Philippians 1:21—2:11 In one of the best scenes in one of the greatest films ever made, Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms, and Ned Nederlander, AKA the Three Amigos, are discussing what they’re going to do with the 100,000 pesos they’ve been promised for what they believe is a movie they’ll be filming the next day. Lucky says he’s going to get a big shiny car that he can rub in the face of the Hollywood producer who recently fired them. Dusty says he’s going to party in New York and P

1 Kings 12:20-13:5, 33-34 When man wars against his neighbor, he’s always warring against God as well. We see this when Adam tells God “the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” He’s blaming Eve for his corruption, but is ultimately blaming the God who gave the woman to him. We see this when Cain kills Abel, not because he wants to punish Abel for offending him, but because he wants to punish God for doing so. And we see the same thing

John 1:43-51 There’s a beautiful symmetry in our text from John this morning. Philip finds Nathaniel, also known as Bartholomew, and tells them that they have found the long-awaited Savior. Nathaniel is a man of low expectations, essentially saying, “oh, ok. You’ve found the Messiah, and He’s from that hick town Nazareth. Sure, we’ll see.” But then, after Nathaniel is flabbergasted by this rather meek miracle where Jesus tells him where he was sitting a moment before, Jesus t

2 Samuel 12:1-25 Nathan’s little parable in our reading from 2 Samuel this morning is obviously of great benefit to King David because it brings him to repentance over his sins. But these words are also a great blessing to preachers. Nathan most certainly understands that you can’t necessarily walk up to someone cold, and call him an adulterer and a murderer. In the case of the king, he might have you put to death, but in the case of regular folks, they’ll just close their ea

2 Samuel 11 Shortly after God promises David that a Son from his body will rule from his throne forever, David shows us why he himself is unworthy to be that king. When David sees a beautiful woman bathing upon the room, he doesn’t cover his eyes or seek to cover her nakedness. He lusts after her. He summons her. He gives her no commitment, no promise of protection. He takes her for himself. And when she conceives a child, he murders innocent men to cover up the evidence of h

2 Samuel 7:1-17 When our Lord is put on trial, the final nail put in His coffin, so to speak, is that Jesus claimed He could destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. This is not, of course, what Jesus said nor what He meant when He uttered the words, “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus spoke of His own body as the greater temple. But despite their misunderstanding, the men who sentence Him to death still understand the greater point that

2 Samuel 1:1-27 If you’ve ever struggled to love those who have hated you, there’s a very valuable and simple lesson that King David gives us. How does David keep loving Saul, the mad king, who spends years trying to murder him? How does he find the strength to defend the honor of Saul and give him justice when all Saul wanted was to give David the opposite? Throughout the war, and again in our text for today, David gives us the answer. Despite having multiple opportunities t

1 Samuel 31 Throughout his days as king, Saul has been obsessed with preserving his own, refusing to let God take it away from him by giving his throne to David. And now, pierced with the arrows of his enemies, Saul is still consumed with the same thing. He demands that his armor bearer kill him so that the Philistines won’t have an opportunity to humiliate him. Then he falls on his own sword to prevent his enemies from giving him a very unblessed death, abusing and defiling

Psalm 51:1-3 There’s a famous scene in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” where Lady Macbeth is wandering around in a mad, hallucinatory state crying “out damned spot.” The spot she refers to is an imagined stain of blood belonging to King Duncan, the man she and her husband Macbeth have recently murdered so he can reign in Duncan’s place. It’s a bloody projection of her guilty conscience. The point of the scene, of course, is that no matter how hard she tries, Lady Macbeth can’t erase

Acts 15:1-12 When certain Jews and Pharisees demand that the gentile converts must be circumcised in order to be saved, this is an enormous demand. Circumcision is painful enough for children, but for adult men, it’s utterly agonizing. This is why Peter tells those insisting upon this that this is a burden neither they nor their fathers had to bear. It will most certainly keep the gentiles from coming to Christ if they insist upon it. And there’s no reason to insist upon it.

Proverbs 31:10-31 The woman Solomon describes in Proverbs 31 may be a housewife or a homemaker, but she is very much not a Real Housewife of Jerusalem, going on endless brunches with friends and creating drama where it doesn’t exist because she’s not accomplishing anything in her life. No, she is gathering food for her household, working with willing hands, making sure she’s not swindled by those in the marketplace. She makes clothing and sells it and has wisdom to give to th

Luke 22:47-71 “Projection” is a term that psychologists use for a curious form of human behavior where Person A accuses Person B of doing or thinking the things Person A is actually doing or thinking. For example, if a man has a guilty conscience about having committed adultery or giving himself over to lust in some way, he will often accuse his wife of having adulterous intentions when she’s just friendly with another man. Adulterers project adultery onto everyone else. Addi

Luke 22:24-46 Throughout the earthly ministry of Jesus, His disciples are constantly arguing among themselves as to which of them will be the greatest in His kingdom, which of them will have the most glory, the most honor, the greatest position of power in the presumed earthly reign of our Lord. And here in our text for today, the disciples are doing this again, on the very night of our Lord’s betrayal. It’s all quite amazing. The disciples have now heard Jesus speak numerous

Ephesians 2:19-22 Salvation is never faceless. When God gathers saints into His kingdom, they are never just masses of people stumbling in like crowds swarming the gates of Disney World as the park opens for the day. Even though Jesus tells Peter he will become a fisher of men, He tells him this to describe the size of the harvest, not the relationship our Lord will have with His faithful. To understand that, we have the sheep and shepherd metaphors. Likewise, when Jesus give

Luke 5:17-39 Tax collectors in the days of Christ’s earthly ministry had a rather bad reputation. First, tax collectors were known for being rather thuggish. They weren’t accountants as we might think of them, but more along the lines of mafia goons, shakedown artists who would often use threats of governmental power and violence to extract from people more than they owned. And second, those who worked as tax collectors worked for a foreign power that was imposing itself on y

Mark 14:53–72 Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” What does Jesus mean when He speaks these words in response to the high priest during His trial? I think there are ultimately two answers to that question. The first is because Jesus wants to bring the whole sham to an end. The Chief Priests need red meat in

Mark 4:21–41 When I was a sophomore in college, my sister lived just a couple blocks away from my apartment. And one day she called me and frantically begged me to come over to her house. She was terrified of something. Something had paralyzed her with fear. A problem had appeared in her life that she could not escape and she needed me to rescue her from it immediately, lest she perish! The problem, of course, was a spider. So I walked over to her apartment, smashed the spide

Genesis 8:13-9:17 In 1 Peter 3, the apostle tells us that the saving waters of baptism correspond to the flood, which is to say that the flood was a type of baptism, a promise of what we would receive in baptism. And understanding this makes the promise that God gives to Noah in Genesis 9 all the more beautiful. In discussing the rainbow that He puts in the sky as a sign of His promise, God tells Noah, “I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures o

Mark 3:1-19 “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” This is the question Jesus asks those who are jealous of His power and popularity. It’s what he asks those who want Him to heal a man on the Sabbath not because they want the man to be healed, but because they want to get rid of the One who is able to heal. And it’s a marvelous question. So in other circumstances, Jesus will ask this crowd, “is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?” But h

Genesis 2:4-25 If you listen to supposed biblical “scholars,” they’ll tell you that the author of Genesis 1 must have been different from the author of Genesis 2. These must be two different creation myths assembled together. And their reasoning is because the tone of these creation accounts is so radically different. In Genesis 1, God is speaking and things are erupting into existence. Light is bursting into being, the massive swaths of dry land are emerging from the sea. Tr