The Spirit and the Sacraments – I: Baptism

Prayer is a learned conversation. What is our goal in prayer, God's goal in prayer?

Lent is that season in the church calendar meant to underscore what has no season, what is necessary in every season–namely, repentance. It is a life. During these next weeks of Lent until Easter we’re going to look at several prayers that are...

Prayer is in right now. In fact, prayer and meditation are on the rise even as the American church is in decline. While most of us pray, we need a refresher course on what prayer is. In Psalm 27, God is out to redefine, reclaim, and rekindle our...

We do not pray for the sake of praying. It is ordered to an even greater end. It is part of a good life. While Psalm 1 begins the prayerbook of Israel it is the only utterance that is not a prayer. But as it describes the fact, the character, and the...

The first recorded address of God by humanity--the first “prayer”--comes in the context of humanity’s tragic choice–what we know as the fall from grace. And while that moment offers no explicit or intended teaching on the warrant, substance, or...

What was it all for? Why devote close to a year learning from and about the Holy Spirit? So much of what we considered focused on his purposes for us personally and communally. We want to conclude our particular attention to the Spirit with a focus on...

Humans have always been ritual-making creatures. We establish patterns, habits, and traditions which form our sense of identity and offer us meaning. The Lord’s Supper is one more example of our inclination to meaning-filled ritual. But its power lies...

The sacraments of baptism and Lord’s Supper are neither magic nor are they mere moments that invoke a memory meant to move us. If not like those, what are they? What are they for? And if they involve something inward–something spiritual–then how, if...

We round out our study of the Holy Spirit with a final stretch of sermons on the activity of the Holy Spirit in our private and public acts of worship. This week we consider what the Spirit is “up to” in the human act of preaching.

Spiritual renewal and revival are buzzwords both inside and, in recent times, outside of evangelicalism. What is spiritual renewal and what is it for? We’ll turn to one of Paul’s final letters as we seek spiritual renewal for ourselves and for the...