A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Mark Allen Powell tells this story in his book, Loving Jesus : I once saw a teenager at a shopping mall wearing a T-shirt that said, “Jesus Is for Losers.” At first I thought this was a cynical put-down of Christianity on the part of some adolescent who’d decided he was too cool to be associated with religion. Then I noticed the shirt had a Bible reference in parentheses beneath its bold statement. It was actually a Christian T-shirt, witnessing to the gospel. Of course! Jesus is for losers, not against them. Jesus came into this world to dine with outcasts and misfits and to proclaim good news to the disadvantaged, the neglected, the marginalized, and the abused. Tax collectors, harlots, Samaritans, lepers ... losers, all. Jesus is for them. [i] To say Jesus is for...

Abandoned Sathorn Unique in Bankok, Thailand Click here to listen to this sermon. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus is finished with His table talk and is back on the road again, followed (as it always seems) by large crowds. They have not lost their curiosity and anticipate the next miracle with enthusiasm. The words they now hear from Jesus are meant to cool some of the shallow ardor the crowds so often display. Do you wish to be a disciple of Jesus? If so, Jesus gives you the criteria, and His requirements are as simple as they sound horrifying: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple… Anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26-27, 33). So, there you go. “Hate your family,” says the Lord. Not just the ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Psalm 23 is the most familiar of all the psalms, and like an old friend, many of us have known it since childhood. This is the psalm that we want to hear when we are facing our own mortality, or lying in a hospital bed, or overwhelmed by disaster, or stricken with grief, or standing at the grave of a ...

Click here to listen to this sermon. [Jesus said:] “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” (Luke 14:26-26). Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! Jesus is at the height of His success as we measure it. People are flocking to Him—the numbers growing as He gets closer to Jerusalem. Yet, Jesus has to ruin it by telling the people a bunch of hard truths they can’t handle. He can’t help it. Jesus never compromises the truth, for that would be compromising Himself. The Lord’s criteria for discipleship are as simple as they sound horrifying: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and child...