Lead Pastor
Sermons by Wade Allen (Page 35)
Part 2 – In this week’s message, we continue to learn more about Philip and how God used him as a witness of the gospel. Last time, we saw how God used him to transform a large group of people in Samaria, but this time God has a different kind of assignment for Philip. So what was God’s big new plan for Philip? How would God use His transforming touch next? God sent him down to Gaza—which the Bible refers to as a deserted place. To go from a growing church to a place where no one even lives—I would have struggled to understand what God was thinking if I were Philip. We cannot know what Philip was thinking, but we do know what Philip did. Let’s read this story to find out!
Lecture 6 – Have you ever told your child to do something and then—an hour later when you ask if it is completed—your child tells you, “I forgot.” Do you remember the level of frustration you felt as a result? If you have ever experienced that, then you have seen a glimpse of what God must have felt as He was dealing with His children—the Israelites! What does it mean to say that Israel forgot the Lord? To say that the Israelites ‘forgot’ God is to say that they no longer were controlled by what they knew. Even though they knew who God was and what he wanted, those things were not real to them.
Part 1- It is amazing to see what motivation can do in a person’s life! In this message, we’re going to take a few minutes to think about the motivation for the gospel in Acts 8. We will pick up this story with the persecution of believers in the church at Jerusalem. Because of this intense time of persecution, all of the believers (not including the apostles) left Jerusalem looking for safer places to live. As they went, they shared the good news about Jesus. This passage tells us the story of Philip and his experiences in the city of Samaria.
It is never too late to dedicate the rest of your life and your family to the Lord.
Lecture 5 – We want to take some time examining God’s point of view of man’s predisposition toward idolatry. Mankind was created with the need to worship something. When we are not allowing God and His Word to guide us in this life, then we are worshiping other gods. In essence, we are prostituting ourselves.
Mary is not the only one who found favor, or grace, with God. Each one of us has received God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
This time of year often becomes a bit of a rat race. We survived the Black Friday sales, the Cyber Monday blitz, and all the ‘three-weeks-‘til-Christmas’ shopping traffic yesterday. Last week, Pastor Ron challenged us to prepare our hearts for Christmas—with childlike faith, generosity in our giving and our thoughts focused on Christ! These are things that all of us should strive for, but too often the ‘hustle and bustle’ of the Christmas season gets in the way. So how do we keep our focus on the CHRIST of Christmas this year? What should we do to prepare our hearts for Christmas?
In this sermon, I want us to focus on God’s blessings and goodness to us, and how we should respond in return. In Psalm 107, the psalmist gives us several pictures of how God sees His children and the struggles that they are facing. We will take time to examine each of these word pictures and observe how we too are struggling in much the same way today. Within each of these word pictures, we will see what God promises to do for us and how He hopes we will respond.
When we think about all that goes into planning a worship service, where is our focus? Do we focus on what our people want? Do we focus on what the world sees as attractive? Or do we focus upon God and what pleases Him? In our text today, we will spend some time considering the effect that true worship has upon the life of a seeker, but in order to do that, we will also be looking at the impact of a false, frenzied worship as well.
Lecture 4 – In Judges 2, we find the second introduction for this book. We have returned to the time (just before Joshua’s death) when all of Israel has gathered together after being summoned by Joshua. Joshua instructed the Israelites to complete the work of driving out the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. What we discover in this text is how well the Israelites obey Joshua’s instructions. In verses 10-19, we are given a description of the repeating cycle of sin, repentance, deliverance and peace that serves as a template for the rest of the book.