Broken Branches

How Would You Start the Story? If you were going to write the story of the most important person who ever lived, how would you start it? You probably would not start it the way Matthew did. He could have started with the miracles. He could have started with the teaching. He could have started with the manger. Instead, Matthew opened the story of Jesus with a list of names. Seventeen verses of who was whose father, going back two thousand years. Most of us, if we're honest, sk

The Silence I want to begin this morning with something about Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, that most people never notice until it's pointed out to them. In all of Scripture, across every scene he appears in, Joseph never speaks a single word. Not one. The angel speaks to him. Mary speaks. The shepherds speak. The boy Jesus speaks. But Joseph, the man God chose to raise His own Son, never says a recorded word in the entire Bible. And yet we know exactly who he was. How

We Ain't Rich. I'm Rich. Shaquille O'Neal grew up poor in Newark. He clawed his way out through hard work and discipline, becoming one of the most dominant big men who ever played the game and a businessman worth half a billion dollars. He broke a cycle. Now he's raising kids inside that empire. And he's noticed something that worries him. So he tells them, in his own words, "We ain't rich. I'm rich." He says if they want access to his money, they have to bring him two colleg

The King Who Stopped Tending the Field

**Recommended Title:** What the Church Has Buried (and How to Find It Again) *Alternatives:* - When the Bible Gets Lost Inside the Church - Love God. Love Your Neighbor. Nothing Else Matters. --- **Meta Description:** The church keeps burying what matters most. Josiah found the Book of the Law lost inside God's own temple. Here's what that means for us today. *(143 characters)* --- ## Full Article There's a moment in the Old Testament so stunning it barely gets the atte

The faith that changes people isn't polished or perfect. Ruth chose God because of what she saw in a grieving widow. Here's what that means for us.

From the Inside to the Outside For several weeks now, we've been walking through Genesis, watching God work through people who had every reason to disqualify themselves. We met Abraham, a man who lied to protect himself, who laughed at God's promise, who tried to force God's timeline. We met Jacob, a deceiver who stole his brother's future, who spent twenty years reaping what he had sown, who wrestled with God and walked away limping but renamed. We met Judah, a man who sold

The Satisfying Before-and-After Have any of you ever gotten sucked into those YouTube videos of massive overgrown yards? You know the ones I'm talking about. The lawn hasn't been mowed in months, maybe years. There are weeds taller than a person, vines overtaking everything, the whole place looks like a jungle. And then someone shows up with industrial equipment and spends hours mowing it all down, edging the sidewalks, trimming the hedges. And by the end, it looks like a com

Every Family Has Branches They'd Rather Not Talk About That's the thing about family trees. Every family has branches they'd rather not talk about. People who made choices that don't quite fit the narrative we want to tell. And Jesus' family tree is no different. Last week we looked at Abraham, the father of the faith who waited twenty-five years for God's promise and learned that God keeps His word even when the wait feels impossible. Today, we're looking at Abraham's grands

Where Do You Come From? How many of you have ever worked on your family tree? Done any genealogy research, traced your ancestry back through the generations? It's fascinating work, isn't it? I love genealogy. I've been able to trace my family tree back over a thousand years, and I've discovered I have ancestors from about a dozen different countries all across Europe. I even did one of those DNA tests that tells you what percentage of your DNA comes from which countries. Why