Are you ready for Christmas? We ask each other about our readiness for lots of things: vacation, a new job, start of school; but that all pales in comparison to how we inquire of each other’s readiness for Christmas. We ask strangers if they are ready for Christmas! What are we asking about? Cooking and shopping, maybe travel plans, or parties to prepare. Church! Don’t forget that Christmas Eve service. With the time, money and energy we give to preparing, seems appropriate to ask, 'Does God think we are prepared?'

As we have taken time to think about God’s good in our lives, there is no greater good than the gift of His Son, a gift He gave because He loved. Not because we were owed. Not because we were pretty good at heart. Not even because we had asked. He sent His Son as gift because He loved. And it was Jesus’ love for His Father, His love for You and me that brought Him to the cross.

And here we are at the end of another sermon series, Truths That Kill. We have looked at 3, today will make 4, statements used repeatedly by Christians, by the Church, and by the world that are true statements. But statements that have gained a life of their own apart from the context in which they are true and in that they have become destructive. Today we come to all sin is the same. We will look at the truth, the context, and the problem.

Join us for our Youth Sunday sermon.

We continue our series on Truths That Kill, and it is not the truths that kill, but the misapplication, misunderstanding, loss of context of truths that can be so destructive to faith and the Church. Today we look at a statement at the very heart of knowing God, of being saved: 'Just say this prayer'. As before we’ll look at the truth, the context, and the problem.

Truths That Kill is the more grabbing title, but as I explained last week it is the application of truths outside their context that can be destructive to our Christian life and the Church. We are looking at four ideas that are true but have some bad application. Last week we looked at 'You don’t have to go to church to be saved'. True, but you do need to go to church to be in a thriving relationship with the One who saved you. Today we are looking at 'Jesus just wants us to love'. Like last week, we’ll look at the truth, the context, and the problem.

Truths That Kill. My own title of this series scares me. I would refer to a lot of what we will talk about as elementary ideas, simple truths that have gone horribly wrong. Now to be clear, I am not talking about biblical truth. Biblical truth, God’s truth is life and life eternal! In all things we need God’s truth. At different times the Church has addressed certain conditions, ways of thinking among people in the world or people in the church and we come up with these sayings that are true, in that context. But out of that context, these statements have gained a life of their own and have become destructive to the Christian life and Church.

Kids pick up more from us than we realize. They’re always watching. But what do we want them to catch? A love for Jesus. Catching alone isn’t enough. If all we do is live it without ever teaching it, our kids may copy our habits but miss the heart behind them. Scripture calls us to do both: faith is both caught and taught.

Pastor Shay Osborne explains how every believer has both box ministries (within the church) and circle ministries (their personal circles of influence where they live, work, and play). Using John 1 as a model, he shows how ordinary people—like Andrew bringing Peter to Jesus—can impact lives by simply sharing faith within their circles. We are challenged to move from the sidelines into the game, living out the mission daily.

Here we are, the end. We have been studying Psalms since March 9th. I did two messages just introducing the Psalms. I took 3 messages to walk through Psalm 22 as we prepared for Easter. So that’s 5 messages and 24 other Psalms beyond that including today, Psalm 119, the longest Psalm, the longest chapter in the Bible, and it is a Psalm on the Bible. Psalm 119 is about your relationship, my relationship with this book we call the Bible.