Category: Sermons

You Don’t Own Me

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In this second part of our new teaching series, Gravity: Overcoming the Weight of Our Stuff, we begin talking about some of the ways to do just that.  The first way we can make our stuff small in our lives is to begin to develop an attitude of gratitude about it.  For the whys and hows check out the text below.  Thanks, as always.

You Don’t Own Me

Have you ever experienced the change of attitude that can come from being grateful for something?  Whether they knew it or not, when your parents and grandparents and teachers and any other busy-body adults you’ve had in your life taught you to say, “thank you,” when someone has done something for you, they were not just teaching you good manners.  They were actually giving you some powerful spiritual advice.  There’s something about developing a grateful heart that can cause changes in our outlook on just about everything.  Think about it like this: Have you ever had a really bad attitude about something?  Of course you have.  The better question is when was the last time you had a really bad attitude about something? Read the rest…

A Message for a Stormy Day

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This past weekend, our community, like many others, was impacted by Hurricane Florence.  By God’s grace we have not been devastated to the level others have experienced, but we couldn’t meet in person.  Instead, I was able to take to Facebook Live and share a message with the community that way.  Here’s what I shared as the storm raged around the region.  Thanks for reading.

A Message for a Stormy Day

Well, good morning.  For many of you, good rainy morning.  My name is Jonathan Waits and I have the privilege of serving as the pastor of First Baptist Oakboro.

I don’t know about you, but it’s been rainy here the last couple of days.  Actually, for a whole lot of folks in this region, “rainy” doesn’t begin to cover it.  Florence has given us the kind of rain that would have given Noah some much-needed relief after building a boat for 100 years.  We’ve had the kind of rain that will leave people’s land and lives devastated for a long time.  It’s the most rain this nation has seen since Hurricane Harvey dumped part of the ocean on southeast Texas last year.  Like that one, this terrible storm has already claimed a few lives.  Those grieving families are in need of your prayers.  And if you want to give toward the relief efforts that are already underway, consider one of the many faith groups with ready-made armies of volunteers who are knowledgeable and skilled in the various aspects of disaster relief—groups like Samaritan’s Purse and the Southern Baptist Convention (specifically, the Baptist State Conventions of North and South Carolina, and the Baptist General Association of Virginia).  You can go directly to their websites and give or sign up to volunteer just as easily. Read the rest…

Wealth Has Gravity

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This week we kicked off a brand new teaching series called Gravity: Overcoming the Weight of Our Stuff.  For the next few weeks we are going to take a look at the pull that our stuff can have on our lives, including keeping us from drawing as near to God as we would like, and how we can overcome it.  In this first part, we look at just how strong this pull can be.  Thanks for being a part of this conversation.

Wealth Has Gravity

Rich people have it made, don’t they?  I mean, if you’re rich and something breaks, you can just call someone to come fix it.  Better yet, you can just throw the old one out and get a new one.  When you’re rich and a new version of something you have comes out, you can just go and get an upgrade.  When you’re rich, you don’t have to do things like wait in line at a theme park.  You can just pay extra money and walk right to the front.  When you’re rich, you don’t have to worry about transportation.  You can just drive one of the multiple cars you own.  Or, forget that, you can hire someone to drive for you.  Think about that: When you’re rich, you can get someone whose job is to drive people around and have them drive you around wherever you want to go.  And oh, the things you can buy. Read the rest…

Keeping the Beat

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This Labor Day weekend, we took some time to talk about taking a day off…just like many of you are doing today.  Life was meant to run at a certain pace, to play to a certain beat.  If we don’t get the rhythm of life right, thing are much more difficult than they might otherwise be.  Keep reading to learn a powerful tool that will help us keep on beat with the rhythm of life.  Happy Labor Day.

Keeping the Beat

When playing the drum set, one of the first things you learn is how to play “time.”  Indeed, much drum set music as a part in an ensemble will have several measures that are blank with the exception of a line with two little dots right in the middle which indicates you’re supposed to play “time.”  Now, if you don’t know music lingo, you may be wondering why the drummer is supposed to beat on a clock.  Let me explain. Read the rest…

What If God Answered?

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In this third part of our series, Grace in Hard Times, we finally get a look at what God had to say to Job and his friends after all their questions and assumptions about who He is and how He works.  The result feels hard at first until you look a bit closer.  What we learn is that God’s job in running the whole universe is a lot bigger than we think and that if we’ll let Him do it, He’ll do it well.  Keep reading to see how this unfolds.  Up next: A look at how we can keep the rhythm of our lives adjusted to the right beat.

 

What If God Answered?

Do you remember the worst lecture you ever got from your parents?  While I confess that I fall to it way more often than I should with my boys, my folks either weren’t much for lecturing or else I’ve forgotten all of them (which really isn’t very comforting news for all the wisdom parents depart to their children through the vehicle of a lecture…).  Still, though, there are times when as parents we need to impart a great deal of important information to our children in a rapid-fire fashion.  And, coincidentally or not, these times often happen in conjunction with something they’ve done that wasn’t perhaps totally on the up-and-up and when we are in a state of mild to extreme anger.  Now, if that happens to come across as a lecture, is that our fault?  Well…probably…but that much is not where I want to go this morning. I’ll come back to this idea in a second. Read the rest…