Sermon Archive (Page 11)

Sermon Archive (Page 11)

What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 2

What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 2: God Engaged The principle of the Good News that I arrive at is this: God engages us at our point of brokenness. The Good News is, God says, ‘I want to work with you. I want [you] to find wholeness and help and healing’ — and He can, and does, make broken lives whole again. … God says, this world is disrupted and I am the only One who can make…

What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 1

What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 1: God Noticed Humility. Trust. Faith. That’s what makes the Good News good news. God notices. Be humble before God, trust Him, and let your faith supplant your fear and panic. Download the PDF above to follow along with notes.

Shattered, Part 5

SHATTERED, Part 5: Society Shattered The theme of this story is about not finding our eternal security and ultimate meaning of life based upon a life that is built to honor ourselves. … This message points out that we strive often to be God ourselves, instead of learning to be image-bearers of God. The Tower of Babel attempts to reach God by ‘my own standards’—we try, in a sense, to fashion a life that exalts myself, my society, my way,…

Shattered, Part 4

SHATTERED, Part 4: Good Shattered God is making a point here that God’s favor falls on those who rest in His grace. Ultimately these verses show us humanity’s sin, and that that sin breaks the heart of the Lord. It breaks the heart of Yahweh to the point [at which] his wrath must purify the earth. And yet, in the midst of that just wrath for our corruption, God’s grace is still made available for those who rest in Him.…

Shattered, Part 3

SHATTERED, PART 3: Family Shattered We’re all infected by sin. Our souls are stained with it. Only Jesus’s blood can wash us clean. If we are to be a whole people—individuals [who are] fully who God created us to be, undivided, without constant regret or remorse, not hiding—then we need to seriously look at our own sin and wrap our heads around our true state. Not continuing to believe that our will is somehow inherently good, that our desires are…

Shattered, Part 2

Shattered, Part 2: Freedom Shattered Sin is not just an activity. … In reality, sin is you. Sin is me. Because the only thing that’s perfect is the Holy God, and if I walk away from a relationship with the Holy God, I am very quickly unholy—which is what the story of Genesis 3 really initiates. … We live a life that tries to say, even as Christians, “Yeah, Jesus is the answer, but let’s just deal with behavior modification.”…

Shattered, Part 1

SHATTERED, Part 1: Perfection Shattered You are hopeless and helpless in sin! It’s bad, guys. … Except this is also where the redemption story starts. This is why when we teach scripture, it’s attached to the gospel. The gospel is the GOOD NEWS. Left to yourself, there’s not a behavior you can live — there’s not a lifestyle you can have, there’s not an amount of money you can offer to the poor, there’s not an amount of time you…

Origins, Part 4

Origins, Part 4: He Rested, Therefore I Find My Rest “Worship is not just a physical protocol of a checked-off list of things to follow and things to do; but it instead is a heart of reflection, a heart of observance, of reverence, of recognition. It’s a heart of total dependence upon the Creator God of the universe. … It’s much easier for [God] to give me a checklist and for me to check it off than it is for…

Origins, Part 3

Even though physically we don’t look like God, internally, deeply spiritually, the RUAH of God sets us apart and says my identity is defined by my relationship to the almighty Creator Elohim, God of the universe.

Origins, Part 2

Every one of us has walked into this place this morning with something that concerns us. … We’ve got something lingering over our heads, somehow, small or big. The beauty of Genesis is [that] when we learn to live in awe of the Creator, we no longer have to live in awe of the circumstances of our lives. … The story of Genesis is not “a cosmic accident.” It’s a story of life! It’s a story of God instilling life and direction.

Origins, Part 1

What you believe about the origins of all things will affect everything about the way you live. … Genesis 1 really is the very strong foundation to understanding of the entirety of the whole story of God, from the beginning of scripture all the way to the end.

20/20 Vision for LifeWay

The world’s falling apart, but God’s Word has always been true in this: if you will rely on the strength of God through the moments that you feel the most down, this is the time when you strengthen your tent curtains. You widen them. You don’t hold back; you strengthen the cords. You lengthen the stakes. Because God will then use you to inhabit the desolate cities — the broken lives of the world around us — and we will not stop doing that.

