On Thursday, I preached a message in the chapel service of Southern Seminary and Boyce College. The text is 2 Corinthians 4:16-17, and it’s titled “An Eternal Weight of Glory.” It’s available on the SBTS Chapel podcast, which you can subscribe to or watch below. Excerpt: Don’t let your present pains eclipse your coming glory. That glory has already been planted in your heart, and the Devil and your flesh have no power to steal away the seeds sown on the good earth. God has planted the seeds of glory so deeply in your heart that your future renewal has already broken into the present through the Holy Spirit. Fight…

I have been preaching through 2 Corinthians and on Sunday made it through verses 5-7 of chapter 13. In this text, Paul tells believers to examine themselves whether they are in the faith. Essentially, he tells them, “You don’t need to be examining me and whether I’m a true apostle. You need to be examining yourselves to see if you are really even in the faith at all.” It’s a very practical text and certainly crucial for us to understand. You can download the message here or listen below.

Below is a message that I preached to our church at the beginning of the year, and now it seems appropriate to share at the end as well. It’s on the first two chapters of the book of Job. The key question of the book is NOT “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The key question is “How will good people respond when bad things happened to them?” Will God be enough for them? All people suffer. But not all of us suffer in the same way. Not everyone sees God’s hand in their suffering. Even among those who do, not all can accept it. For some people,…

I have been preaching through 2 Corinthians and on Sunday made it through the first four verses of chapter 13. In this text, Paul gives us a glimpse of how corrective discipline is supposed to happen in a church and why he’s threatening such discipline against some troublemakers in Corinth. It’s a very practical text and certainly crucial for us to understand. You can download the message here or listen below.

2 Corinthians 12:11-21 11 I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. 12 The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. 13 For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong!  14 Here for the third time I am ready to come to you. And I will not be a burden, for I seek not what…

2 Corinthians 12:1-10  8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Paul prays earnestly to the Lord that the trial should be removed from him. Three times, he pleads with the Lord, “Lord, take it away. Remove it. Make the pain stop.” Have you ever prayed like this? Have you ever had a deep and abiding trial or fear or grief and…

? 2 Corinthians 11:16-33  18 Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast. The difference between a sinful boast and a godly boast is the object of your boasting. If you are boasting in yourself to make much of yourself, then it is sinful boasting and pride. If you are boasting in what God has done—even if its what God has done through you—and you’re doing so for the edification of God’s people, that’s not sinful. That’s ministry. That is the great commission. That is what God has called all of us to do. And that’s exactly what Paul is doing in 2 Corinthians 11. Paul is…

?  12 And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. False teachers had infiltrated the Corinthian church by the time Paul wrote the second letter to the Corinthians. Paul refers to them sardonically as “super-apostles,” not because they really were apostles but because they were self-aggrandizing pretenders. As a true apostle, he wants to show that he operates on a totally different level from the false teachers. They aren’t who they claim to be. They are not like Paul. They are…

? “For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.“ -2 Corinthians 11:2-3 The law of Moses implies that it is the father’s responsibility to present a pure bride to her betrothed husband (Deut. 22:13-21). Paul says that he plays the father of the bride in Christ’s “betrothal” to his church. His goal is to present God’s people to Christ a as pure virgin at the wedding ceremony.…