Gulf Coast Community Church - Sunday Sermons

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Cultural critic Wendell Berry pointed out that “A crowd whose discontent has risen no higher than the level of slogans is only a crowd. But a crowd that understands the reasons for its discontent and knows the remedies is a vital community, and it will have to be reckoned with.… How superficial and foolish we would be to think that we could correct what is wrong merely by tinkering with the institutional machinery. The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living.” (World-Ending Fire, 51)

I suggest that this is applicable to the church. There are plenty of church critics today filled with all sorts of slogans about why the church is failing. But they are often just a noisy crowd. To borrow Berry’s language: a church that understands the reasons for its discontent and knows the remedies is a vital community, and it will have to be reckoned with…. How foolish that church would be if it though that it could correct what is wrong by merely tinkering with the way we do church. The changes that are required are fundamental changes in the way we are living.

The book of Revelation, written as it was to a church world that was largely unhealthy, when understood properly, identifies the problems and prescribes the remedies required to make the fundamental changes necessary in the way we are living.

Join us in worship as we begin to explore the messages to the 7 churches and, in particular, the message to the church in Ephesus (2:1-7).

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2022/09/20220925.pdf

Preacher: Jerry Cisar

Text: Revelation 1:9-20 (NIV)

The church needs to awake from its slumber and there may be nothing more affective to this end than the voice of Christ sounding as a trumpet that we hear in John’s first vision. This vision is the start of the cure for spiritual sloth and disease. Oddly, it is full of grace and scrutiny, premonition and promise.

We jump into John’s first vision which involves his calling as a prophet and Christ’s role as priest and judge. We will also begin to explore the claims, the demands, Revelation places upon believers, a theme we will continue to explore throughout.

The popular approach to Revelation makes it all about future events that are not occurring right now. This neuters any claims Christ may make on those about whom it is written since they are, accordingly, not us. As we explore John’s first vision (1:9-20) we will see why such an approach chips away at the sufficiency of Scripture.

Join us in worship as John’s vision of Christ as priest and judge places Christ’s present ministry freshly in our gaze.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2022/09/20220918.pdf

Preacher: Jerry Cisar

Text: Revelation 1:1-8 (NIV)

Themes: Grace, blessing, worship. Hidden Reality.

G.K. Chesterton explained one of the great problems regarding the book of Revelation and its interpretation: “Though John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.”

If you think it unwise to do a study in Revelation, you are in good company. Early on, Luther wrote, “neither apostolic nor prophetic…. I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it…. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it…. Christ is neither taught nor known in it.” (Martin Luther, writing in 1522)

A little less spiritually, George Bernard Shaw called Revelation the “curious record of the visions of a drug addict which was absurdly admitted into the canon under the title of Revelation.”

With that we announce a new series in the book of Revelation. Presently, I only intend to cover part of it (the first 6-7 chapters) while making connections for the rest. We’ll wait and see if it seems wise to proceed. There are typically two responses to the idea of a series in Revelation:

My hope in this series is to open up what may be a new way of approaching the book for some. To be sure, by the time we are finished, you will not know when Jesus is returning or who the Antichrist is, but you may better know how to faithfully worship and witness about Christ in a world which is bent on winning even while they are losing.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2022/09/20220911.pdf

Preacher: Ernie Cabrera (Converge)

Text: Joshua 1:1-9

Preacher: Bruce Reynolds

Text: 1 Kings 17:1-6

Preacher: Jay Sanders

Text: Acts 12:1-17

Themes: Prayer

Preacher: Pete Mishler

Text: John 13:1-7

Speaker: Steven Brunson

Text: Psalm 23:1-6 (NIV)

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

America was founded on a dream: one in which all men were created equal and that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To be sure, “all men” had its limitations, especially if one were not white or on the outside of a womb. Nonetheless, it painted a dream often referred to as the “American experiment.” Imagine how we would feel about that dream if the Kremlin set up an office in D.C. and U.S. citizens were taken captive into Russia!

Such a sense of hopelessness would have dominated the spirit of the people for whom the Psalter was arranged into its current form for prayer and worship after the exile. This also has relevance for us, as we too are in exile on the earth, longing for God’s kingdom to be manifest more fully.

The world we live in is broken, so we pray, “Your kingdom come.” Our lives are broken, so we pray, “Your kingdom come.” Our church is broken, so we pray your kingdom come. You are broken, so we pray your kingdom come. I am broken, so we pray your kingdom come. My argument in this series has been that the Psalms are prayers given for praying in a broken world for the kingdom come.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2022/07/20220731.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In 1704, Prominent Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher wrote,  “I knew a very wise man… that… believed if a man were permitted to make all the ballads he need not care who should make the laws of a nation, and we find that most of the ancient legislators thought that they could not well reform the manners of any city without the help of a lyric, and sometimes of a dramatic poet.”

Why would Fletcher, as a member of the Scottish parliament and actively working to make laws, think that ballads had more power to reform a nation that mere laws? I might offer that he understood well how songs get inside a person in a way that laws do not.

As we explore the Psalms this Sunday, I want to offer that the Psalms are given as a means of meditating in God’s law day and night. That the way we follow the path of the blessed one in Psalm 1 is by use of the Psalms themselves. The Psalms, the ballads of the people of God, may well do more to transform the people of God than the laws themselves.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2022/07/20220724.pdf