Gulf Coast Community Church - Sunday Sermons

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In the hit Disney Pixar animation Inside Out, the 11-year-old Riley moves with her parents from Minnesota to San Francisco creating an emotional upheaval. As the story goes, her basic emotions (Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger) are controlled in an internal emotional control room. Borrowing from that idea, Peter is addressing our moral control room in today’s text.

What is controlling your moral behavior? Is it a bunch of external rules? Is it your desires, or passions? Many live as if external rules and internal desires are the only two characters that ever enter their moral control room. Both can end in ruin. Peter offers other forces that should be at the helm in our moral control room: A right hope, a true holiness, and a proper fear.

In what do you hope? Is it a right hope? What does it mean to be holy? Is your understanding of holiness a true holiness? Do you live with a proper fear?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/07/20210711.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/07/20210704.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

One of the colorful aspects of human language is the creation of phrases which, based on their individual parts, should make absolutely no sense, but end up being richly descriptive. I’m talking about oxymorons like jumbo shrimp, poor health, and random order! In 1 Peter 1:1, the Apostle offers his own creative phrase to describe God’s people, “elect exiles”. Needless to say, these aren’t words we would naturally join together if it were up to us to describe God’s people, but Peter does just that.

In 1 Peter 1:3-9, Peter begins to answer the question, “What, exactly, is an elect exile?” This is a crucial question for us to answer, as it not only serves as a description of God’s people in Asia Minor in Peter’s day, but also as a description of God’s people today – including us! Who are these elect exiles? Who is their God? What do they believe? How should they live?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/06/20210627.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In his commentary on 1 Peter, Douglas Harink writes:

“At the very heart of [Peter’s] first epistle stands the figure of Jesus Christ as the one who suffers. As the suffering Messiah he defines the very character of messianic life.” If one had to identify a single theme of 1 Peter, I’m not sure they could do better than saying that it is about “the very character of messianic life.”

“What is messianic life?” It is that life conformed to Jesus Christ. It is what should have been meant by the word “Christian.” “Christ” is from the Greek word for anointed one, just as messiah is Hebrew for anointed one. Thus, the messianic life is the life of God’s anointed people in the world.

“Anointed to what task or role?” To that of being a priestly people in the world. To share, as Harink puts it,

“in the Messiah’s suffering, redemption, and resurrection life is their participation in, their enactment of, the hidden revolution in which God is bringing about a new creation.”

We are called to be participants in God’s hidden revolution; one in which He is bringing about a new creation. To do so, we must recognize and live out our status as exiles in the particular places we live. To live as an exile dispersed in the United States is quite different than living as an exile in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, or Bithynia, but it is not a difference of kind, only of application. In other words, it’s not as though the church in Peter’s time was called to live as exiles in a strange world while the people of God today are called to be right at home in a familiar place.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/06/20210620.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Gary Haugen of IJM, in his book, The Locust Effect, writes about the devastating effects of lawlessness which is still prevalent in many parts of the world. He documents well “the enormous upside of decent justice systems (even if not perfect) that safeguard the pathway out of poverty for the poor.”

The book of Ruth began “when the judges judged” (1:1), and ends in the very last verse with David, the King (4:22). Judges represented lawlessness; David represented a flawed but radically improved justice system. Of course, David was only a shadow of the real thing. He pointed toward a greater reality.

In the concluding section of Ruth, we see just how significant individual lives, when lived in obedience to God’s ways, are to strengthening the whole community of God’s people, and how significant the whole community is to blessing of individuals.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/06/20210613.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Do we live redemptively? Or as Paul might put it, Are we living in a manner congruent with the Gospel? Are our lives being transformed into the image of the Redeemer such that we live redemptively?

Ruth 4 is a study in contrast between two characters. One is perpetually referred to as a redeemer and has all the optics necessary to be a great one. The other, gives first right of refusal to this first redeemer. He is willing to redeem, however, at great cost to himself. One is a pseudo-redeemer, the other the real thing.

