Faith Sermons and Studies

I used to be an avid archer.  During my high school years I participated in an archery program and was involved in a number of competitive matches with a recurve bow.  As I competed in these matches, my goal was to get first place.  Most of the time my goal wasn’t close to achievable, but there was one time.  I was at the peak of my archery skills and I knew that I was having a good day.  As the match neared to a close I was on track for my best score yet.  I finished with my highest score—270 out of 300.  But as the awards were handed out I came to the realization that I wasn’t going to get first place.  In fact, I came in second.  I lost to another archer who was a natural with the bow and eventually participated on the USA Olympic archery team.  I learned that day that first place was not for me; I wasn’t good enough for first, first was reserved for the elite archers who could out do me.  Only those who deserved first place received first it.  The Christian life is similar.  Just as those who are the best at an athletic event deserve first place, Jesus deserves first place in our own lives.  Followers of Jesus ought to give Him first place in their lives.  God desires that we give His Son, Jesus Christ priority in lives.  In a world that is consumed with lust, money, fame, and pleasure, God desires that we fill our lives with Christ.  Our text this morning is Colossians 1:15-20.  Colossians 1 displays to us the greatness of Christ. This passage has been called the “Colossian hymn” because in the original language of the New Testament it appears that these verses were written in hymnic format.  In fact, if you have a newer translation of Scripture, it sets this section off from the other paragraphs, signifying the poetic nature of the text. This comes even more into play if you know Greek, as there are two specific stanzas to this hymn set apart by two “he is” phrases, one in verse 15 and the other in verse 18.  This hymn sings praises to Jesus Christ, presenting Him as true Deity and exalting Him for His matchless worth.  In hymnic format we see a portrayal of the glory of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  But it’s not only that. As we read through this hymn we get insight into the worship of the early church. We get a vision into how the early church expressed worship to God. A correct understanding of Christ’s matchless worth should compel us to give Him first place in our lives.  We ought to give Christ first place in our lives.  Let’s read this passage . . .Big Idea: God wants us to embrace the fullness of Jesus Christ

Genesis 25 records for us the story of Jacob and Esau.  I’m sure most of you are familiar with the plot.  Esau was the firstborn and thus in line for the birthright from His father Isaac.  His younger brother Jacob plotted to steal the birthright and their Father’s blessing, and tricked Isaac into bestowing it on Himself rather than his brother Esau.  After this, Jacob fled for his life and from his brother, spending several years away from his brother Esau, whom he had wronged greatly.  As he left, Esau swore to kill Jacob upon their father’s death.  After a period of at least 14 years, Jacob decided to return to his family once more.  Boys and girls, you can draw Jacob coming back to meet Esau.  As he neared, he received word that Esau was coming to meet him with 400 soldiers—imagine what was going through his head!  As Jacob finally reached the place where Esau waited, an unexpected event took place.  Rather than beginning a deadly battle, Esau raced to Jacob and embraced him, welcoming him home.  The two had parted as heartless enemies.  Now they embraced as loving brothers.  What we have here is an example of reconciliation.  Two people who were once enemies are now friends. Today we’re going to focus on reconciliation.  I just have one goal for you today—I want you to be so impressed with Jesus and the work that He’s done for you, that you learn to love Him even more than you do already.  Often times when men preach we focus on a desired action.  We must . . . we should . . . we can . . .  Today I’m not going to focus on an action, as much as I am on a feeling, or a way of thinking.  I want you to love Jesus.  I want you to be completely inspired by and satisfied with the work of our savior Jesus Christ that you walk away thinking of Him differently than you did when you walked in this morning.  I want you to understand the work of Christ in reconciliation and praise Him for it.  So let’s read our passage today—it’s just 3 simple verses, Colossians 1:21-23 . . .Big Idea: through Jesus, God has made you his friend!    

The story is told of a little boy who built a sailboat. He built the sail and had it all fixed up, tarred and painted. He took it to the lake and pushed it in hoping it would sail. Sure enough a wisp of breeze filled the little sail and it billowed and went rippling along the waves. Suddenly before the little boy knew it, the boat was out of his reach, even though he waded in fast and tried to grab it. As he watched it float away, he hoped maybe the breeze would shift and it would sail back to him. Instead he watched it go farther and farther until it was gone. When he went home crying, his mother asked, "What's wrong, didn't it work?" He said, "It worked too well."Sometime later, the little boy was downtown and walked past a second hand store. There in the window he saw the boat. It was unmistakably his, so he went in and said to the owner, "That's my boat." He walked to the window, picked it up and started to leave with it. The owner of the shop said, "Wait a minute, sonny. That's my boat. I bought it from someone." The boy said, "No, it's my boat. I made it. See." And he showed him the little scratches and the marks where he hammered and filed. The man said, "I'm sorry, boy. If you want it, you have to buy it."The poor little guy didn't have any money, but he worked hard and saved his pennies. Finally, one day he had enough money. He went in and bought the little boat. As he left the store holding the boat close to him, he was heard saying, "You're my boat. You're twice my boat. First you're my boat because I made you, and second you're my boat because I bought you!"Such a simple and relatable illustration, yet is represents a profound theological truth. Just like the little boy made his boat and bought his boat, so Jesus Christ made us, and bought us with his blood. This simple yet complex reality is wrapped up in what the Bible calls redemption. Redemption is what made it possible for dirty sinners to become part of the family of God. Paul makes this idea of redemption his focus in our text today, Colossians 1:18b-20. In this text, Paul considers the role that Jesus plays in providing and offering salvation to sinful humans, and he makes the case that Jesus is the only one who could truly provide salvation for mankind. That’s the main thrust of our text this morning—that salvation and all it entails is only possible through the work of Jesus, and the result therefore is that we need to live our lives in service to Jesus. That’s the main point we see as we come to our text this morning, and I hope that’s what you will take home with you today: Big Idea: Jesus settled our redemption, and deserves our allegiance

Have you ever seen something so beautiful, so stunning, so breathtaking, that you just had to stop and take a look? Maybe the leaves turning in the Minnesota Fall. Perhaps you’ve traveled to the mountains out west and the closer you get, the more stunning the view becomes. Or you are up in a plane and fly over something fantastic and you just have to look down and enjoy. We’ve all had experiences similar to that. My wife and I love going to South Dakota.  We enjoy traveling to Custer State Park to drive the wildlife loop to see all the animals.  We see mule deer, white tail deer, pronghorn, prairie dogs, elk big, horn sheep, and even mountain goats.  But there’s one animal that makes us stop above all the others—the buffalo.  Many times we’ve come around a corner in a road only to find the herd of buffalo grazing right alongside the road.  And so what do we do?  We stop and park. We pull off to the side of the road and park a while so that we can gaze at these unique creatures. This summer we took our first trip to Rocky Mountain National park, and we drove to the top of the mountain onto Trail Ridge Road which winds around the peaks at 12k feet. And it was so beautiful, you just wanted to stop and gaze off getting lost in the beauty of it all.     In our passage today Paul, the writer of Colossians, encounters Jesus.  He pulls off to the side of the road in a sense and puts it in park so that we can gaze at the glories of Jesus Christ.  This passage has been called the “Colossian hymn” because in the original language of the New Testament it appears that verses 18-20 was written as a form of verse—this is a poem or a hymn with two stanzas. We’ll come back and deal with that in our final sermon of the series. But these verses sings praises to Jesus Christ, presenting Him as true Deity and exalting Him for His matchless worth.  This is a glorious passage.  This passage deals with our values—what we treasure in life, and sets Christ up as far beyond anything people in the world may value.  People value many different things in the world today.  There are many things people treasure.  Boys and girls, you can draw something that you treasure, or someone might treasure.  Some people treasure money.  Some treasure their possessions.  Others their families, or jobs, or hobby.  These things are good, but these are not the most important.  Here in this passage, Paul shows us what is most important—who is most important.    God desires that we have His Son, Jesus Christ at the center of our lives.  In a world that is consumed with lust, money, fame, and pleasure, God desires that our treasure be Jesus Christ.  He wants us to be consumed with the incredible worth of His Son Jesus.  This passage displays to us the greatness of Jesus Christ.  A correct understanding of the matchless worth of Jesus should cause us to treasure Him and praise him above all else.  Jesus should be our greatest treasure.  That’s our big idea this morning.    Big Idea: Jesus is our greatest treasure

The story is told about a pilot who always looked down intently on a certain valley in the Appalachians when the plane passed overhead. One day his co-pilot asked, “What’s so interesting about that spot?” The pilot replied, “See that stream? Well, when I was a kid I used to sit down there on a log and fish. Every time an airplane flew over, I would look up and wish I were flying... Now I look down and wish I were fishing.”This seems to be a common theme in our world today—people searching for meaning, contentment, and satisfaction. The average person in our world today might not admit that they’re searching for meaning, but in reality they are. I think that’s why we have a lot of the issues we have in our world today. The gender revolution with homosexuality and transgender—it’s people searching for meaning. They are trying new or different lifestyles to bring them meaning. Some people search for meaning in their relationships—that’s why we have so many problems with marriages and divorce in our world today—people look for meaning in one thing and when it loses meaning they look for another. Some people look for meaning in their job, and they put an exceptional amount of time into their job and excelling at their work—because they’re trying to find meaning and satisfaction in those things. For children it could be school work or pleasing your parents—we try to find all kinds of satisfaction in all sorts of things in this life. What about for believers in Jesus? What ought we to find satisfaction in? What should bring us joy and fullness? Even as believers we are not immune to the draw and pull o the world that allures us into finding our meaning in other things. I like what C. S. Lewis wrote: He who has God and many other things has no more than he who has God alone. [C.S. Lewis]Isn’t that such a true statement? What really ought to drive us as believers? It should be God! It should be finding our satisfaction and fulfillment in Him and Him alone! That should be our drive and our mission! And as we come to our text today in II Timothy 4. I think Paul shares with us his own example of where he placed his focus and how he found satisfaction. In his last letter, as he sees the end of his life drawing near, he passes on to Timothy his protege some vital pieces of information for how he ended well in his spiritual life. And as we unpack this text today, we can learn too from Paul’s example. And so we’re going to look at our text this morning, it’s II Timothy 4:6-8 and from this text I want you to remember one key truth—it’s our big idea for this morning. Big Idea: Emptiness is the path to fullness

