Sermon Archive

It can be easy to think that we have accomplished great things when great things happen. So often though, it is God standing right over our shoulder that really is driving our accomplishments. It’s by His help that we are able to claim so many victories. As we open our new building, we celebrate what God has done and consider what it means for us today- and for our future.

A continual theme of scripture is the importance of remembering. Time and time again we are told- “Don’t forget…” We have to be told this repeatedly because our nature is to be a forgetful people. We look at how the book of Exodus prompts us to remember Joseph, and then we take time in our final gathering at the community center to remember what God has done in our midst over the last few years.

Making a promise is a big deal. As circumstances and situations change, it can make keeping those promises next to impossible. So what happens when God makes a promise bigger than anything we can imagine and way bigger than anything we could bring about? God keeps his promise. Every. Single. Time. As we start a new sermon series on the book of Exodus, we take a look back on some massive promises God made to an ordinary guy.

On the brink of a new year, what will the next 12 months look like for you? Do you have resolutions? Goals? Big plans? Whatever the turn of the calendar looks like for you, it’s a certainty that you don’t know exactly what the next 12 months will bring you. So how do you plan for what you can’t know? You plan to be obedient. Jesus tells us that when we are- we’re family.

Mary’s role in the Christmas story is unquestioned. She’s the leading lady and at the heart of the drama. Mary’s role is so synonymous with Christmas, we forget just how unlikely it is that she’s in this story at all. How do you handle it when you find yourself feeling like you don’t belong- like God is making a mistake? Mary’s obedience is a beautiful example of what it looks like to trust God even when His work is completely unexpected.

The prequel has become a popular tool for box office success. It allows storytellers to develop characters we already know well; it helps us to know what makes them who they are. Matthew begins his gospel by giving us a sneak peak at the backstory of Jesus. In doing so, he provokes all kinds of questions about who and why God uses the people he does. The answers we find tell us a little about the people in the backstory but a lot about the God over it all. 

The Christmas Story is full of great characters and drama-packed moments, but the Christmas story is a lot bigger than those days surrounding the manger. The story of Christmas is woven all throughout scripture, and that story can be told in some unexpected ways- like the lineage of Jesus where we find some names that just don’t belong there. 

Things look bad just a couple of chapters into the Bible.  Sin has plunged the world into darkness and death and little hope is found.  But a little hope is all God needs.  There at the very beginning are the first signs of the miracle of Christmas – God sending his Son into the world to redeem us from the curse of sin!  It’s a story God has been unfolding throughout all human history, because Christmas is bigger than just Christmas day!

Thanksgiving usually means turkey, parades, family, and football. The bible gives us a much more useful picture of Thanksgiving. Gratitude is one of the chief weapons God gives us to fight back in our ongoing spiritual warfare. To declare thanks, especially in the face of pain, suffering, and darkness is to declare that God is bigger than all of those things- that His gifts and His light won’t be drowned out by the darkness. 

Our culture is built to maximize it’s definition of happiness. The results of this pursuit is often times the exact opposite- stress, busyness, anxiety, and loneliness. How do we fight against this constant undertow of our culture? Paul gives us our battleplan to win the fight against this constant pull that pulls us under.

The number one rule in grocery shopping is that you never shop hungry. Why? Because our appetites can control us in ways we don’t fully appreciate. Paul warns us that the same thing can be true of us on a much larger scale- where we can let our appetite be our god. Fortunately, Paul gives us a way forward from this trap. We must let our appetites be for things this world can never supply.

“Oh yeah, life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone.”

These lyrics can resonate in new ways as we go through life. Life is hard, but our pain serves the purpose of conforming us to Jesus. When we find ourselves in the midst of that pain, it can be hard to know where to turn. Paul, though, gives us a path forward in order to pursue Jesus even as we share in his sufferings. 

All of us are hardwired to convince the people around us that we matter- maybe even to convince ourselves that we matter. We spend most of our lives building a resume that will make us proud and validate us to the rest of the world. The Gospel, however, frees us from this constant nagging to prove ourselves. Paul had a resume that was spotless, yet for him, his resume was worthless. That can only be true because what he had in its place was priceless.

You can’t just claim to be anything you want. Certain characteristics have to be present in order to claim something as your identity. Paul lays out the foundation of our faith in Philippians 2 and makes it clear- if we want to identify as a Christian, then there are certain things that need to be true of us. What are those things? How can make those things true characteristics of our lives so that we can truly identify as Jesus’s disciples?

Turns out, working it out isn’t as scary as you might think.  Fear and trembling can be good things. Paul wants us to know that The Living God is working through him – and through you! It’s a glorious thought, and one we need to be reminded of often. Not just for our own sake, but for those who will see the light of Christ as followers of Jesus shine in a dark world.

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