Sermons

Built to Last

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When Heidi was born, Natalie and I decided our little four door Saturn compact car wasn’t going to cut it for a family of four with all the baby and toddler gear in tow. There was only one thing to do. It was time to take the plunge and enter the minivan world.

We searched for used cars online and visited a couple dealerships, then settled on a 2005 Toyota Sienna. It was a great van. We bought it with just under 40,000 miles on it, and put another 200,000 miles on it. We drove it to work, to church, to doctor’s appointments, hospital visits, camping trips, and cross country road trips.

Over time, the van began to break down. Hubcaps rolled off. The automatic door broke. The back windshield wiper snapped. The axel and suspension went bad. Emissions needed repairs. The engine was still purring like a cat, but the van was showing its age and other repairs began to add up. Eventually, it just didn’t make sense to keep pouring money into it. After driving that minivan for almost fifteen years, we agreed it was time to trade it in for something newer. A mechanic at our church said any other model would have died a long time ago, but these vehicles were “built to last.” We eventually bought another minivan, another Toyota Sienna but eleven years newer with less miles on it. We like our “newer” van, but nothing will replace that 2005 silver Toyota Sienna in our hearts. It was like part of the family.

There’s a parallel here with marriage. Marriage is not always easy. As you get more miles, little things may start to break down, and there may be some bumps along the way. What’s important is that you keep Christ at the center of your relationship. Marriage is God’s idea, and any husband and wife who depend on the Holy Spirit and follow the instructions in God’s Word can have a marriage “built to last.”

Some time back, I preached on Colossians 3:18-19, which gives excellent counsel to husbands and wives. Together we learned…

  • The secret to a lasting marriage
  • Does a wife really have to “submit” to her husband?
  • How husbands can learn to love like Jesus
  • An important caveat – “do not be harsh”

Here’s the sermon audio if you’d like to follow along. Consider it a “tune-up” to keep your marriage running smoothly for years to come!

Thanks for listening. For a complete list of all my sermons, please visit the Sermon Hub on my blog.

Sermons

The Word in our Worship

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The “Worship wars” may have reached their height in the 1990s, but churches still struggle how to remain both doctrinally rooted and culturally relevant.

It’s good to incorporate newer, more modern songs in our repertoire, but we would be remiss to erase all the older hymns from our collective memory. It can be a challenge because some of the language can be antiquated, and sometimes their music style has not aged well. But I believe worship is best when we can find a blended form of both traditional and contemporary, uniting together newer and older songs.

As Bob Kauflin put it, that our worship should be “rooted and relevant.” Rooted in Scripture and 2,000 years of Christian tradition, yet relevant with new songs and melodies and styles continuing to express our hearts before God and to symbolize that the growth and spread of the gospel continue.

There may be different styles, different lengths, and different topics, but most importantly, the church needs to sing, and our minds should be focused on the Word. Meditating on it, reciting it, mulling it over, making new connections, recounting old stories, and overall letting the word of Christ dwell richly in us the whole time we are singing. Every time the church gathers to sin is an opportunity to teach and admonish one another.

To learn more, check out my sermon on Colossians 3:15-17. In this message, we learn…

  • How I respond when people ask what denomination our church is
  • How to find peace in Christ
  • What does it mean for the word of Christ to “dwell” in us?
  • A brief history of praise and worship
  • Finding balance between the traditional and contemporary
  • The centrality of scripture in our worship

Thanks for listening! For a complete list of sermons, please visit the Sermon page.

Journal

Charlie Kirk’s Memorial

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President Donald Trump watches speakers during the Memorial Service for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, Sunday, September 21, 2025. (White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

I didn’t have a chance to post earlier on the Charlie Kirk memorial but wanted to share a few thoughts here. My personal response is overwhelmingly positive – with a couple words of caution.

First, the good. We should rejoice that at one of the largest funerals in American history, worship leaders and speakers did not just give a perfunctory nod to Charlie’s faith, but shared the explicit Christian gospel – how we deserve death, how Christ died for our sins, and how forgiveness is possible only through repentance and faith in Christ. We should rejoice that millions of viewers, along with our nation’s highest leaders and so many young people, got to hear and see the effects of the gospel.

I’ve heard reports that many high school and college students are attending church for the first time and desperately asking to get a copy of the Bible. There really are signs of genuine revival. What an answer to prayer that would be! I don’t mind political leaders talking about God and country together. I was glad to hear it. America would not be what it is apart from our strong Judeo-Christian roots. I hope Charlie’s life and death cause many to dig into the claims of the Christian worldview that led to the greatest nation in history (as far as liberty, wealth, innovation, diversity, and opportunity are concerned).

