Gulf Coast Community Church - Sunday Sermons

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

We live in a sex saturated culture. I don’t need to trot out statistics to prove that. If you have any doubt, watch 15 minutes of TV. Any channel should suffice to make the point.

The Thessalonians lived in a sex saturated culture. I could demonstrate that with numerous references to historic documents. We would see, in regard to sexual immorality, that what Paul was saying to the Thessalonian believers in their sex saturated culture can be spoken directly to believers in Tampa Bay in our sex saturated culture. That said, you might think this text would be as easy as, “Read & Apply!” However, there is a problem: we get the culture right, but far too often we get the motivation wrong!

Quite often after telling Christians that we are called to stay away from sexual immorality, preachers and teachers quote statistics showing that monogamous marital relationships lead to happier and healthier lives; that saving oneself until marriage will prevent problems later in marriage; or that any kind of sex outside of marriage will end in misery. But all that is beside the point; at least Paul’s.

Paul didn’t tell us to abstain from sexual immorality so that we could arrive at the wedding altar as virgins because that makes for healthier marriages (though it does). Nor so that marriages will be happier. Paul doesn’t tell us to abstain from sexual immorality in order to make us happy; He tells us to abstain from sexual immorality to make God happy! Don’t take my word for it, take Paul’s.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/07/20180722.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

In this week’s text, Paul and Silas are truly frustrated. They have an intense longing and godly desire to strengthen and encourage the church that remains unfulfilled after much prayer. What is the root cause of these unfulfilled longings? Paul tells us exactly what the trouble is: “but Satan blocked our way.”

Does it surprise you that Paul, the apostle, was hindered by Satan? Paul was evidently well known in the demonic realm (Acts 19:15-16). Yet he is exceedingly frustrated by something which he understands to be caused by Satan, our spiritual adversary. It is also clear that Paul has been praying about this earnestly… night and day. Yet, thus far, nothing has changed.

Have you ever been frustrated because your apparently godly longings go unfulfilled after much prayer? Do you wonder if there are spiritual forces working against you? What should you do? Why is God allowing this to happen? How will God answer your prayers?

Join us as we explore 1 Thessalonians 2:17 – 3:13. We will discover some surprising ways by which God’s grace cleared the way through Satan’s roadblocks.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/07/20180715.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Americans are familiar with smear campaigns in politics. Jeff Nilsson, in The Saturday Evening Post, wrote, “We had an intelligent, respectable election once, and the winner was George Washington. By the time the next election came around, the gloves were off and the tar buckets filled….” John Quincy Adams wrote about his own presidential campaign in 1824, “Every liar and calumniator was at work day and night to destroy my reputation.”

Paul evidently had a similar problem. In fact, there is a long history of smear campaigns against legitimate gospel ministry. This week’s text ends as Paul recounts the long history of opposition to the truth as it was climaxed in the crucifixion of Jesus the Lord, experienced in the Old Testament by the prophets, levied on Paul and Silas, and now even the Thessalonian church. Paul and Silas had left in a hurry, which may have given their opponents an angle for accusation against them.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:1-16, Paul reminds the Thessalonian believers of their experience when he and Silas first came preaching to them. First, Paul demonstrates “that he and his coworkers are not opportunistic hucksters masquerading as third-rate philosophers.”1 Then he expresses gratitude for how the Thessalonians had responded to their preaching.

What are some of the ways this attack on God’s Word is seen today? What does it look like to welcome the word into our lives?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/07/20180708.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Will Willimon tells a story from when he was a young pastor serving in a small Southern town in the throes of school desegregation of a tense, frightening scene. A white citizens’ group had been formed to fight the court’s desegregation order.

“In a packed auditorium, speaker after speaker condemned the court’s order and urged people to resist. Then, sometime well into the tension-filled evening, the pastor of the local Baptist church came in. … He walked to the front of the auditorium and took a seat. He listened for a while. Then he rose to speak. … The pastor, who had served in that congregation … for decades, spoke in deliberate, grave tones. ‘I am ashamed. I am ashamed. I have labored here for many years. … I might have thought that my preaching of the gospel had done some good. But tonight I think differently. I cannot speak to those who are not of my congregation, but to those who are, I can only say that I am hurt and ashamed of you and might have expected more.’ He then left the podium and walked out of the auditorium. The meeting resumed awkwardly. But one by one, most of the members of the Baptist church quietly left the room until the auditorium was half empty and the meeting dribbled off into adjournment with no action taken. The schools integrated the next month without incident.”

