This is the video clip from Facing the Giants that we showed Sunday morning before the sermon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyPkUXGq1S0).

October 25, 2009, Questions from Jesus: “If You Can?” Mark 9:23

The coach says, "I don’t want you giving up a certain point when you could go further."

Maybe we give up too soon. Maybe we've contented ourselves with the 30-yard-line when He wants to bring us to the End Zone. Maybe we've just chosen to sit on the sidelines while He's trying to get us into the game.

Today we will hear Jesus say: "'If you can'? Everything is possible for him who believes."

Do we believe that? Do we live that?

October 4, 2009 – “Do you believe this?” - John 11:26

“Do you believe this?” This is Jesus’ question to us today

The word, "believe," is a dominant word in the Gospel of John. He uses the Greek word for believe – pisteuō - 98 times. When John explains the purpose of his gospel in John 20:31 he writes: "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

So belief is not passive, nor it is mere cognitive assent. Belief is dynamic, active, alive. John uses an action verb to describe belief. So Jesus’ question “Do you believe this?” is a most powerful and poignant questions for your answer and action in response will change everything.

September 27, 2009 – “Do you want to be well?” – John 5:6

Change is always risky and hard - even when the prospect is of changing from something worn, old, past its prime to something new and better. It’s easier, safer, more comfortable to cling to what we know, sometimes, we just don’t want to change.

And that truth is at the heart of the question that we hear Jesus asking us today. For beyond the question of our comfortable old shirts, we must examine the comfortable, yet worn out and frayed corners of our lives and hear Jesus asking us: “Do you want to change?” “Do you want to be well?”

The economic crisis that we now find ourselves in has brought an interesting phrase into the headlines: toxic assets. Toxic assets are a huge reason why banks are in the trouble that they are in.

You see, assets are loans. Somebody owes the bank money that they pay it back with interest. However, as the economy now stands - especially with the mortgage foreclosure crisis - many of these loans have actually become liabilities.

People are unable to pay back these loans and the houses that secured the loans have decreased in value - below the amount of the loan. So these loans, instead of being assets, have become liabilities. And any asset that is harmful to the bottom line is toxic.

This phenomenon is not just in the banking industry, but in our own lives as well. Often, we consider things to be assets that in the end reveal themselves to be liabilities. Sometimes, like these bankers we invest our lives in things that we think will pay in the end - investments that appear valuable and trustworthy but we find ourselves in the red. We invested in toxic assets.

Jesus’ question today gets to the heart of the matter. He’s asking His disciples - and asking us - to evaluate our portfolio - have we been investing in toxic assets? Has our life been given to things that in the end will actually be shown to be liabilities?

This is what Jesus is getting at when he asks us today:"What good is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul?"

September 13, 2009

Series: Questions from Jesus

Sermon: “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?”

Scripture: Luke 13:2

Where were you on September 11, 2001?. Last Friday we paused to remember the anniversary of 9/11 – eight years ago that day. And most of us have vivid images in our minds – sights, sounds, smells - of that day.

Often in the wake of tragedy, our fears blind us. We grope through darkness, grasping at answers, looking for understanding. In our desperation, we too quickly and uncritically latch on to answers without adequate reflection as to their veracity. Sadly, all too often, like this man and others like him did, point the finger in the wrong direction.

Jesus was confronted with just such a situation. People, groping about in the darkness of tragedy trying to understand “why,” pointing fingers, looking for answers, and desperately latching on to wrong ideas.

And so today, we hear Jesus confronting them – and confronting us - in all of our wrong ideas and wild accusations, asking pointedly: "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?" and again: "those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?"

Sept. 6, 2009 - “What do you want me to do for you?” - Mark 10:36, 51

Today we turn to what may be the most frequently asked question of Jesus. It is a question that Jesus seems to ask often, to many different people, and in many different ways: "What do you want me to do for you?"

Jesus asked many variations of this question:

• “What do you want me to do for you?” Mt. 20:32; Mk. 10:36; 10:51; Lk. 18:41

What do we learn from this question to us today?

08/23/2009

Series: Questions from Jesus

Sermon: “How many loaves do you have?”

Text: Mark 6:32-44

We come to God with all kinds of questions. Often we do so much asking and so much talking that rarely do we listen and consider that maybe God has some questions for us.

When we read the Gospels, we find that Jesus was a master at asking questions. One scholar counted 307 questions asked by Jesus in the four gospels.

So this fall, we embark on a journey – we will study together some of these Questions from Jesus. What do we learn about the questioner as we study His questions? What do we learn about ourselves as we answer His questions?

For if we believe as Hebrews 4:12 declares, “The word of God is living and active,” then these questions from Jesus recorded in the living Word might become to us today questions He is asking of us as well.

And so, as we have heard of what the Fall holds for our church. It is most appropriate that we also hear Jesus asking us: “How many loaves do you have?”

C. H. Spurgeon said in one of his sermons: “NATURE is selfish, but grace is loving. He who boasts that he cares for nobody, and nobody cares for him, is the reverse of a Christian, for Jesus Christ enlarges the heart when he cleanses it. None so tender and sympathetic as our Master, and if we be truly his disciples, the same mind will be in us which was also in Christ Jesus.”

NATURE is SELFISH - survival of the fittest, every man for himself. However, as Dr. Mead said, the first sign of civilization is not knowledge, not technology, not intellect – but COMPASSION. In the same way, the first sign that Jesus Christ has come into our hearts is not Bible knowledge, not wearing the right clothes or doing the right things, but rather the same HUMILITY and COMPASSION as evidenced in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

COMPASSION is a stubborn refusal to turn away - it is the humility that allows our hearts to grow. Compassion allows that other person’s needs affect me, it makes her problem my problem, it makes his burden, my burden.

The Church of Jesus Christ must be marked by such Compassion For the world will not take seriously our message until we take seriously the problems of this world.

Our Compassion builds a bridge across which our message might travel and testifies to the truth of our message.

My friends, THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO TURN AWAY FROM OUR MESSAGE, IF WE REFUSE TO TURN AWAY FROM THEIR NEED.

Don’t Turn Away

Tonight we read of the events surrounding Jesus’ final meal with His disciples as found in Matthew 26.

As we reflect upon the table that Jesus prepared, consider who were the first to receive the new meal He instituted?

That evening, we find that it was a Table set for Turncoats, Traitors, and the Timid. A table set for men and women like you and like me.

Date: April 5, 2009; Series: At the Cross

Sermon: False Advertising; Text: Mark 11:1-21

What has been termed "The Triumphal Entry" is one of the few events recorded in ALL 4 gospels - emphasizing its importance.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem was a carefully orchestrated parable - in the words of theologian Robert Stein, “For Jesus the triumphal entry was a carefully orchestrated messianic act. It was a parabolic act that could be perceived by those with eyes to see but that was concealed for others.”

And those with eyes to see understood the true meaning of this parable: The King is Here!

Upon arriving in Kingly fashion, what are the first actions of this new King? Another parable. After His highly parabolic and symbolic entry, Jesus enacts another parable that clearly communicates His intentions of this King: He curses a fig tree and then overturns business as usual at the Temple.

Jesus is clearing the way for something new, something better. He’s clearing the way so that men and women - like you and me - might truly be saved. Hosanna in the Highest!