If you know anything about the book of Job, this might seem like an odd choice of passage for a thanksgiving message. Most of the book of Job shows a miserable man, deep in suffering, longing for death, looking for an explanation of why God would allow a righteous man to suffer so horribly. Job’s
Tag: Jesus
This sermon was preached for RUF at CNU’s Virtual Large Group on April 1, 2020. RUF’s Large Group is a weekly worship service that has now shifted to live-streaming on YouTube thanks to COVID-19. Our passage comes from Jonah 2:1-10. 1 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the stomach of the fish,
I had the wonderful opportunity to fill the pulpit at By Grace Community Church (PCA) in Newport News, Virginia. It was such a blessing to preach at the church that has poured so much into me over the last six years, and I wouldn’t have chosen any other congregation to preach my first sermon to!
People are desperately looking for hope, for meaning, for understanding, for purpose, for relief from suffering, for forgiveness of all the wrong they’ve done. The God of the Bible offers all of that and we as Christians are in the same position as Jonah. We have the words of life for those in desperate need—though they may sound like words of death.
If you’re anything like me, you have one primary question on your mind at the end of Jonah 3. Where is the justice? How can God relent His punishment? Like we already said, no amount of personal suffering can undo all the evil Nineveh has done; their enemies are still dead, raped, and homeless. How can all of that go unpunished? It can’t. And it doesn’t.
Friends, you are never too far gone for God to save you. God knows how to bring you back to Himself. He’s totally fine with using both ordinary and extraordinary means to call you back. If you are in Christ, if you are a Christian, no matter how far you’ve run and how deep you’ve descended, God can and will deliver you. He has appointed a fish for you.
For the next four weeks, we’ll be working our way through the spectacular book of Jonah. Many of us are familiar with the general narrative, but it’s easy to assume we know the whole story because we heard it in Sunday school as young children. Truth be told, this is no little kid’s fable. Jonah
No sin is small enough to let persist in your life…You cannot be stripped of your salvation, but you must be stripped of everything else.
“Counterfeit Gods” by Tim Keller, “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer, and the Gospel of Mark by…Mark, I guess. These three books were on my reading list for this month thanks to the RUF Intern Study Program. To better equip us for ministry—and deepen our faith, since these are one in the same thing—interns are assigned various
What a busy, joy-filled, tumultuous season of change these last few months have been! Though I only took three classes, my last semester of undergrad was surprisingly challenging. Of the some 130 pages I wrote from January to May, very few were products of my own volition and leisure. Most of my time and energy