Sermons from 2022 (Page 4)
Matthew 8:1-17
Can God Heal Today? Does He? Introduction: Have you ever wondered, if Jesus performed great miracles and healed people at will (which He did), and if Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (which He is), and if Jesus said when He sent the Holy Spirit, “greater works than these will you do,” (which He did indeed say), then why don’t we see more signs and wonders in the church today? So persuasive is this argument to some that a whole branch of the…
Matthew 8:18-22, 9:9-13
The Cost of Following Jesus Introduction: On April 18 Pastor Dick got the following email from Tim Vessey, our missionary in Turkey: Dick. Breaking news is that three Christians were murdered today in Malatya by nationalists at their Christian publishing house. They apparently had their throats slit. One German worker and two Turks. These are close friends of Aydin and Nesrin and friends of ours as well. Tim Two days later Shige Nakazawa confirmed the news with a long email about…
Matthew 8:23-9:8
Jesus: Lord Over Everything Introduction: The Gospel authors chose their stories carefully and for a purpose. They had such amazing material to choose from. John tells us that Jesus did many other miracles besides the ones John recorded. In fact, “If every one of them were written down,” he said, “I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). So when we come to a section like our Scripture text today we should ask why the author has chosen…
Matthew 10:1-42
A Strange Way to Build a Kingdom Introduction: Today we are returning to a series we interrupted last June when we launched a biographical study of the life of Joseph. We followed that with a series on conflict and peacemaking in the church. I am delighted to be returning today to the Life of Christ as recorded in the book of Matthew. Joseph’s life was encouraging, the series on Great Church Fights was instructive, but the Life of Christ is the epitome of all…
Matthew 11:1-19, 14:1-12 
When God Sits on His Hands Introduction: Have there been times when your world seemed to be crashing down on you, and God was silent? Perhaps a loved one dies, or you lose your job, or one of your children is stretching you to the breaking point, or your health is threatened, or your spouse tells you he or she doesn’t love you anymore. And some of you have had all those things happen to you in a relatively short period of…
Matthew 11:16-30
The Parable of the Brats Introduction: The last half of Matthew 11 is a series of seemingly disconnected discourses by Jesus. But they only seem to be disconnected; they actually are intimately related to one another. I have entitled my message this morning The Parable of the Brats, because that is what the passage opens with, but the parable leads directly into three other brief discourses by Jesus–a denunciation of the cities of Galilee, a praise to His Father for hiding truth to some and…
Matthew 12:1-14
Will It Be Legalism or Gospel? Introduction: Every year since I have been back in Wichita we have done an Advent series in December, but having preached almost every Christmas text I know in previous years, I decided we would continue in our series on the Life of Christ from Matthew. We have, of course, focused on Advent in our musical worship, with the Advent candle, and with our choir programs. Also, next Lord’s Day our youth pastor Josh Black will preach on a…
Matthew 12:15-21
There Is Hope for Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Wicks Introduction: People are hurting, the church is a hospital, and Jesus is the chief physician. That’s my message in a sentence this morning. There are scads of bruised and broken people out in the world who have yet to meet the Savior, and the church should be a triage center for them. What an assignment! Most of them don’t even know we are a hospital, and they wouldn’t think to come here for treatment, so we…
Matthew 12:22-32
The Only Sin that Cannot Be Forgiven Introduction: I trust every one of you had a delightful Christmas. We were in Oklahoma last weekend to visit my mom and to attend a funeral on Saturday afternoon, and because of the snow we couldn’t get back until just before Josh’s sermon, but I was so glad I got back for that. He did a great job and the church was packed. I encourage you to listen to that message on the web, especially if…
Matthew 12:38-50
Are You Looking for Miracles, Reformation, or a Relationship? Introduction: Few people would argue with the assertion that we live in a thoroughly messed-up culture and society. Even the church is full of confused people. Recently religious market researcher and pollster George Barna surveyed hundreds of people with the following statement: “The idea that God helps those who help themselves is taken directly from the Bible. Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly with that statement?” Among those who claimed to be…
Matthew 13:1-23
The Parable of the Sower Introduction: Spirituality is much in vogue today. I Googled the term on Wednesday and discovered there were 82,100,000 entries. After checking each one I am convinced that the term “spirituality” can mean just about anything you want it to mean. And the people who talk about it the most seem to be the most confused. Spirituality is a regular topic on Oprah and on Dr. Phil. Political candidates feel compelled to let the voters know how spiritual they are, and sometimes…
Matthew 13:24-43
Don’t Be a Weed Puller! Introduction: My sermon title this morning is taken from the first of three parables in the middle of Matthew 13, all of which provide us clues about the Kingdom of Heaven. One of the parables talks about weeds, another about mustard seed, and the third about yeast. Jesus takes each of these items found in everyday life in the first century and uses it to reveal something about the Kingdom. Three times in this passage we read the words: “The…