Surgeons have incredible skill.  I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it before, but it takes great skill to be a surgeon.  You have to have a steady hand and be able to keep your cool under pressure.  But sometimes surgery is necessary—maybe you’ve had one before.  Sometimes the best option is to open up and look inside and get to work.  I brought with me something to illustrate this—the game “operation”.  You may have played this game.  It’s a game that reminds us of the importance of getting to work on our inside.  The game is set up so that there’s foreign objects inside the body that shouldn’t be there, and you play the part of the surgeon, trying to skillfully get each piece out.  But if you make a mistake and touch the edges of the incision with your tweezers, the game puts off a loud buzzing sound.  It’s quite a riveting experience!  But the game reminds us that sometimes we need to do surgery—we just need to open up and find out what is there. This is very similar to our spiritual lives.  Sometimes we need to open up what’s on the inside and do an operation on our spiritual lives—sometimes we need to get to work on our heart.  Just like a doctor might perform heart surgery if there were a severe heart issues, sometimes we need to look inside at our spiritual hearts and get to work.  Take care of business; deal with what is on our inside. Often times, if our hearts are not right, this becomes most evident when we are exposed to the heart of God. When we see God working and come to understand his heart and the things he cares about, oftentimes that reveals where our hearts might not be in line with the heart of God. That’s what we find this morning as we look at the life of Jonah. Big Idea: Exposure to God’s heart often exposes our own

One of the most fascinating human organs is the brain.  The brain weighs around 3 lbs, it’s just under 6 inches long, and it makes up 2% of a human’s body weight.  The brain is really a tiny part of our anatomy when defined by size and weight, yet we tend to think our brains are larger than they really are.  Ever meet someone who thought this—a know it all?  Some people seem to think their brains are larger than they really are.  They think they know everything.  They are more than happy to expound on various tidbits of facts and knowledge that they’ve acquired.  But they think they’re smarter than they actually are.  They think they know more than they actually do.  They might even think that they know better than you do.  We refer to these people as having a big head.  We say they’re egotistical or conceited, because it’s as if they think their brain is larger than life.  Though this is true in our physical lives, sometimes this phenomenon can happen spiritual as well.  Just like a know it all thinks they know more than you, sometimes we can be spiritual know it all’s who think we know more than God.  We acknowledge that God has a perfect will and a perfect plan, but we want to run it.  And just like a know it all has a big head, we can get big heads spiritually as well.  We can be guilting of thinking that our brains are larger than they really are, and we think we know better than God.  But you cannot know better than God.  You can never know better than God when it comes to running our lives.  That’s our big idea today: Big Idea: You cannot know better than God

If you’ve been a parent for any length of time, or maybe you’re not a parent but you’ve spent time around kids, you probably have learned a couple of things.  Obviously, you learn how to change your share of diapers.  You’ve learned how to burp a baby. If you have girls with long hair you’ve learned how to do hair, which isn’t a great feat for most women, but for someone like me who has little experience with hair, that can be a big deal. You’ve learned how to be quick at catching that arm as they go to throw the toy, or how to grab them as they try to run off into the road.  But one thing I’ve learned that usually goes all across the board is that when a baby cries, you respond.  When a baby cries it’s a sign that they need something.  It could be a bottle, or a diaper change, or just some cuddles, but when they are screaming we try to figure out why.  And we have certain ways of figuring out what a baby needs and making sure we don’t miss a crying babe. I brought with me a little something to illustrate this.  I have a baby monitor.  Baby monitors are great.  Today there are video monitors so that you can actually see the baby.  I remember ours as children—we used to pretend they were walkie talkies and it was so cool that you could talk to the person on the other end, only they couldn’t talk back because they were one way. And these have developed over the years.  Someone told me that growing up their monitor used to interfere with the neighbor’s and they would pick up conversations from the neighbors house.  But we use baby monitors because we understand the importance of hearing a baby when he or she cries and making sure there isn’t a problem.  Wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, we want to make sure we can hear the cries of the baby.   What about our spiritual lives?  Sometimes we cry out to God.  And we might tend to wonder—is he listening?  Does he hear?  Will God hear the cries of his children?  This week we’ve been reminded again that our world is broken. Violence and hatred spill across our screens, and many of us are left asking—does God even hear when we cry out? Does He care about what’s happening? Now here’s the good news—God doesn’t just hear the cries of the ‘super-spiritual’ or the people who’ve got life all figured out. He hears anyone who calls out to Him. That’s what we’re going to see today. As we come to our passage today we learn the answer to the question of if God hears us—the answer is yes.  God does hear the cries of those who call out to him—he hears the cries of anyone who turns to him in trust.  Just like we have baby monitors to help us hear the cries of a baby, so God hears the cries of those who turn to him!  That’s our big idea today—if this is the only thing you remember this morning, remember this.   Big Idea: God hears the cries of anyone who turns to Him! 

If I were to come to your house—let’s say you invited my family over for dinner.  And we pulled into your driveway and walked up your sidewalk and came to your front door, what would I do?  The first thing I would do would be to knock on your door.  You would here this “knock, knock, knock”.  Or maybe I’d ring the doorbell, or use the door knocker.  I used to think door knockers were for rich people until I lived in an apartment and every door had them.  But I knock.  And that knock is a sign to you—help me out: what does that knock say to you?  It says someone is here, and it says come open the door right?  Not always.  For you it may elicit several different responses.  Maybe it’s excitement: “oh, they’re here, let’s get the door.”  It could be confusion: “now who could that be at this hour?”  Perhaps it’s: “shhhh!  Go hide!  It’s the neighbor kids selling candy, let’s pretend we’re not home.”  Or it could be “turn up the tv and pretend we don’t hear it, it’s that salesman again.”  All kind of different responses, but we know when we hear that sound, we have to make a choice.  It’s a universal symbol in most of the first world—that sound means someone is at the door, and I have to choose; am I going to open it and see who it is, or am I going to run and hide.  Believers in Jesus have a very similar spiritual decision they have to make, because we have that same knocking sound in our spiritual lives.  Sometimes God comes knocking at the door to our spiritual lives.  And we have a choice—a decision to make.  Are we going to open up and let him in, or are we going to run and hide.  And as we come to Jonah, we find that he had this same decision to make.  Let’s review where we’ve been so far.  God tells Jonah “Go cry against Nineveh, that wicked city.”  Jonah says “No way!”  And boarded a ship to flee from God.  And then we hear it—knock, knock, knock.  God comes knocking at Jonah’s door by way of a storm—God hurls a storm on the waters to get ahold of Jonah, but Jonah wasn’t through running from God.  He told the sailors to throw him overboard, and they do.  But again we hear that all too familiar sound—knock, knock, knock, as God knocks on Jonah’s door again by way of a fish.  And we pick up our story as Jonah is swallowed whole and we find him sitting inside of the fish and we hear the knocking again as God waits for Jonah to open up the door.  And God begins to work on Jonah’s heart, and eventually he does open up.  God is knocking at the door to our spiritual lives as well—will you let him in?  From this section in our story of Jonah this morning we learn one key truth for our lives:     Big Idea: God's grace knocks at the door to our hearts, and God expects us to answer

One of the clearest signs that someone owns a dog is this little device—a retractable leash. If you’ve ever used one, you know how it works: the dog has freedom to wander a bit, but it never leaves the control of its owner. The line may stretch, but there’s always a limit. And when the dog strays too far—or when danger comes—the owner pushes a button and reels it back in.What a fitting picture of God’s grace.  We are all inescapably tied to God with a very similar bungee chord called grace.  Grace connects us to God.  It allows us to have a perceived level of freedom, but if we get too far, God’s grace brings us back.  We see the inescapable anchor of God’s grace displayed openly for us through the story of Jonah.  He ran from God—fast and far—but he never escaped God’s gracious pursuit. God works this way in our lives as well.  When we run from God, he pulls us back.  When we think we’ve escaped, we haven’t left at all.  And in Jonah 1, we find good news for all of us who have a tendency to run: Big idea: God graciously pursues his children

One of the most obvious indications that someone is a runner is the shoes.  You can tell a runner, often times, by the shoes they wear.  I used to do a lot of running, not as much any more, but I was really into running shoes.  I can tell the difference between brooks, saucony, hoka, and altra without too much difficulty.  Running shoes are designed for running.  But often times you can really tell a runner by the kind of shape their running shoes are in.  Some runner’s shoes look almost brand new.  Now this could be an indication that they just got them, but sometimes it indicates that they’re not really that much of a runner at all.  I brought with me some running shoes.  This is my oldest pair right now, and they’ve been around.  I can’t remember how long I’ve had these, but it’s been a while.  And you can tell if you look closely.  The decals on the side are peeling off.  The tread on the bottom is thin and worn.  And they have holes all over—they don’t work too well in the rain.  But you can look at these shoes and tell that I’ve put in the miles and time on the trail.  Some of us, most of us, in fact, probably all of us have a pair of shoes like this.  A pair of worn, old, past their life time shoes.  I’m not talking about physical running shoes, I’m talking about spiritual running shoes.  In our hearts we have an imaginary closet, and in this closet, at least if you’re anything like me, is a pair of running shoes.  They’re worn, which indicates we’ve used them a lot.  They’re old, which means we’ve been using them for a while.  But they are the shoes that we use when we run from God.  And just like my running shoes are full of holes and old and worn out from use, so are the shoes we use to run from God, because we do it regularly and easily.  We are all, at times, experienced runners from God.  We have all tried to run from God in various ways.  What does it look like to run from God?  Well, we run from God every time we do something God doesn’t want us to do.  When we respond incorrectly in life, we run from God.  When we give into sin—whether it pride or gossip or lust or anger or anxiety—whenever we sin we are running from God, because we know this is not what God wants us to do.  In this sense, we are all runners; we are all experienced runners from God.  As we come to the book of Jonah this morning, we learn that Jonah was also a runner from God.  Jonah continued the oldest spiritual endurance event known to man—running from God.  Ever since Adam and Eve mankind has been running from God.  And Jonah demonstrates that for us in his life story.  From the story of Jonah in our text today, we learn a very important truth for our spiritual lives: Big idea: You cannot run from God; so stop trying!

