Gulf Coast Community Church - Sunday Sermons

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

It has been said that to stop hoping is to stop living and there is certainly truth to that. One author says that “hope is so close to the core of all that makes us human that when we lose hope we lose something of our very selves.” To stop hoping is to accept defeat, to declare the brokenness of the world the winner.

Sadly, if there is one thing increasingly characterizing this generation, it is hopelessness. Not without cause. We live in dark times. Many think the best thing they can do is to stop hoping. I google searched hope and A-Z Quotes offered their top 17 quotes on hope. Several of them might be summed up in one sentiment offered: “You’ll stop hurting when you stop hoping.”

Naomi, in our text, could probably relate. She certainly had reasons for scoffing at hope. And she does. Where does one find hope in a world as dark as hers? Where do we find hope? For what do we hope? Is hope to be found when you “believe in yourself”? (God helps us if it is!)

The story of Ruth is given to us for dark times and offers a basis for hope in the darkest of times.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/04/20210425.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

Often in Christian circles we talk about God’s Upside-Down Kingdom. By this we typically mean that God’s ways are not our ways, and that the priorities and ethics of God’s kingdom sometimes seem backward to us. As those living in a fallen world, however, we occasionally need the reminder that we are the ones who are upside-down, not God!

This Sunday morning, we will continue our occasional preaching series The Story of God’s Mission: Key Biblical Texts to Know and Share in God’s Mission. In this series, we are focusing on key sentences in the Old and New Testaments which guide us through the story of God’s mission throughout history. Last week, Jerry kicked off this series by highlighting God’s work of creation in Genesis 1:1. This week, we get to explore the tragic story which led to our upside-down views of God and the world in the first place as we focus on Genesis 2:16-17.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/04/20210418.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

“It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission – God’s mission.” (Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God)

Did you know that God has a mission? The story of God’s Mission begins in Genesis 1:1, so that is where we are going to start our new occasional series, The Story of God’s Mission

Genesis 1 intends to answer the deeper questions of life. Scientist Francis Collins, who led the team that mapped the human DNA, says, “we may well discover from science many interesting answers to the question, ‘How does life work?’ What we cannot discover, through science alone, are the answers to the questions, ‘Why is there life anyway?’ and ‘Why am I here?’” (The Language of God, 88) Science can tell us what we can do but cannot tell us whether or not we should do it.

These are the kinds of questions Genesis 1 speaks to. You might call them worldview questions. Genesis 1 answers questions like who is God and how does He interact with creation? What is the world and why was it created? And who are we and what is our purpose?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/04/20210411.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In classical music, in particular in the sonata form, there is this final section called the “recapitulation.” We get our word “recap” from recapitulation. Sonatas have themes or movements. You may have a first and second movement. In the recapitulation, regardless of just how much has been built on top of or around the original themes, the sonata goes back to that first movement, but often in surprising ways.

Recapitulation is also a theological term. In the 2nd century, Irenaeus articulated this concept of recapitulation in Scripture. The opening scene of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ understood this. It opens in Gethsemane, Jesus is praying, sweating drops of blood, a Satan figure is looking on, and a serpent comes from him to Jesus, and Jesus eventually becomes resolute, standing and crushing its head.

Gethsemane is a retelling of another garden story… with a significant and surprising twist. Two Gardens but the same place: Gethsemane and Eden. This Sunday is Palm Sunday. We recently walked through Luke 19 and Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. So this week, to help us reflect on the sufferings of Christ, we will explore this recapitulation of the story of Adam’s disobedience… but it will be transformed into the story of Christ’s obedience and our redemption.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/03/20210328.pdf

Speaker: Juan Hernandez

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

I can still vividly remember my professor in Bible College proclaiming, “Prayer is the most dangerous activity God’s people can participate in.” So often, however, the motivation to devote myself to prayer is severely lacking in my own life. Far from seeming like a “dangerous activity”, prayer often seems powerless and passive.

In Acts 2:42 we learn that the early believers in the church “devoted themselves to the prayers” in the aftermath of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. By the time we get to Acts 12:1, the situation facing the church is drastically different – hardship and persecution – but the response is the same. We find believers earnestly offering prayers to the Lord!

Join us as we explore what caused these early believers to be so devoted to the practice of prayer both in times of joy and hardship. May God spur us on to engage in this “dangerous activity”!

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/02/20210207.pdf

Speaker: Zach McNabb

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Kavin Rowe writes that the goal of biblical leadership is “to cultivate thriving communities that bear witness to the inbreaking reign of God that Jesus announces and embodies, in all that we do and are. That is our goal: Christian communities that are a picture of and testament to God’s reign.”

To reach this goal, pastors must keep repeating Jesus’ message of God’s reign and how we are to live in light of it. As a church, we must allow Jesus’ kingdom message to shape our imaginations into conformity with God’s perspective of what’s the right way of doing things in order that we might see how to live as a witness, a testament, to God’s reign, His kingdom.

Between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Jesus focuses his conversation on the kingdom, or reign, of God (Acts 1:1-11). Join us this week as we pick up where we left off and explore more of what Jesus was saying about the kingdom of God. That is the apostolic message and drove the church forward in Acts. It is also the message which must shape our own message and drive the church forward today.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2021/01/20210124.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher