Sermons from 2014
Prayer for the Persecuted Church
Introduction The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the most beautiful, life-giving message in the world. Through the suffering and resurrection of Christ 2000 years ago, eternal life is now available to everyone who calls on his name. But in spite of this beauty and love and glory found in Christ, that same message provokes hatred and animosity. And since the Apostles, believers throughout history have been willing to proclaim Jesus and suffer for it. And they have suffered. Hebrews 13:3 ESV “Remember…
The Holy Spirit – Our Guide
INTRODUCTION What is God like? How involved is he in our lives and in this world? Does he have a “hands-off” attitude towards this world? “I made this world, but now you’re on your own unless things get really bad.” We could call this Deism. God might be interested in the happenings of this world, but he doesn’t really intervene. Deism is impossible to find in the Bible. In fact, the coming of God’s Son into the world crushes arguments of Deism. The…
Gifts of the Spirit
Summary: God has given spiritual gifts to all believers empowering them to serve one another and build up the church. Just as the human body is made up of many different parts, yet is one body, so God has given a wide diversity of gifts, yet all united around Him to do His will. God gives gifts as He wills and Biblical history shows that the gifts of healing and miracles have not been present in the history of…
The Holy Spirit and Our Sanctification
Introduction We Christians like to us the word, “saved.” “I’m saved.” “I have salvation.” My story of salvation began on a warm, August evening when I was a 19-year old engineering student at ISU. Salvation means to be delivered. Rescued. What happens at “salvation?” Last week Matt clearly talked about eternal life. Salvation. Finding forgiveness and a right standing with God through Jesus Christ. And only through Jesus Christ. It means gaining entrance into life with God forever. Being…
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…
Wise Guys and Fools
INTRODUCTION About 12 years ago, my good friend and fellow pastor Pat Sokoll moved to Iowa City to start a new church. Pat is simply one of the wisest men I’ve ever known. He has so much insight into people and problems and the things of God, that, honestly, I found it almost annoying that he could be so RIGHT so many times. (I mean that in a very complimentary way.) When he moved, I realized that I and our church…
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…