Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 8:16-9:5. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.

Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.

Sermon transcription:Today we are pausing our sermon series in 2 Corinthians. We

do this every year. We call it Vision Sunday. We reflect on where we’ve been

and where the elders and pastors feel like God is leading us. The immediate

question you may have is: What’s up with the rocks? We are in the Old Testament

today. Old Testament discipline style. No? Haha, well ok. Anyway, that is where

we are.

Let me tell you this story that I mentioned in the Four Oaks

weekly this week. When I was in seminary I took a pastoral counseling class.

Basically before they unleash you to counsel messed up people, they want you to

know how messed up you really are. Believe me, there is a lot of stuff there.

For part of this process they have you construct what is called a genogram. Not

be confused with the riveting family game, Jenga. Totally different thing. A

genogram is basically a physical representation of your family history and

lineage. It is not just an ancestral tree of all your long lost country

cousins, which, apparently, we have many that are barefooted in the east hills

of Tennessee. It is much more than that. It is actually a tool to utilize and

identify family relational patterns, problems, issues, and strengths. The goal

in constructing the genogram is to really make you more self aware about who

you are and where you come from. Not to dwell in it, not to live in it, but to

help you develop healthier patterns of relating in the future.

A couple of things really stood out as I journeyed down this

path of ancestral enlightenment. First, I had family members far and wide

across the fruited plains that filled these things out. Apparently they are

much more comfortable writing things down about the family than they are

actually saying them. As I’m reading these questionnaires, I’m realizing that

we are not going to be doing a genogram debrief at Thanksgiving this year. That

is not going to happen.

Secondly, despite all the issues that were uncovered in that

family exploration, which undoubtedly would be in yours or mine or any of our

families, one theme was strikingly clear. Out of all of this mess God has been

amazingly faithful. To bring spiritual life out of sinful humanity, it is an

amazing thing. I just sat there and looked at my dad’s line. None of these are

exaggerations, or maybe only slightly, but seriously. Living on a mountain, in

a shack, one step above deliverance and banjos, has an outhouse, shoots

squirrels for food, hitchhiking to work as a teenager, a hard life, and then

just seeing God miraculously and sovereignly save him so that he is the one

Christian in my family for an extended season while growing up. Just seeing how

God’s faithfulness, God’s will, God’s way prevails. I believe when we boil it

right down to its essence, the 26 years of Four Oaks can really be summed up in

that way. In the way my friend Kent Hamilton says it, “You know, in the end,

God wins.” God gets his way. I believe that when I reflect on these 26 years,

one of the things that God has given us by his grace is a unique capacity as a

church family to trust in his goodness and to walk in faith. We know he’s got

this. We know that he is faithful, that he is in control, that he is going to

have his way. So, today we are going to take a quick peek at the Four Oaks

genogram to help us understand where we have been, to help point us forward to

where we think God is leading us, and we are going to use Josh...

January 24, 2016Pastor Paul Gilbert Do You Have the Grace of God?Ok, open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 6. If you are a guest, you need to know that we walk through books of the Bible here. We preach through books of the Bible. We’ve been working our way through 2 Corinthians here now for a number of months and we will continue through to the end of the school year. If you are a guest, we’d love to capture your visit. There is a big area outside with a sign that says “GUESTS”. Stop there. We have a gift we would love to give you. Again, the Connect Breakfast that Pastor Dave mentioned is happening next Sunday, first service, in Gallery 14. It is a great chance to find out more about church. Now, enough of that and into God’s word. 2 Corinthians 6:1-13, let me read this for us then we will dive in.Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,“In a favorable time I listened to you,and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.We have spoken freely to you,a Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.Lets pray. Lord, this is a heavy passage. It is a hopeful passage, but  it is a heavy passage. We can’t get to hope until we go through heavy so I pray that you would give us the grace to hear it and absorb it and receive it. As we are hearing the hard words of your Word, help us to recognize they are your gracious words. They are your life-giving words. They are your words full of hope. So Lord, give us ears to hear as we dive into your word this morning. In Jesus’ name, Amen.Let me ask you have you ever put your heart, mind and soul into something. I mean, just laid it on the line? You labored, you powered your way through, you invested your time, money, energy, but it all came for naught? Ever had one of those times? Well, a couple stories.Three college students a number of years ago from the University of Tennessee (as you hear this story, it will not surprise you where these men grew up, ok?) Three students from the University of Tennessee decided to road trip to Gainesville, the armpit of the south, for the UT/Florida game. They made their plans, they secured their accommodations, they packed their bags. It is only 10-12 hours from Knoxville to Gainesville on 75, a day trip, but of course, when you are in college and you are road tripping, you have to have at least four or five days for these things, everybody understands this, right? These guys headed out and they were loaded for bear. Is this going to be the year the Vols beat the ...

