Your heart is complicated

The gospel is a very simple message: “God saves sinners” (as J.I. Packer puts it). And in one sense, our response to the gospel is also a very simple thing: confess your sins and your need for a Savior and embrace Jesus as your sufficient Savior. This isn’t...

Self-care and biblical truth

In preparation for a recent sermon, I did some reading up on the self-care movement. As with many movements, there is good and there is bad. To that end, I thought I’d take some of the advice or sayings of this movement and hold them up to the light of biblical truth....

The problem of evil

In yesterday’s sermon, we spent some time talking about “the problem of evil.” If God is really good and sovereign over all that goes on in this world (as the Bible repeatedly tells us He is), why is there so much evil, pain, and suffering in the world? This is...

Roots Church launches this Sunday!

This Sunday Roots Church officially launches. All are welcome to join us at 5 p.m. at Stanwood United Methodist Church. Afterwards, we will celebrate with lasagna, bread, salad, and dessert (provided by Roots). If you plan on coming, could you let me (Derek) know so...

“Do not resist an evil person”

This past Sunday’s sermon considered Jesus’ command, “Do not resist an evil person.” The big idea of His teaching here is that the people of God should be the kind of people who refuse personal revenge and retribution, both in their actions and...