RG AUDIO 082020   Isaiah 43:1-7 365. That is the number of times the Bible tells us not to be afraid. Once for every day of the year. Yet we are constantly living in fear that something bad will happen to us, our children, our finances, our community. What is interesting in Isaiah 43 is […]

RG AUDIO 081920   Isaiah 34:8-17 In a world infatuated with superheroes, it becomes easy for us to think that justice is up to us. If somehow, we could pass the right laws, elect the right officials, put the bad people away, overcome evil with power and might, we would have justice. We forget that […]

RG AUDIO 081820   Psalm 91:9-16 Has something ever gone wrong in your day and suddenly you find yourself convinced that everything in your life is just awful? There are just some moments when even the slightest hiccup in the day turns into some sort of a monstrous, everything-in-life-is-wrong kind of day. I call it […]

RG AUDIO 081720   Psalm 91:1-8 When I was in middle school, we were required to run track if we wanted to play any other sport. I vividly remember being at a track meet when it suddenly started to hail—golf ball sized hail. I, of course, was on the complete other side of the stadium […]

RG AUDIO 081620   1 John 1:1-10 I find myself on airplanes frequently, which is a great irony since I have an irrational fear of flying. Fear like mine gets one thinking a lot about mortality and one’s relationship with Christ. It took the Lord reminding me over and over again that my forgiveness is […]

RG AUDIO 081520   Acts 19:11-20 In the book of Acts, God gives us a perspective and a hope for the community that is the body of Christ on earth. Those days of the early church must have been a heady mixture of fear, anticipation, and joy mixed with the complexity of cultural backgrounds and […]

RG AUDIO 081420   Acts 5:1-16 The story of Ananias and Sapphira is a troubling and cautionary tale. This new community sought to understand and live out the emerging ethic of a new kingdom set in motion by Jesus. We learn to take falsehood seriously from this unfortunate couple. God knows our thoughts, our deeds, […]

RG AUDIO 081320   Daniel 9:1-10 Daniel’s litany of wrongs and sins committed by the Hebrews is long. His confession captures the long shame of disobedience, the dysfunction it brings, and the eventual, absolute destruction brought by the consequence of sin and rebellion. But in the midst of his confession, we receive the gift of […]

RG AUDIO 081220   Leviticus 4:27-31 We wrestle with, “Be holy as I am holy.” The reality of sin is at work in our individual hearts and in all of creation. The Israelites dealt with this guilt through sacrifice. Christ’s words and the law of God’s people seem to contradict each other. It is impossible […]

RG AUDIO 081120   Psalm 51:10-19 A few years ago, a Christian father was shot on the street as payment for a wrong done by another member of his family. The sin, our sin, humanity’s sin is tragic. Faced with our sin, we look for escape, absolution, forgiveness, or we hope and pray it is […]