Sermon text: Jeremiah 31:31-34
This passage introduces what’s known as the New Covenant, and understanding it starts with recognizing that the old covenant—the one God made with Israel at Mount Sinai—didn’t work. Not because God failed but because people did. Back in Exodus 19, God offered Israel a conditional relationship: obey, and you’ll be my treasured people. They agreed readily, having personally witnessed the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. But over time, that covenant curdled into legalism—Israelites believed that keeping the letter of the law made them righteous, going through the external motions while their hearts drifted elsewhere. God’s frustration with empty sacrifice throughout the Old Testament wasn’t about the sacrifices themselves; it was that the hearts behind them weren’t engaged.
Category: Sermons
Sermons
The Worst Mother’s Day Sermon Ever
Sermon text: Matthew 20:20-28
This passage sits at a pivotal point in Matthew’s Gospel—Jesus and his disciples are on the road to Jerusalem, heading toward his arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection. Into that solemn journey walks the mother of James and John, kneeling before Jesus to ask that her sons be seated at his right and left hand in his kingdom.
Philip and the Eunuch
Sermon text: Acts 8:26-40; Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Philip first appears in Acts 6 as one of the seven men chosen to oversee food distribution in the early Jerusalem church—widely considered the first deacons, selected specifically for being “full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom.” He resurfaces after Stephen’s martyrdom in Acts 7, when persecution scattered believers out of Jerusalem. Rather than retreating, Philip went to Samaria and became the first to preach the gospel outside Israel’s Jewish population—a significant step, given the deep animosity between Jews and Samaritans dating back to the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom centuries earlier.
Enoch: A Profile
Sermon text: Genesis 5:21-24; Hebrews 11:5: Jude 1:14-15
Enoch appears in only ten verses of Scripture total, yet his brief presence carries remarkable weight. This particular Enoch descends through the line of Seth—distinct from an earlier Enoch mentioned in Genesis 4, son of Cain, after whom a city was named. Genesis contains six verses about him; 1 Chronicles and Luke each add one verse within genealogies; and Hebrews and Jude each contribute verses that reveal something deeper about his character and legacy.
Following God’s Lead
Sermon text: Numbers 9:15-23
This passage sits at a pivotal moment in Israel’s wilderness journey—the second year after leaving Egypt, having just observed their second Passover at Mount Sinai. The tabernacle has been fully constructed according to God’s detailed instructions, and Israel now stands ready to move toward the promised land. Numbers 9 pauses here to give a vivid picture of exactly how God led that movement.
From Doubt to Declaration
Sermon text: John 20:24-29
The Sunday following Easter carries its own quiet significance, since it’s the day Thomas encounters the risen Christ. Though it might be tempting to call it “doubting day,” a more fitting name is “declaration day”—and understanding why requires walking through what actually happens in this passage.
He is Risen!
Sermon text: Matthew 28:1-20
Matthew’s account of the resurrection unfolds in three parts, each building on the last: the truth revealed, the truth concealed, and the truth taken afield.
The truth revealed (verses 1-10) opens with Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arriving at the tomb, followed by a dramatic scene—an earthquake, an angel descending to roll back the stone, the guards collapsing in fear, and the angel’s declaration: “He is not here, for He is risen.” This passage functions as an early apologetic for the resurrection, structured around a standard familiar to a Jewish audience: Deuteronomy 19:15 required the testimony of two or three witnesses to establish any matter as true. Matthew’s account delivers exactly that pattern. The angel serves as the first witness, delivering truthful testimony as God’s messenger. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary serve as a second and third witness—and their credibility is reinforced by Matthew 27:55-61, which places them at the crucifixion, at the burial, and now at the empty tomb, giving them direct, continuous observation of the entire sequence. A fourth witness even appears in verse 9: Jesus himself, alive and greeting the women directly.
Why Palm Sunday?
Sermon texts: Matthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-40; John 12:12-19; Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 118:26
The name “Palm Sunday” itself is worth examining closely, because the palm branches, while present in the narrative, aren’t actually the focus of what’s happening in the triumphal entry. Comparing all four gospel accounts side by side reveals something more precise: what did Jesus and his disciples actually initiate versus what did the surrounding crowd do on their own? Scripture often reports events accurately without necessarily endorsing every action within them—there’s a difference between passages that are prescriptive (telling believers what to do) and those that are simply descriptive (recording what happened).
Don’t Settle for Second Best
Sermon text: Colossians 2:8-15
The church at Colossae, located in what’s now southwestern Turkey and never personally founded by Paul, was wrestling with a problem still recognizable today: syncretism—the practice of cobbling together a belief system from multiple, often contradictory sources. In Colossae’s case, this meant blending Jewish legalism, pagan philosophy, and elements of the Greek Stoic and Epicurean thought Paul had already challenged on Mars Hill, with genuine Christian teaching mixed in somewhere alongside it all. The result, later termed the “Colossian heresy,” produced a faith system that couldn’t withstand scrutiny because its individual pieces contradicted one another. This pattern shows up constantly in modern belief systems too—people picking up a bit of Christianity, a bit of Eastern religion, some New Age influence, whatever resonates emotionally, until the resulting patchwork faith collapses under any real examination, unable even to stay internally consistent.
The Original Fellowship Meal
Sermon text: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
The church at Corinth was a mess in many ways, which makes it an unusually instructive case study for what not to do in church life. Paul had already addressed divisions over leadership loyalties and spiritual gifts, but here he confronts something more fundamental: how the church handled its shared fellowship meal, connected to their observance of the Lord’s Supper.