Have you ever played hide and seek with a young child? It is quite fun. Maybe you have young children, or grandchildren, and kids enjoy playing hid and seek. The problem is, they are often not very good at it. Right? They just don’t get the concept. Maybe they go and get in their hiding spot and you would hear them giggling. Or they hide, but only partially. They might hide their heads, or hide their eyes, when the rest of them is in plain sight. Or they’ll just stand in the corner and cover their eyes, thinking that if they cannot see you, you cannot see them. Doesn’t really work that way, does it? I want you to think about that for a moment, because sometimes I think this is how we are with God. With God’s working, with God’s pan, and with God’s grace. We might give into the false believe that if we cannot see God, if we can’t see him working with our own eyes, then he must not be there. And we might even put our hands in front of our face— “God, I can’t see you. Where are you God? Oh he must not be there because I can’t see him.” This is especially true with the grace of God. We might try to pretend, like God isn’t there, like God is not as gracious as he actually is, or that if we refuse to see it, we can actually escape from the presence of God and his grace. But just because we refuse to see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. This was the mistake Jonah made. Jonah tried to run from God. He was a prophet—he knew better. But he tried to run from God, he tried to hide himself from God’s grace that God was intent on giving to Nineveh. But despite seemingly trying to put his eyes in front of his face and pretend that God wasn’t going to do what he desired, Jonah learned that just because we refuse to see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Jonah tried to run from God, and to pretend like God’s grace was not there. But that didn’t change God’s grace at all. Jonah thought he was running from God. But in reality, he was running into God’s grace! And the very same grace that he was trying to pretend was not there, we find is the very same grace that he actually needed himself. Ho did Jonah try to run from the grace of God and how did he actually run into God’s grace? Let’s look at the story to find out.

Can you remember when the reality of suicide first touched your life? I remember where I was when I first had the reality of suicide touch my life. I was in 4-5 grade . . .We’ve all been touched by those who have felt those types of things; maybe you’ve even felt them yourself. But it is what we do when we have those types of feelings, when we reach the point of utter despair, that becomes incredibly important. Do we let these feelings consume and control us, or do we bring them to God in faith and trust. And in our story today we find a man who was in despair. And in the midst of his despair, he lost sight of the sovereignty and control of God, and he decided to take matters into his own hands and end his life. But we see clearly that ending his life did not allow him to get the escape he desired, and that there actually was still hope if he had held on for just a little bit longer.

In his famous novel “The Tale of Two Cities,” Charles Dickens contrasts the cities of London and Paris. Written during the French Revolution, the novel describes the stark contrast between these two large cities based on how the residents experienced the revolution. Paris was in the grip of the revolution, and was marked by violence, mob rule, and mass executions. The tale shows the horror of a society consumed by self pursuit and violence. London however, was a stable place with mostly law and order, and was a refuge of safety for those fleeing France. "Dickens wrote A Tale of Two Cities to show the contrast between London and Paris during revolution. Similarly, 1 Samuel gives us a tale of two kings: Saul and David. Both had proximity to God. Only one had a real relationship. Today we’re going to see their story and ask ourselves the question: which king am I more like?

They thought it was just kids playing pranks, but it turned out to be an angry 72 year old man, instead. From 2003-2005, a number of former teachers and school admins in NY reported a rash of vandalism at their homes. They would wake up to punctured car tires from roofing nails scattered across their driveways… and garage doors & mailboxes splattered w/paint. Some victims complained of being hit every two weeks.It went on for nearly 2 years until perpetrator was caught…Turned out vandal wasn’t a rebellious student but a former co-worker named Thomas Haberbush who was still angry about poor performance reviews he had received in 1977, when he was dismissed as teacher. The police investigator… “I’ve never seen anyone carry around a grudge like that for 30 yrs…it’s bizarre”Another man went to his doctor after he was bitten by a stray dog… Doctor comes in and says… “Yes indeed, you do have rabies.” As soon as heard that, man got out pen and paper… and began making a list of people… Doctor said “Listen, no need to call all those people… you’re not going to die. There is a cure for rabies.” Man answered… “Oh, I know that. I’m just makin’ a list of all the people I’m gonna bite.”Yet another story I read was about a woman who was in a department store checking out… As she opened her purse to get her wallet, the sales clerk noticed a TV remote inside. “Need batteries?” She said… “Oh no. My husband wouldn’t come shopping with me today because he’s trying to flip back and forth between 2 football games at once. So I figured that taking the remote while he wasn’t looking was the most evil thing I could do to him without getting in trouble.” These are humorous stories, but they are also relatable. What makes these stories resonate with us? What makes us chuckle but in an understanding sort of way? Truth is, while we might not use the same tactics these individuals used—maybe we’re too mature for that, we at least understand the desire behind them. The desire for revenge. Sweet revenge. We are all familiar with that desire, even if we haven’t acted upon it. We all can understand the desire to even the score, to get back and someone who did something to us, or to achieve a sense of satisfaction from getting even with someone else. But revenge has a cost. It might make us feel good for a little while, but it always costs us. . .

Have you ever been treated unjustly? We live in a world today that is hyper vigilant for justice. Every wrong committed needs to be righted. And oftentimes we seek for a sense of vindication for the wrongs that have been done to us. This isn't a bad desire necessarily, but it can easily lead us to try to provide our own vindication from our wrongs rather than trusting God to set things right in his timing. The problem is when we try to right wrongs on our own we often end up doing it in the wrong way.We feel like we have a reason to get upset or hurt and perhaps we might, but that can cause us to give in to the desire to lash out and treat someone else with the very same injustice that we have been treated with ourselves. And it can be easy, all too easy to lash out at those who have mistreated us, or to criticize those who have been against us or even those with whom we disagree. But here's the problem: while we may have legitimately been mistreated or treated in an unjust way, using the same tactics towards that person or persons does not solve the problem. In fact, it makes things much worse. Two wrongs do not make a right. Responding wrongly to another wrong does not resolve the situation. Yet sometimes we think it does, and we are all too willing to take the posture of justice and vindication and let that excuse our unrighteous actions. But it is never right to do wrong in order to produce something that is right.As  we come to our passage for today in I Samuel 24, this is a lesson that David learned. David had been on the run; hiding from Saul in caves. And he had the opportunity to vindicate himself. He was presented with the perfect chance to enact judgment on his enemy and stopped the mistreatment that had been happening in his life. And for a moment David gave in to this compulsion and took steps to get back at his enemy and put him in his place. But we'll find in our text this morning that those who walk with God have a conscience that convicts them and ultimately stops them from using their own unrighteous desires to their advantages. If you've ever struggled with getting even and trying to vindicate yourself under someone in authority over you who has not treated you in the best way, you're going to want to consider this episode in the life of David.

Have you ever felt alone? I mean really alone? . . . You might be able to resonate to this feeling of aloneness—of being alone. Sad to say, this is the state of many men in our world today—alone. God has a special mission for men in the church, but manhood is in a state of flux . . .Why? Much of this is the fact that men are alone. Sure they have wives, families, even male friends, but despite all of these, many men are alone. Add to this the reality that nobody knows what a man is or what he should be doing. Men are either over-masculinized , with the teaching that men don’t show emotions or real men don’t cry. They’re just told to go do something manly—eat some meat or go hunting, and be stronger, stoic, and more independent, as if this is what defines a real man. Or they are under-emphasized, and told that gender is fluid, and you can basically choose whether or not you want to be one, and your version of manhood is whatever you want it to be. The result is men who don’t really act like men. They are wandering aimlessly, searching, but not even sure what they are searching for. But as we look at the friendship between two men in I Samuel—Jonathan and David, we see no such thing. Sure they were alone—David spent much time running in fear for his life. Yet while he may have been by himself, he wasn’t really alone. Because he had a friend, a true friend, in Jonathan. One that encouraged him, supported him, and lifted him up in times of despair. Most men do not have a Jonathan in their lives today, but they need one. All men need a brother—a kindred spirit who can walk with them through the ups and downs of life. Who can encourage them when they need encouragement, push them to fulfill God’s purpose their lives, and have hard conversations when need be. God never intended for men to go through life alone. Today we’re going to look at David and Jonathan, and consider 4 specific episodes in their friendship to see what we can learn this Father’s day about the importance of brother hood in the life of men. Our big idea for today: Big Idea: without a brother, we will likely fall