Now, a word of caution. It was just surreal to have a memorial service, worship service, and political rally all wrapped up in one event. At best, it was an inspiring display of civil religion with clear recitations of the gospel. At worst, it could conflate the MAGA movement with Christianity. There is overlap in these movements, but we dare not mistake one for the other. Our faith is in Jesus Christ alone — not in any mortal man. Christianity is bigger than any leader, any movement, or any nation. Jesus did not say, “I will make America Great again.” He said, ‘I will build my church.” Nations rise. Nations fall. But the Word of the Lord endures forever. Certainly we want society to flourish. I believe that conservative, generally Republican, values lead to this (things like free enterprise, limited government, freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, etc.). We also know that true and eternal flourishing comes only through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

Along these same lines, there is also risk of Catholics and Protestant Christians sharing a platform together when talking about our faith. We have much in common, but we also have significant differences that get to the very heart of the gospel (remember the Protestant Reformation). While we can and should be “co-belligerents” in the culture wars, the Apostle Paul made clear that spiritually, we are not the same (see the Book of Galatians). I’m grateful for my Catholic friends, and I pray God will use those in places of leadership to preserve our religious freedom, but insofar as last Sunday’s memorial was a worship service, I don’t think it was helpful to the Christian faith to have Catholics on stage talking about Jesus when Scripture says they preach another gospel. This is the same error Billy Graham fell into later in his life. Maybe the memorial service struck the right balance. Maybe it crossed the line. I don’t know. But we dare not think that when it comes to our understanding of the gospel, that Evangelicals and Catholics are the same.

In spite of all this, we have much to be thankful for in what happened Sunday at State Farm Stadium. To God be the glory, great things he has done!

Preaching

How Should a Preacher Talk About Abortion?

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Last week, I attended a lovely Pastors Breakfast sponsored by the Open Arms Pregnancy Clinic. Pastors were thanked for their support and encouraged to continue speaking on the difficult topic of abortion.

I don’t preach directly against abortion very often, but I do try regularly to point out the sanctity of life and, when appropriate, to mention the evils of abortion as we work through various passages of scripture.

Out of curiosity, I did a search on the word “abortion” in my sermon folder and below are some of the places it popped up. I try to be faithful to the Bible and make contemporary application, while avoiding political soap boxes. How does your church talk about abortion and the sanctity of life?

Sermon Title: The War on Error
Sermon Text: 2 Corinthians 10:1-12
“…Strongholds are identity groups. Ideologies become fortified, and then form into communities. Today these include the LGBT community. The pseudo-scientific community that has embraced a naturalist, Darwinian view of human origin. The feminist community, with their insistence on abortion rights. The New Age community that almost deifies nature. There are false religions, self-help gurus, and pseudo-Christian cults. We combat these strongholds not with flesh and blood, but by destroying arguments and every lofty opinion with the truth…”

Title: The Family of God
Text: Luke 7:36-50
“…Sometimes the church gains a reputation for what is against rather than what it is for. The world wants to portray us anti-this and anti-that. So the church is seen as anti-gay. The church is seen as anti-abortion. The church is seen as anti-cursing and anti-gambling and you name it. People want to depict us as though, ”you’re just a bunch of miserable, mean-spirited, intolerant, hateful people.’ Can I help us reframe that a bit? Instead of thinking about the fact we’re against all these things, could we start by saying we’re for something? We’re for Christ. We love Christ. Christ died for us. And because He died for us, we want to live for Him and please Him. And Jesus has given us certain instructions of how He wants us to live. So that means that if we love Christ, we’re going to love the things Christ loves. And if we love Christ, we’re also going to hate the things that Christ hates. He didn’t hate this woman in our story, but He did hate the sin. And He said, I will forgive the sin, but as we see in a similar story, he says ‘go and sin no more.’ There was a repentance that led to a change in behavior. We oppose sin not because we claim to be perfect. We certainly know we’re not perfect people. Not because we think we’re better than other sinners out there. We oppose sin because we know we are sinners saved by grace that sent Jesus to the cross, and because we have been saved and forgiven, we want to obey God’s will for our lives, which is a life of holiness and obedience…”

Title: Grace Upon Grace
Text: Judges 13
“…In our own days, we have seen a kind of moral decline as well. Over past fifty years or so, we’ve seen a sharp rise in divorce, in unwed pregnancies, in sexual immorality, gay marriage, anxiety, disrespect, addiction, cursing and swearing and profanity, lies, greed, gambling, violent crime, abortion, suicide, sharp drops in church attendance, a renewed interest in witchcraft and the occult. People are searching for purpose and meaning and happiness, seem willing to go almost anywhere, except to the Bible itself. This is a unique opportunity. God has placed us here for such a time as this. It is not the easiest time in church history, but the church has the opportunity to be a shining light against a morally black backdrop…”

Title: The Prophet Returns
Text: 1 Kings 18:1-19
[At the height of COVID] “…It saddens me that marijuana dispensaries are allowed to stay open, while churches are still closed and told to meet online. Abortion clinics are still performing deadly procedures, while churches are told their life-giving services are ‘non-essential.’ This shows something is drastically wrong with the priorities of our culture…“

Title: Jesus’ Public Ministry
Text: Mark 1:35-45
“…Jesus’ ministry was one of both healing and preaching, but preaching was top priority. Mercy ministry is important, but our ultimate goal is to spare people eternal suffering. John Piper says it this way – “We care about all suffering now, especially eternal suffering later…Let’s be like Jesus. In every social issue from abortion to alcoholism, from AIDS to unemployment, from hunger to homelessness, let’s give the help that we would like to receive if it were us. And at every moment in that love, let us feel an even greater urgency to pray and speak and work to rescue people from everlasting suffering through the gospel of Jesus…”

Thoughts on Life and Leadership