Category: Sermons

Light to Live By

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In part two of our Christmas series, God Moved into the Neighborhood, we begin looking at how the process of transformation unfolds.  Initially, it’s not very comfortable.  In order to fix the system, we first have to see where and how it’s broken.  Keep reading to see how this works and how to overcome the biggest challenge to it happening.

 

Light to Live By

Have you ever gotten unwanted advice before?  Now, probably there are some folks out there who are far more gracious than I am, but usually when I get unwanted advice my first thought is, “Buzz off, Mr. Busy-Body!”  Who’s with me?  There’s just something a little cynical in most of us that thinks, “You know, they probably mess up at this just as much as I do.  They are in no position to be giving me advice.”  But, there is an exception to this rule.  We as a culture are slavishly reliant on the advice of experts.  If we think someone is an expert, we will listen to just about anything they say.  This phenomenon explains how we got shows like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz.  They were both regular “experts” on Oprah who became popular enough to get their own shows.  And perhaps you’re sitting there thinking, “Well I certainly don’t listen to those quacks!  You can’t really trust anything you see on TV anyway.” Read the rest…

A Crazy Idea

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This past Sunday we began a brand-new teaching series at First Baptist, Oakboro, called God Moved into the Neighborhood.  Over the course of the next few weeks leading up to Christmas, we are going to unpack the marvelous truth that when our world was broken nearly beyond repair, God moved into the neighborhood in the person of Jesus Christ in order to transform it from the inside out.  With the help of some unexpected passages of Scripture for this time of year, we will unpack just how amazing this truth is, how the process of transformation unfolds, and how we should respond to it.  Don’t miss a single part of this powerful story.

A Crazy Idea

Have you ever had the opportunity to drive through an old neighborhood and thought, “Why haven’t they just bulldozed this whole place?  This is a mess!  This is an eyesore!  The people still living here should get a medal.”  You may have heard about the challenges facing the city of Detroit over the past few years.  World Magazine did a feature story on one neighborhood in the city a couple of years ago as a way of giving some perspective on how things really are.  Because of the city’s well-publicized problems, the neighborhood had been pretty much forgotten.  One in three homes had been abandoned.  Street lights didn’t have power going to them anymore.  There was no police coverage for the neighborhood due to budget restrictions.  There are no good grocery stores nearby.  Jobs are scarce.  Folks in the neighborhood have started doing basically some urban farming in order to provide food for themselves and their neighbors.  They raise a variety of produce as well as chickens and goats.  And when asked whether or not all this was legal within city limits they essentially said, “We’ll worry about forgiveness if we ever get caught…in the meantime, we’ve got to survive.”  Closer to home, though, some of you have perhaps driven through some of the more run-down neighborhoods of Charlotte or even Albemarle; neighborhoods where you didn’t really feel safe even driving down the street.  How do we respond to a place like this? Read the rest…

Heaven on My Mind

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In this final part of our series, The Big Story, we take a look at the exciting fourth act of God’s big story: Restoration.  This world is broken in spite of the fact that we live in the time when redemption is available to all those who would receive it.  This dichotomy can lead to endless frustration and even hopelessness if we forget about the fact that there is still one more part to the story.  Read on to learn more about this fourth part and how living in light of it can make our lives now so much better.

Heaven on My Mind

Okay, survey question this morning: how many of you like surprises?  Alright, how many folks are on the opposite end of that scale?  You genuinely don’t like surprises.  What about this: how many folks can handle a surprise if they know it’s coming?  You don’t know what it’s going to be—which is what makes it a surprise—and while you don’t love that you are able to endure the waiting since you at least know something is coming.  Okay, let me change things up just a bit: how many of you are good waiters (and I’m not talking about tables)?  You handle waiting for something you know is coming really well.  You’re certainly excited about it, you just channel that excitement into other things until the day arrives.  Alright then, let’s give the impatient folks a chance to raise their hands since they don’t like waiting: how many of you are terrible waiters when you know something is coming?  You fixate on whatever it is and it’s almost like you can’t do anything else until it arrives.  You’re constantly looking at the calendar, crossing off the days, or checking your watch, counting down the hours. Read the rest…

The Good News

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The great thing about God’s story, is that it doesn’t end after the second act.  In this third part of our series, The Big Story, we finally get to relish the joy of the third act: Redemption.  God’s efforts since the fall have been focused on this one goal.  Read on to see how this played out…

 

The Good News

Let’s start this morning with some trivia.  What do Return of the Jedi, Rocky Balboa, Antwone Fisher, Les Misérables, and Iron Man 3 all have in common?  They are all stories of redemption.  In Return of the Jedi the exciting climax of the movie comes when Anakin Skywalker—Darth Vader—returns from the “dark side,” saves the life of his son, Luke, and puts an end to the evil of The Emperor.  In Rocky Balboa, the washed-up, old fighter proves to himself and the world that he still has what it takes when he comes out of retirement and goes toe-to-toe with the reigning heavyweight champ, Mason “the Line” Dixon.  In Antwone Fisher a young, emotionally broken soldier finds healing and wholeness through the help of a committed counselor, his girlfriend, and the family he never knew he had.  In Les Misérables, the thief, Jean Valjean, is given a second chance at life by a gracious Catholic priest and commits the rest of his life to serving and saving those who were in the same dire straits in which he once found himself.  Finally, in Iron Man 3, Tony Stark at last discovers what’s most important in life and commits himself to using his genius and resources to make the world better. Read the rest…

Love Amid the Mess

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In part two of our series, The Big Story, we dug into the tragedy of the Fall.  While creation was originally adorned with not just beauty and splendor, but holiness and righteousness, it didn’t stay that way.  We broke it.  And yet, God refused to let sin have the last word.  Even in the midst of the mess of the Fall there was one thing God kept doing.  Keep reading to find out what this was…

Love Amid the Mess

Have you ever totally blown it?  I’m not talking a little explosion.  I’m talking, you rolled out the big guns, pointed them right at the stockpile of ammunition, and blew the whole fort to pieces.  If you’ve lived very long we’ve all done that at least once.  You may still be trying to recover from it.  Usually explosions that large leave a crater that even when once the ground has recovered from the blast still leaves a mark that everyone can see years later.  Where we came from near Petersburg, VA, there is the Petersburg National Battlefield Park.  The highlight of the drive through the Civil War battlefield is known as “the Crater.”  It’s this giant hole in the ground where the attacking Union soldiers exploded a mine up next to the defenses of the Confederates stationed there in order to breech the lines and win the battle.  The hole is still there.  They even named a road after it: Crater Road. Read the rest…