In God’s wisdom, some people die in vigor while at ease and secure, another dies in bitterness and poverty—regardless of their righteousness or wickedness. Christ came and offers you and me mercy, grace, and eternal life through his righteous life on the cross. But Christ brought more than that! For the unbeliever, Christ has bought patience as God leads us to repentance.
Read MoreJob 19:23–27. It is often in our lowest, scariest, or most helpless points in life that we see each other’s faith most clearly. This is because we are forced more than ever to look outside of ourselves for answers and to unearth our deepest convictions about where our hope really lies. This sermon has two main objectives: to get reacquainted with Job’s despair by revisiting where we’ve been the past four weeks, and then to catch a glimpse of the hope that Job still has beneath his despair, illustrated in the text for today.
Read MoreJob 9:33. Suffering, like none other, can make us question, doubt, and distrust the very character of God. We often wonder whether God is punishing or somehow paying us back for something we have done or not done. We fear he might be angry and that his smile has been replaced by a scowl. The Bible tells us that God is pleased with us in Jesus Christ. In Job’s own suffering season, we see him alluding to and even appealing for such an arbiter who might be the go between on his behalf between him and God. He appeals and even says, “There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.” Here we see a clear reference to the coming mediation and arbitration that God has for all of his children who trust in His Son. May we have hope and assurance that if we are in God’s son, Jesus Christ, we have his smiling and soothing look upon us! It is unchanging and constant.
Read MoreJob 2:11–13 and Job 13:4–12. In this section of Job, we are focusing on “wrestling with suffering”. Last week Ryan focused on encountering God in our suffering, and this week we are going to focus on encountering people in suffering. As we look at the text, I think you will see that we can comfort with silence and a few timely words. Because God is God, we don't have to be. So my sermon is broken down into two sections—
First, we're going to look at the significance of silence.
Second, we are going to see the wisdom in watching your words.
As counselors, we don't want to be speculating. So what should we say? God’s words. Stick to what you know, and make your words few.
Read MoreJob 3:1–26. Walled up, hedged in, a dark path. Job doesn’t see any way forward in life—he doesn’t see any purpose or path leading on. Job feels abandoned. Suffering does that to us: when we can’t see the path we are on, when all we see is darkness, we feel very alone. Worse of all, we feel as though even God might not be there.
Read MoreJob 1:1–22; 2:1–10. Suffering. It is impossible to avoid in this life, though many of us will try very hard. It doesn’t matter your ethnicity, age, gender, social or economic status—all people can and often do experience suffering. This morning we start a new series in Job. Job is not necessarily one of the books of the Bible that makes many people’s favorite list, but it makes mine precisely because of its topic—suffering. I don’t have a morbid fascination with suffering, but an awareness that suffering afflicts us all, and we—Christians—we have the best worldview and answer to suffering in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Read MoreActs 28:17–31. This is the beautiful cycle that is our life. We come back, again and again, to who we are in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit in our life for the sake of the gospel of Jesus and our mission to all people. It never gets old because it is both our mission and our identity. We have been called to live for God!
Read MoreActs 24:24—25:12. Change and wait brings us face-to-face with a sovereign God who is in control of our lives in ways we don’t always understand. We should take courage that God cares so much about us that he has a plan for each one of us. He knows us so well that he knows what we will do even before we do it and what would be the best path to encourage us to know him and to walk in righteousness. But when we struggle to believe that, to see that, to accept it, our best choice is to remind ourselves and others—in the midst change and in the waiting—of what God has done.
Read MoreActs 18:24–28; 20:17–38 As we look at Acts 18 and Acts 20, I pray that you will see that God has called us to be Fervent Partners for the Gospel of Jesus. Fervent in our pursuit of him and others, and partners in that endeavor with one another.
Read MoreActs 15:36–41, 16:6–10. You probably know the experience well: You begin to live out what you thought God’s will was and you realize, “I don't think I had this all right.” As we look at this passage, we will see that even when we don’t get all the details of God’s will correct, he is still working. This text’s main point is that God is always working whether we feel he is far away or near at bay. God is always working.
Acts 15:1–21. The main point of our text this morning comes from verse 11: Christians are “saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus”. There are three main parts to this—1) The Debate (vv. 1–6): Does circumcision save?; 2) Peter’s Argument (vv. 7–12): Salvation by Grace; and 3) James’s Resolution (vv. 13–21): A Way Forward for Jew and Gentile Harmony.
Read MoreActs 13:1–12; 13:43–52. The events in this text are incredibly important in the history of the church. But though there are sweet successes in the stories that we're studying, don't miss that both are preceded by opposition. As we look at this first missionary journey, we're going to have two significant meetings, and we are going to see this main point: opposition is an opportunity for boldness, not bashfulness, because God is working.
Read MoreActs 10:1–48. As we have been studying through the book of Acts, we’ve been saying: the book of Acts is about the Holy Spirit empowering his people to proclaim the gospel to all people with all boldness and without hindrance. Today, we're talking about all people. I would summarize where we are going with this one sentence: No one is excluded from the gospel, for all are included if they come to Christ.
Read MoreActs 9:1–20. There is a persecution that Scripture says we should expect and accept. It is a persecution that comes from the righteousness of Christ at work in us. We see this kind of persecution throughout Acts where those who are Christians on mission for the gospel of Jesus are attacked in different ways. We don’t always get to know what God is doing in persecution, but here in Acts 9, we see one thing God wanted to do in the midst of this persecution: save one of the most prolific evangelists and pastors our world has ever seen—Paul.
Read MoreActs 8:4–40. We say that God’s Promise is his Pleasure in Peoples on purpose because God is after the multifaceted display of his glory through many different people groups. And he does this by keeping his promise through the power of his Holy Spirit.
Read More1 Corinthians 12:1–11. Today’s sermon is a more focused look at the spiritual gifts. We will see that first, the Holy Spirit is the Gift from God. Second, Spiritual Gifts are Unique Expressions through Unique People. Third, Expressions of the spiritual gifts give Glory to God and grace to us. Fourth, we should Pursue all of these expressions!
Read MoreActs 6:7–15, Acts 7:1–2a, 51–60, and Acts 8:1–4. The help we need to be a faithful witness is found in the Holy Spirit. He will help us bear witness to Jesus, to proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection, our only hope for salvation! As we seek to be faithful witnesses, we are not ultimately responsible for how others respond to the gospel. Jesus is judge.
Read MoreActs 2:1–41. The Holy Spirit descends onto the people at Pentecost, and as Peter explains what is happening, he turns the spotlight to Christ. And the reason that Peter turns there is because Christ is what makes the coming of the Holy Spirit so different this time. Now the Messiah has come. He has died and rose again. And now he has ascended and is seated at the right hand of God. The Holy Spirit’s job is to point to this now risen Lord.
Read MoreActs 1:1–11. The book of Acts is about the Holy Spirit empowering his people to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people with all boldness and without hindrance. The gospel will go forth to the ends of the earth, and we play a part in that through our helper, the Holy Spirit.
Read MoreEphesians 4:11–16. Discipleship is essentially this, “I’m just a beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.” Discipling someone else means that I’m trying to help them grow in their faith and to move a bit further down the road toward living a life that points to Jesus.
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