It was during my early teenage years that my parents gave me a devotional book by Chuck Swindoll entitled “Abraham…The Friend of God.” As I typed this sermon preview for the mid-week email that same dog-eared copy sits on the desk next to me. I read it through during my teenage years, and then once again during my Senior year at Houghton college. Looking back on it now, it seems obvious that God wanted me to spend time with Abraham’s story during those formative years when I was stepping …

Here at State Road we have been called and set apart for the Great Commission purpose of making disciples of Jesus. That word, “disciple,” isn’t used much outside of Christian circles. It’s a Bible word meaning a fully committed follower of Jesus- a sincere, from-the-heart imitator of His example, and the way we go about making disciples here at State Road is by emphasizing those things which Jesus commanded in His teachings and modeled for us during the days of His earthly ministry…

Last January I was with a team from State Road in Palenque, Mexico joining a team from Tijuana to run Brigadas in some remote villages with missionaries Craig and Kristi Libby from Mexican Medical. We had an unexpected stay at a hotel the first night we were in country and that first morning we all funneled our way into a dining area for breakfast. It was a buffet and most items were tagged with name cards that were thankfully in Spanish AND English. One of them items in particular, that is…

One of the things that impresses people when they study the Christmas narrative in depth is the way it mingles high and low things. We see a heavenly host of angels, with the glory of the Lord shining around them, but who is their audience? Simple, earthbound shepherds. Then the awesome spectacle of an angelic choir gives way to the shepherds hurrying through the darkened streets of a small, unimportant farming, community, and into a stable where two poor teenagers had laid a newborn baby i…

Joy came bubbling up in me like it was under pressure and it would have broken out of my chest if I had not let it vent out through my mouth in singing. That’s how I felt when I was a little boy, and my family would gather in our pew down at Chillum Community Church for the annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. I won’t pretend with you that I was a particularly spiritual-minded little boy. I wasn’t. Back then I didn’t doubt the truth of the Christmas story, but I also wasn’t p…

This message marks the second Sunday of Advent when we light the Peace Candle. We will be celebrating the appearing of the One who was described in Old Testament prophecy as the “Prince of Peace” and whose birth the angels announced to the shepherds singing “And on earth peace to those on whom God’s Favor rests.”

Anyone who was once a child on Christmas Eve knows something about waiting with hope. My brother, Job, and I shared a bedroom back then and it was an annual tradition for us to try and stay up and listen for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. I can recall after being sent to bed I would lean over from the top bunk and whisper excitedly to Job on the bottom bunk. Back and forth we would talk as we listened for the sound of reindeer hooves on the roof. I was so excited that it seemed impossible th…

In this message we’ll be looking at the Festival of Booths (Tabernacles), which is, I think, the closest approximation in the Bible to our own holiday of Thanksgiving. It came annually at the conclusion of their harvest season and was a time of feasting and a time to express gratitude to God in worship. It was called the festival of booths because when God instituted the holiday (Leviticus 23:33-43) He commanded that all the people live in makeshift shelters made of branches for seven days …