Sermons by Matt Heerema (Page 7)
Matt serves as lead pastor, and focuses on teaching, leadership, and theological development. He and his wife Nancy have four daughters. He is a musician and led in Stonebrook’s music ministry for 15 years before putting the guitar down. Matt is an avid reader and massive sci-fi geek. As a bi-vocational pastor, he also directs Mere Agency whose goal is to help the church use the web to impact the world with the gospel. You can connect with him at mattheerema.com.
Evangelistic Expectations
In the scriptures, we do not see a clear evangelism “how to” for believers. But there seems to be a clear backdrop that the churches were evangelizing prolifically. Yet I think most of us would feel that we don’t evangelize as often as we should. Most of us tend to be very hesitant to speak here. There are many reasons for this, it will probably always be the case. Tom Short, a campus preacher with our church association told…
The Reality of Resurrecton
Easter is that time in the Christian calendar when we set our sights on the very foundation, roots, essence, and core message of our faith: the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah, from the dead. It is very easy, with all the cultural and religious trappings of the holiday, to turn Jesus and his resurrection from the dead into another mere myth. I want to say emphatically that the Gospel Message that Christians proclaim, is not good…
The Life of a Sojourner and an Exile
Why Should We Obey God’s Commands? Have you ever wondered why we should obey God’s commands? “Well that’s a silly question, Matt! God is God, therefore we should obey Him!” Yes, yes, of course. But really though, have you wondered why? Christians believe that we are not saved by what we do. Rather we are saved by faith in the free grace of God, through the work of His son Jesus, alone. We do not add to this by anything…
God’s Work and Ours
Matthew 25:14–30 (ESV) – Jesus Describes the coming Kingdom of God 14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the…
God's Work and Ours
Matthew 25:14–30 (ESV) – Jesus Describes the coming Kingdom of God 14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the…
The Holy Spirit and The New Birth
Prologue We are in week three of a series on The Holy Spirit. In the first message, Pastor Paul gave an excellent overview of who The Holy Spirit it is, and what He does. In the second, Pastor Dave gave a very good Biblical history of the promised Holy Spirit, and the arrival of the Spirit in the church at Pentecost. Our series is arranged roughly in the order we experience His presence and work in the church and…
Stonebrook 101 – Part 2
Introduction Last week Paul kicked off our three week series, “Stonebrook 101” and did an excellent job of contrasting the competing visions of life: one aimed at pleasing ourselves, and one aimed at pleasing God. SELFIE VISION VS. JESUS VISION He called the life aimed at pleasing ourselves and making ourselves famous the selfie vision (and here’s a picture of him pretending to take a selfie…, and to be fair here’s a selfie I took recently. This is me…
Fatherhood: Tending the Garden
“Fatherhood: Tending the Garden” John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Stonebrook Church – June 15 – Matt Heerema INTRO Well, today is Father’s day, that wonderful, well-entrenched American tradition (1972), that took cues from the smashing commercial success of Mother’s day and was created for the purpose of selling more greeting cards and neck ties. Conveniently this year it falls right over the top of…
Life on the Battlefront
Introduction This the second of a three week series on the Christian life and the reality of the spiritual war we are in that we are calling “Wartime Lifestyle”, a phrase coined (I think) by John Piper that has been very helpful to me as in making decisions about how to think about life and how to spend my time and money. It is an intentionally jarring phrase. If you resolve that you will live a “Wartime lifestyle” you are…
Work is Worship
Intro When we kicked off this series, I said I hope we can learn that our daily “mundane” and “secular” tasks can glorify God and expand His kingdom in real and practical ways. And I’m hoping that as a result of this series, we’ll learn to be encouraged that our daily work matters to Him and will count for something eternal. And most of all, because of that, we’ll become equipped to live every moment or our life with a…
How the Gospel Affects Our Work
Intro Good morning! I suppose most of you know me, but for those that don’t, my name is Matt Heerema and I usually serve as one of the music leaders here at Stonebrook. I’m on staff here with the church help with that role as well as a few other things, and I also own a business here in Ames that provides graphic design and digital communications consulting. I have a couple employees there, and between these two roles…
Why We Do What We Do on Sunday Morning
(The following are Matt’s speaking notes. They are not a direct transcript of the audio linked here) PROLOGUE My aim: to strengthen you personally, and equip you to pass this on to your fellow brothers and sisters, to the end that you will have a better understanding of, appreciation for, and therefore, ability to get more out of our worship gatherings, and that you will be able to help your brothers and sisters to do so as well. Worship is…
The Apostle Paul’s Story
Two weeks ago Brad talked about the story of the Apostle Peter, and drew out aspects of God’s grace and mercy from what the scriptures tell us about his life, and this morning, I am very excited to do the same with the Apostle Paul. What I want to show you this morning is that Paul’s life and writings teach us, that Amazement at God’s Magnificent Grace is The Fuel and The Pattern for The Christian Life. It is the…
The Apostle Paul's Story
Two weeks ago Brad talked about the story of the Apostle Peter, and drew out aspects of God’s grace and mercy from what the scriptures tell us about his life, and this morning, I am very excited to do the same with the Apostle Paul. What I want to show you this morning is that Paul’s life and writings teach us, that Amazement at God’s Magnificent Grace is The Fuel and The Pattern for The Christian Life. It is the…
The New Birth
This message is about the theological concept of The New Birth or what it means to be “Born Again”. Matt takes a slightly different approach in presenting this material and shares his life’s story, showing how the new birth impacted his life and quite literally in many ways changed him into a new person.
Sin
We are in the middle of a series here at The Rock called “I Believe.” We are teaching through what we see to be the fundamentals of the Christian message: The Gospel. Paul J. taught us that God is our all-powerful, all-loving, all-good, creator. John B. taught us that we are creatures that God created for Himself that we would love Him. And I get to talk about boring ol’ mundane sin. Sin: to miss the mark, to rebel, to…