Sunday Sermons

Christianity is not faith in an ideal, but in a person. It’s a belief that something happened. A single event changed how those closest to Jesus viewed Jesus, and it should change the way we view him too.

We live in a world that rewards performance. It’s ingrained in us from an early age. Tests, sports, education, manners; almost everything. And this performance-based mindset affects our view of and relationship to God. We can believe we must perform to certain standards to be in right relationship with God. We feel that when we do the right thing, God turns his chair toward us. We feel that when we do the wrong thing, He turns His is back on us. As such, we begin creating religious performance-based rules for ourselves and then live by them, in bondage. But Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. He came to restore a relationship.

Pastor Ronnie shares where we believe God is leading us in 2021 and beyond.

If you are like most people, there’s probably a chapter in your life you’d like to erase or go back and do over. It might have been as far back as high school or college or maybe a recent relationship. We’ve all made bad decisions we can look back and laugh about, but just as many that elicit nothing but shame and regret. Addressing lingering shame and regret can lead to an experience that ignites personal faith in a way you may not believe possible. But there is only one primary way we actually experience forgiveness for this.

If you were raised in a religious home or attended a religious school, it was probably the rules that made you question whether religion had a place in your future. Perhaps these rules associated with the faith tradition you were raised in made you feel judged. Maybe that faith community ostracized you. Whatever your case, most religious rules run contrary to human nature. And being the human that you are, that’s a problem. In spite of that, all faith systems agree that in order to be in good standing, followers need to keep the rules. But here’s something you may have never considered before. Rules always assume a relationship. And when it comes to God, he established “rules” as a confirmation of a relationship with him, not a condition for a relationship with him.

The introduction of sin into the human experience left God with somewhat of a dilemma if you will. Where would He begin the task of restoring the world from the effects of sin? Best we can tell, He had a choice to make. Either destroy the sin-infected world and start over, or roll up His sleeves and go to work fixing it, restoring everything to what He originally created it to be.

Let’s talk about sin baby…let’s talk about you and me. OK but seriously, sin is an uncomfortable word. It’s so uncomfortable that we’ve pretty much abandoned it. We do everything we can do avoid that word. But here’s the real deal. Sin harms our relationship with God and our relationships with other people. So we must talk about it.

The starting point for faith is not a Bible story. It’s not even the Bible. It's an event that leads to a question.