Tag: Sermons

Celebrate Sunday

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Yesterday was Celebrate Sunday in the life of First Baptist Oakboro. We spent the morning celebrating all the great work our faithful God has done in our midst for the past year. It was a fun morning to say the least. This wasn’t about being excited about what we’ve got going on, but rather about delighting in what our God has done and prayerfully seeking to abide in Him so that He can do even more in the year ahead. This all being the case, I didn’t have a regular sermon to deliver, but because I think it’s worthwhile sharing what God has done and because I’m really proud of what He’s doing here, this is what I said. Thanks for celebrating with us.

A Celebration of Generosity

Isn’t it good to just praise the Lord together, to sing His praises among His people? This kind of stuff moves my heart in a way few other things do. I love this Sunday morning. I look forward to this every single year. There’s just something special about celebrating what God has done. This isn’t about what we’ve done. This isn’t about any particular program, this is about celebrating what God has done and what we are looking forward to Him doing more of as we follow Him into the great future He has for us.

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Keep Seeking

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Christmas is done. We’ve made it. But what now? The days leading up to Christmas, while often busy, are also joy-filled in a way many other times of the year aren’t. But once we get to the other side of Christmas, how do we keep from running smack into the emotional letdown we so often feel? This week and next as we get started on a brand new year, a brand new decade, we’re going to talk about how to do just that in a short run series called, After Christmas. Thanks for reading.

Keep Seeking

So here we are on the other side of the big day. Did anybody wake up Thursday morning and think, “Now what?” I mean, Wednesday we were all like, “Ho, ho, ho!” But Thursday? It was perhaps more like, “Oh, oh, oh…” There’s just something about the day after a big holiday like Christmas that feels like a bit of a letdown, isn’t there?

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Faith in the Hard

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Last week we got to hear from the angel Gabriel as he reflected on his experience delivering the news of Jesus’ birth to Mary. With him we got to marvel at the wonderful truth that with a faithful servant, God can change the world. This week we got to hear from Joseph who gave an poignant reminder that faith in the hard really is worth it. Keep reading to see how this story unfolds.

Faith in the Hard

They’re finally asleep, thank the Lord! You would think that exhaustion from the journey alone would have made that particular task significantly easier than it has proved to be lately, but you would be wrong. These are the things no one bothers to tell you when the child arrives. All everyone does then is ooh and ahh over how cute he is. “He’s such a precious little baby,” they said. “He’s just perfect,” they crooned. “He’ll be the Savior of the world,” they proclaimed. But after a long day on the road and with the stress of recent days weighing heavily on our minds, I’m not so much worried about the whole world being saved as I am getting a few hours of sleep so we can keep going tomorrow.

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A Good Story

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The season of Advent is finally here! For the next month followers of Jesus around the world will be setting aside some time to give special attention to preparing for the arrival of Jesus. Our celebration is not simply for His birth, though, but for His return when He will make all things new. With that in mind, I want to help you get ready for the arrival of Jesus into your lives. Each Monday will bring a new sermon exploring the story of His arrival through a different lens. Each other week day will bring a new reflection on the Advent season that I hope will set your season in the right terms. Blessings to you as you preparing for the coming King!

A Good Story

That was a moment right there, wasn’t it?  I don’t know about you, but that song is one of my favorites.  There is power in this proclamation, “it is well!”  There is strength in being able to declare that though sin or storm or suffering may loom dauntingly large in front of us, nonetheless, “it is well with my soul.”  Maybe you are in a season when that declaration is little more than a faint whisper, but nonetheless, to stand…perhaps to sit…maybe even to simply fall to your knees and with even a mustard seed-sized faith in the God who alone has the power to push back the darkness and, with defiance in your spirit, breath out, “it is well with my soul,” can have the effect of throwing on a floodlight in a dark room. 

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You Are Loved

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In this final installment in our series, Hard to Love, we land with both feet on the biggest and most consequential truth there is: God loves you. Read on and marvel with me at how great our God is that though we didn’t want Him, He loved us still. Let this love fill you to a fullness you’ve never known before and pour out of you onto the people around you…even the ones who are hard to love.

You Are Loved

Have you ever watched somebody get something they didn’t deserve?  How’d you feel about that?  Did it inspire you?  Did it sicken you?  Were you pretty well ambivalent about it?  I would guess that most of us, depending on the exact details, would tend toward feeling inspired by such a story.  This becomes especially true when the person goes on to live up to the expectations of the gift.  Perhaps the most classic example of this is from the beloved story by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, which Lisa and I actually got to see on stage back at the beginning of the month.  It was absolutely amazing.  The hero of the story, Jean Valjean, is set down the path of righteousness he walks all the way to the end of his life by the wildly unmerited gift of a Catholic priest.  The 2012 film adaptation starring Hugh Jackman captures this scene really well.  Take a look. 

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