Sunday Morning Podcast | The Moody Church

What does it look like to return to the Lord with all your heart?   In this passage from Joel 2:12-17, the context is that God had sent a great famine on the people of Israel, and they were in perilous conditions. And in that context, God, in His mercy, sends His prophet with one word: Repent!   This passage teaches us what it looks like to repent and turn to the Lord.   The nature of true repentance (vv. 12-13a) The incentive for repentance (v. 13b) The submissiveness of repentance (v. 14) The urgency of repentance (vv. 15-17a) The reason for repentance (v. 17b)

Life is learned, and we’re all learning how to live from someone. And at the end of the day, we will live our lives in one of three ways: by Default (replicating familial patterns), by Drift (doing what everyone else is doing), or by Design (building your life with intention).   In this sermon, we explore two philosophies of life, one religious and one secular, and compare these to a third way, the Way of Jesus.   Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: God set up the world to work best for those who live rightly; so, if you want a whole and happy life now and Heaven when you die, be good. The problem is if you try to build your life on this philosophy, it simply can’t support the weight of your life. It won’t be able to handle the pressures that come your way, and in the end, it’ll collapse. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is sinking sand. Expressive Individualism: Life is about finding our deepest, inner self and expressing it authentically in the face of all expectations; so, if you want a whole and happy life,

The Bible often uses an analogy comparing two ways, two paths that people can take in their spiritual journey. In the Garden of Eden, God presents Adam and Eve with two ways, and two trees, one that’s fruit is life and the other that’s death.  At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses presents Israel with two ways, “See, I have set before you life and death, good and evil.” Then Joshua, having led the people into the land of promise, presented them with two ways, to serve either foreign gods or the true living God: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” In the Proverbs we are again presented with the two ways: the way of folly and the way of wisdom.   You see, God is always bringing His people to the proverbial fork in the road, the moment of decision, the parting of the ways. And in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus once again presents us with The Two Ways.   In this passage from Matthew 7:13-29, we’ll organize our thoughts around three questions:   What are the two ways? The Way of the Pharisees vers

One of the foundational questions of moral philosophy down through the ages is: “What is a virtuous life?” When Jesus speaks about what a life of virtue looks like in the Sermon on the Mount, He’s not doing so in a vacuum. He’s joining an ongoing conversation in His Greco-Roman and Jewish milieu. And the clearest example of this dialogue is in Jesus’ articulation of what we now call “The Golden Rule.”   In this passage from Matthew 7:12, Jesus is the first person in world history to make love the central, unifying virtue. This is a watershed moment that continues to shape us today. Not only does Jesus give us unparalleled moral clarity with His ethic of love, He also provides us an unprecedented power to live into that ethic. Let’s explore how Jesus ties the Sermon on the Mount together front-to-back with rhetorical genius.   The Way of Love: Scholars of the Gospels have long observed that Jesus’ virtue of love both unfolds and deepens over the course of His teaching ministry; and it all begins with His

What does God want from us? It’s a confusing and frustrating question, but we can find a helpful answer in Micah 6:1-8 where God gives Israel a clear answer.   Three things the Lord requires: do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. So, what does this answer mean?   Do Justice: In the original Hebrew, the term is “misphat”, meaning justice. Justice is advocacy, generosity, and action. The early church was famous for all three of these: advocacy for racial and gender equality, generosity in their provision for the poor, and action in rescuing babies from infanticide and women from pagan temple prostitution. Many scholars point out that the early church grew at an astonishing rate in part because of how the people of God reflected the beautiful heart of God in justice through these actions, and people couldn’t resist this beauty. Love Kindness: The English translates this requirement as kindness, but the Hebrew word, “chesed,” can be translated as steadfast love. But perhaps the best ap

The passage from Matthew 7:1-12 is notoriously difficult to understand due to its complex thematic interconnections. What seems like a random collection of Jesus’ wisdom is actually a message about how we are to treat others.   Jesus is identifying two radically different ways of treating others, which flows through two radically different hearts: a self-righteous heart like the Pharisees, and a kingdom-heart made alive by God’s grace.   What kind of heart treats others rightly?   The Heart of Unhelpfulness: A self-righteous heart is helpless with others. Condemnation flows from a heart of self-righteousness, and self-righteousness never helps anybody. If we’re condemning, blaming, shaming, and ostracizing others, there’s something much bigger than a speck of sin in our eye; we’re blinded by the log of self-righteousness. And self-righteous people shouldn’t try to help others deal with harmful stuff in their life. The Heart of Helpfulness: Jesus describes another approach: to ask, seek, and knock on

Jesus hates worry and what it does to people. Worry is like a venom, stealing our life. The antidote is to remember that we exist in a God-created, God-sustained, God-filled, God-watched, God-loved, and God-kept universe.   For those of us who worry, Jesus is inviting us into the abundant life of the Kingdom of Heaven that is “at hand” in His presence. We can be free from worry knowing that our life is perfectly safe in the hands of your loving Father, both now and forever.   In this passage from Matthew 6:24-34, Jesus gives us six antidotes to a life of worry: You are a God-breathed soul in a God-crafted body. You are priceless image-bearer in a God-sustained universe. Your life and times are perfectly safe in the hands of Almighty God. You are an immortal being designed to be clothed in radiance in the presence of God. You are a beloved child known by a good Father. There is a life beyond worry in the Kingdom of our Father, one day at a time.   Takeaway: There is freedom from worry in chi

In Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is breaking into reality, establishing a beachhead of the new creation. And Jesus is inviting us to follow Him into this cosmic disruption. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, to get in on the ground floor of the greatest Kingdom the world will ever know.   Here's our choice: Will we keep on investing our time and energy and resources in the Kingdom of Earth? Or, will we see this breakthrough for what it is, will we understand the opportunity, will we get in early and invest in the Kingdom of Heaven?   In this passage from Matthew 6:19-24, we find three deep insights into what it means to invest in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Two Treasures: Our treasure is our trajectory. If the treasure of our life is an earthly one, the trajectory of our souls is heart-wrenching, because we'll always feel at risk of losing it all. But if our treasure is in heaven, our trajectory is different, because our future is incorruptible. A heart tied to heavenly treasures can weather any storm.

In some ways, The Lord’s Prayer is a bit of an aside to the main point Jesus is making. If you will recall, Jesus has been calling out the Scribes and Pharisees for their religious hypocrisy.   To drive the point home, Jesus gives three examples of spiritual practices: giving, praying, and fasting. These practices are supposed to be all about loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. But we can twist these practices into being about us. Then it’s not the love of God or neighbor that’s motivating us, but the love of ourselves.   Jesus is saying: “Beware. Be wary. Be warned. Don’t fall into the trap of religious hypocrisy.”   But notice He doesn’t say that those spiritual practices don’t matter. He says, “when you give, when you pray, when you fast.”  Just because these practices can be misused doesn’t mean they don’t have a proper use. He wants us to follow Him as He gives us a new heart towards these spiritual practices.   So, in thi

People feel a longing for Jesus to come again. But since we don’t know the time and date of that return, what should we do in the meantime?   As we wait for the return of Christ, we are to be the people of God, empowered by the spirit of God, to testify to the son of God, carrying on the mission of God. Are you living that way?   Acts 1:1-11

The final phrase, or benediction, of The Lord’s Prayer is a grand crescendo in what has been a rather sobering prayer for mercy amidst a dark and battered world. It feels like all of a sudden light pierces the darkness as the speaker proclaims the forever kingdom, power, and glory of God. It’s a phrase that reminds us of what is true, good, real, and beautiful; that no matter how dark things get down here, there is light a beauty forever beyond its reach.   When The Lord’s Prayer was recited in the liturgy in church services, they ended with this final benediction, even though the phrase wasn’t included in the oldest original manuscripts recording Jesus’ words. It was added later by the early Church. Nevertheless, the phrase remains biblical, familiar, and ancient, so it’s important for us to study it, and it’s appropriate for us to pray with it.   The benediction provides three things:   Frame: Our stories are most meaningful when connected with God’s overarching story. Everything about us is framed

All of us prefer to avoid tests in life, because these are moments of accountability when we’re exposed for who we really are. The danger of tests is that we’ll come to realize we’re not all that we ought to be, that we’re frail and faltering beings.   In this sermon, we explore the phrase in the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” and learn how Jesus shows us teaching us to prepare for life’s tests.   When it comes to the tests of life, this prayer helps us in four ways:   Calibrate Reality: Jesus is giving this prayer to his disciples as a kind of template to teach them how to pray. This pray for protection from and preservation through life’s tests is the grace we all need on a daily basis. Life is full of tests that we cannot avoid, so we must expect them. By giving us this prayer, Jesus is preparing us to face life’s test as an ordinary part of what it means to follow Him. This prayer helps us calibrate reality so that the tests of life don’t catch us off guard

Have you ever questioned God’s intentions for your life? Do you wish that God was doing something different through the course of events that you experience? God can seem to answer our prayers in ways that are unexpected and complex.   In this sermon, we’ll be reminded of three important truths that we can hold on to when we question God’s intentions for our lives: God’s Wisdom is Unfathomable and Glorious: You don’t have to understand God’s wisdom to praise Him for it. God’s Wisdom is Perplexing and Precious: We are most confused about God’s wisdom when His will for our lives is different than our will for our lives. “When you can’t trust His hand, trust His heart.” God’s purpose is to make us more like Jesus; that’s a purpose we can trust. God’s Wisdom is Worthy of Trust and Imitation: “The fear (respect) of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”   God is inviting each of us to a deeper relationship with him. The question is: are you wise enough to pursue Him?   Romans 11:33-36

“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.”  – C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity   It’s not hard to see that our world needs to be a more forgiving place. Our families need to be more forgiving places. Our churches need to be more forgiving places. And, of course, it’s easy to spot unforgiveness in others. It’s much harder when it’s our turn to forgive.   The reality is that we need to be more forgiving people. We have too much anger in our hearts. We have too many wounds we’re nursing. We have too many grudges we’re holding inside.   Unforgiveness always rises from a place of hurt. Because hurt people hurt people. And those hurt people then hurt more people, who in turn hurt still more people. On and on it goes until the world looks like our front-page news.   But what if forgiveness can turn the world upside-down? What if forgiveness is at the very heart of the life of the Kingdom of Heaven? What if forgiveness is a defining mark of those who follow the Way of Jesu

