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People can be frustrating, but it’s a bit easier to take criticism if it’s a stranger online because you don’t see them every day. But many times, it’s the people closest to us like close friends, a family member or even a spouse who can cause the most pain in our lives.
So, my big question today is: What can bring peace to our chaotic relationships? Our Bible passage today tells us that love is the answer.
Our big question today is: How can we get better at conflict management?
Our Bible passage teaches us to remember eternity. If we’ve been wronged, remember eternity. Then we’ll see which conflicts are worth fighting about, and we’ll remember the importance of love and mission and forgiveness and community, even in the middle of our conflict.
But sometimes, we are the offender. In this case, we need to remember eternity too. We need to see how bad our sin is and see how great God’s grace is. When we do this, we won’t be crushed by our guilt, but we’ll turn away from our sins and we’ll start living a better life.
All of us have choices to make. We have choices in our love life. We have choices for our schooling and our career. We have choices for our friendship and our free time and our family life. Our choices will determine the direction of our lives.
So my big question today is: How can we make better life choices?
The answer I want to show you today is: we need to think like soldiers.
Because, just like soldiers:
My task today is to show you these ideas from the Bible, so you can build your life directly on God’s word.
We start a new series on Paul’s letters to the Corinthians.
I really believe that every Christian is meant to experience a type of fellowship where you feel loved, where you feel like you belong and where you experience Jesus in every aspect of your life. Maybe you’ve found that at this church, and that’s great! But a little warning: we can’t take that for granted.
We have to protect it because sometimes there are sins so great that they can break the fellowship. This is the reason why the church needs to have standards to protect its members and to protect its reputation. So, my big question today is What moral standards should we have in the Church?
There’s something in all of our lives that is bringing all kinds of death. It’s invisible. It’s tolerated. It’s called sin.
I know sin is a loaded word with a lot of negative associations. So for this sermon, let’s have sin simply mean doing things our way instead of God’s way. It’s simple, but it captures how sin separates us from God’s best: His love, purpose, and goodness.
Sin spreads, contaminates, and destroys lives — individually and communally. We often don’t realize how gross and dangerous it is until it’s too late.
This is the lesson God teaches the Israelites in Joshua 7. They were invited by God to walk closely with him to change the world for better and they were actually experiencing it until hidden sin came into the picture.
The big question we’re focusing on today is:
What do we need to grasp about sin in order to walk closely with God?
To walk closely with God, we need to grasp:
The world is changing fast, which brings me to my big question today: How should Christians respond to an ever-changing world?
My answer is: we need to live by faith and not by sight. That’s what we’ll see in the Bible today.
Today we’re going to cover TWO Bible stories. These two stories were placed side by side in the Bible, and they have the same message, so they complement each other.
I understand a lot of us are going through some really hard times. I definitely don’t want to minimize the trouble that we go through. Mental health is no joke, and relationship problems can be really tough. School and finances can be oppressive. And sometimes the best we can do is just make it through another day.
But once in a while when we’re not so overwhelmed, it really helps to take a step back and think about the big picture.
And it’s worth asking, how can we live our best life? That’s my big question today. How can we live our best life?
My big idea today is that we need EXPERIENCE and we need to ENRICH.
Many religions and belief systems have followers that have “blind faith, which means faith without evidence. They operate on a single witness who claimed to have a vision in private. The problem, however, is there’s no other witnesses to corroborate if that vision happened
It’s different with Christianity. The most important events – like Jesus dying on a cross, the resurrection (empty tomb), the miracles – are all very public. The Bible rejects blind faith! I think it actually invites skepticism; it encourages you to ask good questions and dig deep on the evidence.
We do need faith, but it’s different from what a lot of people think. My question today is: what does excellent faith look like? I’m going to try to show you that excellent faith is bold with the big idea, and diligent with the details. That’s what we’ll learn from the story of an unlikely hero.
BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS.
The Bible isn’t like us, it doesn’t just repeat things just to hit a certain word count. Its writing style is very efficient and thought out… and so for it to repeat 3 times in this week’s passage is like highlighting it and putting it in bold!
Why does God emphasize this so much? I think there is a pastoral aspect to his words here. I mean just a few verses before ours, Moses is literally declared the greatest man of God ever. And for Joshua to take over, those are huge shoes to fill. I’m sure Joshua felt all sorts of underqualified and imposter syndrome.
But also, as we’ll continue in the Joshua story for the next few weeks, we see that the path set out for Joshua is not easy. It requires strength and courage. But that’s not just for Joshua. That’s for all Christians. Following God isn’t an easy walk in the park. Whether you’ve been a Christian for decades or you are new to the faith, following God comes with doing hard things. To say no to our desires. To say yes to love and sacrifice. And so that’s why God tells us: Be strong and courageous, because that’s what it takes to get us thinking beyond ourselves. Be strong and courageous because the natural thing to do is to fall into fear and doubt. Be strong and courageous, because it is so easy to believe the worst about ourselves, the world, and even God. Be strong and courageous.
Our story is about a group of Shepherds that encounter an Angel that was so glorious that it put their whole life on hold. They were the first to experience the glory of the Christmas story, but they were not meant to be the last!
Because like them, we can still experience the glory of the Christmas story today.