Sermons on Matthew
For the past several weeks, we have been looking at the teachings of Christ on various topics—from prayer to spiritual warfare to hypocrisy to personal property. In each of these areas, Jesus taught His disciples how they were to think, act and speak. In this last section of teachings, Jesus is seeking to motivate His…
In the twelfth chapter of Luke, the gospel writer packs these first twelve verses with a ton of theological content dealing with issues such as hypocrisy, eternal judgment, the reality of hell and the unforgivable sin. In this message, Pastor Wade looks at each of these and more to develop some cohesion within these topics…
The focus of the message today is a series of teachings and encounters with many who would consider themselves as the enemy of Jesus—people who were hurling false accusations and unfounded theories on who He was. These accounts of the rejection of Jesus are interspersed with snippets from those who received Him in a positive…
This morning, we will be focusing on a topic that I have given much of my life to thinking about. I’ve spent years working to develop effective processes and tools for its implementation. It’s been said that “a person needs to invest about 10,000 hours in a skill in order to master it.” In the…
As we continue to look at the various ways in which God calls believers to walk in the fullness of all He desires for His church, we begin to shift our focus from the internal community of the body to the broader community in which we live. How has God called us to interact with those who are “on the outside”? Or in other words, How has God called us to engage our community? Pastor David shares God’s purpose and plan for engaging our community.
My goal today is to focus on some of the events from the last half of the week, but I hope to do this by seeing these events through the eyes of one of Jesus’ closest followers—Simon Peter. Throughout the Passion Week, Simon Peter seems to be involved in everything that is happening—which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good. As we consider all these things that he said and did during these last few hours of Jesus’ life, I hope to be able to portray not only his words and actions but also his implied thoughts and feelings. I will not overly-dramatize the text of Scripture to make it say something that it does not say, but I will attempt—when possible—to analyze the text of these gospels to help us see and feel what Simon Peter is experiencing. We’ll begin where Pastor John left off last week—in the Upper Room where Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover on Thursday evening.
The message last week was one of the most difficult passages that I have ever tried to exposit in my 34 years of preaching! The crazy thing is that the previous paragraph—verses 19-25—is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture! We cannot pick and choose what we like or what we want to believe in the Bible, because “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). So, today, let’s look now at the encouragement that the author offers to this beleaguered group of Christ followers in Rome as they endure the trials and the difficulties related to living by faith under the malicious reign of Emperor Nero.
In this final, synoptic study of Romans 12, we will reflect on some of the major themes from this chapter over the past ten weeks in an effort to see clearly what the Scripture means when it tells us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed—be different! Transformation is a process! It starts with a decision to offer our lives to the Lord. Then the Lord works in us—humbling us and teaching us how to serve others within our giftedness. As we serve Him by serving others, it is His desire that our lives display the marks of a true Christian—genuine love for one another, diligent service to the Lord, patience in tribulation, persistence in prayer, and generosity in everything. Exhibiting these characteristics of a true believer is essential in our quest for overcoming the evil that persists in our lives. And we must never forget that the only way to gain victory over evil is with the righteousness of God.
Today we are continuing our sermon series “Therefore” in the book of Romans Chapter 12. In Verse 11, Paul encourages us to live with diligence, to live with a fervent spirit, to serve the Lord. Our call to diligence doesn’t mean we just need to go do any stuff. In reference to verse 11, this call on our lives is the consistent and persistent effort to pursue God’s will and fulfill our responsibilities with a right attitude. We are going to explore how we can achieve that in our personal spiritual walk, in serving others, and sharing the Gospel.
In Ephesians 4:13, it says that we should strive to grow up in Christ “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” In today’s study, I want to take a few minutes to look a little deeper into this subject of discipleship, what it means to be a follower of Christ and what it means to disciple someone.