Sermon
The Faithful Father
Sermon November 21, 2021
and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice,
because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life;
he was lost and has been found.’
.
Luke 15:11-32
God invites us to celebrate the return of the wayward lost with him.
The God Who Seeks
Sermon November 14, 2021
than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
.
Luke 15:1-10
Out of love and grace, our God searches for the wayward and lost. We once were lost, but now we are found.
At Home with the Lord
Sermon November 7, 2021
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.
Mourning, crying and pain are part of our lives and our world, yet it will not always be that way. We are told of a day when the creator of the universe, in an amazingly personal and intimate gesture, acknowledges our pain, comforts us, and welcomes us into his new creation.
Sermon October 31, 2021 - Ephesians 5:15-20
Forks in the Road
not as unwise people but as wiser.
If Jesus is Lord of our life, our path through life will be different because of it. There will be things we must say "no" to in order to say "yes" to others.
Scripture: Ephesians 5:15-20
Sermon October 3, 2021 - Ephesians 4:22-5:2
Anger Management
do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Are you ever angry?
Do you ever do and say things you later regret when you are angry?
If you said yes to either of these questions, welcome to the human race.
Let us learn to deal with anger in godly ways, as well as learning to avoid the burden and danger of unnecessary anger.
Scripture: Ephesians 4:22-5:2
Sermon September 26, 2021
Godly Anger
do not let the sun go down on your anger.
Christians do not talk much about anger, and yet each of us experiences it. Even though we often avoid the subject of anger, scripture does not. Even Jesus gets angry.
Some people blow up and explode in anger, saying and doing things they otherwise never even dream of. Others avoid anger, stuffing it deep inside, unsuccessfully hoping it will go away.
In the big picture, when we consider that God is rightly angry toward sin, what does God's anger lead him to do? God gives his only son, not to condemn the world, but so we might live through him. God's anger resolves into our salvation.
Anger motivates us to action, particularly injustices inflicted upon others, but guided by the same love in which God sent his only son as a living sacrifice.
If that is how God responds to our sins, for which he is rightly angry, so it also is to be how we respond to those who sin against us.
Scripture: Ephesians 4:22-5:2
Sermon September 19, 2021
Taking Flight
and to clothe yourselves with the new self,
created according to the likeness of God
in true righteousness and holiness.
Jesus calls us from our old ways and to a new self.
No matter how you look at it, this means change. Someone said, "God loves you just the way you are, but he also loves you enough to transform and heal who you are."
Scripture: Ephesians 4:17-24
Sermon September 12, 2021
Growing into the Fullness of Christ
for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity,
to the measure of the full stature of Christ.
Is your faith growing or remaining the same? Does your life make a difference?
As humans, all of us have grown up from infants. We start with simple things like learning to turn over to our stomach or back. We learn to crawl. We begin to pull ourselves up and eventually take some tottering steps. But it isn't long until we can run, skip, and jump. What was once impossible becomes ordinary.
Our faith similarly develops over time, indeed over our entire lives. We were not created and saved to remain how we are, but to grow into the full stature of Christ. This is God's lifetime work in us, and this side of heaven we will always have room to grow.
Where are you growing in your faith? What step is God calling you to take? How is God using you?
Our life in Christ is a journey of saying "yes" to God's will in our life.
Scripture: Ephesians 4:7-16
Sermon September 5, 2021
United in Baptism
Baptism is intensely personal, but it also marks becoming part of the communal body of Christ.
1 Cor. 12:13
For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Sermon August 29, 2021
In Over Our Heads Together
Faith can be scary. If we can do it on our own, it doesn't take faith. Faith is following Jesus in ways that are beyond our own ability - over our heads. Not only that, God invites us to take these steps of faith together, not alone.
