These sermons are taught passage by passage through a book of the Bible.
The history of Israel is in many ways a history of God’s work, and mercy, amongst people. In studying the Israelite’s relationship to God, we can learn much about what it means to be the people of God. This is a series of sermons about Israel, mercy, and us in Romans 9-11.
Sometimes life makes us feel like losers. It can seem like we will never overcome our struggles, our sorrows, or our sins. Romans 6-8 tells a different story. It tells us that through God’s victorious love we can be conquerors, and more. This is a series of sermons explaining what it means to be “more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
You can be right with God (righteous). This is true no matter what you’ve done, who you are, or where you’re from. This series of sermons explains why it is important and how it is possible (justification).
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.” One of the most influential people ever to live wrote these words 2,000 years ago. Millions have believed them. This series on Romans 1-3:24 explains what the Gospel is and why it matters to you.
Most often we think of church in terms of what we get out of it. We regard the church as something built for us. The book of Ephesians teaches something different. It explains that the church should be built on, centered around, and exist for Jesus; it teaches that it is His.
A Christian’s citizenship is in Heaven. Their primary allegiance is not to a president or king, but to Christ who is the King of Kings. At the same time Christians live, work, play, and raise families in human civilizations. Often culture is in opposition to Christianity’s core beliefs and values, forcing Christians to make difficult choices about how to interact with the societies in which they live. How do we live in the world and still bring honor to our true home? This series is about living as a sojourner.
The Bible is comprised of inspired letters. The shortest are called Philemon and Jude. These letters are often overlooked. Despite their neglect, they contain important and relevant truths. This is a series of sermons on the forgotten letters.
The New Testament book called Acts contains the story of the early church. While it is often romanticized, the story isn’t one of perfection. Instead, it contains sin, controversy, and strife. Despite it all, the early thrived. Crucial to this success was a key attribute that the modern church must duplicate if it is going to thrive. The early church was filled.
We want to be happy. At the same time we understand that happiness always fades; it is blurred and erased by fear, anxiety, worry, insecurity, cynicism, addiction, sin, and all of life’s problems. Should we give up the pursuit? No, but we should pursue something more permanent – something that cannot be taken from us and remains even in the bad times. This series, on the book of Philippians, calls us to seek, and find, joy.
We are bombarded with bad news. Shootings. Brutality. War. Racism. The list goes on and on and this isn’t even to mention our own personal tragedies. With all of the bad news, it is easy to feel hopeless. These sermons on the minor prophets offer reasons to hope and declare that we can be optimistic despite the bad news.