The Village Church - Sermons

Because of Christ, we regard no one according to their flesh, but see God’s image in them. As ministers of reconciliation, we must never forget that His arms are not too short to save whomever He wishes.

Jesus is referred to as “Lord” in Scripture 750 times. It is His most frequent title and His most subversive. In the Roman empire, Christians resisted Caesar’s perverse “family values” and instead lived by countercultural ethics and morals, recognizing Jesus “is the head of all rule and authority.”

All authority belongs to God. All government authorities are mere stewards of His authority. So we as children of God and temporary citizens of earth seek to obey the law, do good in our cities, and push against the darkness of our day.

We don’t have to make sense of or master every topic. If we can master this one truth, we can make a difference in this world—that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the hope for the whole world.

The building of an empire is the search for a “God-less Eden.” It leads us to worship selfishness, wealth, violence, and oppression.

There is no other leader in history who has leveraged all power, privilege, and position for the good of humanity like Jesus. But how do we rest in Him when He isn’t on the ballot?

The world is being held hostage by evil forces to such a degree, that it can only be freed by a radical in-breaking of God. In our day of trouble, it will not be baby Jesus who comes to rescue us, but “Christus Victor”—Jesus, the warrior.

Without deep relationships and a devotion to reach those far from God, our unique gifts, wirings, and placements terminate on ourselves and we become as stagnant and lifeless as the Dead Sea. There is a way that feels right but leads to bondage and decay. God’s way is a promise of life and freedom.

It is easy for us in the West to think we have no idols while disregarding the worship we give to comfort, approval, control, and power. The gospel stands as the ever-present reminder that we serve a living God and only He deserves our worship.

The unique, God-given picture of the future is one of every tribe, tongue, and nation worshiping face-to-face with Jesus. It will be a great gathering of the saints—a people purified, perfect, without division, and without shame.

After a long day of ministry, Jesus called the disciples to take a boat across the water and promised to meet them on the other side. Knowing a storm was heading their way, Jesus set the disciples up to behold one of the greatest miracles of their lives. He showed Himself as supernatural, persona...

We see our brokenness as a curse, but it can also be a blessing, a pathway to dependence on God alone. In Exodus, God works in the ordinary and mundane to bring about His purposes. He doesn’t need a special set of skills found only in Moses, only Moses’ obedience and willingness. In our brokennes...

To be Jesus’ disciples, we must unfollow ourselves, give up the world, and follow Him. It won’t be easy, but it will be beautiful.

He was rich, so they thought he was blessed. He was young, so they followed his charisma. He was a ruler, so they marveled at his power. Christ saw this man for who he really was, and called him to trade it all in for a genuine faith.

When discerning God’s will for our lives, we might miss His “when” and “way.” David was to be king, but it would take 15 years marked by heartache, trial, and pain. God’s timing and plan shaped David into the kind of king God wanted him to be.

God promises His people that if they humble themselves, pray, seek Him, and turn from wickedness, He will hear them, forgive their sins, and heal their land. We respond to this promise with passionate prayer, tenacious seeking, and radical repentance. O God, please hear us and heal us.

When we look around us, do we see a world gone mad or do we, like Jesus, see the plentiful harvest? The world is ready for the good news of Jesus, but how can they hear it if no one is sharing it? So we pray to the Lord of the harvest, that He might send laborers from among us into our neighborho...

Whatever your age, someone younger is always paying attention to you. So how do we go the distance, with integrity, and bless the generations coming after us? We wait for the Lord, keeping His way, knowing He has all authority in heaven and on earth. We don’t give up, and we walk humbly with our ...

In the upside-down kingdom of God, losing is winning, dying is living, weakness is strength, and our enemy is our brother. In the abrupt conclusion of Jonah, we see all people—every tribe and nation—are at risk of falling under God’s abundant grace. For He has mercy for whom He has mercy and comp...

Finding himself right back where he started, Jonah begins his month-long journey to Nineveh. He proclaims a simple yet devastating message, and the people of Nineveh repent and follow God—Yahweh, the God of astounding mercy and another chance.

Where Jonah desired justice, God desired mercy. Nineveh, a city shrouded in darkness and filled with Jonah’s enemies, is to become a city of light filled with God’s redemption. The Lord is merciful to whomever He chooses, and salvation belongs to Him!

