Georgianna

Sermon by Pastor Corky Calhoun

Sermon By Pastor Corky Calhoun

This may surprise some of you but I have never had anyone come to my office and ask me to help them with their hard-heartedness. It's never happened. In fact even when its brought to peoples attention that the reason for their cynicism, doubts, and negativity is that barnacles have grown on their hearts...denial is usually the response I get. No, not me! People can convince themselves to be justified in having a low mercy meter. This Sunday is "Compassion" Sunday at Georgianna and compassion is the CURE for hard-heartedness. I would argue that its not so much that we are not compassionate, as much as we are situationally compassionate...we want to choose who gets our sacrificial love! Because hard-heartedness is so prevalent in our culture, it can be hard to see it in ourselves. We just know we are not as mean as our neighbor...whoever that is. The bottom line is this; if you have been saved by Grace, and are committed to obediently following Jesus Christ, then the things that break God's heart should break ours. Everywhere I turn I see a need for Jesus in our community and the world. Compassion is the attitude of the heart that drove Jesus to the cross. Compassion is what drives us to be a church that gives itself away as our Savior did. Compassion is doing for one what you wish you could do for everyone. Compassion is the bridge to Haiti and 20 little girls whose future is brighter because we have committed to stand in the gap! I believe compassion should be a way of life, but this weekend we are going to put some traction to it and meet the needs of our daughters. Sunday is going to be a great day!

Sermon by Youth Pastor Nathan Walter
Here is the Real Deal, I was delighted when I was chosen to preach our sermon this week on Tradition and Culture. If you doubt that God has collided with these two sides of the same coin, then you have not read the Gospels closely. It may be the only sermon all year where it is almost guaranteed that everyone will go home angry. I don't think culture and tradition are evil in and of themselves, just like money isn't evil by itself, but it is what people do with it, or because of it that can make these things contrary to the gospel message. Throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus battled tradition. After He ascended, His disciples battled tradition and then culture when they spread their ministry to Rome. Make no mistake, all these men of God were stoned, crucified, and boiled in oil because the message they brought offended the old way of doing things and convicted the new way of doing things. And here we are, thousands of years later fighting that same battle. Or are we? Has it seeped so far in that we can hardly recognize it anymore? This week we will look at how tradition and culture have invaded the modern church, how they have pushed so many churches off the path of truth, and how we can get back on course.

Sermon By Corky Calhoun

Pastor Zach did a great job of setting the foundation for our "Beautiful Collision" series last Sunday. The preaching team's goal was to help us understand that if we are going to have an "Impact" in the world for Christ, then we need to understand that for us as believers everything starts with God's Beautiful collision with us in creation and in His son Jesus Christ. These divine collisions are truly everywhere, simply because it is the desire of God's heart to intersect with our life, so that we might have beauty from ashes. Did you know there are thirty-one healings by Jesus recorded in the Gospels? Of these twenty-five percent of them (8) are around blindness. Seems like a disproportionate amount of blindness compared to everything else that gets his attention. Could it be there is more to this emphasis than we can see (and there is the point)? You see, we live in a world full of Blindness. There is "Inherited" Blindness that comes from the generational passing on of hate and bigotry. There is "Institutional" Blindness that fails to see anything but the bottom line. There is "Relational" Blindness that prevents us from confronting brokenness and dysfunction. There is "Spiritual" Blindness that prevents us from seeing the Truth of Christ over the traditions we cling to. I would even say in my opinion that Love is not blind, at least "true" love isn't blind. Lust is blind, infatuation is blind, sex is blind, but genuine love always brings things out of the darkness. So is it possible that we are not blinded by the light, but blinded by the Darkness? Jesus comes and collides with our blindness. And here is the deal, the longer you're a Christian the more prone you are to Spiritual Cataracts, a distorted vision that fails to grasp God doing a new thing. You simply fail to see God working all around you. Join us Sunday as we collide with our blindness so that we can fully see!

Sermon By Associate Pastor Zack Parker

Our vision for the church this year is to make an impact.
We have been maturing in the understanding of how to make an impact in our community and in the lives of others for the sake of Christ.
We have been inwardly reflecting on the way Christ has made an impact in us, and allowing that to fuel us to make an impact on the lives of others.
What better way to make an impact than to initiate a beautiful collision?
We will begin this series by grasping the fact that we are not supposed to live a life following Christ with our own strength.
It is a collision of faith and obedience in the Holy Spirit that will provide the courage to collide with others to cultivate beauty in the name of Jesus.
Colliding with Christ can change the world. A beautiful collision will reveal the Gospel message and advance the kingdom of heaven.

