Sermons of 2020

December 27 – Alpha & Omega – God!

When we say that Jesus is the Son of God, exactly what does that mean? It is more than just that God sees Jesus as special. It is more than that Jesus is a very powerful being. Jesus is God of very God. As we think about the baby in the manger, we must also remember the significance of  being the Son of God.

December 13 – Immanuel, God With Us

It is something for God to give us a goal to shoot for.  It is quite another for God to come and live that goal for us.  This is Jesus. In the name, Immanuel, we discover what that goal is and how to live in it.

December 6 – The Branch

We are used to hearing the name “Son of David” in the New Testament referring to Jesus.  It is the name Branch that tells us what that means.  May we rejoice that our King has come.

November 29 – Ready for Revival (Part 2)

Jesus told us to build our life on His word by doing it, not just knowing it. This is the commitment of a heart that genuinely wants to work in our midst. Such a commitment is preparing us for revival.

November 22 – Ready for Revival (Part 1)

Jesus told us to build our life on His word by doing it, not just knowing it. This is the commitment of a heart that genuinely wants to work in our midst. Such a commitment is preparing us for revival.

November 15 – Build Your House on the Rock

In a world that gives God little any real thought, Christians must be salt and light all that more clearly. We must prepare carefully to be that salt and light. We prepare by first understanding what we are facing in such a world. The second way we prepare is by embracing revival!

November 8 – Rome or Israel?

What does God expect of His people when they are in the minority? How do we prepare for a time when there is NOT a genuine revival and spiritual awakening in our culture?

November 1 – What Does Your Pastor Want for You?

We sometimes think that our leaders want us to be good workers. Paul reveals that the heart of a Godly pastor want his people to be something rather than to just do something.

October 25 – What Type of Leader Do You Want?

When we think of leaders we correctly speak of their character. However, Paul reveals that there is more than one way to be a Godly leader. These different ways that Paul speaks of are determined by the type of people those Godly leaders serve.

October 18 – Can A Christian Grow When Struggling? (Part 2)

Paul shares with us 9 areas in which we can grow even while we are struggling. In fact, it is the struggle that is essential to our growth.

October 11 – Can a Christian Grow Through Struggles?

Why do Christians have difficulty growing through struggles? First, such growth is a miraculous act of God, and we have stopped looking for those. Second, growing through struggling requires making Jesus our strength and joy, and we hate the weakness that demands. We must come back to looking to God and lean on Jesus.

October 4 – Fighting for Someone’s Soul (part 2)

We can’t make people listen to us. However, there are things that we can appeal to that will encourage those we love to listen to our counsel. This is especially true when it is their soul we want to see saved!

September 27 – Fighting for Someone’s Soul (part 1)

We can’t make people listen to us. However, there are things that we can appeal to that will encourage those we love to listen to our counsel. This is especially true when it is their soul we want to see saved!

September 20 – Noticing the Flesh in Conflict

As we think about how we act when we have disagreements, we must identify how the flesh tempts us to compromise our convictions to win the argument. When we know the temptation we can see the signs and choose a different path.

September 13 – When the Family Disagrees

It is easy to miss God’s caution in the area of arguing. When strong emotions get involved, it becomes easy to justify our actions. Yet, God reveals that how we fight and why we fight is what really matters to Him. Even in our tensest moments, Jesus urges us to be like Him.

September 6 – Putting Giving into Practice

Giving is wonderful. Being a giving person doesn’t happen
by accident. Paul shares with us how to become that person
who gives like God does.

August 30 – God’s Opinion about Giving

Whenever preachers talk about giving, the average church member can wonder about the reason. We ask questions like, “Is giving down?” or “Are we starting a new project?” or “Does the church need money?” Would it surprise us to discover that God has an agenda regarding giving? He uses giving to draw us to Himself!

August 23 – Understanding Giving

The Bible speaks of our use of money as an investment in our future and as a way to care for the needs of today. However, the Bible asks us to take our understanding one step further. God asks us to keep changing how we see both of those areas until, through them, we live out God’s grace.

August 16 – When We Find Victory… What Happens Next?

Today’s passage concludes Paul’s specific encouragement to us to mature in our walk with Jesus together. Today he tells us what great blessings happen when we respond well to God’s correction.

August 9 – Handling Wrong Right

There is a right way and a wrong way to receive God’s course corrections. We are talking about more than accepting or rejecting them. We are talking about receiving them in the spirit in which they are given: to help us grow!

August 2 – Moving from the Petty to the Real (in Love)

Even though all sin should be gradually defeated in the life of the church, there is one category of sin that is especially hurtful. It isn’t hurtful because of its shocking force. It is especially hurtful because it hides behind smiles, pious words, and self-righteousness. These sins are the sins of pettiness.

July 26 – Don’t Be a Christian Just to Escape Hell

Paul has said that we are called to be ambassadors. He now says that he is “commending ourselves as servants of God.” He is inviting us to join him in both parts of being a disciple of Jesus!

July 19 – What Controls You?

As we think about why Jesus came to die, we acknowledge our need. Yet, our need is not all that is involved.  We also marvel at His willingness to meet our need. His willingness to die for us calls to us to respond.

July 12 – Heavenly Minded

There is nothing wrong with knowing how blessed we will be in Heaven and especially in the new Earth. However, the perspective that the gospel gives us changes our present life as well. It changes how we understand the life we live everyday precisely because we know that Heaven is on the way.