I don't know if you've ever done any boating, but I enjoy being on the water. This week Emily and I were reflecting on how, before we had children, every summer we would go out to the Stillwater area and go canoeing on the Saint Croix River. There was always a great time of adventure and navigation. But have you ever had a less-than-desirable experience on the water? The type of scenario that causes you some fear, anxiety, or perhaps even desperation? I remember having this feeling when I was a young boy. I was probably 7 years old, and our church put on an annual father-and-son camp out. This particular camp out we rented canoes and canoed down a river. Only the night before we left, there had been some storms and a lot of rain, so there were downed trees and the water was moving pretty steadily. As we came around one bend, we saw some canoers in our party in desperation. One of my friends, Ryan, and his dad were trapped next to a log. The log was hanging over on the surface of the water and their canoe was stuck next to it tilted sideways as the water raged underneath the log trying to suck them in. I remember the desperation on their faces, and I was afraid for them. Some of the other canoers in our party went back to try to help them, and they made it out OK, but I'm sure they were very nervous during the rest of the trip.We've all had feelings of desperation in life. Times when we're not sure what to do, where to turn, or what will happen. What do you do when you face desperation? This is a very important question for us to consider. What we do when we face desperation says a lot about us. Oftentimes, when we face desperation, we are not thinking clearly. We make quick, irrational decisions without much thought. Oftentimes, we are just reacting like a pinball and a pinball machine, bumping back and forth between the burdens of life. How do we find our bearings when we're feeling like that? What we do during those times is so very vitally important period because times of desperation can cause us to make one of two choices. We could take some time, settle our hearts, and rely on God. Or we could start to rely on ourselves. And the decision we make during times like this is absolutely critical to our ability to handle difficult circumstances, whether we are to be successful or be destroyed by them.We learn this lesson so very clearly from the life of David. As we open our text today, in first Samuel 21,  David is on the run from Saul. He is in complete and utter desperation. Fleeing for his life, looking for his next meal, and trying to create a strategy for what he should do. And as we encounter him in chapter 21, David makes some poor decisions. His desperation leads him to begin to rely on his own wisdom, skill, and abilities. And the result is disastrous in the country of Israel. But as we continue on in the story, we see that David learned his lesson. Rather than trusting his own human reasoning, he began to trust in God and experience a different result. So we're going to look at the life of David from 1 Samuel 21-23 and compare these two episodes in the life of David to see what we can learn from his example. As we do, I want you to consider our big idea for this morning:Big idea: When desperation leads us to self-dependence instead of God-dependence, it always ends in disaster

Jealousy. It’s been around since the beginning of time. One could argue that was the root of the original sin with Adam and Eve in the garden—being possessive over what God had told them they couldn’t have. This emotion is what eventually led Cain to murder his brother Abel. We see the caution in the 10 commandments to not covet something that is not yours. Covet means to desire something you don’t have—that’s jealousy! And we see this taking place over and over throughout the Old Testament, with the historical books and the kings who were fighting for rulership. We see this in the prophetic period as Israel kept wandering from God in pursuit of false gods—again, desiring something they weren’t allowed to have. We see this in the New Testament era as well, even with the Pharisees and religious leaders who were envious of Jesus and the following he had, not wanting him to take power from themselves. Later on in Roman Catholic ideology the concept of the 7 Deadly Sins arose, one of which is envy. The fact is clear—human beings struggle with jealousy! . . .It starts inside—love of self is what fuels jealousy. And this becomes a problem when we make a decision inside—a decision that changes everything on the outside. It is the decision that we are going to live for ourselves. We are going to live for what we want, choose our way, and make ourselves the king of our own kingdom. We see this displayed so very clearly for us today through the life of Saul. Saul determined he was going to stop living for God and was going to start living for himself. And we see so very clearly how this internal desire didn’t just stay inside, it affect all those around him. Saul’s decision to live for himself controlled every decision he made and affected many of those around him. Saul experienced what I’ve heard called a clash of kingdoms. Everything went well for Saul as long as he was king of his own life domain, but the minute someone didn’t give him what he wanted—his personal kingdom clashed with that of someone else, there was utter chaos. We can learn a lot from studying this part in the life of King Saul. From our text this morning, chapters 18-20 of I Samuel, we see how the choice to live for ourselves affects all those around us. And we will learn how to avoid this choice at all costs. We see the big idea for us today from this section of Scripture:Big Idea: When you are living for self, you cannot be living for God

Have you ever tried to develop yourself in any particular sort of way? One thing potential employers look for oftentimes is the ability to develop new skills. They like to see attempts to learn something new, take a class, get a certification of some sorts. And often times, if an employer can see that you are trying to better yourself by developing more specialties in your field, you will be more hirable to the employee. So it’s important to not simply stay were you are, but to work on progressing so you can be better and achieve growth. This is important for many areas of our lives, whether it work, or school, or things at home. We ought to be constantly growing and developing into a better version of ourselves. This is especially true in our spiritual lives. God expects us to develop spiritually. He doesn’t want us to just stay how we currently are, he wants us to grow and develop into godly people whom he can use for his service. But this begs the question—are there any skills that God wants us to develop in order to be used by him? What does God look for in a leader? Are there certain skillsets or abilities that God wants in the servants he uses? Our text today addresses this and many more questions. From the example of David who was a man after God’s own heart. But David had to work to become that, it didn’t just happen in our story, it happened long before. And we get to see the end result and why God chose him. We get to see what God looks for in those he uses, and how we can develop those qualities ourselves.

Have you ever done a job halfway? Maybe you did most of what you should do, but you missed a step? There are consequences to not following instructions completely, some bigger than others, but consequences nonetheless. Can you think of some things where not following instructions might cause some issues? . . .This concept translates very specifically into the spiritual realm. It is possible to believe you are following God, and only do part of what he says. It is possible to go through the Christian life, believe in Jesus, claim the name of Christ, but have a heart that is divided. To have obedience to the things of God, but only partial obedience. God demands more than partial obedience, and he wants all of our hearts. And as we come to our text today from I Samuel 15:1-35, we see very clearly how this worked out in the life of King Saul. We see Saul being sent on a mission from God with very clear instructions, only he didn’t follow them. He followed most of them, but there were some instructions from God that Saul failed to follow. And Saul learned, just as we learn today, when we follow God incompletely, there is a high cost. So as we unpack our text together today, I hope you’ll take this truth home with you: Big idea: Divided hearts lead to rejected servants

Heartache. We’ve all faced it at some point. If you haven’t yet, you will. When a family member takes his or her last breath; when the doctor gives you the news you didn’t want to hear; when you get the phone call late at night that there’s been a horrible accident; when the doctor says you’ve lost the baby. We all can relate to the feeling of heartache. Deep dark despair. It’s part of our human existence in a sinful world, but we never get used to it. . .And you’ve felt it you; we’ve all had those experiences in life that cut us to the core. When such deep deep heartache occurs in our lives, it can easily rattle us to the point where we begin to question. Why did this happen? How can good come out of this? Where was God in the midst of this? And we ask those questions which often times remain unanswered. How do we hope when heartache comes, and we seek answers to all of these unanswered questions? Where can we turn when life seems to be caving in around us? As we come to our text today from I Samuel 2, we meet a woman who was no stranger to heartache. We meet Hannah, and we see her burden—her heartache over her inability to have children. But our focus today is where her heartache led her, because she learned to bring her heartache to God, and as result she was able to find both comfort and purpose in the midst of her trials, and if we follow the model of Hannah, we can do the same as well. So let’s look to the life of Hannah this morning, and as we do, I hope you’ll take one truth home with you today: Big Idea: Through the depth of heartache we experience the richness of the character of God

The event made headlines all across the country. How could something like this happen? 13 people dead, 145 wounded; what went wrong? What I am referring to is the collapse of the I-94 bridge in 2007. Our state was devastated. People marveled at the amount of times they had driven over the bridge, and now it had suddenly fell. This was Minnesota’s third busiest bridge, carrying 140k vehicles every day. Yet due to a design flaw, it came crashing down only 39 years after it’s opening. The bridge looked fine on the outside. For 39 years it held the daily commute of thousands. But despite its external appearance, the bridge was weakening and eventually self-destructed. It’s easy to hide what is under the surface, isn’t it? We can easily put on a public image for all to see when things are crumbling on the inside. When that happens—when we self-destruct, it always happens from the inside out. Things were going on within long before they were discernable on the outside. This is often the case leaders—those who have an influence on others. Leaders can start out well, but sometimes can be distracted. Things might look great on the surface level, but it can be easy for anyone who has any sort of influence to stop leading people out of submission to God and begin leading of our pride and self-service. This was the case for Israel’s new king, Saul. He began being more concerned with his own public image than he was with God, and that became his downfall. As we look at this episode in the of Saul, we learn some valuable lessons about how we can be corrupted by our own desire for influence. And we learn the big idea for today: Big Idea: Social image without spiritual integrity leads to self-destruction

I’d like to ask you a question this morning, a question that is debated, and depending who you ask you’ll get a different answer. So here it goes: how does one measure health? Everyone has a slightly different metric that is used to measure health and the condition of one’s body. . .All sorts of ways to determine health and well being and whether someone is in a good position physically. But what about spiritually? How do you determine the condition of one spiritually? And even more, how about a group of God’s people? How do we determine the spiritual state and condition of God’s people as a whole? While the world measures health by vitals, weight, or cholesterol, God measures health by the condition of the heart. And just like physical health affects the body as a whole, spiritual health affects the body of Christ—the Church. When it comes to both individually and especially corporately as a whole, the way to determine spiritual health is not on the outside, it is on the inside. The way to determine the spiritual health of God’s people is to look at the heart. This vital way to examine God’s people is often overlooked, but it is so very important. And as we transition to our text this morning we see that Samuel brings to light this issue in Israel. Saul had been anointed to be king, he had led the people into a great victory, and it is coronation day. Samuel is preparing to make Saul the official ruler of God’s people. But Samuel highlights something for Israel that is vitally important for people of God today. What Samuel highlights is the reality that a leader is not responsible for the hearts of the people. Israel was excited! They were getting a new king! And with that comes all sorts of positive momentum. Where will he lead us? Will he make our nation great? And all sorts of pressure on this one man to change the tide of their nation and help them be great. And in the midst of this Samuel reminds the people of Israel, and he reminds us today: the health of God’s people is related to the health of each person. Samuel tells them— “Don’t put all this pressure on one man, your new king. Your nation will only be as healthy as the people in it.” This is the same message God would have for churches today—a group of God’s followers is only as healthy as those who make up the group. Samuel continues to give a dose of cold hard reality to the people of Israel, and we’re going to look at that today because it is so very applicable to churches today as well. From this text, and from Samuel’s admonition to Israel, I want us to consider this big idea today: Big idea: The health of God’s people starts in the heart of each person

We live in a world that is based on truth and facts. But truth and facts need verified. We like to have evidence. We like to see proof that something is real, that a statement is accurate, or that we can rely on the information we’ve been given. Think about some scenarios in which is is important to have proof . . .It’s clear that we live in a world of evidence and proof. We don’t want to believe anything unless there is proof—real, hard, concrete proof. We want assurances before we commit. And the problem with all this comes about when it comes to spiritual things, specifically the message about Jesus. And when it comes to life’s biggest questions—about death, hope, eternity, and whether Jesus really rose from the dead—people want the same thing: proof. We want indisputable evidence that Jesus was a human, and lived a sinless life, and died, and rose from the dead. And this brings about all sorts of issues further, because what counts as proof? And how much evidence is enough? And what if there is evidence but not enough to convince someone? Thankfully, God doesn’t bog himself down with those details, he simply gives us the evidence for us to evaluate and expects us to make a reasonable decision based on what he reveals. And the evidence God gives us good convincing proof, and God is very clear in giving it to us. In our text today, Luke 24:36-46, Jesus meets with his disciples after his resurrection and as we walk through this account we find real, clear, tangible, and trustworthy evidence concerning who Jesus is and his resurrection from the dead—we have evidence that Jesus is who he said he was.My goal this morning is simple: I want to walk through this text of scripture and look at 6 lines of evidence that Jesus is who he says he is and view that as the reason why we need to believe in him. Big Idea: Christ's resurrection is a fact, your resurrection is a choice

Join Larry Utsch as he talks about the triumphal entry of Jesus from Matthew 21.

