Gulf Coast Community Church - Sunday Sermons

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

When most believers answer the question, “What is the Gospel?” we default to Paul’s way of communicating it. Maybe this is because Paul’s letters are front-ended in our New Testaments, or that he wrote more than any other author wrote, or because more sermons are drawn from them.

This isn’t a bad thing, though it is a good thing to hear the Gospel through the eyes of another. John shows us not a different Gospel, but a different way of expressing the Gospel, a different way of showing how it applies to life. In this week’s text (1 John 1:1-4), John wants us to understand that the beginning of the Gospel has its origins in the One who Created all things in the Beginning. This is no invention of man.

In today’s way of speaking, 1 John serves as a “group study guide” to go along with his Gospel. John is summarizing the essential truths of the apostolic Gospel and its claim on our lives. John not only has born testimony to what he saw (John’s Gospel), He is bearing testimony in this written message also.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/08/20200823.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Zack Eswine offers the following illustration. “You hear a crash in the living room. It is a vase. It might have been a vase you loved. You have four children. After you hear the crash, the shouts magnify. “Mom! Dad!” Four different voices run your way to tell you, “I didn’t do it. No. He did it. She hit me!” So there you are, encountering what’s given. All has to be heard…. You are brought into a story that has already taken place. In order to make some sense of that, you have to slow down and listen. Hasty reaction will likely render the wrong verdict with an emotional reaction built on irrational logic. Yet even seeking to hear creates problems.”

In some ways the words of the Preacher have been like the voices of the four children. The conversation picks up after the vase is broken. We know how it got broken because we have Genesis 1-3 … and so does the Preacher. However, he seems to have set that aside initially so that we might deal with life on its own terms before grappling with the real answers.

Now that all has been heard, he draws his conclusions. At some point the parent in the situation of the broken vase must draw conclusions and tell the four kids what needs to be done. That is what the Preacher is doing in Ecclesiastes 12:8-12.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/08/20200809.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Morgan Lee, Miss Goth Massachusetts, when asked how she would describe Goth, responded: “It’s really a style and a way of thinking. Basically, you’re miserable all the time. We just see the darker side that other people tend to ignore.”

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes also sees the darker side of life, but his conclusion is quite different. Rather than telling us, “Life is pain and then you die—so you might as well embrace the misery,” he tells us, “Life will have plenty of pain, and you will die—so embrace the sweetness while you can!”

Why? Why should anyone embrace the sweetness of life while they can? Is it not merely an artificial sweetener? Does it even matter since I am going to end up dying anyway? The Preacher’s answer is something like, “Because there is a future: a future both on this side of eternity and on that.”

As believers, we hear much more about the one on the other side. But the Preacher is focused on the future that exists on this side of eternity. Simply put, the Preacher is telling us to rejoice in the sunshine with an eye on the approaching storm! This will help us invest rightly in both futures.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/08/20200802.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Leadership talk has been all the craze for at least the last 3 decades. However, leadership by itself is not a good thing. Great leaders with their followers have accomplished great things and great leaders with their followers have committed many atrocities. There is something in the heart of man that loves what makes a great earthly leader, regardless of where they are going.

The Preacher has apparently run headlong into this madness under the sun. And yet, amid that madness he finds a great wisdom that has captured his attention. A wisdom we would do well to be captured by that wisdom too. Iain Provan, commenting on our text, captures the madness well, “At the heart of human existence there is a ‘madness’ that leads us to value what we should not and to despise what is truly valuable. The human tragedy is that we are incapable even of enlightened self-interest, much less the disinterested love of God or neighbor.”

Join us as we explore Ecclesiastes 9:13—10:20. There we discover a wisdom is better than might, and yet one sinner can destroy much good. We must be discerning to navigate the paradox.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/07/20200726.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

In some comments on Psalm 42 (especially verses 5 and 11), Pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones says, “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?…The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself.”

Throughout church history, many Christians have practiced this art of “talking to yourself” by memorizing a series of questions and responses (called catechisms) in order to have basic, biblical answers close at hand when the chaotic events of life raised questions about their faith. In Psalm 42, the author is facing not only the chaotic events of life, but turmoil within his own soul. How does he respond? By “talking to himself” with a simple question and response which redirects his focus from the chaos of his situation and onto the hope he has in God.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/07/20200719.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Karl Malden, playing Reverend Ford in Pollyanna, preaches a memorable sermon. Pollyanna is a perennial optimist.; always sunny and positive. Attending her grandmother’s church for the first time, the preacher emerges from a door to ascend a steep set of steps to one of those old-fashioned pulpits which towers over the congregation. With an ominous tone, Rev. Ford bellows, “Death comes unexpectedly.” Pollyanna’s mouth gapes open in shock!

