Hello again!
Today we heard a wonderful sermon by a wonderful pastor. Joseph Prince seems to like nothing more than preaching the Gospel. In fact, his Church has become so popular due to God’s empowering him to preach sermons that are both centered around the Gospel, and applicable to our lives today, you need to make a reservation just to be able to go to hear him. That aside though, this is a part of the sermon we heard today:
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today’s sermon didn’t appear to come out of any one passage, per se. The verse he started out with though was Hebrews 12: 1. Also, the pastor didn’t have any “official” points, but his main point was rather obvious: We should try to live a holy life through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Now, while I do certainly agree that we should want to live a life holy and pleasing to the Lord, I wish he had focused in on and expounded upon what he said in his first couple of paragraphs. i.e. that we cannot possibly live a life holy, but through the work Christ did for us, we can now live a life holy and pleasing to God. Instead of doing this though, he proceeded in essence to give a lecture on living a holy life. It was a rather good lecture, mind, but it wasn’t a sermon. A sermon requires there to be an uplifting of Christ, while a lecture can often be more effective at lifting up our response to the cross as being more important.
In conclusion: There wasn’t anything all too wrong with the lecture today, but when I go to a Church, I really do hope to hear an uplifting and Christ filled sermon.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today the sermon was on Acts 16:22-25, and Philippians 1:1-5. The main point was that we can find joy when we look to the cross. We were showed this by looking to Acts, where Paul and Cialis where praying and singing and worshiping the Lord in prison. They had joy, in spite of their trails, because they could see that all this was to further the work of the Gospel. Something we see did indeed happen when the jailer and his entire family was saved and baptized.
Another thing that was brought up was the, “four joy killers”:
1. Circumstances
2. People
3. Things
4. Worry
We were also shown, however, how all these things don’t have to be joy killers, thank’s to the Gospel. Our circumstances don’t have to kill our joy, because God abandoned His own son at the cross so that He wouldn’t have to abandon us. We don’t have to let people kill our joy, because no matter what other’s may say, we can always know that Christ loves and accepts us. Things (i.e. not having this or that) don’t have to kill our joy, because Jesus can make us content when we have little and when we have much. Worry doesn’t have to kill our joy either, because we can bring all of our worry to the cross, where we see that no matter what happens, Jesus will always look out for us.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today the pastor preached on Isiah 8:22 and 9:3-4. From these passages he got five main points:
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
P.S. I apologize if the points don’t seem connected. I assure you they were connected quite nicely in his sermon, but I couldn’t quite remember the finer details of the sermon.
Hello again!
Today the pastor preached on Luke 2: 8-20. His main point was that we should, “let the Angel’s song encourage us to:
His point was that we, as Christians, often lose the wonder of how Jesus gave His very life for us. The sermon encouraged us to regain the wonder we had for the amazing work Jesus has done for us.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today the pastor preached on Luke 2:25-38. It was a very good sermon, I did have to somewhat “translate”certain things which he said in order to fully grasp the idea, (for example, at certain points he treated the birth of Christ as though it accomplished the same things as His death), but over all it was a very good sermon. Here were his three main points:
Of course, all of those things are actually done at the cross, but the pastor did certainly preach in a manner where you could simply “translate” parts of it to their actual meaning. – It’s nearing Christmas, you can hardly blame Pastors for wanting to incorporate Jesus’ birth into their sermons.
All that being said, here is what I remember about the three points:
In his first point, the Pastor focused on Simeon. The part I remember in particular is where he told us about how we can see our example (as to how Jesus’ birth prepares us to die) from Mary. This is because, in his blessing, Simeon tells Mary that a sword “will pierce her heart too.” He then talked for a little on how this did indeed happen at the cross: when Jesus’ heart was pierced, I have no doubt it was as though Mary’s heart had been pierced too.
In his second point, the Pastor told us that Christ’s birth gives us a purpose for living because Christ’s coming gives us hope and a task. The hope being the hope of eternal life, and the task being that of spreading the good news of Christ to those around us.
In his third point, the Pastor told us that Jesus’ birth should bring us to surrender. He said that it’s never too early, that it’s never too late to surrender our-self to Christ. Concerning the “it’s never too late” bit, he reminded us of Simeon again, who had waited his entire life for Christ’s birth. He told us that there was surely points when Simeon must have thought he was too weak to keep waiting, but he never gave up hope. Concerning his point about how it’s never, “too early”, the Pastor reminded us of how women were often married very young back then, and so Mary may well have been no older than a teenager when she devoted her life to carrying for Christ. After saying this, he encouraged all the children there to, ‘devote their lives to Christ today, because we don’t know if there will or won’t be a tomorrow.’
Anyway, it really was a great sermon, and a real breath of fresh air after all the self-proclaimed “Churchs” my family and I have been going to lately. I hoped you enjoyed reading about it as much as we enjoyed hearing it.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today we had a “step-in” pastor, who had been a missionary in various parts of the World for the majority of his life. He preached one of those “touch-and-go” type sermons, where he talked on various points, and then brought in a scant bit of the Bible to support one or two of his points. That being said, he did also preach good doctrine, that the Bible does teach (not that you might know that the Bible taught them after listening to the sermon). He taught us the “high-five”, in which I believe every finger represents a different Biblical principle. They were the following:
First, the thumb is to represent love, without which the Church would perish. Second, the pointer finger is to represent hope, which sustains the Church. Third, the index finger is to represent joy, which keeps the Church going. Fourth, the ring finger is to represent respect. Finally, the little finger is to represent truth.