It’s not that this pseudo-redeemer acted outwardly wicked. He did what was reasonable, what one might do naturally, which required no faith. “What’s His Name?” was merely living for himself, as the natural man, and not by faith in God’s covenant. He was perfectly within his legal rights, so no one would have thought ill of him in the community. In fact, some might have more readily thought Boaz the fool.

Join us as we explore Ruth 4 and discover what this seemingly strange little story about land and marriage means for us as followers of Christ today.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/06/20210606.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

Ruth 3 is tantalizing in the details which it chooses to include, and maddening in the details which it chooses to leave out! Much like the village gossips in Bethlehem in Ruth’s day, modern readers are often left asking, “What exactly happened at the threshing floor between Boaz and Ruth?” By all appearances, there seems to be a scandal in Bethlehem.

As we engage with Ruth 3 together this Sunday morning, we’re going to have to live with a bit of tension. On the one hand, the book of Ruth presents Ruth’s character and Boaz’s character as above reproach. On the other hand, we have to admit that the scene at the threshing floor just doesn’t look good! I’m confident that as we honestly hold these two ideas together, we’ll not only gain a better understanding of this section of Scripture, we’ll also begin to grasp what the events of this chapter mean for us as God’s people today.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/05/20210523.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Our series title, “Ruth: Resurrection, Righteousness, and Redemption,” might seem a bit misleading so far. So far, we’ve focused entirely on the tomb from which Naomi needed to be raised. Put another way, we’ve entirely looked at the Redemption Naomi and Ruth desperately need. In Ruth 2, we begin “the rest of the story.”

Enter a new character, Boaz, a picture of righteousness, and his righteousness ministers life to Naomi and Ruth. We see Naomi raised from the tomb of despair. Boaz’s righteousness will, when the story continues, also lead to redemption for both widows. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, however.

First, we have to meet Boaz. We have to discover whether or not he and Ruth will meet. In the telling of this romantic-comedy, we also see beautiful imagery which speaks of our own resurrection and redemption, and we will hear the Spirit calling us to walk in a righteousness that goes abundantly beyond the letter of the Law to the very heart of God.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/05/20210516.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Naomi and Ruth have returned to Bethlehem of Judah. The town seems excited, but not Naomi. She gives us a peak into an experience of grief (Ruth 1:19-22). She is evidently bitter. How are we to understand what she says? How well-informed is her theology? What are we to learn?

My title for this message is borrowed from C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed. The indefinite article “a” is intentional. No two experiences of grief are alike, but there are some commonalities that may be helpful to us when either we or those we know experience grief. Naomi’s grief is center stage in this passage and so we are going to explore both her grief and that of two theologians who experienced grief as well.

The common threads between these accounts of grief are instructive for us. They will help equip us for the day when we need to mourn with those who mourn, or the day when we just need to mourn. And even reliable Ruth, silent though she is, once again gives us a snapshot of the church.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/05/20210509.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his discourse about cheap grace vs costly grace: “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace.” These words are equally true today. The church is filled with cheap grace, which is a cheap substitute for the real thing. In this week’s text, Ruth is a portrait of costly grace. She is a picture of a true disciple.

The conversation between Naomi and Ruth is not dissimilar to conversations Jesus had with would-be disciples. The idea of Ruth (and I would add Boaz) as a picture of the church, a foreshadowing, is not new. Isidore of Seville, in the 4th century, expounded this point at length.

After Bonhoeffer’s assault on cheap grace, he describes costly grace:

“Costly grace is the hidden treasure in the field, for the sake of which people go and sell with joy everything they have.… It is the call of Jesus Christ which causes a disciple to leave his nets and follow him.… It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace, because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live.…”

Far too often people are not selling all they have with joy because they are waiting for the treasure to be obvious and not hidden.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/05/20210502.pdf