Sermons by Michael Andrus (Page 29)
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…
Genesis 42-44
Time Alone Doesn’t Heal a Guilty Conscience Our Scripture text today covers three full chapters of Genesis. Obviously if we read the entire portion there would be time for little else. On the other hand, I cannot tell the story nearly as well as the author has told it. So with your indulgence I am going to read most of it, with selected repetitive portions left out. This is indeed one of the great stories of the Bible, and I think you will profit…
Genesis 45
Forgiving the Hard to Forgive It has been a great privilege to be back with you these four weeks. Thank you kindly for your warm reception. This return to First Free has been especially encouraging in that I have been able to see many marriages at which I officiated still prospering, kids I dedicated still in the church, and individuals who came to Christ still growing in their faith. I take great joy in the continuing spiritual prosperity of First Free. This morning…
Genesis 45:16-47:12
The Ultimate Family Reunion I want to talk to you today about The Ultimate Family Reunion. When I think of family reunions I can’t help but think of Alma Wing, one of our wonderful senior citizens back at First Free. Alma belongs to a family that has world-class reunions. I first learned this because there was a family in our church in St. Louis who belonged to the Wing family (the Watsons), and when they got together with their extended family it was nothing…
Genesis 47:13-31
How a Wise Leader Functions Under the Providence of God Note: This sermon was preached at a Bible Conference in Sebring, Fl. There is much in this sermon that is repetitious of the sermon on Integrity at Work (#3 in the series), but there is a section that is new that I draw your attention to on pages 3-6. We are facing a leadership crisis in our country. Everywhere one looks—at politics, business, education, academia, or the clergy—one sees a lack of integrity or competence…
Genesis 48-50
Dying Well Note: This sermon was preached at a Bible Conference in Sebring, Florida. Dying well and dying with dignity are topics of much discussion in the medical and psychological communities today. But in choosing to talk about Dying Well today I am not principally addressing medical or psychological aspects of death, but rather spiritual ones. An ancient Roman emperor once said that the greatest difference between Christians and pagans is that “Christians die well.” He should have known, because he put many of them…
Luke 1:1-4
Introducing the Gospel of Luke Note: On December 1, 1996, I began an exposition of the Gospel of Luke at First Free in St. Louis, which lasted for almost 18 months. I do not recall exactly why I started that series in verse 5 of chapter 1, but I think it had to do with the desire to get through the birth narratives during Advent. Regardless of the reason, in retrospect I believe it is important to examine these first five verses because…
Luke 1:5-25, 57-80
Introducing the Introducer Introduction: Today I want to begin a new preaching series that will probably take us through the entire year of 1997 except for a couple of short interruptions. The series will be on the life of Christ. The recent preaching Paul and I have done on a few of the parables of Jesus whetted my appetite to dig deeper. We are going to use the gospel of Luke as the basis for this series, though we will borrow from Matthew and…
Luke 1:26-38
Introducing the Savior As we launched a new series on the life of Christ last Sunday, we were introduced to John the Baptist, the one whom God called, even before his birth, to introduce Jesus to the Jewish people as their Messiah. He would be the voice of one calling in the wilderness; he would come in the spirit and power of Elijah; he would turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of…
Luke 1:26-56
A Mother Without Peer Introduction: Do you know the origin of Mother’s Day? It’s not a biblical holiday, of course, though the honoring of mothers and of motherhood is certainly a biblical idea. Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 in a little church in Grafton, West Virginia. Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her own mother, which she did by declaring the day “Mother’s Day.” Today it is a widely recognized opportunity to express our love and appreciation for our mothers, mothers-in-law, and grandmothers. I…