If you enjoy listening to audiobooks, you might want to check out this deal. Each month, ChristianAudio.com offers a free audiobook download. This month’s free selection is The Best of Jonathan Edwards’ Sermons (run time 3.5 hours; normally $14.98). Use this coupon code – JUN2007 – to download the book for free this month only. Here is a description from the site:

The Jonathan Edwards trilogy includes three of the most important sermons ever preached on American soil. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is maybe the most important and well-known sermon of his, but also included is A Divine and Supernatural Light describing and illuminating what Edwards describes as a supernatural light imparted by God. His farewell sermon was given in June of 1750 and is a commendation to those who are in the Lord’s service, a plea to maintain unity, avoid dissension and false doctrine, and a call to devote themselves to prayer.

All three sermons are good listening, but the farewell sermon is particularly amazing. Edwards preached it at the First Church in Northampton, MA on July 1, 1750 two weeks after being voted out as their pastor. Here are some exerpts:

(more…)

(Part 25 in a series of posts on Habakkuk.)

We have reached the end of our journey together through the book of Habakkuk. In many ways Habakkuk’s journey mirrors our own journey through life. We saw that Habakkuk began his journey with a lot of questions. “Does God care? Is God fair? Is God there?” But instead of running away from God with his questions, Habakkuk kept bringing his questions to God, and finding the answers that he needed. Habakkuk began his journey in the valley of doubt and fear, and ended his journey scaling the heights with God in freedom and faith.

It is a beautiful journey, and one that is open to all who will come honestly to God with their questions, and seek him with all of their heart. God promises in Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” So wherever you may be in your own personal journey from doubt to faith, let me encourage you, keep seeking God. Keep coming to him with your doubts and with your questions.

And I pray that God will also lead you to a place where you will learn to trust him no matter what, where you may run along the heights in God’s presence with the feet of a deer. May God help us to learn the beautiful lessons that he has recorded for us in the book of Habakkuk.

—————————————————————————————————————————

I hope you have enjoyed this blogging series through the book of Habakkuk. I have posted the accompanying sermon series under the Sermons page if you would like access to the complete messages.

I would also be interested in your feedback on this series. What have you learned from the book of Habakkuk, and how has studying this book helped you in your life? Was it helpful to blog through the book a little bit at a time? Would it have been more helpful just to have the sermons posted and to read through them? Which would you have been more likely to read – the sermons off the sermons page or the daily blog installments? Did you read the posts regularly, or did you find that these were ones you tended to skip over? Thanks for your comments in advance! It will help me as I plan future series for the blog.

Here are the links to the whole Blogging with Habakkuk series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

(Part 1 in a series of posts on Habakkuk.)

As I mentioned last week, I would like to spend some time blogging with you through the book of Habakkuk. The posts will be adapted from a sermon series on Habakkuk that I will later put on the Sermons page. For example, last week’s series of posts (“Reading the Prophets 1, 2, and 3″) on the Old Testament prophetical books came right out of the introduction to this series. The whole series is called Habakkuk: The Journey from Doubt to Faith.

(more…)

Yesterday’s message was a little different for me. I preached a narrative or “story” sermon called Straight from the Donkey’s Mouth. It is a re-telling of the events of Palm Sunday from the viewpoint or perspective of the donkey. The sermon draws on material from all four gospel accounts describing Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, but the text we read before the message came from the gospel of John.

John 12:12-15

12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Blessed is the King of Israel!” 14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it, as it is written,

15 “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.” (NIV)

I don’t usually preach narrative sermons, so this was a little outside of my comfort zone, but I trust God used it to touch the people there with a message from his Word.

The sermon came from a message that my own pastor gave on Palm Sunday when I was in about the third or the fourth grade. God used that message to impress on my young heart an understanding of discipleship to Jesus Christ in a whole new way. That was about thirty-five years ago, and I never forgot it. I hope you enjoy this message, too!

Note: To read the complete message, go to the Sermons tab at the top of the blog.

I was never a big DC Talk fan, but as a youth pastor in the 1990′s I got to hear plenty of their music. One song the youth played all the time was “Luv is a Verb,” off of the Free at Last CD.

This song came back to haunt me last week as I prepared the message for Sunday morning from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This is the famous passage in the Bible where Paul gives an extended description of love.

Although many of the descriptive words read as adjectives in our English Bibles, they are all verbs in the original Greek. The love Paul is talking about is not primarily something you feel but something you do. We may not always be able to control our feelings, but we can control our actions. Love is something that you choose to do or not to do. Luv is a verb.

DC Talk rap:
Back in the day there was a man
Who stepped out of Heaven and he walked the land
He delivered to the people an eternal choice
With a heart full of luv and the truth in His voice
Gave up His life so that we may live
How much more luv could the Son of God give?
Here is the example that we oughtta be matchin’
Cause luv is a word that requires some action.

Hey, tell me haven’t ya heard?
Luv, is a serious word
Hey, I think it’s time ya learned
I don’t care what they say
I don’t care care what ya heard
The word luv, luv is a verb

(Excerpt from “Luv is a Verb” by DC Talk)

Okay, the Narnia Christmas series of messages from Christmas 2005 is now up and ready for viewing. You will find the following three messages under the Sermons tab at the top of the blog.

• The Lion is a Lamb – Revelation 5:1-14
• Always Winter, Never Christmas? – Galatians 3:10,21-23, 4:4-5
• The Cradle, the Cross and the Wardrobe – Matthew 1:21

Click here for more Narnia related posts.
Click here for more Christmas related posts.

I now have the beginnings of a Sermons page up on the blog. If you click on the Sermons tab at the top it will take you to the Sermons page where I have posted a grand total of one message. I will add new messages to this page weekly. I will also be adding previous messages that were presented before this blog was started.

On Monday mornings I will be posting a quick recap of Sunday’s messages under Sunday Morning SoundBytes. I eventually want to create a Sermons page (tabbed right next to the Resources page at the top of the blog) where you will be able to access full text manuscripts of the messages. Now I’ve just got to learn some more HTML!