God sent a storm to overtake Jonah. Instead of turning the boat around, Jonah asks to be thrown into the sea. The pagan mariners vow to the Lord while God’s prophet sinks into the depths. In His mercy, God sends a fish to save Jonah.

Rather than a lens to see the world through, the book of Jonah acts as a mirror to see ourselves. Jonah’s story exposes our own tendency to co-opt God for the life we want rather than surrender to the life He has for us.

The gospel of Jesus is an invitation out of restlessness, anxiety, and anger and into a life of meaning and purpose. By His Spirit, there is power over sin, death, and the dominion of darkness.

After the death of Joshua, the next generation of Israel embraced false gods and forgot the Lord and all that He had done for them. We read this as a warning and a charge to tell our kids how great our God is and remind them of all He has done for us.

God is asking us to live faithfully with the life, time, money, and friend group or spouse He has given us for His glory all the days of our lives. By living for Him, we might leave a legacy for those behind us to reap the benefits of our covenantal faithfulness to King Jesus.

Whether single or married, you can only truly understand yourself as you develop your relationship with God and others. Conflict with close friends and spouses holds a mirror up, helping us to grow in maturity, and to reflect Christ’s covenantal faithfulness in our relationships.

God made sex for procreation and pleasure. It was His idea, and He called it good. God desires for His people to have healthy sex lives built inside marriages through companionship, covenant, and the mingling of souls.

Friendship is the lost art of Christian marriage. There isn’t a greater love than someone laying down their life for a friend. In John 15, Christ gives us a unique command, calls us to a new kind of relationship, and demonstrates the greatest form of love.

Marriage is an imperfect picture of Christ and His Church. Wives are to respect and encourage their husbands and husbands are to love and build up their wives. The woman does it imperfectly as the church does it imperfectly. And the husband has no chance compared to the perfect love of Jesus Christ.

From the beginning, God’s design for human union came through the partnership and picture of marriage. Through the subordination of their own desires, the man and woman image Christ to each other and push back the darkness in the culture at large.

In defiance of death, Christ rose from the grave and imparted life to all who believe. He has reanimated our hearts with abundant life, fullness of joy, and pleasures forevermore.

God loves everybody. He can save anybody. He can use everybody. He is always working, and you can trust Him. Jesus longs to meet you, use you for His glory, and bless you beyond measure.

We are fully known and fully loved by our God. He calls us His children, priests, heirs, friends, His workmanship, and the chosen citizens of heaven. In full knowledge of our best and worst moments, God pours out His love on us and calls us saints.

The Word of the Lord is sweeter than honey and more precious than gold. If any of us lacks wisdom, His Word says to ask for it, and He will give. Whoever hears His words and does them belongs to God and builds their house on the Rock.

The current state of our building project is a great picture of the believer’s life. Exciting progress is evident, but it still looks a little busted up. But we are sold out to the legacy we leave, knowing He who began this great work is faithful to complete it. Whether physical venues of worship...

Christ, the Great High Priest, sat down with the Father because He finished the work of sacrifice forever. So we lift our eyes to Him. We remember our story is a part of the greater story and we run, laying aside sin and lesser loves for His glory.

Our long journey home to the Father is an ever-expanding love and allegiance to Him. We give all of life for all of life—our actions, thoughts, money, relationships, careers, and even our imaginations—for the sake of God’s mission. We exist to love God, love people, and make disciples of Jesus Ch...

We live in a moment of history that is outraged, anxious, and divided. There are cultural, political, and spiritual realities at play that are unique to our moment. God has placed us at this point in His story; what will we do? How will we respond?

Three stories are unfolding: your story, our story, and The Story. God has uniquely wired you and called you to a specific place and time so that you might take part in this grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

The lineage of Jesus shows us that His kingdom would be unlike any other. Through Christ, the dividing wall of hostility was torn down. We once retreated to the safety of homogeny. But Christ has brought together people from every tribe, tongue, and nation into a blessed unity.

He, the Author and Sustainer of life, made us in His image. Humans, regardless of ethnicity, health, wealth, age, abilities, and place in history are equal in their value and honor as image bearers. May we be a community of life illuminating the darkness for the Glory of God and our joy.

