Malachi Series Overview
The last words of the Old Testament! That’s what the book of Malachi is. As we will see in our new sermon series, this book clearly shows the Old Testament is an ‘unfinished story.’ Or better yet, an unfinished history, lest we mistake this for fiction or fantasy. The book’s ending includes a prediction of the next […]
Thoughts on our Upcoming Sermon: “An Inevitable Death on Jesus’ Mind”
Thus far our “The Final Week” series has frequently seen Jesus in confrontation with the Jewish leaders: The cleansing of the temple. The fig tree incident. The parable of the tenants. And the devastating Olivet Discourse, in which Jesus prophesied a horrible tribulation and the destruction for the temple. But now Jesus’ mind turns to […]
Good Friday Homily
Do you identify with Pilate at all? I wonder if some of you do. He didn’t show any malice towards Jesus. No ill will. In fact, he could say that he had some healthy respect for him, and even had a good idea that Jesus was innocent. But Pilate — and perhaps you’re like this […]
The Upper Room: Strength From On High
Easter is coming! This is the season in which churches all over the world spend time in the Gospels. In the recent past New Life has spent a lot of sermon time in Matthew, Mark and Luke, so it feels like the proper moment to turn to the Gospel of John! So we hope you’ll […]
Avoid that half-dead body!
While preparing my recent sermon on the Good Samaritan it hit me how much context matters. Multiple contexts, I should say! There’s the conversational context in which the parable occurs, namely, the interaction between the lawyer and Jesus. Then there’s the religious-political-racial context that is necessary to understand why a good Samaritan (gasp!) was such […]
A Lifelong Journey with a Tough Sermon
I grew up Mennonite, as did my wife Lise. (Our two churches were separated by a half a mile.) This meant we often heard from the Sermon on the Mount, which many have said is the central text of the Mennonite faith. You might immediately think of the “turn the other cheek” teaching found there […]
Getting Practical about Jesus’ Hard Commands
Gee, what to do with a pastor’s blog? Many things, I suppose. One idea is the “cutting room floor”, that is, writing about an additional item or two that didn’t make it into the sermon. Another idea is addressing some relevant issue, or talking about a current church endeavor. And sure enough, this blog has […]
“What About Angels?”
During Advent this year we are doing a study of four passages in which angels appear to announce the great events of the coming of Christ. In two of them—the appearance to Zechariah to announce the birth of John, and the announcement to Mary of the conception of Jesus—the angel is named. He is Gabriel, […]
Christ the Head of New Life Church
We read a recent prayer letter from Rose Marie Miller that started out, “Happy New Year!” She is right; September is the practical beginning of the new year even though the calendar doesn’t turn over for another four months. In the case of our church it also means that we are drawing close to the […]
David and the Big Story
This past Sunday (July 6) I introduced our summer sermon series, which is on the life of David. My first point, before we looked into the details of David’s life, was to reflect on David’s part in the “Big Story,” as I called it. The Big Story is the unfolding of God’s plan of redemption, […]
