Tag: Sermons

Connecting Like Jesus

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This week we kicked off a brand new series taking a fresh look at who God has designed us to be as a church. The message is focused on our church, but the ideas apply to every church and every follower of Jesus. Who did God make you to be and how can you become more that person? It starts with connecting with people. Jesus was a master at that. Learn more here about how He did it and how we can join Him in it.

Connecting like Jesus – John 4:1-26

Our culture is a maze of contradictions.  Think about it: We have never been more connected in terms of technology and social media than we are right now and the webs are getting tighter and tighter all the time.  Movies like Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman that envisioned a slightly futuristic reality in which the government can track every single movement we make is now not only completely true in terms of what they can do, it’s actually even more true now than it was then.  Social media and other tech giants are working on algorithms that not only know where you’ve been, but attempt to predict where you’ll go next in order to allow advertisers to even more closely and personally target their efforts. 

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Building on the Right Foundation

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Happy New Year! As we begin this new year, let’s take a few minutes to take stock of our lives and the job we’re doing at building them. Are we building on the kind of foundation that will last and carry us into the future, or are we building on something that’s going to give us trouble down the road? In this message we glean some of the wisdom of Jesus and His brother, James, to give us some guidance on getting this right.

Building on the Right Foundation

When Noah was a baby, he liked to shove balls around the house like any little boy does.  Well, the house we happened to be living in at the time was actually really good for this.  If you went to the little hallway right in the middle of the house and rolled a ball toward the bathroom door, just as it got to the door it would slow down…and start rolling back toward you.  The house came equipped with its own automatic ball return.  It was like living in a bowling alley!  We just had to set him in the floor there with a ball and he could entertain himself.  It was great!  Well…sort of. 

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The Life of a Servant

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What does it mean to serve the Lord?  Have you ever really thought about that?  Followers of Jesus are told we are to serve Him, but we don’t often think about the details.  As we continue our series, The Characters of Christmas, Mary’s story gives us a pretty comprehensive picture.  Check this out to see what the picture of serving the Lord looks like.  

The Life of a Servant

So, last week we looked at the story of Gabriel’s announcement to Zechariah that his barren wife would conceive and give birth to a son.  In this, we saw that God’s promises are not fulfilled solely by the boldly miraculous or the faith superheroes, but instead, are made manifest when God moves in the lives of people very much like you and me. I have to think that the story of Zechariah’s encounter with Gabriel in the Temple would have spread pretty quickly. I mean, as far as we know, God had not spoken in a public way to His people in about 400 years at that point. Let’s be honest: We have trouble imagining 400 years period.  Four hundred years is just about how long there have been permanent, successful colonies of Europeans in North America.  Jamestown isn’t that far from here.  You can go up to Williamsburg and see the remnants of that very first settlement in 1607.  It’s a pretty neat museum and recreation. 

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Worship and Surrender

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In this fourth part of our series, Pursue: Chasing God in a Godless World, we move in a direction that is perhaps unexpected given the assumptions of our culture.  When Asa and the people were busily moving in the direction of God against the grain of the culture around them they did something most people wouldn’t have done then or now.  As for what this is and what it means for us, keep reading to find out.

 

Worship and Surrender

Have you ever used a Chinese finger trap?  Unless you’ve spent the last 30 minutes stuck in it and are waiting to get loose, grab the one you were handed this morning as you came in.  Go ahead and stick your fingers in it.  Now, try and pull them out.  The natural reaction when you stick your fingers in and can’t immediately slide them back out is to pull harder.  But, as perhaps you have already discovered, pulling harder won’t get your fingers out of the trap.  There are times in life like that, aren’t there?  Times when more pressure isn’t going to get the job done.  There are situations in which we have to learn to stop fighting if we’re going to manage to get anywhere good. Read the rest…

Live Courageously

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This past Sunday we ventured into part three of our teaching series, Pursue: Chasing God in a Godless World.  One of the truths we need to embrace if we’re going to do that is that sometimes it’s hard to do.  So, what do we call it when someone does the right thing even though it’s hard?  Keep reading to find out.

Live Courageously

Our culture loves heroes.  Superhero movies have always been popular, but the last few years have seen their profiles rise to epic proportions.  For many moviegoers, the wait for the next Marvel film is agonizing.  I recently read a quote from Kevin Smith, a director popular among the nerd culture, who said that given the choice, he would rather see the next Avengers movie than direct another movie ever again.  This past Wednesday evening I couldn’t even begin to count how many little superheroes I saw running around here.  Since the year 2,000, sixteen of the 40 highest grossing films have been about super-powered individuals in one way or another.  If you add films about heroes more generally (like Star Wars or Harry Potter) that number goes up 28 and you could probably make a good case for adding a few more to that list. Read the rest…