabbath rules we obey to the letter!” But the Lord was not pleased with their worship. In fact, the Lord called their huge outpo…

The prophet Isaiah speaks with the conviction that God is present and active in this world, both as a Loving Father and as a Righteous Judge. Not only was this message confronting to the people of Isaiah’s day, but it remains so today for most Americans have no room for the present and active wrath of God in their conception of God. But the wrath o…

Jesus commissioned His disciples with the assignment to go to all the nations to preach the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit. But the gospel of Matthew ends with the unique commission to go and make disciples of all nations. For the last 100 years, the church in America has put much effort into the “go” of this commission, and all over the wo…

Why did Jesus invite the disciples to watch Him ascend into heaven? One of the reasons is that they needed to see Jesus as no longer the “humbled, obedient to the point of death” Jesus but the “exalted at the right hand of God with authority over all things” Jesus. Seeing the exalted Jesus was and is essential to the church fulfilling the Great Com…