Sermons from 2017
Breaching Walls and Building Bridges
Eph 2:11-18 For our New Year’s Eve Sunday services Brian Morgan will give us a preview of the preaching calendar for 2018. Living in an age of destructive prejudice and divisiveness, we need to know what our calling is as Christians. Are we prepared to take new territory? What enemies will we face? Who will guide us? And what strategy do we employ?
Christ and Salvation
Col 1:15-20 God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in this baby in the manger! When God took on human form in the person of Jesus, everything changed forever, beginning with God making peace with humanity. This is the culmination of God’s saving plan – it’s amazing, it’s exciting, and it’s definitely worth celebrating!! Our Family-Friendly Celebration will include a play put on by our youth ministries, a short message wrapping up our Advent series, and, of course, many of your favorite Christmas songs.
Christ and New Creation
Col 1:15-20 Your desire for God and your capacity to connect with God as a human soul is the essence of who you are. And the place where that desire is met is in a person who makes visible and tangible the invisible and intangible God. God becomes human flesh in Jesus. “The Incarnation brings the world (God’s) presence. It is a presence so complete that it overshadows every presence before it.” (Carlos Caretto). If God isn’t like Jesus, he ought to be.
Christ and Creation
Col 1:15-20 This baby in the manger is the –
image of the invisible God
firstborn of all creation
creator of all things
the goal of all things
before all things
and in him, all things hold together.
It takes your breath away, but that’s
the magnificence of the incarnation!
Surpassing Love
Matt 5:43-48 Love my enemy? Give food to my enemy when he is hungry? Give drink when he is thirsty? Are you crazy, Jesus? But I want to throw the food and drink in his face…
Nothing is impossible with the Spirit of the Living God.
No Longer An Echo
Matt 5:38-42 How do we respond when people wrong us? Do we respond in kind? Do we give blow for blow? Are we simply echoes, returning hurt for hurt? This week we come to the fifth fulfiller, and Jesus teaches us that surpassing righteousness happens by overcoming evil with good. In doing so, we model what Jesus himself did in his passion. This is a seemingly impossible saying, but nothing is impossible when the Spirit of the Living God is involved.
Make Your Yes, Yes or No, No
Matt 5:33-37 This week, in the 4th “fulfiller”, Jesus takes on speech. At first it seems a bit anticlimactic. But aren’t right-relationships built upon and sustained by words? It turns out that authentic relationships only happen when we say what we mean and mean what we say. This integrity of speech is what causes our righteousness to surpass that of the religious authorities. Come Sunday to discuss how to make your yes, yes or your no, no.
A Guide to Prayer
Eph 3:14-21 How does Paul pray for the church at Ephesus and what can we learn from his prayer? This Sunday David Misson (youth pastor at Peninsula Bible Church Willow Glen) will preach from Ephesians 3:14-21 on finding fullness from God through prayer.
The Protector of Marriage
Matt 5:31-32 This week’s text is a natural follow-on from our study last week as Jesus will once again show that he is the protector of marriage. Divorce painfully breaks relationships and in order to surpass the righteousness of the religious authorities, we need to beware of a hardening heart and learn how to love sacrificially. It’s a love that models Jesus’ love for us when he went to the cross for us. It’s another tough word from Jesus, but remember, he says it because he loves us.
Protecting Holy Longings
Matt 5:27-30 Jesus loves us. He really loves us. And, he tells us what he tells us in the Sermon on the Mount because he loves us and wants the best for us. This week, he protects the covenant of marriage by showing us that true righteousness, righteousness that surpasses that of the religious authorities, requires dealing with those steps that lead up to adultery, namely lust. It’s a tough word from Jesus, but he tells it to us because he loves us.
Quickly Deal With Anger
Matt 5:21-26 What does it look like to live Right-side up in an Upside-down world? Jesus, the relationship protector, will tackle six heavy topics to show concretely what it looks like for our right-relationships to surpass the Scribes. He begins by tackling anger. How are we to tackle anger? Quickly deal with it (key word = quickly).
Surpassing Righteousness
Matt 5:17-20 We enter back into the Sermon on the Mount this Sunday.
What does it mean to live Right-side up in an Upside-down world? We see the preacher on the mount say in our text this week that it means that our righteousness must surpass that of the scribes & Pharisees. How can that be? Come Sunday to discuss this shocking statement.