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1 month ago | 
churchleaders.com | David Mathis
Mother’s Day is a sweet opportunity for Christians to celebrate one of God’s most significant means of his common and redeeming grace. For most, there’s some bitter flavor somewhere. We live in a fallen world. All mothers are sinful—even Jesus’ own mother knew well her need for a Savior (Luke 1:47).
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1 month ago | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
He was buried. (1 Corinthians 15:4)All four Gospels make a scene of Jesus’s burial. And all four reveal the name of a man we otherwise would not know — an intriguing figure whom a prophet had foretold some seven centuries prior. That “he was buried” might seem obvious enough, and a small detail, but it’s emphatically not. Far from obvious, it was very unusual for a crucified body to be honored with burial.
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1 month ago | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
My task, here at the end of this conference, is to convince you, or remind you, or deepen your conviction, that despite what the world tells us, and what our people themselves might say, our people desperately need God. They hunger for him. Every time we preach, our hearers, whoever they are — men and women, teens and children, middle-aged and elderly — they are God-hungry people. Some of them, perhaps many, are starving for him.
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1 month ago | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
Jesus dared to ride a donkey into Jerusalem. We might be so familiar with Palm Sunday that we overlook what an audacious move this was. Don’t let the palm branches distract you. The point of the greenery is the man lifted up on the back of the beast. Along with clearing the temple with a whip, this was one of the most provocative steps Jesus took on the road to Calvary. All four Gospels make clear that riding the donkey was Jesus’s own idea (Matthew 21:1–2; Mark 11:1–2; Luke 19:29–30; John 12:14).
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2 months ago | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
You can hear it in the sunrise. You sense it in the majesty of the mountains. You find it in the ceaseless gurgling of a stream, or the continuous crash of a waterfall. And if you have ears to hear, you catch it in the cries of the wicked, ensnared in their own devices. And you perceive it in the praises of the righteous, rejoicing in their Redeemer and his perfectly timed rescue. It’s the laughter of God. Yes, he laughs. Oh, how he does. “He who sits in the heavens laughs” (Psalm 2:4).
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Feb 28, 2025 | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
My wife and I knew we were different when we got married, even though public school hadn’t helped us much on that front. Our 1990s and early 2000s society tried to take the edge off our sense of difference, but still we knew. Clearly our bodies, as male and female, were different. And our instincts, while complementary, plainly differed. Of course, we had differing life experiences and families of origin, and so we exhibited the typical variances between any two humans.
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Feb 12, 2025 | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
Audio TranscriptLet’s start off there in Isaiah 55. I want this to set the tone for our whole approach. I don’t know what kind of approach you bring to the spiritual disciplines. I want to bring an Isaiah 55 approach, which I think is not a one-time approach. I think it’s a lifetime approach of these habits of grace (or means of grace or spiritual disciplines). I would love to spend the whole time on Isaiah 55. That’s the plan tomorrow at a church in Pepperell, Massachusetts.
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Jan 31, 2025 | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
This article is for young men who aspire to preach but doubt their own abilities. I have in mind men who have discovered that good preaching has changed their lives and fed their souls. Miraculously, you — one who was born in sin — have come to love the word of God, and the gospel of Christ, and the preached word, and in you is a growing desire to preach it yourself. But you’re not sure. You may even have serious doubts. Are you “gifted” to do the work of preaching?
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
He helps the soul to approach with confidence, and yet with reverence; with filial fear, and yet with an emboldened faith; with zeal and importunity, and yet with humble submission; with lively hope, and yet with self-denial. —David Clarkson (1622–1686)Imagine Esther. She stands at the door to the king’s inner court. She has not been invited into his presence. She hesitates, knowing the fateful step to follow.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
desiringgod.org | David Mathis
Advent gets me through the winter. Now, the Minnesota winters are nothing to trifle with. They can last a full four months, sometimes five. Before long, these winters feel like half the year. Yet even as a South Carolina native, I endure them well enough with the help of a good Advent. The light and warmth of a Christian December go a long way in taking the edge off these long, dark, cruel winters. Before long, it’s January. Yes, two frigid months still lie ahead.