Christ is the door to freedom. He is the good shepherd, finding His own and guiding them through the door. Those who came before Him were thieves and liars. They peddled false gospels and murderous ideologies. Christ arrived with protection and care. He offered a clear way, a steadfast truth, and...

The Creator of all things condescended and put on flesh. He came not for our condemnation but for our salvation. He, the pervasive light, has pierced the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome Him.

The cycle of self-improvement and failure persists because we cannot save ourselves. The salvation we need is outside our grasp unless we are reaching for Jesus.

Happiness and joy are not the same. Happiness can be snatched away in a moment, but joy has a resilience that withstands the hurt and disappointment of the world. We remember God’s good works, bring to Him our heart’s desires, and embrace His future hope which leads to a deepening of joy.

We pray for the things that we love. The night Jesus was arrested, He prayed to the Father for His disciples in front of Him, and those who would come after—us. Christ’s glorious love broke into our loveless world, drawing us in that we might go out and love gloriously.

We find in the reign of Christ a limitless expansion of His influence and the establishment of peace with no end. In Him, we receive wonderful counsel, a strong defense, and an end to spiritual oppression.

Christmas as a commercial holiday always overpromises and under-delivers, leaving us unfulfilled. But Christmas remembered as the mercy of God sending His Son for us stirs in the believer a robust and renewed hope. So we place the anchor of our hope in this, that Jesus sees us in our lowly, fragi...

The parable of the prodigal son has a natural focus on the son who leaves, lives recklessly, and returns. But many of us live out our faith like the older brother—living at home, with the Father, yet refusing to enter into joy. The younger brother chased the desires of his stomach and found himse...

The gospel isn’t aspirational advice but the powerful work of God unto salvation. The gospel is God overpowering all that would rob His people of the fullness of life He has purchased for them in Christ Jesus. Any sin, impasse, addiction, or even Satan himself will not stop the strong arm of our ...

The gospel is both simple enough for a child to understand yet complex enough to never discover its full depth. Each of us is called to share the gospel within our everyday, relational circles. We don’t need to have every answer ready in order to do so; we just need to be willing to let the Holy ...

We find ourselves caught up in something that existed long before us and will continue to expand into eternity. What started with 500 people in Jerusalem is now 2.38 billion people worldwide. This gospel wave continues to crash into the farthest shores of the globe and the darkest corners of the ...

Whether through altars built or communion elements taken, God places a high emphasis on remembrance for His people. When we remember correctly, we move forward differently. And how do we remember? We build a memorial for what He has done and testify that He is with us and He is powerful.

The gospel creates a gifted people. God shares the spoils of His victory in Christ by equipping His people with a diversity of gifts. Each of which is meaningful and has a unique role in our shared endeavor of building up the body of Christ.

The gospel moves through every culture throughout history calling people out of darkness and into His marvelous light. From the rich, the poor, the elevated, and the marginalized, Christ is creating a people for His own possession—a community of salt and light, receiving and proclaiming God’s mercy.

All things were created through Christ and for Christ. His atoning work on the cross was for the sins of humankind and the redemption of creation. We now herald this good news to the world around us, especially the places God has placed us in—our work, our homes, and our cities.

We have all fallen short of God’s glory. While we were stuck in deep ruts of sin, Jesus Christ died for us. Our sins earned us death, but God gifts us with eternal life through Jesus. If we belong to Him, we are no longer condemned. If we confess and believe, we are saved. This is the gospel on ...

The tenured farmer, after preparing the ground with seed, does not pester the crop to hurry the harvest. He waits. James tells us to be patient for the coming of the Lord. We should not wait with grumbling, but with joy, establishing our hearts in the Lord. He has set a time, and He will return.

Where our treasure is, our heart is. God called His people to bring their full tithe to Him, not because He needed money, but because He longed for the whole heart of His people. Our hearts are easily distracted and we place our attention on lesser things. God is lifting our heads from temporary ...

There is objective truth that doesn’t erase difficulty, but brings true life. In God’s design, there is accountability for our actions. And God is not mocked. What we sow, we reap. If we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption. If we sow to the Spirit, we reap a bountiful harvest of truth, beauty, a...