That scene is intended to be comical, but the message of our text has an element of this declaration: Death comes unexpectedly! We might get closer if we were to say, “Death as well as consequences in life come unexpectedly!” We much prefer to think that we are in charge of our lives and their outcomes. And certainly, we seem to have some ability to impact them.

Scripture makes it plain that even when we prosper and are blessed we are never to say that we did it on our own (Deut. 8, 9)! We must attribute it to the hand of God alone. Job’s friends constantly wanted to tie Job’s suffering to actions and deeds that he did to deserve them who were rebuked and required to repent at the end of Job. Whether in the face of suffering or prosperity, we much prefer to think that it is all our fault or making. But the Preacher wants us to realize that outcomes are in the hand of God.

This does not mean that there is nothing in our hands… there is indeed.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/07/20200712.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

MLK Jr. captured the heart of the problem expressed by another preacher in Ecclesiastes 8. “Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but that same Christ arose and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Yes, ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’”

Whether the issue is the killing of infants outside Bethlehem or in the womb, segregation in the Jim Crow era, or corrupt judges and lazy lawyers, Caesar often occupies a throne in a king’s palace, while Christ a cross.

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes 8 speaks from two perspectives (to borrow from MLK Jr.): First, that the arc of the moral (right and wrong) universe rarely appears to bend toward justice. Therefore, he wants to instruct us how to live now in such a time. Second, that the arc of the moral universe is truly long… and that in time it will indeed not just bend toward justice but arrive at justice. Here his perspective is essential to endure and win in the fight of faith.

Join us as we explore why it is that in order not to succumb to evil in this evil world, or accept defeat by evil, we must recognize that there is a time to act shrewdly, a time to wait patiently, a time for humble enjoyment, for there will be a time of setting things right.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/07/20200705.pdf

Speaker: Ryan Carver

Resting amidst a world of restlessness is not easy and yet this is what we see the Psalmist speaking of as we look at Psalm 4.

The writer is speaking about rest on a deeper level. A heart level. A level of trust and reliance on the God of the bible as he shows us what it looks like to trust God amidst terrible trials. How are we to sleep when everything is shaking? Can we have peace when there are so many problems? To rest amidst a world of restlessness sounds extremely hard.

Do you ever feel like there is no way out? Where does your heart run when the unthinkable comes your way? (too or from God?)

As we look at Psalm 4, we will see what David did as he felt trapped, attacked, dishonored, and that his God was being mocked.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/06/20200628.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Exasperated, the Preacher of Ecclesiastes exclaims, “I’ve seen it all in the days of my futility!” It appears that seeing it all has left him with a perplexing question: “Who can find what is right and wise?” Coronavirus pandemic; societal injustices. Scan social media and you are left with the same question.

This is not asking two questions, but one. This is not a philosophical question (What is wise?) and an ethical or moral question (What is right?). In the Hebrew-mind the two were one. The Law was wisdom and righteousness. To find wisdom is to find what is the right action in any situation.

The question which our text puts before us, at times in a comical sort of way, is “Who, from this under the sun perspective, can find what is right and wise?” We can search, and search, and search, and find, but not find, and find, but not find wisdom. Man’s search “under the sun” is never satisfied.

Our text in Ecclesiastes 7:15-29, by itself, leaves us with an unanswered question: Who can find what is right and wise? At best the answer is not clear: God knows; people don’t. Well, until the God-man, Jesus Christ. How does He reveal to us what is right and wise? Just saying, “Jesus is the answer,” is no more helpful. What does that even mean?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/06/20200621.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone? (Eccl. 6:12)

On the heels of this last week, one might well be able to relate to the question posed in 6:12, “who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow?” It’s a question that in the midst of—well, take your pick: the pandemic, or injustices, or anything from the daily news cycle—seems pertinent: Who knows what is good?

It’s also the question that the Preacher of Ecclesiastes asks and then proceeds to answer in 7:1-14 in what appears to be a funeral sermon. Not just a funeral, but the funeral of someone whose death seems meaningless, senseless, wrong, unjust! Sadly, this is an all too common experience of life.

Imagine arriving at a funeral for the husband and son of a woman in her early 30’s who were killed by a drunk driver; or for the selfless servant in the community who was actively involved in the big-brothers big-sisters program. Maybe it is for a child as a result of a school shooting or the child just down the street from us who, a few weeks ago, was killed when he found his father’s gun and accidently shot himself. The list could go on.

Like any good preacher, this Preacher of Ecclesiastes doesn’t miss an opportunity through which he can give vital instruction to his congregation. So too we find ourselves listening in this week to a funeral sermon which speaks relevant instruction for our present experience.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2020/06/20200614.pdf