Believe it or not, this ‘Follow’ series we’re in started on Easter morning … and today will be the last message of this series. But before I get into today’s message, let me take a couple minutes and review some highlights & insights into what it means to be a FOLLOWER of Jesus… Everybody is invited to follow—no one is excluded for any reason… It’s an invitation not to a religious tradition, but to a relationship… Being a sinner is a prerequisite … and having doubts is a prerequisite too…...
Andy Stanley’s been known to say, “If you speak from your weaknesses, you’ll never run out of material!” Isn’t that the truth? And, today, that’s what I’m doing … just so you know! Folks, today I want to begin with this question: If you follow Jesus, where does it lead? What’s the end game or the goal of following? And if you get this following thing down perfectly, what difference does it make? What’s the reward? Now, there are some of you here who already know. You’re 70-80 years old,...
It seems like each week since we started this series on FORGIVENESS, we’ve at least touched on the story called ‘The Parable of the Prodigal Son’ that Jesus told in Luke 15. And I said it was the greatest short story ever told … and I still stand by that, so let’s review… It begins with a father who has two sons and the youngest son is so dissatisfied with where he’s at, he asks his father for his inheritance immediately. So he takes 1/3 of his father’s estate and...
Jesus absolutely loved the Sea of Galilee! Did you know that? It’s mentioned in the Gospels more than forty times! And Jesus gets in and out of boats nearly as many times… Then again, at other times, we’ll see Jesus walking on the lake shore. It’s not hard to imagine why this is. The Sea of Galilee is absolutely captivating… When I have a day off—in good weather—one of Jane’s and my favorite things to do is to take our lawn chairs, a picnic lunch, and some reading material …...
For nine to ten days, Mary had carried with her the most astounding secret: She was pregnant—a virgin birth—and she was going to be the ‘mom’ of the long-expected Messiah! Yet she’d been afraid to share the news, for if the wrong person heard, King Herod would have her killed. Or, if her family didn’t believe her, they could turn her over to the religious leaders there around Nazareth and they could have her stoned to death, too. Perhaps, she herself was afraid to trust—at least for a time—that the...