In the fourth dispute, God’s people question His justice. They accuse God of delighting in those who do evil. God responds with the promise of His messenger, John the Baptist, and His Messiah, Jesus Christ—the truest proof of His justice. His people will be refined by fire, and justice will be se...

God’s people had profaned the covenants of their fathers in the treatment of one another, the worship of other gods, and the divorcing of their wives. They chose faithless self-indulgence and unraveled into chaos. For His glory and their own flourishing, the Lord called them back to the harmony o...

By the end of the Old Testament, the priests were allowing God’s people to bring their worst to Him. God brought a charge against them, reminding them of His love and the discipline that would ensue. He wanted their full attention, not their leftovers. He is not a pet at which to throw the scraps...

God’s people doubt His goodness and are skeptical of His kindness. They are relationally fractured, apathetic, and have turned their backs on Him. His message to them through the prophet Malachi is, “I have loved you.”

It is of utmost importance to follow God, and utterly impossible to do it on our own. When we face the important and impossible, we tend to run towards shame, pride, or condemnation. Though our hearts condemn us, God does not, because He is greater than our hearts. So let your mind be convinced a...

The drumbeat of Genesis was God creating and calling it good. But after He made the first human, He saw it was not good for us to be alone. He made more people so that we would have companions and friends. Jesus was friendship made flesh. He modeled vulnerability and commitment showing the path t...

Paul, inspired by the Spirit, states that God began a good work in us and will bring it to completion at Christ’s return. This prophetic, rugged verse outlasts the buffeting of life and stands firm as a promise—He started it, and He will finish it.

The hills and high places were known centers for idol worship and altars to false gods. The Psalmist, looking up to these places, declares that his help will not come from the mountains, but from the Maker of the mountains. The one true God is our help in times of trouble.

All who are led by the Spirit have been adopted into the family of God. He gives to His children a unique identity, places us into time exactly where He wants us, and calls us to flourish, not on our own, but in a family of fellow believers. If we are His children, then we are also heirs to His k...

God, knowing the times in which we would live and the boundaries of our habitation, uniquely wired and uniquely placed us so that men and women might seek and find God. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to declare His glory in whatever we do and wherever we find ourselves. This...

As we progress through life, it is natural for us to search for who we really are. Our wounds and failures tend to speak the loudest as we grasp for strands of an identity. But the same God who spoke all of creation into existence declares that we are His forgiven children—redeemed, perfectly lov...

There is no formation without repetition. Each of us are a product of our experiences with God, our experiences with others, and our habits. Before sin entered the story, all was right between God and humans. Now, through Christ, we are being rehumanized by the indwelling of the Spirit, making us...

Generation Z is not only the church of tomorrow, but the church of today. Psalm 145 calls us to invite the next generation into God’s greater story, praising Him for His wonderful works. We ask God to raise up bold and faithful leaders in the generations to come and for us to be faithful in comme...

Motherhood is a reflection of the nature and character of God. The Accuser takes this truth and convinces moms that they should know everything, be everywhere at the same time, and carry the weight of the family’s world on their backs. But only God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. We c...

The ultimate act of mercy is shown in God giving His Son as a sacrifice for us, the undeserving, that we might be saved. God now calls us to go and be merciful—presenting ourselves as living sacrifices, outdoing each other in showing honor, befriending the lowly, practicing hospitality, and bless...

In a world like ours, the Church should not be happening. Yet it continues to progress, all over the world, and will only get better over time because Christ is with us. God tilts the beautiful future we read of in Revelation and the old words of Paul in Romans back into the here and now. Our God...

The gospel we first received is the gospel we still need. It serves the human heart as water, sunlight, and air serve the grass of the fields. The gospel is what we need today and is what we will need tomorrow. Rather than spending our days trying to prove we were worthy all along of God’s forgiv...

The disciple Thomas was a zealous follower of Christ, yet is forever known for his moment of weakness. Right before Jesus commissions His followers, the Word says some still doubted. But Jesus doesn’t withhold His mission when His followers doubt. Like Thomas, Christ invites us to move toward Him...

