We’ve come through another holiday season and we’re off and running with the New Year. For our family, the last month was eventful. Our two daughters away at college came home for the winter break, and our whole family took a trip (7 of us, plus luggage, crammed into a minivan!) to Washington for a friend’s wedding, and then to Montana to…

We’re now in the holiday season, and I’m always surprised how quickly the year has gone by. Moses was right when he said of the passing years, “they are soon gone” (Psalm 90:10). But each moment that goes by brings us one moment closer to the goal of our salvation, eternal glory in the presence of Christ. How brief is our life…

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!” These words from Psalm 100 are a fitting reminder that God not only calls us to worship him, but he calls us to worship him with thanksgiving and praise. On Thanksgiving Eve, some of us met at church for a worship service in which we had opportunity to publicly express our thankfulness…

Sunday Sermon. We’re fast approaching the end of the 1 Timothy! My plan is to finish 1 Timothy this Lord’s Day and then pick up where we left off with Isaiah. As I thought about the fact I’ve almost preached through 1 Timothy, I was reminded of what a privilege it is to study systematically books of the Bible in my sermon…

Sunday sermon. Despite the suffocating smoke that filled the air on Sunday (even the sanctuary smelled like smoke), our congregation gathered as we do each Lord’s Day to bring our thanks and praise to God. For the sermon I preached again from 1 Timothy, this time 5:17 – 6:2. In this passage we see God’s concern for the integrity and honor of…

Sunday sermon. A truth underlying the passage I preached from this past Sunday, 1 Timothy 5:1-16, is that as Christians we have two families: our natural family and our spiritual family (that is, our brothers and sisters in Christ). And this passage speaks of responsibilities we owe to each family. We are to take care of those in our own (natural) family…

It’s been a while since I’ve made a “From the Pastor’s Study” blog post (or any blog post, for that matter), so I thought I’d write an update of what I’ve been up to recently. The Johnson family has been busy the last few months looking for, purchasing, and moving into a new house. I am so grateful for God’s provision for…

Now that we’ve entered the Advent season, I’m taking a break from preaching through Isaiah in order to preach a series of sermons on the incarnation and birth of Christ from the Gospel of Matthew. Last Sunday we looked at the genealogy that introduces the account of the birth of Jesus. To anyone familiar with the stories of the Old Testament, one…