Luke

The Kind of Father Who Runs

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We tend to imagine God to be as petty as we are. Assuming he holds grudges due to previous mistakes, sometimes our prayers are stifled because we believe he doesn’t want to hear from us. While our Father is diligent to discipline us, he is also eager to pardon us.  He loves to show compassion to his children. Do you …

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Teach Us to Pray

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What would our lives be like if we truly believed in the power of prayer?  Think about Jesus’s example for a moment. Yet He often withdrew to deserted places and prayed.  -Luke 5:16 The gospels are full of evidences of Jesus praying. Jesus prayed alone (Matt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 9:18; 22:39-41) Jesus prayed in public (John 11:41-42, 12:27-30) Jesus prayed …

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God Doesn’t Owe Me Anything

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The sense of entitlement is crippling our culture and stifling our churches.  We can reach a truly freeing place when we accept that God doesn’t owe us anything. [This sermon is in a series of messages I make available for a traveling college team.]

Why Are There 4 Gospels?

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The New Testament begins with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These four books, commonly called “the Gospels” serve as biographies on the life and ministry of Jesus. In New Testament study, the word “gospel” is used frequently. It means “good news.” When speaking of the message of the gospel, it will most often be written with a lowercase “g.” When …

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How to Accept Prodigal Children (Without Enabling Them)

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“Rebellious children can break the hearts of their parents…But when they wake up and turn back, your love needs to be standing at the door with arms wide open.”  –The Love Dare for Parents, Day 36 You might know the story of the prodigal son.  The son that wanted his inheritance before it was time.  He wasted it all on …

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The Prodigal’s Father

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A look at the prodigal son reminds us of the perfect example of a father who loved both his children – when one was faithful and when one was unfaithful.  This picture of grace will help parents teach their children that, even when the day comes when they don’t live in our house, our children are never too far away …

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The Stewardship of the Church

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As we continue through our “Church Matters” series, we come to week 8 – “The Stewardship of the Church.”  As far as the planning of the service goes, we focused on finding our satisfaction in God and not in our stuff.  The worship time was intended to lead people to realize that all of our contentment can be found in our relationship with God.

Jeff’s message was so legit.  I loved how he started it sharing how oftentimes money sermons go in a church and how he promised not to do that.  He said something to the tune of “I can preach on tithing here at this church or anywhere and the offering will go up for about 2 months and then go back to the regular amount…I’m just gonna be honest with you.  I refuse to preach the Word of God so that we will get more money.  My job as one of the pastors of this flock is not to get more money out of you but my job is to help you become greater worshipers of the Almighty.”  It was the best sermon I have ever heard on what stewardship truly is.

Today, we worshiped to:

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“It Is Written” – Storytellers

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There was an ironic joke that was shared concerning the song “It Is Written” from our “Knowing Jesus” project.  With all the songs complete and recorded, there was only song that had not yet been written.  It’s name?  “It Is Written.”

To say that this song barely made it on there is an understatement.

We wanted a song to focus on Jesus’ sinless perfection.  We wanted to tell the story of how Jesus stayed faithful during the temptation of Satan.  It needed to be a little eerie, but a lot triumphant.

And we could just not land on the song.

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“Wisdom & Stature” – Storytellers

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As we composed the music for “Knowing Jesus,” there were some time gaps that deserved a song, but you didn’t want to force lyrics upon the situation.  Some of the moments could be better suited instrumentally than trying to come up with forced lyrics.

One example is the time after Jesus’ birth until his entrance into ministry.  This time covers from an infant until he is 30 years old.  It’s a large gap of time.  It’s the biggest timeframe of his life, but there is little biblical material on the timeframe.  We know the magi came to visit, he stayed around in the temple as a young boy, and we are told that he grew in wisdom and stature.

That’s about it.

So, I asked our very own Eric Bryant if he had or could compose some finger-picking acoustic music that would sound like a boy growing into a man.

He said he’d work on it.

That’s why I love this team.

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“Gloria” – Storytellers

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Over Christmas, we led the song “Gloria” at North Side a few times.  This song is included on the “Knowing Jesus” project and covers the incarnation part of Jesus’ life.  It’s the Christmas song.  Jesus came to us.

Back at our songwriting day at our house last year, Strutton, Evan, Linda, and Nancy had a small session to work on this song.  They had gotten stumped on parts of the song, but they came before the larger group with a 4-part choral arrangement of simply singing the word “Gloria.”  While it wasn’t long in length, I absolutely loved the beauty of it and knew that would be the foundation of the song.  The main melody became the instrumental hook at the beginning and throughout the song, and it also was the bridge of the song.  The final sounded very much like what was sung in my living room.

The chorus was written on the plane while I was traveling to Africa.  I was reading Luke 2 and just heard this escalating line in my head: “Glory to God in the highest.”  I recorded it on my phone while my traveling companions were sleeping so I wouldn’t forget it.  When I returned to the States, I opened up Luke 2 again and simply began to sing.  The majority of the song could be sung straight out of the ESV Bible with little variation to that text.  Love it when the Word takes over.  The remainder of the song was written in about 15 minutes as the Word and the music just kinda collided together.

Since the song would be a turnaround from the dramatic opener, we needed something to grab attention at the beginning.

I never thought I would find the beginning of the song sitting with my wife in the doctor’s office.

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