July 5 – Where This Glory Takes Us

It is hard to get our minds around how different living and thinking like Jesus is. Sure, we know about giving up sin, but thinking like Jesus is much more. God is inviting us through Paul to see how much better it is to see life as Jesus sees it.

June 28 – Who Does God Use?

Jesus saw His disciples after the resurrection.  These men were hurting.  They were confused.  Some were waiting for marching orders, but were also ready to quit and go back home. They sound like us.

June 21 – The Glory of Being Clay Pots

The good news of Jesus is designed to be an earthquake in our lives. This good news is supposed to change everything important. If it hasn’t, then perhaps we should look deeper.

June 14 – The Glory of the Gospel in Us.

The Bible describes the gospel as glorious. If the gospel is so glorious and we know it, then how do we show it? What does the glory of the gospel make us do?

June 7 – Why We Find our Confidence in Jesus

A key theme of the scriptures is that Christians must live by a different set of standards than the rest of the world. The ability and willingness to live by these standards is called boldness. Where does this boldness come from?

May 31 – Be Real

Pain and struggle can make us feel unusable. We feel small or scarred or imperfect. We may be those things, but God uses people just like us everyday.

May 24 – The Motive of Forgiveness

If you have ever heard the call to forgive as simple or easy, let us dispel that right now. It’s not. We don’t forgive because it is easy. We forgive because forgiveness is the path to life.

May 17 – When Those You Love Fail

There is a type of struggle that too often we know intimately: arguments. The hardest of those arguments happen when those we love are walking down a path that will hurt them. The passage today is NOT giving us steps to follow. (It is not the action.) Our passage is revealing the spirit and the motive that must be behind the action if Christ-honoring healing is going to occur.

May 10 – Jesus – God’s Yes

What does it mean when someone says something?  It tells us about the person’s attitude, personality, and character. It tells us what they care about. What does it mean when God says something? Don’t we learn the same types of things? 

May 3 – Making Us Worth Listening To

A clean mirror is a good mirror. The same will be true of those who want to follow Christ. We reflect Jesus to others. We can either do it well or do it poorly. When we do it well, that reflection is one that people trust when the hard times come.

April 26 – Suffering and Tunnel Vision

Our struggles do something to our vision – they turn it into tunnel vision. We only see what is in front of us. Suffering and struggles also affect another sensation – our feeling of the passing of time. We can come to think that suffering is forever. How can we know that it is not forever?

April 19 – Why Struggles?

The reason we struggle with suffering and how to handle it is because we don’t understand it. Why do we have to suffer? Saying that it is just the product of a fallen world is not good enough. We want to know: What is God doing with our suffering?!

April 12 – The Everyday Power of the Resurrection

We see how the resurrection shifted the way the early disciples saw their universe. It changed them. So, if we embrace what the resurrection means then it will surely change us.

April 5 – Another Resistant Hearer

There are people who resist the gospel. The exciting thing is that the gospel reaches people like that all the time.

March 29 – Declaring God’s Faithfulness

Faithfulness is an impressive thing.  It can push back worry.  It can calm fear.  Faithfulness can give hope when hope seems impossible.

March 22 – Seeking Those Who Are Lost

Beliefs matter. Real beliefs make us either act or not act. Our belief in Jesus and the destructiveness of sin must make us act.

March 15 – A Church that Prays

Guest speaker Warren Jernstad shares from the book of Acts how the church must be a church that prays.

March 8 – Jesus, The God Who Saves

Our Lord’s first name means something.  It means the God who saves. It is more than a title.  It is a statement of fact.

March 1 – There is Real Life in Christ!

How can we break the cycle of sin in our life?  We break it by refusing to believe the lie that everyone is basically good.  We break it when we stop believing the lies.

February 23 – The Hope and the Pain

God’s call for prayer in our passage is about sin.  However, it is also about the person who is sinning.  Which message do we need to hear: be fervent in prayer or consider the choice that the struggling person faces?

February 16 – Trust Leads to Confidence

Have you ever thought about how confident you are when you pray? Confidence in prayer comes as we grow in our trust.  Confidence comes because we know the truth.  It is time to think about what truths that trust does show us.

February 9 – Know God’s Proof

What reason do we have for trusting Jesus?  We do not know the future.  We do not always understand the present.  He does.  Will we trust him?

February 2 – Who Will You Believe?

Scripture(s): 1 John 5:6-9

One of the most difficult questions we will ever deal with is who we believe.  That question is the one we face as we consider our lives and our God.  Will we listen to Him, ourselves, or others?

January 26 – The Taste Test

Scripture(s): 1 John 5:1-5

Some people treat their lives like a mixture.  A little of this, a little of that.  Jesus challenges us to make Him our whole life.  That is the only way to live the good life God has designed us to live.

January 19 – The Proof of Truth

Scripture(s): 1 John 4:15-21

In our day and age it is difficult to know the truth from a lie.  We are making promises when we share Christ’s truth with others.  How do they know it is all we claim it is?

January 12 – Love Working in You

Scripture(s): 1 John 4:7-14

The world suffers from a thirst for love.  No, it doesn’t always thirst for expressions of love.  No, it doesn’t always hunger for words of love.  However, all of us hunger and thirst for real, abiding love.

January 5 – Year of Challenge

Over this past year, God has taught us through the book of Joshua, through a study of what the average Christian can do (it’s more than we sometimes think!), and we are currently in the middle of our study of 1 John.