Sunday, November 1
God sees, chooses and anoints differently than people do: he looks past outward appearance to the heart, picks the overlooked youngest son of Jesse, and pours out his Spirit on David, a pattern that points forward to the anointed one from Bethlehem.
Sunday, October 25
Jonathan climbs a cliff with one armor bearer and trusts God to save by many or by few, and the sermon holds that up as a picture of the God who fights for his people and will fight for justice.
Sunday, October 18
Saul is confronted with his own disobedience and answers with a string of explanations, because the human heart is expert at hiding its sin from itself. The sermon traces how self-deception grows and points to repentance as the way back to God.
Sunday, October 11
Saul is empowered by God's Spirit to rescue Jabesh Gilead, but he fights the serpent in a serpent-like way, threatening and mutilating as the enemy does. The sermon asks what story we think we are living in, and whether we will become the thing we are fighting.
Sunday, October 4
Using the story of Saul searching for his father's donkeys and meeting Samuel, this sermon argues that God's providence is at work in the ordinary details of life, in what we cannot see, and in shaping our character, working better than we ask.
Sunday, September 27
Israel demands a king like the other nations, and God gives them exactly what they asked for. The kings we crown over ourselves always take from us, but the King who chose us gave his life instead.
Sunday, September 20
Israel brings the ark of God into battle like a good luck charm and loses it anyway, because they wanted God's power without God's weight. The sermon asks how much glory, substance and authority God actually carries in our lives.
Sunday, September 13
God keeps speaking, and the story of the boy Samuel in the tabernacle asks whether the problem is on God's end or on ours. Eli's eyes and heart are failing while Samuel is still learning to recognize the voice that calls his name.
Sunday, September 6
Eli's sons treated the holy things of God as a resource to consume, and the sermon asks whether we serve God or use him, and whether grace can make people useful again.
Sunday, August 30
Hannah is a woman with a life she cannot fix, a rival in her house and a God who has closed her womb, and she teaches us that when you can't control the world around you, you can pour out your heart to the God who is in control. You don't have to understand God's plan to trust his heart.