New Vision: Excellence(A Sermon Based on Zechariah 3:1-5)

Zechariah saw Satan filling the ear of Joshua, the High Priest, with lies. This vision looks at what those lies were; how we might recognize those same lies in our lives; and how we might live freed of them through Jesus’ forgiveness.

This sermon continues a sermon series that walks through the night visions that Zechariah received from the Lord. It also is walking through the values that this local church holds dear. This sermon examines our church’s vocational life and seeks to empower it through the Spirit in Jesus’ name so that the oil of life flows in our church, in our families, and in our community.

This sermon continues exploring the night visions the Lord gave to Zechariah to encourage God’s people to build in his kingdom. This vision looks at the vision of an angel that starts out measuring incorrectly. The sermon works to begin to understand the way the Lord has moved at Peace to shape us into a people that are forward-thinking.

This sermon lays the ground work for an entire forth coming sermon series which will walk through the visions that Zechariah, the prophet, received from the Lord. This sermon spends its time working to understand the identity of the man on the red horse and what he means for the Christian’s life.

There are a number of problems that a modern Christian faces in this Scripture. 1) We are tempted to think too little of the Zacchaeus in the story. 2) We are tempted to think too little of the Jesus in the story. 3) We are tempted to respond too little to the story. This is a sermon that attempts to address those problems and, finally, give each listener a clear view of Jesus.

Money matters here in so many ways. We can think about how our money can make a big difference in the needs of our church and our community. Money also matters there (eternally). What we trust will have eternal consequences. This is a sermon that works through those teachings from Jesus. It has the goal of moving people into the gospel of Christ that has the power to raise us from the financial dead.

This parable is widely acknowledged to be the most difficult of all of Jesus’ parables to interpret. This parable has also been used by unbelievers to discredit Jesus and by believers to play Robin Hood. This sermon takes the parable head on working to interpret it in line with Jesus’ gospel so that we might know him better and make wiser use of our assets.

Hope is often a very abstract, nebulous concept to us. The Scriptures, however, go much further than that. They provide concrete images of hope. This sermon examines one of those images and explores why Scripture works like this. Finally, it points to Jesus as the confidence for a hope that is always heaping up to more hope.

Life can look like a string of coincidences or a line of dominoes that just got pushed over, but is it more? This sermon is designed the help the listener see God’s invisible hand in their very visible lives. It teaches both how and why a person can know that Esther’s story is their story too.

Pride is not just a sin. It’s the sin. It is public enemy number one. It is that which separates us from God and people. Why exactly is that? And, more than that, what does God do about that? Listen in.