Grace Dover Messages

Sermon by Joshua Suh, Associate Pastor, from Zechariah 9:9-11 & Luke 19:35-41

Palm Sunday marks the week before Jesus’ resurrection and is depicted with Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem on a colt as people rejoice and lay down their cloaks and palm branches before him. However, was this actually a time to rejoice or a time to weep? As Jesus nears the city he weeps over it because of the dreadful events that were to come. Why did Jesus cry for the city and its people in such a time of rejoicing? When is it appropriate for us to rejoice and to weep?

Sermon by Kenny Foster, Senior Pastor, from Deuteronomy 7:6-10 & I Peter 2:9-12

This Sunday we are coming to the close of the series on prayer during Lent. Each week we have been addressing different questions that people have about prayer. This Sunday we are addressing the question, "Isn't prayer a private matter? Shouldn't my prayers be private and not public?" This question is certainly one that most people would answer, and the culture would affirm, that prayer is a private matter. But as our text on which the sermon is based indicates we are not merely individuals seeking private blessings, but we are God's people. We are chosen to be a particular kind of community, to do a specific work, with an inescapable goal. This occurs in the context of God speaking to the community and the community responding. And this is the essence of being a praying community. The gospel of Jesus Christ shapes us into a community of praying people. We pray because we are God's people. We pray because of the work God has given us. We pray because of the hostile environment we are in. We pray because God will be glorified.

Being God's people means we don't have private prayer lives that suit our needs. Rather, as a praying community we are not looking for a product, but we are looking for participation that benefits the community of God's people for the glory of God. As followers of Christ there shouldn't be an expression of our faith that isn't aimed at loving God by loving his people.

Sermon by Joshua Suh, Associate Pastor, from 2 Chronicles 7:11-18 & 1 John 1:5-2:2

When we pray, we are not only called to give thanks or lift up our petitions, but also to confess our sins. We do not repent because we need Jesus to save us all over again, but we ask for forgiveness with confidence in our Mediator knowing that he has forgiven us already. We repent of sins that we are consciously aware of, but we also ask the Spirit to reveal the blind spots in our lives. In confessing our sins and receiving pardon from the Lord, we live at peace with God, but we are also called to confess our trespasses towards one another and live at peace with our brothers and sisters.

Sermon by Kenny Foster, Senior Pastor, from Psalm 42:5-11 & Romans 8:18-27

As we continue in our series on prayer during Lent, this Sunday we are considering prayer and discouragement. The Christian often faces discouragement and it is not uncommon to ask, "How can I pray when I am discouraged?" Discouragement occurs when our plans fail, our expectations aren't fulfilled, people talk about us behind our backs, or our hopes are not realized. Discouragement drains our emotional strength to pray.

In our Old Testament reading the Psalmist acknowledges his discouragement and he directs his heart. In the Psalm we get some insight as to how to pray in our discouragement. Then in Romans 8 these insights are reinforced as our groans are affirmed and our weaknesses are helped by the Spirit, since, as the children of God, we have a glorious freedom that awaits us. As we remind ourselves of what makes us children of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Lord fills us with his love by day and gives us his song in the night, thus lifting us out of discouragement's trap.

In this sermon we will see how the gospel of Christ's saving help is at the center of praying our hope and is the only way to overcome discouragement.

Sermon by Kenny Foster, Senior Pastor, from Psalm 78:9-22 & John 17:1-3

Each week during the season of Lent we are looking at a different question that people commonly have about prayer. A common question is "Who can know God?" or "How do you know what God will do?" Both of these questions are answered through our experience with God in prayer. The question of God spreading a table in the desert is ultimately a question of knowing God. Jesus, as he begins what would be his last prayer before his death on the cross, tells us that the essence of eternal life is knowing God and Jesus Christ, whom God has sent. The irony of how eternal life and knowing God is revealed to us during a prayer should not be lost on us! For we are living in deserts. The desert of a pandemic. The desert of racial division. A desert of political gamesmanship that seeks to leverage our suffering to maintain power. A desert of conflicting individual desires that clouds our ability to know God as a community. A desert of disappointing leaders. Yet, can God provide a table in these deserts? God wants us to know him. Prayer is essential to knowing God. Knowing God is eternal life. And God has prepared a table for us in the desert in the Table of our Lord. For it is during the Lord's Supper Jesus brings the bread and water of heaven to our hungry, thirsty souls. During the Lord's Supper we pray to remember the deliverance that brought us to God while we pray looking forward to the Lord's return. God in the desert with us makes the desert bloom. So, through Jesus Christ, God has made it possible to know him. Therefore, if you want to live forever, you should pray to know God and Jesus Christ.

