My main concern is with the anxiety that has settled upon America.

I try to help people see that God uses pain, that pain is one of the ways God shapes us into the kind of beings He wants us to be for eternity.

Look at the Bethlehem birth. A king ordered a census. Joseph was forced to travel. Mary, as round as a ladybug, bounced on a donkey's back. The hotel was full. The hour was late. The event was one big hassle. Yet, out of the hassle, hope was born. It still is.

God saves. Specifically he will save his people from their sins.

Heaven is beyond our imagination . . . . At our most creative moment, at our deepest thought, at our highest level, we still cannot fathom eternity.

I don't have a lot of time in the sermon anyway. The sermon is only 25 minutes, which to me is frighteningly short. So I feel as if I need to get into that pretty quickly and make it as practical and accessible as possible.

Our tendency is to be converted to church and not to Christ.