When Matthew recorded his account of Jesus’ arrival, he did so to make a point: Jesus’ arrival was the fulfillment of the hopes and expectations of the Old Testament Scriptures. Over and again, Matthew quotes or alludes to promises and prophecies concerning the Messiah, Jesus, who came to save his people from their sins. Join us on Sundays, December 10-31, to hear of this Man and His saving message. This is a great time of year to invite your family, friends, and neighbors. To help you know how to pray, here’s the preaching plan for the coming weeks:
December 10: “Jesus, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt.1:1-17)
December 17: “Jesus, the Son of Mary and Joseph” (Matt. 1:18-25)
December 24: “Jesus, God the Son” (Matt. 2:1-12)
December 31: “Jesus, the Son of God” (Matt. 2:13-23)
May the Lord ransom sinners and save them from their sins.
Heritage has been sustained and shaped by the preaching of the Word over many years. Searchable access to many of these sermons is available at sermonaudio.com.
East of Eden we should expect little more than parched, dry, hard ground. We certainly find plenty of that spiritually speaking. And yet when the Scriptures speak of the future they fill our vision of the imagery not of death but of great harvest—overflowing, bountiful, and life-giving harvest. This vision fuels the church’s global mission, for it represents God’s commitment to turn back the curse by the Spirit through the gospel of his Son. In this two-part series, we turn to the vision of a great harvest for God’s people through the prophet Amos, then to a harvest of God’s people in Jesus’ call to pray for laborers.
Heritage has been sustained and shaped by the preaching of the Word over many years. Searchable access to many of these sermons is available at sermonaudio.com.
The book of James is beloved of Christians for its famously practical wisdom and instruction. But James is no less painful as it is practical, addressing our many problems with a simple diagnosis: double-mindedness. Our fractured relationships, James says, are symptoms of our fractured souls, souls in a fractured relationship with our Father. But James offers more than this searing diagnosis but a program and prescription for wholeness: “draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” The message of James is this: God offers double-minded people the possibility of wholeness through repentance and faith. Our God “yearns jealously” over us and “he gives more grace.”
Heritage has been sustained and shaped by the preaching of the Word over many years. Searchable access to many of these sermons is available at sermonaudio.com.
In this short book, John addresses the attempt of some who formerly professed Christ to destroy the gospel assurance of believers. John’s famous “tests of genuine faith” are meant to do two things: first, to show that these secessionists do not actually know God or believe the true gospel; and, second, to assure these believers that their faith is actually genuine. These characters are not so much unlike those in our day who tell Christians their de-conversion stories as an attempt to destroy their faith and assurance. In God’s kind providence, 1 John is the perfect book to address this very threat. In the process, 1 John helps us get crystal clear on what the gospel actually is.
Heritage has been sustained and shaped by the preaching of the Word over many years. Searchable access to many of these sermons is available at sermonaudio.com.
“I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly” (13:22). That’s how the author of the book of Hebrews ends his letter. While the book of Hebrews is famous for its exposition of the Old Testament in light of Christ, showing Christ to be our great high priest, all of that teaching is for an urgent exhortation: do not fall away. Or, as he put it in 2:1 , “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” Jesus is an anchor for our souls. He is anchored in heaven and his work is perfectly fitted to keep us in the midst of every trial and temptation.
Heritage has been sustained and shaped by the preaching of the Word over many years. Searchable access to many of these sermons is available at sermonaudio.com.
When the prodigal son decided to return to his father in Luke 15, Jesus highlights the fact that the son was suspicious that his father still loved him as a father (v. 19). In his book Children of the Living God, Sinclair Ferguson argues that Luke 15 teaches us that “the reality of the love of God for us is often the last thing in the world to dawn upon us” (27). Dan Cruver helps us consider how Paul’s letter to the Ephesians addresses this very problem in this two-part series from Ephesians 6:23, Battling the Prodigal’s Suspicion: Resting in the Assurance of the Father’s Love.
Heritage has been sustained and shaped by the preaching of the Word over many years. Searchable access to many of these sermons is available at sermonaudio.com.