He mainly used stories from his life as a missionary to demonstrate each point, but what I took away from it was this: firstly, that it’s only by Jesus’ ultimate display of love for us, when he died for us on the cross that the Church can keep from perishing. Secondly, it’s only by Jesus, our hope of glory, that we can be sustained. Thirdly, it’s only by our joy in our redeemer that we can keep going. Fourthly, we can live respectfully/obediently to God because of the strength that Jesus gives us. Finally, we can only find truth in the truth, the way, and the life: our savior, Jesus Christ.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today the Pastor preached on Matthew 6:9. He had already preached through the entire book of Matthew, but decided to go back to the Lord’s prayer, and preach five sermons on that.
Perhaps somewhat obviously, his focus in the sermon was prayer, though in the beginning of his sermon, he did also talk for a bit on gay marriage (and how it is wrong). I suppose that was simply what was on his heart at the moment. Regardless, the main message was on prayer. His main points where these:
Here, he brought out how whenever Jesus’ disciples talked to Him, they were in a sense, “praying.” e.g. His disciples didn’t say, “Lord, who sinned that this man was born blind? Him, or his parents?” Only to walk off before Christ answered them. That being said, the pastor also noted that not all conversations Jesus had where prayer; the Devil wasn’t praying to Jesus in the desert while tempting Him to sin. The difference between His disciples and the Devil, being that His disciples where “communing” with Him, while the Devil most certainly was not.
This may be seen as an obvious point, but the pastor brought out here that talking to God really is no small matter. We often take our ability as Christian’s to talk with God for granted, because we can’t actually see God, and therefore sometimes feel He doesn’t deserve the respect of someone who we can see, even if the person we can see isn’t the being that created you and then died for you. – The pastor’s main point here was to bring out that we should treat prayer with great respect.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
Today the Pastor preached on the topic of giving, from the passage Mark 1:1-9.
For the most part, the pastor talked on two different types of giving: extravagant giving, and excellent giving. He said that extravagant giving is always warranted, but not always possible, but that excellent giving is always warranted and always possible. For example, he said that not everyone is able to give up a year’s income, as the women in Mark 1:1-9 did, but that everyone is able to give “excellently.”
The pastor then explained what excellent giving was, and to who we should give:
“Excellent” giving is giving that honors Christ; giving that results from our recognition of all that Christ has done for us. He then posed the question, ‘But who should we give to?’ Followed by the answer: we should give to the local Church (he did not say this out of some self-serving purpose), and towards groups that, “Make disciples of all nations.”-Groups that bring people to Christ.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
Hello again!
This is what God gave me today in His word
“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. (Luke 8:5-7)
I wonder just how many “Christians” have had this happen to them. In fact, the seed of the Gospel which has been planted in our own hearts, may be withered away, choked out by any number of things, even now. The problem is, everyone seems to have a tendency to consider just about everything as being more important than the Gospel: pastors stand up on Sundays and preach a bloodless “Gospel”-a “Gospel” where we save ourself by our own works, but where Christ doesn’t really play a part. Worse though, is it seems people genuinely enjoy hearing this. But, preaching which does not contain the Gospel, almost always chokes out the seed of the Gospel in a new believer. (The Devil, in this example, is actually working through a pastor that refuses to preach the Gospel).
More often than the above happening, though, is when the word of the Gospel fells upon rock. Where, though it tries to grow, it’s inevitably stopped by someone’s unwillingness to give up sin. (No one whose trying to stop the work of the Gospel in their life by holding on to sin will ever stand up in times of trail.)
Still more common than this happening, however, is when the seed of the Gospel is trampled, and then completely annihilated by the Devil. The worst thing about this, is that we are, more often than not, the ones doing the trampling! We trample our own seed of the Gospel when, after hearing and experiencing Jesus’ power at first, we then proceed to ignore it completely; we trample it when we try to limit the power of Jesus to something which makes someone a Christian, and nothing more, when in reality the Gospel not only save us (though that in of itself is huge), but also gives us strength and power to overcome the Devil. Which is why, after we trample the seed of the Gospel, we don’t have any strength to resist the Devil, which is why (like a bird), he swoops down and devours it.
But, how can we prevent those things from happening to us, and if our seed of the Gospel (which is the word of God) has already been devoured, how can we possibly receive it back?
We can prevent ourself from loosing sight of the Gospel, by, (simply put) never loosing sight of it. If we make Jesus, and His death and Resurrection for us the center of our thoughts and actions, we will never lose it. As for the second question, that has three separate answers:
In the first case, the Gospel has been choked out by the belief that salvation rests upon our ability to obey the law. In the second case, someone is unrepentant, and so the Gospel withers away. In the third case, the Gospel is trampled by an ignorant belief that Jesus’ death and Resurrection; his Power, makes someone into a believer, and nothing more.
To solve the first problem is fairly easy; one most only read the Bible, and discover that the Gospel is God’s free gift to man, and that we cannot earn our own salvation.
The solution to the second problem is somewhat harder, as it involves our need for repentance, and humans, as you and I both have no doubt discovered, have a very difficult time admitting that they have done wrong of any sort. And in fact, it is only by looking to Jesus, and seeing His utter perfection, that we can truly understand our own wickedness, and repent.
The solution to the third problem is hardest of all, because once we get into the rut of ignoring the Jesus’ power to help us in every matter of life, it can be difficult to get out. However, God has provided us a way out here too: by looking at passages like Jesus’ temptation in the desert, and how He resisted; and by realizing that if we are believers than that same Jesus lives in us, we can see that Jesus not only saves, but also sanctifies.
You are Loved!
Joshua Cleveland