Pastor Paul continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2

Corinthians 5:21.Sermon transcription:

I invite you to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. As you are doing so,

let me as you a question: have you ever made a bad trade or a bad deal?

A deal so awful for you, so one sided, so short sighted that you had to

ask yourself how could I have missed it? How could I have been so dumb?

How could I have been so obtuse? I can’t believe I did that. History is

full of those kinds of bad exchanges. I think the French are still

kicking themselves for selling us half of America, right? For pennies on

the acre. Poor French. They just can’t get that right. The Boston Red

Sox had a vision to fund a Broadway play and so he didn’t have the money

but he did have a really good baseball player that he sold to the NY

Yankees for $100,000. Who was it? The Babe, right? That didn’t turn out

so good for the Red Sox. It worked out really good for the Yankees.

Quite possibly the worst exchange or deal in the history of mankind,

some of you have probably heard this, was engaged in by a man named

Ronald Wayne. Ronald was a fledgling computer enthusiast/entrepreneur

and he founded this little company in the back of a garage in Paulo Alto

California with two other guys, but soon into the venture he sold his

share of the company, which was 10%. He sold that share for $800. He

agreed to forfeit any future claims against said company, which just

happened to have the name of what? Apple. Now valued? Do you want to

guess what 10% of 118 billion dollars is? With revenues of 233 billion

dollars? That was not a great exchange for young Ronald.

In our text this morning we have the story of another kind of exchange.

This is not an economic exchange or a business transaction. Paul is

going to unpack for us a relational exchange. This exchange has been

initiated and offered to us by God himself and Luther, when he read this

passage, said that “This is amazing! This is the great exchange.” We are

co-opting that title except we are going to call it The Greatest

Exchange. We are going to one-up Luther. Isn’t that always fun to do? 2

Corinthians 5:21. Four Oaks, today we are looking at one verse. Can you

handle that? Just one.

Guests, you need to know that we are preaching through 2 Corinthians and

that is our typical practice, to preach through books of the Bible and

to take those books in chunks. Sometimes, though, we come across verses

that are so profound, so world-view altering that we just need to camp

out on that verse and 2 Corinthians 5:21 is one of those verses. In

fact, I believe, and this is not pastoral hyperbole, these are 24 words

that can literally change your life and give you hope wherever you are.

Lets read that verse and get to it. 2 Corinthians 5:21

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we

might become the righteousness of God.”

Lord, some of us may have never thought deeply at all about our

salvation. So we are asking that you would give us an encounter with

your word that really shapes our heart, that shapes our mind, that

shapes our worship, that shapes our life. That gives us a renewed sense

of what you have done for us and how you did it. Lord, we are asking

that because we think that it would honor you for our souls to find

their joy in you. For a lot of us, we need renewal. We are flat. We need

spiritual vigor. We need a renewed heart. I am praying ...

Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. Download the sermon guide (Book 3, Week 16) at fouroakschurch.com/guide.Sermon transcription:2 Corinthians. The title of this series is “Weak is Strong.” To be honest it has been something of a brain bending study so far because one of the things we are learning, as we get deeper into this epistle of 2 Corinthians, is that it describes life in two seemingly incompatible experiences. We started out in chapter 1 finding where Paul talks about comfort in suffering. In chapter 3 he talked about glory manifesting through shame. In chapter 4 it was about life working through death. In chapter 6 we are going to discover riches through poverty. In chapter 12 we are going to look at power through weakness. It is like 2 Corinthians just reaches right down into the center of human existence and just kind of fiddles with all of our categories and that is a good thing. God wants to make some adjustments in our thinking and in our heart and I know that is going on for me as I study this and I trust that you are having the same experience.This morning we are in 2 Corinthians 5. Just three verses today, verses 18, 19, & 20. The title of today’s message is The Ambassador’s Appeal. Lets just jump together right into verse 18.All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  Let’s pray. Lord, there are undoubtedly two different categories of folks here this morning. Lord, there are those who have been reconciled to you through Christ and those you are pursuing for reconciliation to you through Christ. Lord, my prayer is this morning, as we delve into this important passage, that you would reach all of us in some significant and personal way, through our time together. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.The other day we had a family from church over for dinner and as they were leaving I showed them one of my few earthly prized possessions, apart from my wife and children. It is a frame excerpt of a sermon that was preached by Charles Spurgeon. You might recall, Charles Spurgeon 19th century famed London pastor known as the prince of preachers. The reason why this sermon is framed is because portions of it are in his actual handwriting. It was a gift to me from Pete Greasley, remember Pete, he is the pastor from Wales, he has preached here a couple of times. Once, Charles Spurgeon was asked by some people who were visiting his church about the secret of his success. They asked, “What is the source of the extraordinary power that you appear to have as a preacher?” He replied simply and without hesitation, “My people pray for me.” Spurgeon was emphatic about this. Spurgeon wanted there to be no misunderstanding that the secret of his success and the potency behind his power and his ministry was God. To this point, thus far, much of the letter we have been studying together has been dedicated to Paul’s defense. As you probably recall, there are false teachers that have infiltrated the church and they have launched an attack on Paul’s credibility, requiring him to defend the authenticity of his ministry. Last week we saw how P...

Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 5:11-17. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.Sermon Transcription: Good morning and Happy New Year! Let me be the first to welcome anybody here who is a guest. Welcome to Four Oaks Church. My name is Dave, I am the Pastor of Preaching here at Four Oaks and my hope for all of us in this coming year and my hope for myself in this coming year is that we would grow even closer to Jesus and that this local church would help us all in some important way to accomplish that end, so, it is good to be together here on the first Sunday of 2016. For our guests, this past September, we launched a new series out of the book of 2 Corinthians and the title of the series is Weak is Strong. 2 Corinthians is a letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the very troubled church in the city of Corinth. This is a book that is really filled with surprises. It takes themes like leadership and suffering and comfort and weakness and it gets you thinking about them in completely different ways. In ways that are entirely unexpected so that you can hardly believe the conclusions that are drawn by Paul. Nowhere is that clearer or better illustrated than when we come to the very next passage that we are going to study beginning this morning in 2 Corinthians 5 beginning in verse 11. The title of this morning’s message is Diagnosing Gospel Motivation. 2 Corinthians 5 beginning in verse 11 and we will read through verse 17:“Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.b The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”Let’s pray together. Lord, as we stand on the threshold of an entirely new year filled with hope and filled with promise. Lord, we ask you to stir our faith for how we might glorify you in this coming year and Lord, we ask you specifically to use this series to use this message that you might work in us to motivate us for your glory and through your gospel. We pray that in Jesus’ name, Amen.On February 15th 1921, in an operating room in the state of New York, a doctor performed a simple surgical procedure. The doctor’s name was Dr. Evan O’Neill Kane. He had this rather unconventional, some might even suggest it was audacious, belief that the general anesthesia, where they sedate you completely and knock you out so you are not awake at all during the surgery, was hazardous. He believed that local anesthesia, where they numb one part of the body so that they can operate, was far better for the patient and far safer for the patient. But Dr. Kane was unable to find a volunteer anywhere to test this theory. Person after person after pers...