Gulf Coast Community Church - Sunday Sermons

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

It’s hard for most Americans to feel the tension in the scenes described in Matthew 12:1-14. We arrive at these so-called Sabbath controversies aware of the Pharisees obsession with ridiculous Law-keeping. And it’s not hard to imagine the day when the NFL starts scheduling games at 10:00 on Sunday morning. For many Christians, the only question remaining would be whether or not it would be okay to just take football season off from church attendance. We have traveled a great distance from Matthew’s Sabbath controversies!

We might get closer to feeling the controversy, if we changed it up a little. Something like,

The new pastor of first-church arrives at a church meeting and a woman is brought before him whose husband is abusive. The deacon board says to him, “This woman wants to divorce her husband, but Jesus said, ‘Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ Divorces are only permitted because of the hardness of people’s hearts. And the Scripture also says that God hates divorce. What do you say?”

Not having learned how to stay out of trouble, the new pastor says to the deacon board, “Have you not read where God says to Israel, ‘I divorce you.’ Accordingly, God does what God hates. Then he turns to the woman and says, “No, you really should divorce the man, and you will not be condemned for sin. Go in peace.”

What Jesus said about divorce was intended to protect women from the injustices they endured by husbands practicing serial polygamy. Yet it has been misapplied by some to actually harm women. Likewise, the Pharisees’ problem is not their desire to keep God’s Law, but how they applied it for purposes in direct contradiction to what God intended.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/09/20190908.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In an article titled The Grandeur of Delusion, Psychology Today describes a common experience for someone who has just had a brain injury that has left them paralyzed. The patient lies in a hospital bed, his head wrapped in bandages. He’s paralyzed in his left arm and doesn’t know it.

“Would you be so kind as to raise your left hand?” his doctor asks.

“Certainly,” says the patient. But the hand remains where it is. The patient explains, “It’s gotten tangled up in the sheets.”

The doctor points out that his arm is lying free and unencumbered on top of the sheets.

“Well, yes,” the man says, “but I just don’t feel like lifting it right now.”

This provides a picture of humanity’s delusion about its wisdom. We have pride and persistence in human wisdom. Persistence that the way we do things will bring peace to the world – despite the evidence to the contrary! Yet we persist in doing things the way we do. We fail to see our delusion!

In our text (Matthew 11:16-30), “John and Jesus have challenged the assumption that the way things are is the way they have to be. Indeed, John and Jesus claim that the way things are is an illusion” (Hauerwas). That is not well received. John is in prison. Jesus is going to be crucified. Yet that is how a kingdom of peace will be brought about! O, the wisdom of the cross!

Join us in worship as we bow ourselves before Jesus as King, learning how real wisdom is found in Him!

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/09/20190901.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/08/20190825.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

CNET asked the question, “Do you listen to music in stereo?” It’s not that the publishers thought people had their sound systems set to mono rather than stereo, but that in order to get the intended effect of stereo, one has to be positioned in the middle, between the speakers. If not positioned properly, one misses the depth and breadth of sound—the “phantom” sounds which seem to be coming from between or behind the speakers.

The Gospel plays in stereo, but in this week’s text we discover that even John the Baptist, the greatest of all the prophets, had difficulty hearing its message in stereo. Not listening in stereo leads to confusion or misapplication.

John the Baptist, having been thrown in prison, sent his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matt. 11:2-3). That’s an odd question, isn’t it?

John, like all of Israel, was looking toward a future which would be transformed by the coming of God. His question is essentially: “Are you the future?” The implication is, “This is not exactly the future I was expecting!” Did you have expectations of what coming to Jesus would mean for your life that have turned out quiet differently? Do we, like John, need to learn how to listen in stereo?

Join us in worship as we explore how to listen to the Gospel in full stereo from Matthew 11:1-19.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/08/20190818.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Most parents are familiar with an experience such as finding your child with cookie crumbs around their mouth after you’ve told them not to eat one before dinner, and when you inquire, they respond, “Why, whatever gave you that idea?”

When Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword,” we might be tempted to think Jesus’ mouth is surrounded by cookie crumbs. I think the disciples were tempted to think that.

If you’ve been with us in our series in Matthew’s gospel, you could recount a lengthy list of reasons why the disciples might have supposed that Jesus came to bring peace. He gave them plenty of reasons to suppose he had. But this is just the third of three bombs that Jesus drops in this week’s text – though admittedly the most jarring. These “bombs” are designed to clear up possible, even common, misconceptions about Jesus’ mission and our part in it.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/08/20190811.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In a book on pastoral ministry, Eugene Peterson writes, “American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationery and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn’t the remotest connection with what the church’s pastors have done for most of twenty centuries.”[1]

Providentially, in our march through Matthew, we land on Matthew 10 this Sunday, the day of Peter Stonecipher’s ordination. A perfect text for an ordination charge. Giving heed to the instructions of Jesus to these twelve are designed to keep pastors and leaders from abandoning their post!

Christ’s instructions to the Twelve are to be obeyed every bit as the instruction to get into the boat in chapter 8 and the instructions of how to live out God’s will on earth as it is in heaven in the Sermon on the Mount (5—7). The intended effect of obedience to these commands is that the messengers of the gospel will embody the message of the gospel.

Join us for worship as we explore what it looks like when the messengers of the gospel apply the Sermon on the Mount to how they do mission.

[1] Eugene H. Peterson. Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/08/20190804.pdf

Speaker: Peter Stonecipher

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

At one mission’s conference, the conference theme emblazoned behind the podium read, “Just go!” It was more reflective of the Nike culture than the Biblical mandate. At a minimum, that slogan begs a lot of questions: Just go where? Do we all go now? Is there any qualification? What do we do when we get there? Anyone who has been on the mission field might add that there is nothing “just” about going; going is costly.

The scenes we arrive at this Sunday show how the authority of Jesus is central in the mission of the church. He is Lord of the harvest. We shouldn’t be surprised when we arrive in 28:18 and find that the Great Commission begins with, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…”.

The harvest is plentiful! What is the Harvest? When Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful,” what comes to your mind? I’ve always assumed that it meant, “There are a ton of people just ready to be saved, all we have to do is share the gospel with them.” That raises questions: Is the harvest still plentiful today? Are those the conditions necessary for mission? You might suspect that I think the harvest being plentiful means something else.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/07/20190721.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In our last episode, we saw that Jesus exercises his authority first for the forgiveness of sins in order that He might restore a person into what that person was made to be.

What does the forgiveness of sins mean for our social relationships? For justice in the world? For the devout and not-so-devout? For the untouchables of the world? This Sunday we will see that since Jesus’ authority can forgive sins it breaks out all boundaries: whether socially or physically, whether one is an outcast and unclean, hemorrhaging life or already dead, a lost sheep or shepherd, male or female. The forgiveness of sins breaks all barriers; it bursts bags-of-wine!

The forgiveness of sins means you are welcome at Christ’s banquet table, and that you must actively welcome others! It means uncleanness is no longer contagious, but that Christ’s cleanness is contagious. Join us in worship as we explore Matthew 9:9-26 in the message, “Sick Sinners, Synagogue Rulers, and Sisters.”

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2019/07/20190707.pdf