Sermons from Sweet Home

This lesson covers the famous story of the fall of Jericho. A number of questions are explored. How do we feel about our God commanding a genocide? Does our faithfulness to God have an impact on how God treats our family members? 

Jesus Christ, through His blood, took away the wall between Jew and Gentile. He is the Lord of peace and He prayed for unity among His disciples. How could we identify when there are walls built between Christians? And, how can we go about creating unity between disciples of Jesus? 

We have free will. We are saved by grace. Salvation is a gift. Our works can never be good enough to satisfy God's wrath. The path to grace is faith. All of these are true and consistent with the text. 

In this text Paul is saying a prayer and revealing to the Ephesians what he is praying for them about. 

So often we give thanks to God for our physical blessings, but we don't fully comprehend our spiritual blessings and thank God for them. Perhaps it is because we do not fully grasp them? In our text for this message Paul outlines the beautiful spiritual blessings we have in Christ that was put into effect before the world began. 

The story of the Apostle Paul and the establishment of Christianity in Ephesus is an incredible story, a powerful story. God didn't do simple miracles through Paul in Ephesus, he did extraordinary miracles. Paul spent more time in Ephesus than any other city in Asia Minor and from there the Gospel spread until all of Asia Minor heard it. 

There are various reasons for this, but many people have come to believe that the solution to their inner life problems lies outside of themselves in another person, a church, or some special knowledge. But the truth is that the only way to healing and health is through our insides, through inner humility and an inner contact with Jesus. 

Here in this text we see the introduction of the prostitute Rahab into the Biblical narrative. It teaches us that God can meet people anywhere on Earth in any circumstance. This section of text also teaches us that we can be confident over our futures, not because we are something but because God has already been there. 

In this latter part of the first chapter of Joshua we pick up some lessons about leadership. We also learn what it means to be sojourners. 

As we unpack these opening verses of the Book of Judges we learn that God's presence is guaranteed for those who are on His mission. When we spread light we expel darkness. And what further guarantees the success of our endeavors is a commitment to God's Word, to meditate on it, speak it and obey it. 

We live in a world where most people are fake, where most people feel unsafe to be real. But yet, most people desire to be real, to unmask, to just be themselves. They seek to be honest because it is tiring to fake it. But what they really need is people who won't judge them when they are just being real, and in Christian circles this is very difficult, because Christians can be very judgmental. So, do people see the real you, or is the real you hidden away? And, are you judgmental towards others so that they don't feel they can unmask infront of you?  

According to James the wildest part of the body is the tongue. Who can tame it? 

Luther said "grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone". James does not agree with Luther, and for this reason Luther called the Epistle of James an "epistle of straw". Who do you trust? James, the brother of Jesus, leader in the Jerusalem church? Or, Martin Luther?