Do you like to pick up heavy things? I like to pick up heavy things. For the past 6 months or so I have been lifting weights 3x a week. And I enjoy lifting kettle bells. I like kettle bell swings, and overhead presses. My favorite is the snatch, where you pick up the weight off the ground and snatch it up into the air. But when it comes to kettelbells, or lifting weights, or lifting heavy things in general, the more conditioned your muscle is, the better you’ll be able to pick up the weight. If you aren’t used to picking up weights you’re going to have to start small and build your muscle in order to go heavier. Now if you have some heavy things to lift, and you don’t lift weights very often, you can choose to do it yourself and that might be difficult, or you could get some help. Let me get a volunteer . . . As you can see from that simple illustration, you can be a lot more efficient, and get a lot more done if you have help. The same is true in our spiritual lives. Sometimes we try to do our spiritual lives, or ministry, on our own. We try to do it in our own power and our own strength. And when that happens, we might be able to get it done. We might be able to make some things happen, but not as well as if we were doing it in the power of God. It’s in our attempts to serve God that we must come to realize a very important truth which we learn from our text today:Big Idea: Our best ministry resource is God himself. Because God is our best ministry resources, we need to rely completely on the power of God for service to him

People today have an obsession for freedom and feeling free. They idolize the feeling of having no restraints, being able to do anything, and feel like life is beyond limits. As such, people choose things, certain things that might contribute to the feeling of being limitless, having no restraints, and completely beyond restriction. Can you think of some things people do today in order to be free? Some people choose travel—they like to explore new places and see new things, and feel untied to the rhythm of life when they travel and explore new things. For others it is some sort of adventure—maybe they try sky diving, or parasailing, or hang gliding, or bungee jumping. These extreme activities make them feel unattached to the things of this world—a sense of freedom. Some find it in meditation and mindfulness—some sort of spiritual practice that enlightens the mind and brings a sense of freedom. Other find freedom in charity or volunteer work—if you focus on giving back it brings a sense of freedom and peace inside—I am not held back and unencumbered by the things of this life. Freedom. We like to be free. We like to make our own choices and experience a level of real or perceived independence. But there is a danger in the pursuit of so called freedom. This desire for freedom might create a spiritual desire for freedom—a desire for freedom from God. Just like we might like to feel free physically, as if we have no restraints or things holding us down, if we are not careful, we can begin to feel the same way about God. Just like some of our physical attempts at freedom, it is always a risky move to attempt freedom from God . . .Big Idea: even freedom has a cost

I don’t know if you work on cars. I’ve done some things on cars before. I don't really consider myself a mechanic but I do have kind of an inquisitive mind so I like to try to figure things out. And I've figured many things out on our vehicle before in the past but there are some things I cannot do. I certainly cannot change an engine. I've never taken apart a transmission or some of the inner components of an engine. But one thing I I'm sure I am unable to do is perform an alignment. If you have a car you recognize the importance of an alignment. All four tires need to be aligned perfectly just in the right direction so that the car can go straight without having negative impact.  Mechanics have special tools and machines that they use to perform an alignment and they have to have it just right down to the exact millimeter to get your car working the way it should. I did some research this week and was surprised to find all of the effects of not having an alignment . . .There are many benefits to having your wheels in line and if they are not aligned it can cause many different types of problems. The same thing is true in our spiritual lives some. Sometimes our hearts can come out of alignment. Maybe we've slowly or subtly let things creep into our lives or perhaps we've given our time and energy into things that maybe God doesn't want us to invest in. Either way sometimes our hearts can become out of alignment with where God wants us to be in our spiritual lives. And it's important that we develop the ability to be able to recognize that and determine how to get our hearts back into alignment so that we are in right fellowship with God and this word. And in our text today we catch up with God's people Israel as they had, you could say, been out of alignment in their spiritual lives. We looked at last week how they had tried to use God for themselves and God made it very clear that he will not be used. This week we pick up the story as Israel has just had the ark of the covenant returned back to them. And as they look back at where they've been and now plan to chart a pathway forward we find that they are evaluating their hearts. And Samuel the prophet gives Israel a stern message that their hearts were out of alignment with God. Thankfully Samuel doesn't just leave them there Samuel shows them how to realign their hearts so that they can be back in step with God and serving him rightly. And what Samuel tells the people of Israel is so vitally important for our own spiritual lives as well because the steps back to alignment with God that Samuel gives Israel are the very same steps that we need in our lives when we recognize that there have been issues in our own spiritual lives. Our text this morning is Chapter 7 of first Samuel and as we begin to look at our passage starting in verse 2, I want you to consider our big idea for today, it is this: Big Idea: Repentance before God always restores our relationship with God

Have you ever had a good luck charm? Maybe you don’t have something exactly you carry to give you good luck, some people do. When I was a kid, it was common to have a lucky rabbits food on a key chain—something that you carried around which was thought to give good luck. Maybe you don’t have a luck charm exactly, but you do something that is kind of a ritual or tradition thought to make things go well for you. I don’t know what it is for you, but we see this a lot of times with professional athletes. They have their rhythms or routines that they do every single time to make things work. The baseball player, rubs his cleats in the dirt the same number of times every single time, and does the same number of practice swings. The golfer, who shakes his legs the same way before each swing. The boxer who touches his gloves together the same way each time before a fight. This rhythm or routine is thought to give them some sort of luck or help them in practicing their craft. Sometimes we have other forms of good luck charms—a cross or pendant worn around the neck thought maybe to give some sort of protection. The picture or bracelet from your dead loved one to remind you of their presence. A piece of clothing or tattoo that points you to some memory that you never want to forget. We can all have something like that—a routine or a practice, or an item that puts us in a certain state of mind or reminds us of something, or even might give us good look. A fisherman might have his “lucky lure”, a hunter his “lucky spot”, or a runner can have their favorite pair of running gear that always helps them have a good workout. Maybe it’s just tradition, or lore, but it is there. The same types of things can happen spiritually. Maybe it is a crucifix that someone wears around their neck that they think will ward off evil spirits. This type of thing led emperor Constantine in 320 A.D. into battle—as he had a vision where he heard “under this sign, conquer”, and he committed all sorts of brutality in the name of Christ and while carrying versions of the cross. Now I’m not saying it’s wrong necessarily to have things that remind you of things, or to even have a sort of superstition—my favorite fishing lure. But we do need to be very careful how we treat God. Because though it is important to have God with us, and to live in constant connection with the presence of God, we need to make sure we maintain a healthy reverence for God and who he is. If we’re not careful, we might begin to treat God as a sort of good luck charm. We take him with us and he’s always there for when we need him, but only use him when we need him. And it can be easy to think that we can do things to buy the favor of God in our lives, and use God as a sort of totem, or we carry around a cross as if it has mystical powers, or we even use the name of Jesus in a way that treats him like a magic potion to get what we want. But God will not be used by his children. He is not there for us, as much as we are there for him. But sometimes we like to use God for our purposes. And when we use God for our purposes, we find that God cannot use us for his. That’s our big idea for today. Big Idea: When we try to use God for our purposes, he will not use us for his purposes

All throughout history men have searched for their next leader. Nations, are looking for a ruler. Kingdoms, searching for a king. Corporations, looking for a CEO. Schools looking for a principal. Churches looking for a pastor. There isn’t a realm of the world that you can go to that doesn’t have some sort of leader or leader figure. You can go to the remotest tribes in the jungles of Africa and find that even they have a chief. You can’t get away from it—people need someone to follow. The Apostle Paul recognized this in I Corinthians 11 when Paul said “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.” We all need someone to follow! But what do you look for in a leader? Well, I suppose it depends on what type of leader you are looking for. Different types of leaders require different sets of skills. And EVERYBODY has their own ideas and opinions about what those qualifications should be. For instance—if you’re talking about the president of the United States, there are all kinds of ideas about what that leaders should have for qualifications. And you can see a broad spectrum—we’ve had politicians, we’ve had a movie star, we currently have a successful entrepreneur. If you’re talking the CEO of a company, you’re probably going to want someone with some business experience, who has a proven track record in leadership and has met with success in their career. If you’re talking about a university, well then you’re going to want a head who has a doctorate and skill in educational management. All kinds of qualifications necessary to be used in various settings. But what about the person God uses? What are the requirements to be used of God? Often times we try to come up with our own requirements for the person God uses. Maybe it’s the resident theologue—the person who knows all about doctrine and can detail all the nuances of theology. Maybe we think it is the educated person—they went to Bible college or a little seminary, or here at Faith—they completed the entire FBI course so they are most likely to be used of God. Maybe we think it’s the person who’s been saved the longest, they obviously have more experience in serving God. Or maybe we think it has something to do with spiritual disciplines—this person always has long prayers so they must be spiritual and the type of person God is looking for. In reality, none of those are accurate. While those are all God things, God’s metric for choosing people to be his servants is drastically different that we might sometimes expect. So what determines the type of person God prefers to use? What type of person is the first choice for being used of God? The story we have today from I Samuel 2-3 answers that question for us. We meet two leaders—I call it the tale of two leaders. One current leader and one future leader. And their stories are intentionally intertwined, and they are pitted against each other to demonstrate who God uses, and who God doesn’t.