Sermon By Pastor Corky Calhoun
This Sunday our "Big If" series comes to an end and I think it has been a challenging way to begin the New Year, looking at the crossroads that the word "IF" creates each and every day. So we get the main crux of the matter, that the word "if" is a word of possibilities and consequences. Most people get to this crossroads and choose a path of comfort and convenience, living in fear of "what if the worst happens"? What if something bad happens? What if I get rejected? What if they make fun of me for my faith? What if I get sick on the mission trip? And the biggest fear of all...what if I die? In a matter of speaking we are all already dead...according to the Bible we are dead in our sin! We are the walking Dead!
Maybe the question we ought to be asking is; What if we lived? Lived like we had been saved from death. Lived like we were saints and not sinners. Lived like we were put here for a purpose. Lived to make an IMPACT? What If...this is the question that we all answer in a variety of ways with different confidence levels, based solely on what we have put our confidence in. The answer to the "What If" questions can be found in 3 simple words...Is God Enough? Is God enough for your life? Is God enough for your fear? Is God enough for your failures? Is God enough for your pain? So What's the worst thing that could happen to you...and where is God in the midst of that? Join us Sunday as we bring this challenging series to a close!

Sermon By Pastor Cork Calhoun
How many of you already cringed at the thought of this weeks sermon title? This has the potential to be deeply personal and cause a great deal of anxiety. The truth is, never has anything been less complicated and harder to apply than Biblical Forgiveness. I think we get it intellectually but our hurts and wounds of the past seem to haunt us in our hearts. I am convinced that this is part of the reason Jesus tells us we can't look back and be fit for service in the Kingdom of God. We have to let some things go! I believe Un-forgiveness is a giant boat anchor that both weighs us down and holds us back. But we could be free...if we only would forgive! I think it is fitting that we will deal with this Big IF as we begin our Lenten journey to the Empty Tomb of Easter morning. Sunday will be a great day, the goal is to un-shackle us from the pain of withheld forgiveness and be set free from this toxic poison that is self-induced. I love our church and can't wait to share another Sunday together.

Sermon By Pastor Corky Calhoun

I think all of us would agree that we live in a time of great cultural division and disunity and it is pounding on the shores of the church all the time. We live in an age of individualism that no longer see's sacrifice for others as a noble endeavor. And yet, this is the very nature of what it means to be a Disciple. If you haven't figured it out yet... I am a UNITY freak. I see division as a tool of the enemy to break and tear apart the local church and families. I have been blessed for many years by my friendship with Titus Green, Sr. Pastor at First Baptist Merritt Island. The rumors of Bromance are real. He is Baptist and I am Methodist, but we have been committed to let our relationship be defined by our mutual love for Jesus and not any denominational nuances. The end result is together we are making an Impact in our community for Christ! Listen, I find that if we can agree on Christ, agree on who he is, agree on what his love looks like, agree to follow him at all costs, then we can find a box for our differences. Again, I am not naive but I do believe that we can do more together united in Christ than any one of us could ever do alone, and God designed it this way. Lastly, I have discovered that we can't begin to fight evil until we are done fighting with each other. And this truth applies to our marriages, our parenting commitments, our vocations and especially our faith! Join us Sunday as we look at this idea of teamwork and unity, remembering our greatest common denominator is Jesus Christ!

Sermon by Pastor Corky Calhoun

It seems like our lives are filled with enormously big buts...do I have your attention now? In other words we fill our life with hesitations to the very obedience we talked about last week and seems to be an endless stream of excuses about why we can't do something. Understanding the "why" is what leads to saying yes to Jesus. The "why" is everything! The truth is our lives are littered with excuses and I am no exception to this harsh truth. Every excuse is initiated by a confrontation either to the way we are living or to an invitation to do something we would rather not. Shortly there after we are at the crossroads of "IF", and what we choose has consequences. Sunday we want to look at what gets in the way of saying yes to Jesus and also owning our failings, shortcomings, and our sin. This series has been hitting us exactly where we live and has a direct correlation to why we fall short sometimes in making an impact. I believe Sunday will be a chance to again look in the mirror of Christ. I love our church!

Sermon By Pastor Corky Calhoun

This is one of the biggest "if's" in all of scripture. Have you ever wondered why submission, and surrender, and obedience are such difficult concepts? Well the sin nature in us rebels against authority of any kind and so we see these terms and concepts as violations of our personal rights. However, once sin is defeated in us our lives now belong to Christ, meaning our lives should be the very witness of surrender and submission. I think Biblical Obedience is always reflected by Love-plus-Trust-plus-Action. I believe obedience initiates faith. I believe obedience is expressed loyalty. Obedience is first and foremost a Lordship issue...and if we are honest, all of us want a Savior, we would just rather not have a Lord. We want to call the shots shots over our rescued life. Listen, you don't have to go to church very long to figure out that disobedience leads to sin. God has a different objective in mind...he wants to lead us through obedience into holiness. I think we need to keep in mind that partial obedience is still disobedience, and yet so many Christians try to live in this place of partial obedience. The Bible has a name for partial obedience...its called Luke Warm, and we know what God says about that (Revelation 3 in case you not sure). Here is the deal, following never happens without obedience, hearing the call of our Lord and getting up and following him, this is an act of obedience. Jesus says IF you love me, then keep my commands...in other words obedience and love are tied together...its the Jesus way! I can't wait to be able to share another Sunday with our church family.