Sermon by Joshua Suh, Associate Pastor, from Genesis 18:16-26 & Romans 8:26-30

We will spend this season of Lent learning and meditating upon the topic of prayer. This week begins the first of a five-week sermon series on prayer and the sovereignty of God. Many Christians know that we should pray and know that it is demanded of us in Christians life, yet we often neglect this spiritual discipline. Some of this is attributed to our outlook on prayer. If God already knows, if he has already foreordained, if he fulfills everything according to his will, then why should I pray? What will my prayers do? We learn from Scripture that God even works through our prayer and reveals himself to us. So as Christians we delight in the privilege of praying to our Lord by His Spirit.

Sermon by Kenny Foster, Senior Pastor, from Psalm 50:1-6 & 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

When a job is difficult or the work is fraught through with challenges and hardships, what is it that makes going through the difficulties worth the struggle? It has to be that the object or the goal on the other side is compelling enough to draw you out of selfish living and move you to risk everything in pursuit of it. It moves you so much that it becomes the whole message of your life. Everybody preaches "themselves", it is part of our culture's imprint. There are books, seminars, YouTube videos and endless movies and commercials that encourage you to promote yourself and to pursue self interest above all else. But we find those to be dead ends. You need a transcendent beauty that draws you out of yourself to reach for something much higher. That is what the Apostle Paul sees in preaching Christ. He sees the cloaked hearts of the unbelieving, he hears the command of God, and he is compelled by Christ's face gloriously beaming as the light at the dawn of creation dispelling the darkness. This compels him to not preach himself.

But how do you get to see the glory of Christ? It has to come at the summoning of God. (Psalm 50) and it has to be through God's mercy. (2 Cor. 4:1) Both the summons and God's mercy bring you to the Cross where life's glory lies dead in the dust. Once your eyes are opened to see the beauty of the glory of God in the face of Christ, that is the end of self-heralding and preaching Christ begins. The glory of the gospel of Christ is that it brings you to your end without ending you.

Sermon by Kenny Foster, Senior Pastor, from Isaiah 40:21-31 & I Corinthians 9:16-23

When you are weary, you need an energy boost. When you feel weak, you need an infusion of strength. Who hasn't felt the weariness of the days in which we live? Who hasn't felt weakened physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually by the times in which we are living? These days of political, social, and racial unrest exacerbated by the pandemic, and the mixed messages we receive, make us weary and weakened. This is certainly not a comfortable place for Americans. We don't like being reminded of our weakness!

But this week's texts are telling us the benefit of being weary and weak is to have the gift of the Lord's strength and the increase of his power active in our lives. Isaiah 40 reminds us of this dynamic; God exchanges his power and strength for our weariness and weakness. But how does God make this exchange? He does it through Jesus Christ who became weak so that we might be made strong. He took on our weariness so that we could have his strength. We need his strength to accomplish his work in these days. We feel weary and weak when facing the consequences of the coronavirus, political wrangling, and racial tensions. Yet our weariness and weakness is the opportunity to experience the infusion of the Lord's mighty power. So, we learn to make friends with them. But why embrace these tiresome twins? 1 Corinthians 9 answers this with the dual end of saving people and sharing in the blessings of the gospel. This sermon's point is to teach us not to despise being weak nor blame those who are weak, but to know that the Lord is the power of those who are weak and the strength to those who are weary.

Sermon by Joshua Suh, Associate Pastor, from Deuteronomy 8:15-20 & 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

The rights that we have are given to us by God. The knowledge that we have of God has been given to us by him as well. Then we ought to use what God has given us to glorify him and edify those around us, particularly the church. This is not done merely through accumulated, lofty knowledge of the laws, but through the love that comes from Christ.

Sermon by Israel Ruiz, Assistant Pastor, City Church of Wilmington from John 21:18-25. Peter followed Jesus because of the love that he had for him. He loved Jesus because Jesus loved him first. The Bible teaches us that obeying God is how we demonstrate our love to Jesus. Following Jesus is not an easy task, nor it looks the same for everyone and the Lord knows it. Jesus is inviting each one of us to follow him, regardless of where we are in our Christian journey. He is asking us to follow him and we ought to respond with love, by obeying him.