Have you ever wanted something, wanted something so very badly, that it just consumed you? Maybe it was a good thing, something God wanted you to do or have, but you were asking God and asking God for it and it just didn’t happen, or hadn’t happened yet? Maybe it was healing from the cancer. Perhaps it was relief from the burden of debt. Maybe it was for a family member to change the direction of poor choices and you keep praying and asking and waiting and praying and asking and waiting, and nothing happened yet? Maybe it was for a spouse or child to turn to Christ, or perhaps the desperation of a bill you cannot pay or not having enough money to put food on the table.. If you’ve ever felt such a feeling, do you remember the desperation? The feeling of hopelessness? The weight of desiring relief from that pressure and not being able to get that? . . . And chance are you’ve felt that too. You get hit will bill after bill after bill and don’t know how you will afford to pay. Or you get hit with a difficult health issue and you’re not sure how you will come out of it. If you’ve ever felt like this, then you can understand how Hannah felt. Hannah is in our passage today, and as we encounter Hannah, we see her in desperation as she brings her impossible prayer request to the Lord. And I think from the example of Hannah, we can learn how we can find the same hope, help, and comfort that she found when she laid all her cares before the Lord and she determined to desire him above all else.

Guest speaker David Levy finishes a weekend of evangelism training with a sermon on the compassion Jesus had for the lost and how we can develop this in our own lives.

The tale is nearly old as time itself. The saga has continued in almost every country and nation. It has been experienced by nearly every ethnicity and people group. The annals of history are filled with records of the same happenings over and over and over again. It has taken place under varying set of circumstances, by varying individuals, and in a multitude of time periods and locations, yet the quest remains the same. What is this epoch in history to which I am referring? It is the all too common battle over who is going to be king. For millennia people have battled and died to claim the throne of one nation or another. Conquerors have come, kings have fled, warriors have died over the simple but profound reality: every nation needs a ruler, and everyone wants to be that king . . .All of these wars and battles, fought over who is going to rule. The same battles are in place today for our spiritual lives--who is going to rule. Who will we allow to lead our lives? Will it be God? Or will it be ourselves? As we come to the book of I Samuel today, we find that I Samuel deals with this issue--the issue of who will be king. And we find that I Samuel is filled with stories of the saga between God and Israel, as they battle this issue of letting God lead and rule. So today we’re going to look at the book of I Samuel. And my task this morning is monumental--we’re going to go over the entire book in one sermon. In fact, these overview sermons I often find to be the hardest because I’m taking an entire book of the Bible and breaking it down into a 35 or 40 minute talk. But that’s what we’re going to do today. And I would like to look at 4 specific episodes that point us to some of the key themes in the book of I Samuel, and 4 specific verses that teach us what it is like when God is our king. So as we begin to look at the book as a whole, I want you to take this big idea with you today:Big Idea: when God leads your life, you’ll always go in the right direction

I've heard it said that one of the best places to hide is in plain sight. I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but you can get away with an awful lot if you have that type of mentality. "I'm going to hide in plain sight." Sometimes it's harder to see things that are right in front of you, right under your nose, than to spot things that aren't as in open sight. You might experience that when you go to grab your keys or grab your wallet and, "Oh, where are they?" You're looking all around, and they were right in front of you. I may have had that experience in my life.I was thinking about this concept of hiding in plain sight. Our kids are at the age where they're really into animals right now. Aiden did some zoology for science class a few years ago, and he was into learning about all the animals. I remember learning about some of the things that he would talk about, that the camouflage in a way that certain animals could manipulate their bodies to hide in plain sight. Camouflage gives many animals the ability to kind of disappear even though they're right in front of you . . .Many times, believers can become masters at hiding in plain sight. Let me talk about what I mean by that. You can get so involved and so busy in serving God, the things that God wants us to do, that we hide behind that. The result is that it can be really easy for us to look good on the outside when we have stuff going on that we're not dealing with on the inside that nobody knows about. Nobody can see, nobody can tell because we're hiding in plain sight. We can say the right things. We can do the right things along with everyone else, but inside, things can be radically wrong.Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight. So maybe we immerse ourselves in church culture. We do things believers do. We serve alongside everyone else. We have our ministry in music or teaching Sunday school or sound room or grounds work or whatever it is that you do. And we do these things, and it looks like there's nothing wrong. It's like we're a great model of what a godly believer ought to be, but it's easy to hide in plain sight. Oftentimes, there can be deeper things going on in our hearts that we really need to deal with. And so maybe we come to church and we do the Christian thing, and we serve God. But God gets left behind in our service because our hearts aren't really in it to begin with.Now as we come to our text today, Isaiah chapter 29, verses 13 through 14, we find that God's people Israel struggled with the same exact thing in their spiritual life. They struggled with hiding in plain sight. They did everything right on the outside. They offered their service to God like everyone else, but it was mere externals. They were hiding things on the inside. And we learn the hard lesson that they learned when they tried to hide in plain sight. And that's very simple: you can't hide from God. You can't hide from God. God knows what's in our hearts, and in our passage today, God kind of steps into Israel's life and he kind of isolates for them what their issues were and what he sees and observes in their lives. And he cautions them because they had all the right externals, but there was no heart. And I am concerned that that is far too often the case with believers today.So we're going to unpack this passage for us, see what God has to say to Israel and what God has to say to us today. And as we do, there's one big idea that I want you to take away this morning--if this is all you remember, remember this:Big Idea:external discipline can hide internal difficulties

We’re going to be in Jeremiah 2 this morning; Jeremiah chapter two, looking at a verse that is near and dear to my heart, and we’re continuing our series when God gets left behind.  We looked at when God gets left behind in our hearts, when God gets left behind in our worship, and today we’ll be looking at when God gets left behind in our pursuits, and next week, when God gets left behind in our service.   Let’s talk about pursuits.  We all have them.  We all have something that we pursue.  Call it a hobby if you will, or a recreational activity, but we all have things that we pursue in our lives.  And one thing I’ve noticed about our pursuits is the simple fact that we always pursue what we love most.  And you can often tell by a person’s lifestyle what they are pursuing.  Some of this is just practical and simple observation.  A runner on the side of the road, or a cyclist on the city trail is pursuing some sort of health and fitness.  The shacks on the lake show some sort of pursuit of the outdoors or sport fishing. Subscriptions to Netflix show some sort of pursuit of entertainment.  We have these pursuits and we pursue what we love.    I remember when I really began to pursue what I loved when I was dating my wife.  I loved her, and I still do.  But when I first started to “fall in love with her” so to speak, I make conscious choices to pursue that love.  I would find myself at her house regularly.  . .   As we come to Jeremiah 2:13, our main verse for today, I think Jeremiah shares with us a similar observation in our spiritual lives—we always pursue what we love.  And this can be a really good thing in our spiritual lives if we love the right things—if we love God and His Word and the truths of the Bible.  But this can be a really, really bad thing if we don’t.  And as we unpack our text for today, we’re going to find that Jeremiah found that God’s people Israel, were in a really bad place.  Because he found it to be true that people always pursue what they love, only God’s people Israel were pursuing the wrong things.  They were pursuing what they loved, but he came to realize that they were not loving the right things, thus they were pursuing the wrong things!  He observed this cause and effect relationship between what a people love, and what they pursue, and in this case, this led them down a very dark and empty road.  So, God steps in and gives Jeremiah a caution concerning God’s people and where they were at in their own spiritual walk as God seeks to use the prophet Jeremiah to call them back to himself.  I’m concerned that we do not walk down the same pathway that Israel began pursuing.  I’m concerned that we, both individually as believers and corporately as a church, make certain that we are loving the right things and thus pursuing the right things.  So as we begin to unpack this passage, there is one big idea I want us to keep in the front of our minds this morning, it’s the observation that God makes of Israel in this text:   Big Idea: you always pursue what you love 

Have you ever been struggling, and tried to hide it? Maybe you had a physical injury or health problem, and you kind of acted like things were normal--you didn’t really want anyone to know. Or perhaps you had a financial burden--a bill that was crushing you, but you pretended like things were normal. Or thing were really hard at work, maybe you even wondered if you were going to get laid off, but you kept that burden from your spouse or your family. Ever try to be tough on the outside when you’re hurting on the inside? Sometimes we might try to do this. And at times it can be a good thing to protect those we love. But often times we are hiding. Trying to mask or disguise ourselves on the outside so that people don’t really know what is going on inside. . . I think the same thing is true of us spiritually, in our spiritual lives. It can be really easy for us to have what appears to be a spiritually healthy lifestyle when we are not really spiritually healthy. We are so good at putting on a show and making everyone else think that we are spiritual and living rightly and right with God when in reality we are not. And if we are not careful, we can leave God behind in our spiritual lives. This can be a specific problem in our worship. We come to worship God, maybe it’s at a church service, and our hearts aren’t right. But instead of taking care of things, or maybe we have been denying what’s there, we just come and we sing and we listen to the word from the Lord and we do the “Christian thing” and act as if everything is ok and our lives are doing fine. And we walk away from the church, maybe we greet the pastor at the door “great message today pastor”, but we don’t do anything about it. It can be so easy to leave God behind in our worship. And this is not a good place to be, because we turn God into something he is not. In essence, God kind of becomes entertainment to us, and spiritual things or church worship can easily turn into something only for the purpose of amusement. You don’t want to go here in your spiritual life, but it can be such an easy path for us to travel down! And so today we’re going to talk about what it looks like when God gets left behind in our worship. And we’re going to look at a passage in Ezekiel 33 where we see Israel leaving behind God in their worship. And from their example, we will see to illustrations—two cautions for us about what it looks like when God gets left behind in our worship. BIG IDEA: A spiritual lifestyle does not always make you spiritually healthy