This aged pastor who had labored for much of his life in that town with the gospel was ashamed. He was ashamed because he considered that if the gospel had not taught them to love their African-American neighbors as they love themselves, it had not taught them much of anything at all.

Paul had no reason to be ashamed. In fact, Paul had not preached for many years in Thessalonica, but for at most six months. Yet Paul had reasons to thank God for what the gospel had produced. Paul sees a people in whom the gospel has made a difference!

In our series in Thessalonians, I want to learn from that church. I want to learn what it is about the gospel they believed that resulted in such transformation in their lives. Don’t you?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/07/20180701.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/06/20180624.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

Critics of Christianity have often alleged that the Christianity of today has moved a long way from the faith taught by the Jesus of history. The accusation is that the church was infected with Greek concepts and philosophy. The Jesus of history, they would tell you, is not the Jesus that the church spoke about centuries later or preaches today.

Young people will go off to universities and grad schools and will likely encounter claims such as these. Others may encounter this in reading, watching documentaries, or from those you attempt to share the gospel with.

This Sunday we begin a series titled, “Dissident Disciples—a Study in 1 Thessalonians.” It is widely held that 1 Thessalonians is the oldest of all the New Testament documents. It was written in AD49 or 50, 3 months or so from Paul having fled the city. In this series you will see Jesus and what the church taught about Him from the earliest document of Christianity, written less than two decades after the crucifixion. This is primitive Christianity.

You may be surprised just how much the Jesus of primitive Christianity looks like the Jesus of Christianity today! Indeed, we will discover many things that under-gird the creeds of the early church. If this is the first piece of Christian writing and theological reflection that remains, it is more than old, it is very, very important.

Join us in worship as we begin our exploration of this letter. We begin in Acts 17:1-9. Why? In order to examine the story of the Gospel first coming to Thessalonica. It will set the stage for what we discover in the letter.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/06/20180617.pdf

Speaker: Daryn Kinney

This Sunday we’ll explore Daniel chapter three – an ancient story of faith and resistance. Three Hebrew young men, exiles of Judah, now servants of the King of Babylon, refuse to bow down to an idol representing their Babylonian king and his god. The Hebrew men took on Babylonian names, spoke the language, even served the king but they had drawn a line – they wouldn’t bow. What was behind their deep conviction and courage? What fueled their resistance? When faced with the threat of execution by furnace (yeah you heard right!), what was their reply and what does it have to do with our lives today? What will we do when faith requires resistance?

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/06/20180603.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

There is broad confusion in western culture about what happens when we die. Just visit one of the make-shift altars that invariably pop-up at the site of a tragic death or mass shooting. Or read several customized decals on cars in tribute to someone who has died. Is the departed an angel, doing their favorite activity in some alternate universe, or still with us? This confusion was illustrated in one message left outside Buckingham Palace, as if spoken by the departed Princess Diana: “I did not leave you at all. I am still with you. I am in the sun and in the wind. I am even in the rain. I did not die, I am with you all.”

Most peoples’ view of the afterlife seems as if they took contradictory ideas from Christian­ity, Hinduism, and a handful of other religious ideas, and mixed them up in a bucket. With all the confusion, it’s no wonder that, culturally, hope is in short supply. And, as N.T. Wright says, “in the absence of real hope, all that is left is feelings.” And frankly, without hope, most of those are not going to be good.

This Sunday’s text, Genesis 49–50, covers the dying scenes of two great patriarchs: Jacob and Joseph. In a book that includes the story of the flood and describes the effects of the fall, one might expect these scenes to be absent of hope. But they are far from it. The book of beginnings ends imparting hope that will carry us to the end. Hope in life, and hope in death. These last chapters of Genesis bring us face to face with hope in life through God’s blessing, and hope in death through God’s promise.

Join us in worship as we celebrate the glorious promises that we have in Jesus Christ.

Handout: http://media.gccc.net/2018/05/20180520.pdf

Speaker: Jerry Cisar

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