I Resolve To…

The only way we can actually grow and succeed in our lives is to fully depend on God’s strength in us. We can only work hard and disciplined out of the Holy Spirit’s strength inside of us. It’s a strength he gives us. And as followers of Jesus, we are supposed to work hard and disciplined for the sake of the gospel. … January is a time for hard work — a time to restart in our daily devotionals, or…

Fulfilled, Part 5: The Book of Immanuel — God With Us

“They were panicking. They were in fear and insecurity. They were looking for help and a rescuer. … God says, ‘I’m going to fulfill my promises, much as I did with Abraham, with Moses, and in the time of King David. We’re not done yet. Stand with God!’ And how is it going to happen? When will this rescue take place? Look for the sign. The sign is a virgin … that young woman will bear a child, and that…

Fulfilled, Part 4: Cornerstone

Three times [in 1 Peter chapter 2] Peter uses the word “precious” to describe Jesus. But to many, in that world and in ours, Jesus is not precious at all. Ultimately, you can’t tell the value of something just by checking popular opinion. The world was wrong about Jesus 2,000 years ago, and much of the world is still wrong about him today. You cannot be neutral about Jesus. He is either your living cornerstone, or he is your stumbling…

Fulfilled, Part 3: Son of Man

If you don’t grasp [Jesus as the Son of Man], live that, and let it seep into your soul, you will miss the power of the fulfillment of God’s design, that the utter dominion and authority, and power and structure is completely and totally found in this Jesus. — Pastor Billy Arnold

Fulfilled, Part 2: The Suffering Servant Fulfilled

Christ, even while he was alive on this earth, taught those earliest disciples: “I am not a mistake out of thin air. I’m not just an appearance for this time being. God has been planning this all along, and Isaiah the Prophet spoke of it: I am the answer to not only the enemy at the gates of the Roman Empire, but I am here to answer the enemy at the gates of your soul. I am the fulfillment of…

Fulfilled, Part 1: The Anointed One Identified

As a preacher, [Jesus] is going to promise God’s presence. (This is from the perspective of Isaiah.) As the Messiah, he’s going to reinstate God’s righteousness in the world. And as a servant, he’s going to deal with the problem of sin. Now, Isaiah doesn’t understand how he’s going to do all of that yet, but he knows this is going to happen, that he’s got a promise — that’s what [Isaiah] is saying in this particular passage of scripture.…

Giving Thanks in Everything

It’s really easy for us, as Christians, to fall into that mindset that the world has, that is based on circumstances. We spend entire periods of our life waiting for circumstances to change so that we can be happy again. . . . When your heart and your mindset is set on waiting for your circumstances to change, it should lead you to ask at some point: What really, truly, is my hope in? In good circumstances, or in Jesus?…

The Outward Focused Church, Part 6: GIC Commitment Service

Billy Arnold is nothing. He’s just the holder of a key. But it’s an incredible key. It’s an unbelievable key that unlocks the truth of people’s lives, that allows the prisoners to be set free. [Jesus] says, “I’m going to give [the key] to the church.” And who’s the church? We are. … Jesus handed the message of himself over to the church body; and therefore, the church body, every one of us, learns how to say, “How does God…

The Outward Focused Church, Part 5: God and You

God designed you specifically to be a vital part of what His plan was in this world. God has uniquely fitted you for something that’s bigger — and it’s not something that you get to dream up; it’s something God originally designed, which becomes very much a part of who you really are. — Billy Arnold

The Outward Focused Church, Part 4: God and His Church

From Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth—that’s where the Church is designed to be. And as we refocus on God’s agenda and his mission, that he has given to his Church, we become his instrument to fulfill his ultimate purpose—and that is to draw worshipers to himself from all over the world. See, local/global evangelism is the task of the Church. It is the primary task of the Church. — Don Turner

The Outward Focused Church, Part 2: God and His Mission

At the end of time, when all of this is done, there’s a picture of a day in which all of the redeemed from all of the ages will surround the throne, and we’ll begin to sing. And the Bible says that we’ll sing a new song. … It’s not going to be about our need, or even about His provision, except in this sense — of what He provided in the person of Jesus Christ, who was the Lamb…

The Outward Focused Church, Part 1: An Introduction

We don’t have a seating capacity problem; we have a sending capacity problem. … We have—in the church today, worldwide—9,000 times more manpower and 3,000 times more money than we need to fulfill the Great Commission TODAY. Where is it? We’re it! It’s sitting in chairs and pews in churches all over the world, waiting for somebody to mobilize it—waiting for somebody to come along and say, “Let’s turn our eyes off ourselves and put it on the harvest field!”…