Often what happens when there is not a clear vision for the church people will attach the vision to a place or building, a personality, a group of people and sometimes even a program. God tells us in the Bible that the vision for the church is to make disciples, which essentially means to make […]

There are two types of people – those who ask “What do I get?” and those who ask “What do I get to do?” Jesus makes the invisible in our heart visible to us, including our love for His provisions over His mission. Following Jesus leads us to the upper room where His mission supersedes preferences and […]

Emmanuel came to little Bethlehem because there simply was no other way to fix what sin had broken. Jesus tells us in Luke 2:21-42 that He is the Divine Son and the He's about His Father's business: saving sinners.

How would you finish the following sentence? I never thought I’d see the day when _________________. Simeon, in Luke 2:22-40 declares that his eyes have finally see the salvation of the Lord! Simeon would have finished the sentence in this manner: I never thought I’d see the day when God’s salvation would be staring right […]

Christ is the great central fact of the world’s history. To him, everything looks forward or backward. All the lines of history converge upon him. All the great purposes of God culminate in him. The greatest and most momentous fact that the history of the world records is the fact of his birth. Charles Haddeon […]

Luke is making point after point that just around the corner there’s a glimmer of light that’s going to burst forth. For years there’s been darkness, there’s been silence and now God has spoken in these miraculous births of John, which means God is gracious and Jesus, which means God saves. Let’s walk through this […]

In the angel Gabriel’s interaction with Zechariah we see the declaration that the people of Israel had been waiting for: the coming of the Rescuer/Deliverer! Zechariah’s son was going to be the guy to present Jesus to the world, yet Zechariah didn’t believe the words of God. Let’s not follow Zechariah’s example by believing and […]

What would you celebrate wildly and without inhibition? Someone who had cancer but hears the word, “you’re cancer free”? Someone who you’ve been praying for to become a Christian and they finally come to a saving knowledge of Jesus? There are a number of events that we would celebrate wildly and without inhibition; there would […]

The Angel Gabriel delivered a message to the virgin Mary, a young, unmarried girl, Kent Hughes says was “a nobody, from a nothing town in the middle of nowhere.” He told her she would have a son who would be the Son of God. Mary’s only question was “how could that be?” And after Gabriel […]

Philip Graham Ryken said, “Luke’s Gospel is for anyone who needs to know Jesus. It is for people who have never met Jesus before, and for people who need to meet him again, as if for the very first time. It is for people who aren’t quite sure about Jesus, for people who are just […]