Sermon text: 2 Samuel 6:1-11
Understanding this passage requires backing up to explain how the ark of the covenant ended up away from Jerusalem in the first place. Back in 1 Samuel 4, Israel’s leadership—spiritually compromised at the time—took the ark into battle against the Philistines as a kind of magic talisman rather than out of genuine reverence, and it was captured. What followed was a series of disasters for the Philistines: the idol of their god Dagon collapsed before the ark, their cities were struck with tumors, and eventually they sent the ark back to Israel on a cart pulled by nursing cows, along with golden images of tumors and rats as a guilt offering. When the ark arrived at Beth Shemesh, 50,000 men died after looking inside it, and it was finally relocated to the house of Abinadab, where it remained for decades—now, under David’s reign, finally in territory secure enough to bring it home to Jerusalem.
Month: January 2026
How Free are We?
This message grew out of a Bible study conversation exploring why God would create humanity knowing some would end up destroyed for disobedience. The core response—that freedom itself is one of God’s great gifts, alongside salvation in Christ—sets up a distinction worth exploring carefully: human freedom versus spiritual freedom, roughly parallel to the distinction between common grace (extended to everyone) and special grace (given specifically to believers).
Keep It Simple
Sermon text: 2 Kings 5:1-19
This account sits during a troubled period in the northern kingdom of Israel—mid-9th century BC, decades after the united kingdom split following Solomon’s reign, with Israel to the north never once having a godly king and now facing regular raids from neighboring Syria (Aram). Against that backdrop, the passage introduces Naaman, commander of Syria’s army—a powerful, respected man who happens to have leprosy, though likely not the severe Hansen’s disease but something closer to a chronic skin condition like psoriasis, serious enough in that culture to carry real stigma. Notably, Scripture attributes his military success directly to the Lord, reflecting a recurring Old Testament pattern where God used foreign nations as instruments of judgment against a disobedient Israel.
There’s So Much More
Sermon text: John 6:26-29
A recent Barna Group study found something notable: for the first time in years, Gen Z (ages 15-30) and millennials are attending church more frequently than older generations—roughly every other week, nearly double their pre-pandemic attendance. Barna attributes this to a rising spiritual openness, a desire for authentic belonging, relational connection, and spiritual mentoring, along with a documented craving for real, in-person community following the isolation of the pandemic years. Interestingly, young men in these generations are now out-attending young women, apparently drawn by a search for structure, purpose, and traditional values in an unstable world.