Category: Pastoral Exhortation
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Lord’s Day Exhortation: Turning Anxiety into Prayer and Peace (1/21/24)
We live in chaotic, tumultuous times. I don’t think anyone paying attention can deny that. It’s like the proverbial Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times!” These are interesting times indeed. We live in clown world. It seems like the world if falling apart and going insane. It is easy to be anxious —…
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Baptismal Exhortation: Infants and the Exodus
We have the great privilege today of witnessing a baptism. I say “witnessing” because anytime you see a pastor baptize someone, Jesus himself is truly the baptizer. When a pastor baptizes someone one, young or old, Jesus is the one who actually performs the act. Sometimes it is said that there are no examples of…
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The Greatest Show on Earth (Lord’s Day Exhortation)
This is the Lord’s service for the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day, as we hear Lord’s Word and feast on the Lord’s Supper. Liturgy is the greatest show on earth – and that’s because it’s not a show on earth, it really takes place in the heavenly sanctuary. Mystically, spiritually, by faith, when we…
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Advent/Christmas Exhortation
Christmas celebrates the incarnation of God’s Son. John describes it as the Word made flesh. Isaiah used the language of “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us.” In the incarnation, God becomes man without ceasing to be God. Jesus Christ, from the point of conception by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, is…
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Your Biggest Problem
This is my pre-worship exhortation from a recent Sunday: We live in a world full of problems. But do not let the world’s problems cause you lose sight of the biggest problem in your life: Your own sin. Your biggest problem is not what they are doing down in Montgomery, or in DC, or over…
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Baptismal Exhortation: Types and Shadows of God’s Salvation
To understand baptism, we cannot just look at a few NT passages that mention baptism explicitly. The apostles clearly believed there were events in the OT that prefigured Christian baptism. For example, Peter says the flood, in which Noah and his family were saved by water in the ark, was a type, or foreshadowing of…
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Counter-Culture: When the World Changes, Don’t Change With It
It’s undeniable: Our culture changing, and changing rapidly. The question for us is just as obvious: Will we change with it? Culture changes continually. But the Word of God does not change. In 1 Corinthians 15-16, Paul commands us to be “steadfast, immovable” (1 Cor. 15:58) and to “stand firm” (1 Cor. 16:13). If the…
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Liturgy, Community, and Suffering
This post is based on the pastoral exhortation given before the worship service on May 15, 2022 at TPC. Today’s sermon will be based on 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, a passage that focuses on the comfort God gives to his people when they suffer. The text especially emphasizes that this comfort is communal. In my suffering,…
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Easter Exhortation: Love Stronger Than Death
In our experience, death is always stronger than love. We know this because our loved ones die. Our love cannot fight off death, our love cannot keep others alive forever. And, of course, others’ love for us cannot keep us alive either. Death seems to win out over love every time. But Easter changes all…
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Baptismal Exhortation: Baptism as Holy Week in Sacramental Form
Today, these parents have come to claim God’s promises to and about their children. God says to us, “I will be a God to you and to your children.” In baptism, we claim that covenant pledge and God acts to make good on that pledge. In baptism, parents give their children to God, and God…
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