Sermons on Holy Spirit
The church should be “a group of individuals who, despite their differences, are willing to show love for one another through putting the well-being of others first. This will always mean speaking the truth and acting on the truth, but doing so in love. It will also mean having the humility to admit when we…
So far in this series on Connecting People to God, we have talked about showing people the light of Jesus Christ and pointing them to the truth of the gospel. As we continue this series, we’re going to focus on teaching people about the love that God has for each and every one of them.…
In our previous studies in the Book of Acts, Paul was in the midst of his second missionary journey when he arrived in Corinth and ended up staying for 18 months of fruitful ministry. But now the time had come for Paul to move on to be able to complete this journey and begin anew.…
How can we know God’s will for our lives? That is a question that believers have been asking for centuries! It is a question that I grappled with as a teenager; and a question that I still seek answers to today. We never outgrow the need for seeking God’s will. In this study, we find Paul and Barnabas ready to set sail on yet another missionary journey, but conflicted over some of the details of the journey. In spite of human failings, God’s will was accomplished in and through these men.
HELP US GO INTO ALL THE WORLD, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many.” 1 Corinthians 12:14
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In the last days of his life, the Apostle Paul found himself in a dreadful situation—imprisoned and deserted by almost all of his companions. It was in these circumstances that Paul wrote to his ‘beloved’ son in the ministry, Timothy. In spite of his own depressing circumstances, Paul sought to encourage and instruct his disciple—and every disciple of Christ since—to not be fearful but to be ever-increasing in his dependence on the Holy Spirit of God in every aspect of his life.
When thinking about the ways in which God leads His people, R. Kent Hughes said, “God can use unhappy, perplexing failures to bring fresh purpose and direction to our lives… Even when we are at fault, God will use our failures to bring greater blessing… God will lead us according to his own perfect plan for our lives and ministries. We must be careful not to box God in by our prior experience. The most important thing by far is our attitude… We need to yield to his caring hand.”
Some may seek for spectacular signs and wonders, others may claim great miracles and manifestations of God’s power, but God speaks to each of us today through His Word. We need no priest, no prophet, no holy man, we have His holy Word. Are we listening to what He has to say to us today?
As we look at a long section of Scripture today, we will see how that God is methodically moving Peter to see that the gospel is for everyone—not just the Jewish elite. In His sovereignty, God moves Peter from one situation to the next, opening his heart to ‘the Nations’ and releasing a lifetime of bigotry and prejudice. It is sometimes hard for us to imagine the Apostle Peter as bigoted or prejudiced, but we must consider who he is within his cultural context and the Jewish people looked down upon the Gentiles. In this passage, God uses a series of events to open Peter’s eyes to the simple truth that the gospel “is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile” (Romans 1:16b). So it is time for us to ask, “When will we get beyond our prejudice, our misconceptions and our elitism and be willing to seek after all people with the gospel?”
John 16:4b-16 People will often admit to failures, vices and crimes; but it takes the mighty work of the Holy Spirit to convince and convict people of their sinfulness.