Recently I’ve been on a journey. It’s a journey of health an fitness. For the past 4 months or so I’ve been trying to eat healthier and work out regularly. I started lifting kettlebells 3x a week and have been doing that faithfully for about 4 months. I also decided to do a running streak of at least a mile a day, every day. Today will be day 85--yes I do intend to go for a run today. And I’ve lost something like 15-17 lbs and have really enjoyed this journey. But one thing I’ve come to realize about this, is that it starts on the inside. It all starts with what you put into your body. What type of food you eat, how much, all of those things. So I started counting my calories to make sure I am not overeating. And as you control what you eat, it starts to change things on the inside. Things like cravings change. Blood flow increases, energy and stamina increases, sleep quality increases. Other things that can’t even see begin to change--blood sugar, cholesterol, your body starts to morph from the inside out. Those are all the internal things. But eventually change starts to be external. You achieve more gains in your exercise--you can lift more or run faster or go longer. You start to shrink in size. Your clothes get baggy, and your body slowly starts to change shape on the outside. Those internal changes have now started to become external, and as such they become more and more visible. Internal changes affect your eternal lifestyle. Isn’t it the same way in our spiritual lives? The gospel, when it first comes to us, starts inside. Gospel means good news--it is the good news about Jesus. And when it first starts to work in our lives, it starts internally. It begins with salvation, God saves us through the work of his Spirit and our faith in the work of Christ. And things start to happen inside. Desires change. Thought processes change. The outlook on life changes. And after a while, those internal changes become external. The person starts changing certain ways that they live. Certain lifestyle choices they made before are now different. They start reading the Bible, and praying. And they start telling others about Jesus and the change he makes in their life. Their internal change became external, and not it is externally affecting those around. This is how the Gospel ought to work in our lives. Here’s the reality thought--many times it doesn’t. Many times it stops at the internal and doesn’t change us externally they way it really should, and the result is we don’t make the impact on the world around us the way God wants us to. This is so true when it comes to our topic for today, sanctity of life Sunday. Too many believers have settled for internal change, and have not that change affect them externally in regards to their thoughts on things like abortion and how they stand up for the truths of Scripture. And in our text today Paul addresses this. Paul gives us the needed reminder that we are children of light, and we need to live as such. Throughout this text Paul teaches us how we can set up our lives so that we are externally changed by the good news about Jesus. Big Idea: Internal Gospel change produces an external Gospel lifestyle

Today I’d like to share something kind of personal about me. Though it probably won’t surprise you, you may not have realized what I am about to tell you about me. I have a unique hobby of sorts that I enjoy doing. I like growing my beard. In fact, I’ve had some sort of facial hair almost as long as I can remember. In nearly 15 years of marriage, my wife has never seen me without some sort of facial hair. I’ve experimented with different styles over the years, early on in our marriage I had a goatee and mustache. I’ve had short beards, I’ve had beards even longer than the one I’m sporting now, but I enjoy growing my beard. There are some things you may not have known about beadsmen—yes, that is the correct term for a man who grows and grooms his beard himself. You don’t just wake up with a nice beard overnight. It takes some work. So in order to groom my beard and make it look presentable I have some equipment that I use. I have a bear brush—this is a bore hair bristle brush that helps keep straggly hairs in line. I also have a cedarwood beard come. Not only does is smell great, but it helps keep everything in line as well. There are also specific products you put on your beard. One that I use is beard oil. This helps to soften the hair so that it can be pliable and moldable, and it is scented so it smells nice. Then there’s the beard balm. This a produce that helps to soften the hair but also has a slight hold to it so everything stays in place just the way I want it to. If I’m really trying to style it, I have some wax that I use. This is mainly for styling my mustache, but my wife doesn’t really like the handlebar look so I don’t usually do that. But there are all of these products that I use, and really guys, if you want to get a nice beard that is shaped right and looks nice you ought to consider some of these things. But you now, there’s one thing I have noticed about this whole regimen I have. If I fail to use it, I’m going to have some problems. Pretty soon hairs are going every which direction and no matter how hard you brush them they seem to have a mind of their own. And if I’m not careful to use some of these basic steps to help “tame my mane”, it can get pretty out of control. It doesn’t take long before you look like a Minnesota mountain man! So I have to regularly take some of these steps to prevent a beard that is unwieldy and out of control. As I thought about this during this week, I began to see some parallels to our spiritual lives. There are certain elements in our spiritual lives that are absolutely vital. They help tame our heart and control our soul, and if we forget or neglect them, our spiritual lives can start to become kind of out of control. It can be so easy to get so busy with our lives that we begin to let some of these things slip. That we give ourselves a pass on this or that or the other thing, and before we even realize it we are living our lives on our own and we realize that we have left God behind; we’ve been doing life without him. Yes, we are “spiritual” people, yes we come to church and perform or ministries of service. We may even have a regular time of reading God’s Word, but we’ve lost something. We’ve lost the heart. Everything we have is in the head, and we’ve left God out of our hearts. And so today, and over the next few weeks, I’d like to talk about how God can get left behind in specific areas of our lives. I’d like to address four specific areas in our lives during this series. This week we’ll talk about how God can get left behind in our hearts. And I’d like us to consider a passage in the book of Ezekiel that show to us how easy it is for God to get left behind in our hearts in a way that we replace him completely with other things. BIG IDEA: Don’t leave God out of your heart!

Join us for our Sunday school series on church revitalization, as we finish talking through the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church and end our series by talking about a physical pathway for churches to move forward.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been into bodybuilding but it’s quite an interesting sport. I’ve never been into bodybuilding, though I do lift with kettlebells several times a week. But I remember when I was 12 or 13 or so my dad started teaching me how to workout. My dad was pretty fit back in the day; he had some pretty solid muscle and he used to go to the gym and workout with some guys, and he knew a good bit about lifting and bodybuilding and he began to teach me. It’s not something I really got into, but the sport itself is really fascinating. It takes a lot of dedication to be a bodybuilder!‌‌ If you’ve ever learned anything about professional bodybuilding—like the Arnold Schwarzenegger variety, you know that only a part of their time is spent in the weight room. A large amount of time is spent in front of a mirror. They do this not necessarily because they are vain, though that might be the case, but because they are trying to cut muscles. They are looking for balance and symmetry—if one shoulder is more built up than the other they need to be able to identify that. So they specifically hone in on areas of weakness and imbalance so that they can strengthen their weaker parts and have a well-rounded strong physique. Another large part of their sport is in the kitchen. It’s not uncommon for bodybuilders to eat 7 meals a day, and to count everything. They focus on calories in and calories out. Fat, protein, carbs, all of that needs to be in just the right balance for a bodybuilder. Then there’s the supplements—protein powder, whey, creatine, all kinds of pills designed to give the right amount of nutrients and help to build the strength of their muscles. Why do they do all of this? They take great care so that they can identify and focus on their weaknesses and strengthen them. They don’t just strengthen the big muscles, though they do that, they try to strengthen the weak ones as well so that they can be one entire specimen of a strong physique.‌‌ It’s kind of the same way in our spiritual lives. God wants us to have a strong, well rounded devotion to him. And in order to do that, we need to take great care to focus on areas that might need to be strengthened. Sometimes we need to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror of God’s Word so that we can find our weaknesses and focus on them. We need to eat a steady diet of God’s Word so that we can grow and get stronger. But just like bodybuilders spend a very focused amount of time working on their own strength, so we must spend time strengthening our own spiritual lives.‌‌ But here’s the problem—many times we don’t. Many times we have kind of a lazy approach to our spiritual lives. We settle for “good enough”—I don’t have any life dominating sins; life is going fairly well right now; I can manage the trials that I do have; and instead of really strengthening ourselves we kind of just get by spiritually. And when difficult times come in our lives, we struggle. We’re unprepared. Or, we might even leave the faith. God doesn’t want this to happen! So God gave us the answers to solve this problem in his word. And in II Timothy 2:1-7, we find the answers we need. Paul challenges Timothy to not just scrape by in his spiritual life, but to thrive, and to grow and to maintain his devotion to the Lord, and we can learn from Paul’s admonition to Timothy as well. So as we come to this text, here’s the big idea for today:‌‌ BIG IDEA: Commitment today reinforces character for tomorrow

Are you a conspiracy theorist? There are some of those in the world today. I don’t know if you are a conspiracy theorist, but there are many conspiracy theories going on around the world. Conspiracy theories are usually an attempt to explain those unique oddities in our world that don’t quite make sense. Unexplained happenings that just don’t seem to make sense. Some individuals allow their imaginations to run wild and come up with all sorts of explanations or theories for how or why something happened. . . All these theories. In a world of conspiracy theories, theories about everything, it’s important to know the truth, right? We don’t want theories, ideas, or suggestions, we want truth. This is especially true when it comes to Jesus. There are many theories, call them conspiracy theories if you will, about Jesus. Specifically, there are many ideas relating to the humanity of Jesus. Was Jesus God? Was he man? Was he both? Was he partially God and partially man? How should we think about the humanity of Jesus? Many different theories have come about to explain and describe this, some of them even go as far as to deny the humanity of Jesus—saying he only seemed to be man but wasn’t really. In a world of differing theories about Jesus, we need to know and embrace the truth. ‌‌And as we come to our text today, John sets us straight about the humanity of Jesus. We saw over the last two weeks, the deity of Jesus. That Jesus is truly, genuinely God. He was in the beginning with God, he was involved in creation, and he is God himself. But today in our text, John tackles the humanity of Jesus. He teaches us that while Jesus was fully God, he also added to himself a genuine humanity. And in an effort to explain this for us today, John tells us that Jesus was indeed fully human, and he tells us why this matters. ‌‌ This is incredibly important for the time of year we find ourselves in today—it’s the Sunday before Christmas. This is the time of year that we celebrate the fact the Jesus did come to earth to be born of a virgin, and we celebrate that today. But how should we think about that and why does it matter? John helps us with that today. And he gives us three compelling reasons why the humanity of Jesus matters. So as we unpack our text today, I want to give you one truth to take home with you today. It’s our big idea for this morning. ‌‌ Big Idea: God the Son became completely human so that he could completely provide for your salvation

