Sermons from 2020
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Sermons from 2020

New Beginnings

We all experience moments in our lives where we need a fresh start. A new beginning. The gospel, the story of Jesus Christ, offers a new beginning unlike anything else, a fresh start on life where God forgives sinners and makes them brand new. New creations. How can we experientially walk in this new life?

God’s Purposes in the Exile

God was powerfully at work even during the darkest, bleakest period of Israel’s history. The book of Daniel records some of the amazing things God did while Israel was captive in a foreign nation. Some of his purposes in the Exile were to reprove sin, refine faith, rescue from danger, reach the world, and reveal the future. There is a real sense that all of us, like Daniel, are in captivity, exiled from Eden, strangers in a foreign land and far from our true home. Yet God is at work in our lives with the same objectives as we see in the book of Daniel.

Esther and the Invisible God

Though God may often seem absent to us, he is conspicuously present in our lives to help us. He is our ever-present help in trouble. We will journey through the Book of Esther, and though God is never mentioned directly, his fingerprints are all over this remarkable story of rescue. From this story and especially from the ultimate rescue of Christ the Savior, our faith will be strengthened and our worship increased.

Rescue: Famine

This advent season, we are looking at  stories of God’s amazing rescues of his people through history. This week we are going to examine the life of Joseph as recounted in Genesis. We will see God’s amazing rescue of Joseph, and then using him to rescue the fledgling nation of Israel, and the whole world from a global famine. In this story we will learn that we can find hope and safety in God’s promises, no matter our circumstances on…

The Rescue of Noah in the Flood.

Ever feel like you need to be rescued from guilt, shame, or other problems? From where do we look for answers? God is both a righteous judge and a merciful rescuer, and we know this well through the coming of his Son, Jesus our Savior. In addition, throughout history God has repeatedly shown himself to deliver his people from judgment and death. This Sunday we’ll look at the shocking judgment of the Flood and the merciful rescue of one man and his family, an important picture of the Advent of Jesus Christ.

The Twenty-Ninth Chapter

As we look back on the 28 chapters of Luke’s account of the early church, we find Jesus making and keeping a promises to his followers: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth…”  (Acts 1:8)  Notice the form of this verse. It’s not a mission statement. It’s not a command. It’s a promise: “You will be my…

Acts 20-28: Accomplishing the Mission, Finishing the Course

As the world gets darker, staying true to Christ becomes increasingly difficult. How do we stay strong in an ever-more-hostile world? Today we look at Acts 20-28 and see the fuel behind Paul’s love for the world, dedication to mission, and sacrificial selflessness. Despite hardship, imprisonment, scoffers, and shipwreck, he stays true to his mission and faithful to the Lord Jesus.

The Gospel for All People

Christianity is often accused of being a narrow minded religion, too limiting in its principles, too narrow in whom it reaches. In our sermon this week, we will see the breadth of gospel impact on social classes. And in simple yet profound terms, we will hear who God really is and what the way of salvation is.

Acts 15: Disagreements, Debates, & Decisions

In this week’s section, we examine several conflicts that arose in the church as they spread “to the remotest parts of the earth”. With gentiles now becoming a large part of the community of faith, the chosen people of God, how ought they operate? New situations and clashing cultural habits lead to some difficult conversations and decisions.  As we look at how the church handled these situations, we gain insight into how to handle disagreements and decisions in our churches today.

Acts 13-14: The Gospel Spreads to the Gentiles

In this week’s passage, the Holy Spirit sends Paul and Barnabas out as missionaries to travel hundreds of miles, preaching the gospel to new regions. This pair of traveling evangelists will sail the seas, move past mountains, and survey new cities as they encounter a magician, government officials, religious leaders, and much more. But will the gospel be accepted or rejected? What unforeseen dangers await?

Acts 10: For the Nation

To enter the kingdom of God, language, ethnicity, nationality, and even how bad of a sinner we are do not matter. Only one thing is necessary.

The Conversion of a Christian Killer

This week, as we continue our Acts series, we see how the Holy Spirit worked to further his mission of expanding the church through one of the most dramatic and important conversion stories we see in the Bible: Saul of Tarsus. The “Hebrew of Hebrews”, was so zealous for God that he would not tolerate this new sect of Messianic heretics, followers of “The Way”.  They claimed that Jesus, the one who suffered the horrific shame of crucifixion, proving that…

Expansion to Samaria

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the man who died and went to heaven, and as he approached the pearly gates he came to Peter.  Peter asked him, “What have you done to be worthy of entering heaven? And don’t tell me about helping a little old lady cross the street.  People think  any little good deed will get them to heaven. Tell me something that’s significant. The man thought for a moment and said, “Well, there was the time…

Stephen Full of the Spirit

Christ calls his followers to a way of living that cannot be conducted by mere human power but must be inspired and strengthened by God himself in a curious but crucial way: to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Acts 5– The Unstoppable Church

Through both mundane and extreme challenges (think persecution, COVID, etc.), the church of God can and must continue its mission of making disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Signs and Wonders

This morning we are in our fifth week of our walkthrough of the book of Acts. Please open your bibles with me to Acts chapter 3. We’ll be covering a fairly large part of scripture today. Chapter 3, about a third of chapter 4, and a bit from chapter 5. There’s  a lot going on in this section, and we’ll be making two passes through here at least to cover some important themes. This morning, I want to talk about…

Gospel Shaped Community

We might think of “church” as a building or a meeting on Sunday morning that we “have to” go to. But the first church was a gathering of passionate disciples of Jesus who lived with great joy, awe, and oneness, all inspired by their faith in the risen Savior, the long-awaited Messiah. This church’s example will inspire us to seek and find what they had.

The Message of the Ambassador

As ambassadors for Christ, we have an assignment: to announce Jesus to the world. What specifically do we announce? As we read Acts, we will learn from the simple yet rich words of Peter and other apostles and so find wisdom to announce life and hope to our world.

The Beginning of the End

We continue our walk through of Acts this week by looking at the very beginning of “The Last Days” – a period of time foretold by Old Testament Prophets – the age where God’s Holy Spirit is no longer limited to a single location in a single nation, but is now poured out on all who believe in Jesus, God’s Messiah. Luke chronicles the events of the beginning of “The Last Days” – Some amazing things happen! We will discuss how these events relate to us today as a church, and how we too should proclaim the mighty works of God to all nations.

Acts: The Holy Spirit and His Unstoppable Church – Part 1

This week we’re beginning a 17-week walkthrough of the book of Acts. In Acts we find Luke the Physician writing down a careful history of the progress of the gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. In Acts, we can find courage in the certainty of Jesus’s triumph over sin and death, and in the fact that no power of hell or scheme of man can stop God’s plan to spread the good news of His son Jesus…