Were headship and submission a part of God’s good plan for husbands and wives before the fall or are they actually the result of sin? If they were a part of God’s good plan then how is it fair that husbands get the role of headship while wives are called to submit? These are just a few of the questions we will consider as we try and discern the roles that God has called both men and women to play in the home.

Why do you go to the church service? Are there things that you are hoping to get from it that you don’t think you can get anywhere else? How important do you think your presence there is? In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul answers many of these questions by telling us what he wants to see take place at the gathering. In this chapter we soon realize that we are more needed then we are aware of while at the same time being more needy than we ever imagined.

The gift of tongues has been the source of a lot of confusion, disagreement, division and hurt among Christians. There are some who view tongues as the ultimate sign of one’s spirituality, while there are others who believe that it is a form of paganism that has crept back into the church. Given the massive gap between these two positions, what are we supposed to do? Are there things that we can all agree on? Are there ways that we can seek to understand those that we don’t agree with? And what might it look like to love one another across some of our differences? These are some of the things we will address in this message.

In I Corinthians 14 Paul commands the Corinthians to “Earnestly desire the Spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.” But what exactly does that mean? Is this something we should still be doing today or was this just for the early church? Christians have answered these questions differently throughout the years and in this sermon, we will take a look at what both Cessationists and Continuationists have to say on this topic. After considering some of the common ground we will talk about what it might look like for all of us to grow in our awareness and dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

What do you think Heaven will be like? How will love be different there then it is here on earth? What impact should the fact that the other gifts will pass away while love will never end have on the things we prioritize here on earth? These are just a few of the questions we will be discussing in this sermon.

       How does love respond to all of the obstacles that come against it? Here in I Corinthians 13:7 we see that love "bears all things" in order to keep on loving. That means that love knows no excuses? But how can love keep loving in really difficult situations? And what does that even look like? These are some of the questions we will consider in this message on I Corinthians 13:7.

Rejoicing at wrongdoing is the opposite of love and it robs us of true joy – a joy that is found in the love of God for sinners and a love that rejoices with the truth. Jesus embodied this perfect love and truth for us so that we might be forgiven, healed, and empowered to love others with the love that God has shown to us at the cross of Jesus Christ.

   How do you respond when people sin against you? For most of us our first response to being sinned against is anger. But Paul tells us that love is not easily angered. And how do we keep people who have hurt us from hurting us again. Well for most of us we keep track of what they have done in order to protect ourselves from being hurt. But Paul tells us that love keeps no record of wrong. In this sermon we will consider what love does with our anger and how it is possible to truly forgive those who have hurt us deeply.

As Paul continues his description of what love is and is not, he comes to this little phrase, "love does not insist on its own way." In a world where we are constantly making decisions, how do we live in a way that considers more significant than ourselves? Listen and hear how the gospel fixes our eyes on the God who didn't insist on his own way for his own glory and our good.

There are times where you and I read God's word in the morning and then find that by the end of the day we can barely even remember what it is that we read. In this message we want to talk about what it looks like not to merely read God's Word but to truly engage with the living God through his Word. It is our prayer that this year all of us would truly get to know our great God better as we encounter him more in his word.