Acts 20:6-12
On Being Alert Introduction: I was undecided for some time as to what to do with the first part of Acts 20. I didn’t want to skip it, for it has been said that the church service Paul conducted at Troas is one of the most encouraging incidents in the Bible for pastors, because it demonstrates that even when the great Apostle Paul spoke, people fell asleep. I suppose, however, that the average layman could read something sinister into a decision to…
Acts 20:17-38
Farewell to Ephesus Introduction: Our journey through the book of Acts brings us today to the Apostle Paul’s final stop in Asia on his third missionary journey. Having traveled thousands of miles over a timespan of some ten years, in the most primitive fashion imaginable, he was now heading for Jerusalem and what he hoped would be an opportunity to preach the Gospel to his fellow-countrymen at the very heart of Judaism. Paul had left the Greek mainland and sailed across the…
Acts 21:1-14
Finding the Will of God Note: I am not ashamed to acknowledge my debt to two authors from whom I have borrowed extensively in the preparation of this sermon. The book, Decision Making and the Will of God, by Garry Friessen and Robin Maxson, is one of the ten most influential books I have ever read. I purchased a copy in 1980, have read it many times, and have taught through it more than once. I encourage you to buy it and read it carefully. I…
Acts 21:15-23:5
When Falsely Accused Introduction: I am certain there is no one here who has not at some time suffered from the particularly damaging and hurtful experience of being falsely accused. I personally find false accusation one of the most difficult trials to handle with a proper Christian spirit. I can handle disagreement, I can handle disappointment, I can even handle suffering, but I do not deal with false accusations graciously. Therefore, I have found the account of Paul’s experience in Jerusalem in Acts 21…
Acts 22:30-24:27
Caught in the Crucible Note: This sermon was preached at First Free in Wichita in 2019. Introduction: I’ve entitled my sermon, Caught in the Crucible. When a craftsman wants to make a piece of gold jewelry from a mold, he first melts a bar of gold and burns all the impurities out of it. To do this he uses a crucible, which is a vessel for melting substances that require a high degree of heat. The term crucible has symbolically come to refer to a severe…
Acts 25-26
A Chosen Instrument Introduction: Have you ever thought that you were possibly destined for greatness? Lee Iacocca did, at a fairly young age. He writes in his autobiography, “When you’re young and you lose, you can react in one of two ways: You can pout and lick your wounds or you can tell yourself, ‘Wait a minute. I’m going to come back from the dead. They can’t keep me down, I’m indestructible.’” It’s that kind of self-confidence and ambition that took him to the presidency of Ford…
Acts 27
A Shipwreck, But Not of Faith Introduction: In the book of 1 Timothy the Apostle Paul writes to his young protege in the ministry and says, “Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.” Paul knew a lot about shipwrecks because he experienced at least four…
Acts 28
The End of the Beginning Introduction: My sermon title today is not original. I saw it first in a mimeographed book by Ray Stedman. Then I found the same title in Charles Swindoll’s study guide on the book of Acts. I don’t know which one of them borrowed from the other or whether both of them borrowed from someone else. Or maybe it’s just a fact that great minds run in similar channels. I do know that I like the title and have borrowed it this…
Acts 29, 2 Tim. 4:6-18
Postscript on Acts Introduction: I’ve enjoyed our study of Acts so much that this week I had withdrawal pains. So, I decided to preach a postscript to the Book today. We noted last Lord’s Day that Acts is an unfinished book and intentionally so, because every generation of the church has a chapter to write concerning the acts of the Holy Spirit in their day. What I didn’t say, however, is that the NT itself gives us further information about what happened to the…
Genesis 37
When Parents Play Favorites We’re going to focus our attention on one of the great heroes of the OT–Joseph. The philosopher Hegel once observed that if history teaches us anything it is that history teaches us nothing. His point was that we so often fail to learn from the past. But the fact is God put a lot of it in his Word. We naturally gravitate more to the doctrinal, the prophetic, and the practical portions of Scripture, but we also need to pay…
Genesis 39
When Temptation Comes in Like a Flood Let me review briefly where we have been and where we are going. We are doing a series of four biographical sermons on the life of Joseph. Last Sunday our topic was “When Parents Play Favorites” from Genesis 37. We saw the dreadful results of dysfunction in Joseph’s birth family and urged all of us to renounce favoritism and to break the cycle of dysfunction in our homes. Today we move to Genesis 39 and the topic,…
Genesis 39, 41, 47
No Substitute for Integrity at Work It’s good to be back with you again, and I’m especially pleased to have my wife Jan with me this weekend. I appreciate her so much and the contribution she made to our ministry here. This church allowed her to be my wife and mother to our two boys rather than the first lady of the church, and that was good for both of us. You treated her like a first lady but didn’t put first-lady expectations…