Text: Luke 16:14-18 | Listen to Message A Primer on Self-Justification “You justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.” —Luke 16:14 What does it mean to justify ourselves – and how and why do we all do it? What? “To justify” literally means “to declare righteous.” Thus, self-justification refers to our attempts to acquit ourselves of wrongdoing, to vindicate our reputation, or to make ourselves appear more acceptable in the eyes of others. It’s one thing to defend your honor against false accusations, but that’s clearly not what Jesus is referring to here. He’s talking about all those times...
August 21, 2017 was the day a nation paused, looked up, and collectively beheld just a smidgen of a shadow of a speck of God’s glory. It took 2 hours and 38 minutes for a total solar eclipse to pass through 14 states stretching from the Pacific Coast of Oregon to the Atlantic Coast of South Carolina. In addition to the 12+ million people who live inside the path of totality, millions more traveled to witness this rare phenomenon. People in all 50 states observed at least a partial eclipse. If you didn’t realize there was going to be a...
Text: Luke 16:1-13| Listen to Message Master Your Money or It Will Master You Jesus famously stated that “no one can serve two masters … you cannot serve both God and money.” Philip Graham Ryken notes: “We would prefer to do the very thing Jesus tells us we cannot do: serve God and money. If only we could serve God with some of our money and then serve ourselves with the rest of it. Better yet, if only we could use most of it for ourselves and then give God whatever is left! But Jesus says we have to choose.” (Reformed...
Text: Luke 15:1-2, 11-32| Listen to Message Two Ways of Rejecting the Father Spoiler Alert: The Parable of The Prodigal Son is not exclusively – or maybe even primarily – about the prodigal son. In fact, Jesus himself introduced the parable this way: “There was a man who had two sons…” (Luke 15:11). Yes, the first son Jesus tells us about is the infamous younger brother who left home and squandered his inheritance partying with prostitutes. But the story is only half done. And Jesus’ emphasis is arguably on the second son – the elder brother who stayed home and always...
Text: Luke 15:1-10| Listen to Message How'd You Get Lost? Jesus’ stories about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost (prodigal) son are some of his best-known parables – and for good reason: all three illustrate the Good News that God loves to pursue and find the lost. In fact, restoring the lost is something that makes God spontaneously and ridiculously happy! But Jesus communicates this one big truth three different ways. And in this nuance, we discover something very important. Though we’re all equally lost apart from Christ, we tend to get lost in different ways. Some get...
