God has set sex apart to be holy. The way God sanctifies sex, sets it apart, seems unusual to us. But, it is ultimately for our good and greatest satisfaction. In this sermon, we remember together God’s original design for sex and the danger that comes when we act outside of that design. We learn the best way to live under that design is through the love triangle of commitment, intimacy, and passion.
God’s “Utopia” is a place where people are filled with His love and are formed in His holiness. The most unusual part of God’s “Utopia” is not believing in this kind of community. It is practicing it in a community that does not practice love and holiness in the same way. In this sermon, we are given a pattern for practicing this in community with others. This pattern is what John Wesley called, “Holy Love.” Holiness is a natural by-product of love. When people are filled with God’s love then they can be formed with God’s holiness.
When God sanctifies us He sanctifies our heart. This begs the question, “How is our heart?” While it is often the last question we ask ourselves or that is asked of us it is the first thing God evaluates in us. Is our heart like God’s heart? More importantly, how can our heart become like His? The answer has more to do with what God does than it has to do with what we do. In this sermon, we discover together how God desires to sanctify the hearts of his people.
The sanctified life God has called us to often feels unnatural, uncommon and unusual. But what if the life that is so unusual on earth is actually the life that is usual in heaven? The sanctified life is one that is set apart by God and for God. It is a life that is like God (Genesis 1:24). In this sermon we discover how God sanctifies us (John 17: 13-19, Galatians 2: 19-21, and Colossians 3: 1-4). We are invited into this sanctified life through faith in Jesus Christ.
Anger is a boiling point of the soul. Anger is something that not only happens to us, it is something that ultimately happens in us. It becomes our response to the violation of our will. In this sermon, we discover the process that occurs for becoming angry: we bottle it up, we blow up, and then we blame others. How we are to handle our anger? The answer to that question will either make us the most like God or the least like God. The choice is ours.
Pride is a blindspot of the soul. For most of us, we are either to prideful to admit we do not have a pride problem or we are prideful enough to believe that we do not. In this sermon, David provides us with four blindspots we need to check concerning pride. In the end, it is what pride keeps us from receiving that is the most detrimental to the spiritual condition of our souls.
Summer is a lot like enemies. They both happen in the in-between. Summer happens in-between the planting of spring and the harvest of all. Enemies happen in-between us and God. The trouble with enemies is that they rarely present themselves in opposition to us. Rather, they walk along side us and appear to be one of us. In this sermon, from Psalm 35, David teaches us how to recognize these enemies. Once we have done so, we are able to defeat our enemies the same way Jesus did.
When someone is frustrated they are often referred to as a, “Hot Mess Express.” Frustration is a feeling of failure. This feeling occurs when something is not going according to plan. For most of us, we most see people as the root cause of our frustration rather than the plan. In Psalm 33, we learn from David that frustration is a yellow light warning us that our plan might be competing with God’s plan. In this sermon we discuss the difference between following our plan and following God’s plan.
