What are you looking forward to, hoping for, dreaming about? Visions lead to plans. These can be God-willed; sometimes, however, they leave out God completely (“Godless”) or are so vague it’s hard to tell whether they involve God at all (“God-light”). James warns us that life is too uncertain, brief, and important to abandon our priorities.
What are you looking forward to, hoping for, dreaming about? Visions lead to plans. These can be God-willed; sometimes, however, they leave out God completely (“Godless”) or are so vague it’s hard to tell whether they involve God at all (“God-light”). James warns us that life is too uncertain, brief, and important to abandon our priorities.
Some of us worship our work, while others of us love being lazy. Keeping the Sabbath keeps us from those twin idols, and reminds us that Jesus’ has finished his redemptive work, allowing us to enter into his rest. This sermon explores 7 reasons we Sabbath and 7 ways we kill it.
Jesus says that people are prone to worship God or money. Money, perhaps along with sex, is the most pernicious, pervasive idol in our culture today. Despite whatever the Bible has to say about it, it’s a topic that’s met with the greatest resistance. This sermon looks at what God’s word has to say about issues of stewardship, and greed versus generosity.
Jesus is in heaven, serving the church and giving gifts. He gives us himself, the Holy Spirit, and other people. To each Christian he also gives spiritual gifts to be cultivated (1 Cor. 12; Rom. 12; Eph. 4; 1 Pet. 4). Some have multiple gifts and different levels of a gift. God gives gifts to equip the saints and build up the body of Christ. Your gift is not your identity, but how are you gifted?
Mordecai and Esther aren’t perfect, but they’re making progress and changing. Mordecai’s faith is activated in mourning and weeping. He trusts that God is always with his people, and that God is in control. Esther’s faith is action in the face of opposition and possible death. Only she can serve as mediator to reconcile Xerxes and her people, just as Jesus is the one mediator between God and men.
Besides Jesus, John the Baptizer was the greatest man to ever live. We can learn from seven aspects of his greatness—including that he was a Spirit-filled evangelist who humbly prepared the way for Jesus. He avoided adolescence and thus is a great example of what it means to be a real man. Real men are creators and cultivators, not childish consumers, cowards, or complainers.
Pregnant Mary walks many miles to visit pregnant Elizabeth so they can share in each other’s joy and be in community together. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb, John the Baptizer, leaps for joy when he hears Mary’s greeting, and Elizabeth prophesies that Mary is blessed. Thus, we see that a baby in the womb is indeed a baby, that children are a blessing from God, and that abortion is murder. We all, through sin, have bloody hands as murderers of Jesus, but he offers his nail-scarred hands—life for life—to save us. He died in our place for our sin, and the proper response is faith and worship, as exemplified by Mary, Elizabeth, and John.