Sermon Archive

God loves you. That is a familiar refrain for most of us. So familiar it has all but lost its power, but it is a profound truth we cannot take for granted. He did not have to love us, to pursue us, or to engage with us at all. In spite of this, he chose to know us intimately and pursue us in love. There is nothing in us that would merit this or that would draw him to us. Yet he loves the unlovely and calls us to love him as we should.

The angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. Who will win? The one that promises fun or the one that calls for self-restraint? This is, to many of our minds, the essence of self-control. The biblical picture though is much different. Less about self-denial, the bible talks more about our pursuit of what is good and holy. Self-control is about taking hold of what is most beneficial to us and most glorifying to God.

When you think about who God is and how you’d describe him, gentleness is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. After all, we hear so much about God being angry and punishing humanity. Yet when you begin to search scripture, God’s gentleness is easy to spot. When Jesus describes himself he says that he is “gentle and lowly.” What can we learn from a God that is fully justified to be harsh, yet chooses to be gentle? How can we be empowered by the Spirit to do the same?

When we talk about God’s attributes, it can be easy to skip over the ones that seem harsh or difficult. Scripture is clear that anger is part of how God deals with us in our sin, and we need not be afraid to talk about it. After all, anger is a part of love- the two are a package deal. What we have to understand is what drives God’s anger. Once we understand that, we must ask what we are to do with our own anger.

God is good, all the time. We know this to be true, but do we even know what it means? All God does flows from the fountain of his goodness. We are then called to reflect that goodness that is shown to us to those that are around us. How are we called to show goodness to others? The new testament gives us a peek into the lives of a few men that can help us understand what it means to be good.

We all want to be happy. So why does the Bible feel the need to command us to be happy? So much so that it is the most often repeated command in all of scripture. If we want it, then why do we need to be told to have it? According to scripture, it’s because our joy sensor is broken. We look for joy in things that don’t sustain- things that should point us to a bigger, better source of joy. So the Bible repeats the refrain for us to rejoice as a beacon to the true source of deeper, greater joy.

Somewhere along the way, the church has chosen to celebrate traits that we don’t see celebrated the same way in scripture. We celebrate people that are adventurous, full of bravado, confrontational, self-assured, and dogmatic. In contrast, we tend to downplay the things the bible deems to be important. In our current cultural climate, this is especially true when we talk about the simple act of being kind. More than being nice, being kind involves both a disposition and the accompanying action. As with each of these fruits of the Spirit, we do not find our ability to be kind from ourselves, but in the power of the Spirit and the kindness of God himself.

What does a successful life look like? Our culture bombards us with pictures of a life well-lived. Does the bible give us a vision for a successful life too? If so, what does it look like? Our answer is rooted first in the nature of God and the pattern given to us by Jesus. As it turns out, the culture’s picture looks very different than the one we find in the bible.

Do you cringe every time you read that “love is patient?” Patience is certainly easier to receive than it is to give. That’s why they call it a virtue. Truly, there are few things more important (and more difficult) for our lives than being patient.  Hard as it may be, a closer look at the Bible reveals the connection between our patience with the smallest of things to the very character of our Creator.

Peace. In a world full of chaos, there may be nothing as elusive as peace. We yearn for peace in our surrounding world, but it is the inner peace that we really need. Peace with God and the Peace of God are truly our greatest needs. The world will always have trouble, but Jesus tells us that he leaves us His peace. As we reflect on God’s peace, we are reminded of the beauty that the Spirit can give us that very same peace.

It has been said that the only thing in our lives that is constant is change. Every aspect of our life is subject to the forces of change: politics, health, trends, relationships, and the list could continue forever. This is why the doctrine of God’s immutability- that God does not change- is such a resting place for us. As the world continues to shift about us, we cry out along with the Psalmist that God is “our rock.” He is unchanging and always the same. He does not evolve or grow. He does not adapt or become “more perfect.” He is what He has always been and will be what He has always been.