Have you ever heard the phrase “seeing is believing?” Sometimes we say this phrase, or we highlight the reality that in order to believe something, you have to be able to see it with your own eyes. And we have this idea that in order to believe something, or to really appreciate it, you have to be able to see it for yourself. A picture alone won’t really do it justice. Think of something like the Grand Canyon. How many have ever been there? I haven’t, but these are the types of places you say “oh you have to see it to believe it.” Or if you’ve ever been to the Black Hills, seen the buffalo roam, or places like Devil’s Tower, just incredible places, you might say you have to see it to really appreciate how wonderful and glorious it actually it. ‌ I remember such an experience in my life. I was a missions major in Bible college and I had to do a summer internship. I spent 2 months in the summer of 2007 in the mountains of Riobamba, Ecuador. We were 10k ft above sea level, and Riobamba pretty close to Mt. Chimborazo, among some of the highest elevations in South America at 20k feet. It was about a 2 hr drive to the base, but you could look out the window and see then entire mountain when it wasn’t cloudy. Such a beautiful sight! In fact the missionaries had a little window in their shower area, which was in an upper level of the house, and you could look outside while you were taking your shower in the morning and see out over all the houses and they had a clear view of Mt. Chimborazo—imagine that every morning! And we drove to the base, which started at 14k feet and hiked up to 17k feet, the rest of the trip I’m told would have taken 8 hours, and you only do it at night due to to the cloudiness, and it’s a very dangerous ascent, lives have been lost trying to climb the mountain. But it was marvelous and beautiful to see. The type of thing where a picture doesn’t do it justice. You have to see it in order to believe how wonderful it truly is—seeing is believing. ‌‌ But as we come to our passage today, we see that while seeing is believing might work in our physical world, seeing is believing does not really hold up to spiritual things. In fact, it is possible to see or know first hand spiritual facts, or have spiritual knowledge or experiences, and still reject them when it comes to believing. This is especially true when it comes to the message of Jesus—seeing does not always equal believing. And in our text this morning we’re going to learn about the message of Jesus and this message coming into to the world and how there were many people who saw him, who saw the things that he did and heard his teaching yet they still rejected him. When it comes to Jesus, seeing is not always believing. And our passage points us to the reality that there is a difference between seeing and believing. And not all those who see will end up believing. So as we begin to look at our text, the big idea I want you to remember is this:‌‌ Big Idea: when it comes to the message of Jesus, seeing is not always believing

Join us for our Sunday school series on church revitalization, as we talk through the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.

Join us for our Sunday school series on church revitalization, as we talk through the 9 Marks of a Healthy Church.

Do you have trust issues? Anyone here have trust issues? Sometimes people have trust issues. They just find it difficult to trust somebody. Anybody like that here today? There are several types of reasons people may have trust issues. Oftentimes people have trust issues due to a past experience. Maybe you got burned by someone whom you depended on for something, or you relied on someone and they let you down. You’ve learned the hard way that you aren’t always able to rely on people, so you have determined you are not going to let anybody else into your life. You are like a fortress, you keep everything close to your chest, and maybe you don’t let anybody in. That’s one type of trust issue. Sometimes people have trust issues because of other things. Perhaps it’s actually a sense of pride—I like to do things myself, or I think I can do things better on my own, so I’m not going to let anybody else to anything for me. This is the type of person who is described as a self-made man, or someone who pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps. They don’t need anybody, so they haven’t learned to trust anyone because they haven’t really needed anyone. Trust issues could also be from a low self-esteem, maybe you’re not a very confident person, so letting people in is just out of the question. Many different reasons, but the outcome is the same—you have trouble trusting people. You have trust issues. ‌‌ Sometimes, it is possible to have spiritual trust issues. Whether you have trust issues with those around or not, at times it can be hard for us to trust God. Maybe we like do do things on our own and in our own way. Perhaps we just find it hard to commit our lives to someone we can’t visibly see or audibly hear. Or maybe we just like to do things on our own so we struggle to place our lives into the hands of another. Whatever the case, sometimes trusting God can be a struggle. This especially comes into play around Christmas time. At Christmas time we come face to face with the reality that God came to earth in the form of a baby, lived a human life, and died and rose again all so that we can trust him. ‌So we really are faced with the question of what will you do with Jesus? What will you do with Jesus? Perhaps the most important question you will ever answer in your life is the question of what are you going to do with Jesus. There is much confusion today when it comes to Jesus Christ. Who was He? A man? The Son of God? A good teacher? A prophet? Did He even exist? The most important question you can answer in your life is what will you do with Jesus. Many have denied the fact that Jesus is God in the flesh, and deemed it a myth or misunderstanding. But the Bible teaches that Jesus actually did come in the flesh and He is God. That’s what we celebrate here at Christmas time. We celebrate that truth that Jesus Christ came to earth, was born of a virgin, and was actually God in the flesh. But what are you going to do with that information? What are you going to do what the Bible says about Him? Will you trust Him? Or will you decide to live life in your own way? What will you do with Jesus. ‌‌Over the next few weeks we’re going to focus on Jesus. From the book of John in the Bible we’re going to examine what Scripture says about who He was, and I want you to walk away with the question in your mind—what will I do with Jesus. It doesn’t matter where you are in your spiritual life. You could be here just to check out this “church thing” and see what we do. You could be here because you’re a true believer in Jesus and want to celebrate with other believers. This morning I want you to encounter Jesus, and I want you to walk away wondering “what am I going to do now.” So with that question in mind today, I want to give you the big idea from our text this morning:‌‌ Big Idea: Even if you have trust issues, you can trust Jesus!‌

Tune in to our Sunday school series on the topic of church revitalization. This week we talk about pathway towards revitalization and start a discussion on a spiritual pathway.

Structure is important. If buildings or other things are build on the right structure, they will turn out well. But if they are not, they could collapse or not last. Many of you know I spend a few short years in the construction industry. We were a general contractors so I got to see a lot of different trades and I was on some pretty important buildings from very early on until the end. One building I was on for a year and a half was a convention center with a 14 story Marriott hotel on top. I came on site when they were preparing to pour the concrete for the 5th floor—that’s all the higher the building was. And I stayed until the building opened. It was quite the experience. But one thing I learned is that structure is important. Everything needed to be built to spec. I remember watching them pour the concrete for the floors. They had to get all the rebar right and tie it exactly how the blueprint demanded. Then they had these special cables called post motioning cables that ran through the concrete and held it all together. And there were certain specs and guidelines so that the structure was right—having the right structure made it work. ‌‌ It’s the same way in the church. Having the right structure can make or break a ministry. Having a ministry structure that is based on Scripture and in the Bible is vitally important. Too often churches have the wrong structure. They have things we don’t find in the Bible. Or maybe they have the right structure—the right categories, but they misunderstand those categories or positions in the church. Whatever the case, the Bible needs to be our guide when it comes to the organizational structure and leadership structure within the church. ‌ So as we come to our text today in Acts chapter 6, we are going to look at the office of deacon in the Bible, and how to understand deacon roles. Every year at the end of the year we have deacon elections for the upcoming year. And it is important that we understand the role of deacon—what a deacon is, what a deacon isn’t. So that we can know how God wants us to choose those men who serve us in this way. So today I’d like to look at the first passage that addresses deacons in Scripture, Acts 6. Here we see the first deacons, or some have called them proto-deacons. And I’d like us to consider the role and function of deacons as we prepare for nominations and elections coming up at the end of the year. This essentially is what I talk with our deacons about, this is a part of the training and instruction I give them on what I expect of them, but this will also shape our understanding of what God expects as well. ‌‌ Big Idea: Churches need the right underlying structure in order to thrive. Because God has a specific structure for the church, we need to make sure our structure of deacon ministry is based on God’s expectations!

Have you ever made a compromise? I’m sure you have—there are lots of things that we make compromises over or make compromises for. The word compromise has Latin roots, and a direct translation from the Latin is that a compromise is a consent to arbitration or to promise together. Basically, a compromise is finding something that both parties can agree on. There are many ways that we do this. ‌‌ Sometimes, a compromise is settling a dispute by mutual concession. “You agree to one thing and I’ll agree to another.” “I’ll do my best to not get upset at you if you’ll do your best to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube. ‌Sometimes a compromise is to accept standards that are lower than you desire. A company might says “we are not prepared to compromise on our employees safety!” ‌Another form of compromise is to ruin one’s reputation through foolish or reckless behavior. “Martha Stewart became compromise through insider trading.” ‌‌We have this idea or term of compromise, and we all deal with compromises all the time. When you bought your house, you likely negotiated on a price—that’s a compromise. When you got your family out of bed this morning maybe you made some compromises—“time to get up! Please, 5 more minutes!” We live in a world of acceptable compromises. ‌‌ But when it comes to the church, things get a little bit different. Because though we may compromise in everyday life, Jesus does not compromise with the church. Thinking of a compromise in which both sides give concession, Jesus does not negotiate with His church when it comes to godliness and our responsibility to live out the truths of God’s Word! ‌And as we come to our text today, Paul makes it very clear that Jesus does not compromise with His church! God holds His people to a high standard! This standard is obedience and submission to God and His Word. So as we return to our text today, I have one big idea for you today: ‌‌ Big Idea: We don’t want to be a compromised church!‌

Listen to our Sunday School series on revitalization as we talk about place and purpose in revitalization.