As the heat of life turns up, the aroma of death becomes all the more obvious. But eternal life is available, and we don’t have to wait until heaven to get it. Christ said to Martha that those who live and believe in Him will never die. The sting of death has been swallowed up in His victory. Dea...

God’s solution for a broken, lost, and hurting world is a church that is awake and alive to each other–living in true, biblical community. In the final sermon of our series, we examine the dramatic birth of the early Church and how the believers devoted themselves to one another.

Many of us celebrate the miraculous things of our faith—the virgin birth, the exorcism of demons, the healing of the sick and lame—but live as if none of that is available to us. We look back at those miraculous moments as moral fables rather than God calling us to participate. Nothing has change...

God provides the seed and the bread, and promises righteousness for those who give cheerfully to the advancement of His kingdom. To be a cheerful giver is to orient our hearts around truth, and to see our resources for what they are—gifts from the Giver. In return, He promises all grace, all suff...

At opposite ends of the wisdom literature stand Job and Solomon. Job loses everything and finds God’s presence is more than enough. Solomon gains everything and finds His presence better still. His presence is the story of the Bible. He has made known to us the path of life, fulfills our joy in H...

We rarely expect our modern world to look like the world of the Bible. We erase the unseen and supernatural with information and human innovation. Mystery is no longer something to marvel over but something to prove. As sober-minded children of light, let us trade the twilight cynicism, skepticis...

Nothing calls for and retains our attention like anger and fear. Online algorithms serve us content that keeps rage levels high, anxieties buzzing, and our attention fixated. God calls us to live differently. He says to be captivated by whatever is true, honorable, pure, praiseworthy, beautiful, ...

A flourishing human by today’s standard is one who defines a moral universe for themself, basing truth on their inmost desires. Yet our desires can be at odds even with themselves. There is one person who bears this weight gladly and gracefully. He was not only a great truth-teller, but Truth its...

We have been justified once and for all, and are being sanctified over time. Yet, often we confuse our justification with our sanctification and can feel our salvation is at stake at every turn. When we try to complete in the flesh what the Spirit started, we lack the courage to walk in the light...

Having begun their relationship with Christ by a work of the Spirit, the Galatian believers turned to their own works in hopes of perfection. Paul said they had been bewitched into something distorted and evil—a different gospel, which was no gospel at all. In the same way, we can be so church-ad...

The gospel had radically transformed the city of Ephesus 15 years prior, but Paul is concerned that the believers’ are again being lulled into sleep by its wickedness. By deceit, rootlessness, the anxieties of the world, and the deception of worldly riches, we too begin to distance ourselves from...

After Jesus rose, the disciples asked if it was now time for Him to restore the kingdom to Israel. His response was one of protection and calling. He reminded them that only the Father knows the times, and called them to go into their neighborhoods, surrounding cities, and the nations and bear wi...

John’s vision from God in Revelation 21 gives us a picture of the new heavens and earth—all ethnicities bringing what’s good and beautiful about their cultures to live together. As we exist in the “already but not yet” of this kingdom to come, we learn about other ethnicities and cultures with cu...

In Genesis, God makes man in His own image and places a unique, spiritual mantle on all humans—regardless of status, ability, race, or gender. As we become the kinds of people God is making us into, we are to embrace our role as salt and light pushing back against the darkness and engaging the ho...

The path of life has been laid out by God through His law and made possible through the coming of Jesus. By His grace, we are transformed from one degree of glory to the next and called to the table of His joy to experience pleasures forevermore.

In Him is life, and this life is the light of mankind. And to this day His light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.

There is a joy that transcends all of life’s circumstances. Hebrews 10 mentions the joyful acceptance of being robbed knowing there is a better, future possession. The disciples were beaten but left rejoicing for the honor of suffering for Christ’s name. Happiness is fragile and folds under press...

Even the best stories about human love reveal frailty and cannot be looked upon as any righteous constant. So we start with the Savior. We did not love Him first, but He loved us. With no good in ourselves, Christ moved toward us. While we were still weak, ungodly sinners, Christ died for us. Tha...

There is a set of subversive expectations that we are steeped in when it comes to Christmas. Books, movies, and the lore of the holidays promise all things can be made right and complete through the magic of the season. Our human hearts are desperate for this relief and it is found in Jesus Chris...