A Reformed Church in Wasilla, Alaska
From the Pastor’s Study
My sermon this past Sunday was on Luke 13:31-35, and I preached on the theme of the faithfulness of Jesus. The Pharisees warned Jesus that Herod wanted to kill him. Herod Antipas, the ruler of the territories of Galilee and Perea, is the same Herod that beheaded John the Baptist at the request of his…
Salvation, the forgiveness of sins, eternal life – these are all gifts of God’s amazing grace, freely given (Romans 6:23). We do not work our way into God’s kingdom, but through faith in Jesus Christ we obtain the promise of heaven. All we bring to God is our sin and need; our salvation was wholly…
When I lived in rural Japan many years ago, I often saw elderly “oba-san” (grandmothers) who were permanently bent over, their backs virtually parallel with the ground. Decades of bending over in the rice fields made these women literally unable to straighten themselves out. I thought those women must have led a hard life. And…
The coming of the New Year often brings thoughts on the passage of time and the brevity of our days on earth. We do well to reflect on the shortness of our lives, for doing so strengthens our resolve to devote our allotted time to serving the Lord and pursuing that which has eternal value.…
Two weeks ago we were rocked by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. It was the strongest tremor I had ever experienced, and that includes living for three years in earthquake-prone Japan. Even so, I think I felt it less intensely than most people, since I was in my vehicle at the time, stopped a stop light. Thanks…
In our adult Sunday School class we’ve been studying eschatology, which is the doctrine of the last things. We’ve looked at what the Bible teaches concerning the return of Christ, considering the various signs that indicate his return and the events surrounding his Second Coming. It would be a vast understatement to say that Bible-believing…
Some people have a one-track mind. That seems to be true of the man in the crowd who approached Jesus with this request for help: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13; my sermon text was vs. 13-21). Here Jesus was teaching the people his heavenly doctrine – “the words…
Someone once said, “The Christian faith is a personal matter, but not a private matter.” How true that is! A Christian’s belief in Christ is intensely personal – to be a Christian is to believe that the Son of God died for me, to take away my sins – but at the same time that…
Sunday was a joyful and memorable day in the life of our congregation. I had the privilege to baptize a young man who has recently come to faith in Christ, and has been regularly worshiping at Grace over the past several months. I met with him weekly over the course of the summer, reading Scripture…
At the risk of stating the obvious, faith is central to the Christian life. Consider: we are saved through faith (Ephesians 2:18) we are justified by faith (Galatians 3:24) we are sanctified by faith (Acts 26:18) we are being guarded by God’s power through faith (1 Peter 1:5) we have been raised with Christ through…