Far too often we treat prayer like a cosmic 911 service. Some emergency happens, and suddenly, we become praying people.   On a daily basis, we try not to bother God with the little stuff, thinking that we can handle most circumstances on our own. Most of the time, life feels manageable. We rationalize that we are smart, industrious, hard-working; and with time and money, we can make most of our problems go away. We feel self-reliant, independent, and free.   That sounds a lot like America – “Freedom is independence!” But it doesn’t sound much like Jesus.   In this passage, Jesus is going to open our eyes to what real freedom looks like. And he’s going to do it with a simple prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.”   There are five characteristics of this prayer that recalibrates our soul orientation to God:   Surrendered Prayer: Everything up unto the midpoint of this prayer has been God entranced, and it is only after these Godward prayers have been offered that Jesus then adds a prayer for d

Jesus knows what it’s like to live within this broken world, and He knows how to pray His way through it.   In this passage from the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is going to teach us how to pray our way through the brokenness of this life.   This sermon focuses on Matthew 6:10: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We explore four key questions:   What is the Kingdom? The Kingdom of God is the “reign of God.” Wherever God reigns as King, there His Kingdom is. Or another way to think about it: God’s Kingdom is the realm over which He has say, and the sphere in which His will is carried out. Wherever the will of God is done, there his Kingdom is. So, when we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we’re asking that the reign of God would be established right here and right now, that the range of His effective will would extend and envelope this world, and that God would bring the rule of Heaven to earth and make everything right again. So, if we a

For many of us, prayer raises more questions than answers. Does it even work? Am I doing it right? Am I using the right words? How can I know God is even listening?   Jesus’ early followers had similar questions about prayer, but they saw something different in Jesus. Jesus prayed with a confidence, closeness, and comfort that His disciples found mesmerizing. So, they asked Jesus to teach them to pray like He prayed. They wanted to know what He knew.   And so in Luke 11 and here in Matthew 6, Jesus gave his disciples what we now call The Lord’s Prayer. It is a prayer that turns the world upside down, and it might turn our lives upside down too…if only we will let it.   In this sermon, we’re focusing on the first sentence which contains three key phrases: Our Father… in heaven… hallowed be your name.   Our Father: In this phrase, Jesus is saying that you can come to God in the same way that He does, as a beloved son or daughter. You can come to God like a little child, running into her daddy’s arm. B

He is Risen! He is Risen! He is Risen! Easter Sunday marks the turning of the tide. The power of sin is shattered; the chains of Satan are broken; the dominion of death is conquered, for the Son of God has risen with power and is alive forevermore!   In this sermon, we go back to that very resurrection morning and discover how Jesus’ resurrection changes everything.   A Historical Seismic Shift: All the gospel accounts portray Jesus’ disciples on resurrection morning as being in utter shock. They were NOT expecting this. And it utterly changed the course of their lives and the course of human history. The resurrection of Jesus sent a seismic shock wave across human history, shifting the world. A Philosophical Seismic Shift: The resurrection of Jesus broke the philosophical mold of both Greco-Roman and Jewish thought. But today, we don’t live in Greco-Roman or Jewish philosophical categories; we live in a secular philosophical framework. The secular philosophical story goes something like this: We exis

Each of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – allocate approximately 1/3rd of their biographies to the final week of Jesus’ life. It’s as if everything shifts into slow motion, every definitive moment captured, each dialogue carefully conveyed, every detail meticulously preserved.   Because this is the week that changed all of history! The gospel writers want us to see it, feel it, experience it, and attend to it. So, in this sermon we’re going to walk with Jesus through this final week that changed history.   The author of this passage wants us to be struck by how it sets up and previews what is about to unfold in this final week of Jesus’ life. There are little hints of what is to come, thematic seeds planted here that will grow to fruition as the week develops, a revelation of who this Jesus truly is, and the storm he will face that is brewing on the horizon.   In the Triumphal Entry, Jesus is revealed to be three things that foreshadow what is to come throug

No one wants to be on the wrong side of history.  As it was in the days of Jesus, so it is today.   Our passage for this sermon takes place at a time when it seemed to some that the right side of history was about to be revealed. The people of Jesus’ day believed that Jesus was about to ride into Jerusalem on a white horse and overturn the existing ruling order; they didn’t understand Jesus and His mission.   But then Jesus tells a parable about a king, his servants, and investments of minas with a message that surprised the audience: there is no such thing as safety and neutrality when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven.   Takeaways: The King is coming back, and so... Our greatest need is not fruitfulness, it is faithfulness. Our greatest call is not awareness, it is readiness. Our greatest problem is not sin, it is God.   In the end, history will be divided into two sides. Which side will you be on?   Luke 19:11–27