Christ does not hide his wounds. He offers them.
The church does not await a verdict; she proclaims one.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 1 on Sinner Saint: A Suprising Primer to the Christian Life

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The Christian sermon is Gospel preaching. We only preach the Gospel. Only the Gospel is the sermon, notwithstanding necessary admonishments of law and requisite exhortations toward sanctification.
Ezekiel is not called/sent out to be “successful” in his prophetic ministry—he is sent out to be faithful!
The God whose power is made perfect in our weakness is the God who, in weakness, saved you from sin, death, and the Devil.
Jesus will bring good news, send His disciples to bring good news, and, in His death and resurrection, become good news for all.
Take away the communal aspect, take away the communal gathering around Christ’s body and blood, and the Christian will begin to suffer a malnutrition of faith.
This is the litmus test for a Christian sermon: Did Christ have to die upon the cross for me to be able to say this and to say it as His very own message?
In the overall context of Lamentations this text stands out as a breath of fresh air, or perhaps more accurately, words of relief after so much dismal lamenting!
If you truly love the brethren, you will not grudge to help them in their distress.
The people you serve are still hanging on by a thread, which is another way of saying they are living by faith.
The story of Juneteenth is one of living between proclamation and emancipation, and the story of the Christian faith is one of living in that same tension.
This is an edited excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).
Whenever Jesus explains the commandments they get harder to keep, not easier.