Sermons Christ Community Church: Daytona Beach, FL

Your core identity is found in being an image bearer of God as a human and a beloved child of God as a Christian. God, who created us as male and female in his image, gave us the gift of marriage and sex in marriage as a bond of oneness. When we view sex or use sex in ways that are counter to God's purpose, we distort and diminish sex, dehumanize people, and distrust and disobey God.

When a woman is pregnant, God Himself is forming the child within her. That child is a human being known and loved by God; therefore, that life is sacred and worthy of love and protection.

In a sinful world that opposes Jesus Christ and the Gospel, we must expect and engage in conflict to make disciples in Christlike character.

We are Christians, Spirit indwelled Christians, we have a counter-cultural source of knowledge and truth and that is because we have received a countercultural revelation.

The countercultural authority we need for a fruitful life is the guidance we find in God's word.

It’s important to accept deeply that faith will be tested in this pilgrimage. When it is God wants us to trust him.

Nothing can make us happy except the God who made us for himself; nothing can satisfy our thirst for happiness except the Christ who made satisfaction for our sins that we might belong to him.

Genesis 21 is the story of a promise fulfilled. It shows us that God keeps His promises with unfailing consistency.

In this story we see that when we stumble into the same stubborn sins, we must remind ourselves of both the severity of our sin and the sovereignty of God’s grace.

In a culture without the fear of God, to live as God's pilgrim children must be our firm resolve.

God does what is right because that’s who he is. Because God does what is right, the way he rules is right. Because God does what is right, his words are right.

We’re going to look at Genesis 18 through the lens of where the story ends up in Genesis 21 and see this idea of the better laughter as a theme for what faith can look like in our lives.

It is God Almighty who gives us His promises and calls us to our pilgrimage.

The God who looks after us will do what he has told us he will do. Therefore, we can and should trust him to care for us his way.

One thing that makes the Bible so relevant to us all is that it speaks, what are sometimes surprising truths, to issues that are very much still at play today. How do you get right with God? What can most powerfully motivate you to live for God?

God's strengthens fearful believers with covenant promises. We can take our fears to him and trust in him.

As we live a life of faith, we can count on God to know and care for us.

In our text today, James corrects our view and understanding of God, who he is and what he does.

Our pilgrimage is perilous but the Lord is powerful. We must be willing to fight knowing that the Lord is the one who brings victory.

The that we're called to live as children of God requires two things: our faith and God the father's faithfulness.

Hebrews 11:13 tells us that Abraham lived, by faith, as a pilgrim on the earth. God uses his story to teach us how we grow beyond a faith that's theoretical to a faith that is trusting. The better we understand that the more equipped we are to experience life in a relationship with God, get through its difficulties, glorify God, and grow stronger spiritually.

God initiates our pilgrimage of faith.

God in Christ readily gives what he has promised. Therefore, we must know Jesus Christ in order to receive God's promises.

Christians have not always loved one another with a beauty that turns heads. We love safely and comfortably, but not always authentically. We love our doctrine, our traditions, and our preferences. But when it comes to loving one another, we struggle. Because it’s possible to be doctrinally right while relationally wrong, the Apostle Paul gives us some help in Romans 12.

Set your hope fully on the grace that is to come.

In Christ you are called to freedom from the "curse of the law," the crushing constraints of legalistic religion, and to live in love.

...who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. That's the heart of the gospel for Easter and every day! Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

No matter how bleak our present circumstances, God’s holy name is the guarantee of all God’s promises. When all is said and done, God’s holy name will be our eternal reason for praise.

The more fully you receive the grace of the cross, the more thoroughly you find the power of hope.

The miracles of Christmas bear witness to the unparalleled uniqueness of the gift of Jesus. The proper response to these miracles for us - is to be filled with humble, grateful wonder.

…In [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Through the cross Jesus passed the test that Adam and every human fails, and bore the condemnation of our failures to bring us back into covenant with God.

What does it mean to go deeper in times of difficulty?

This morning we’re looking at how a deeper communion with Christ leads to deeper commitment to each other.

This morning we’re looking at how a deeper communion with Christ is deeply connected to a deeper obedience to Christ.

Jesus says fruitful spiritual life comes through deeper communion with him.

What are you building your life on?

The deeper strength you need in life comes from being deeply rooted in the love of Christ.

Firstly, can you have peace with God? Secondly, can you KNOW you have peace with God?

But again and again, we come up against the gravitational pull of our former selves or our current selves. We look into our hearts, and we realize - that thing I was struggling with when I was young, that thing I’ve been praying about for years, I’m still struggling with it now. So, is there any hope of deep and lasting transformation in the Christian life?

: You must walk with integrity because the Lord is coming to destroy evil and bring you home.

This is a passage about Kings, and how they react to the coming of the greatest King of all.

The Christmas story when believed changes the whole way you look at the world - the entire course of the life you live - can change not only your here and now but your hereafter and your eternal destiny and because of all that -- it can change any mood when deeply believed.

If someone like Jesus makes the extraordinary claim that He is the Son of God, you’re going to need some pretty extraordinary evidence to back up a claim like that. Very religious people make similar demands too. And Jesus says to them, “The only sign you’ll get is the sign of the prophet Jonah.” So what exactly IS the sign of Jonah?

The compassion of God is purposeful.

In the Christian faith, when you put your faith in Christ and invite him into your life, he begins to work on you to change you into the person he wants you to become. It's a process. It requires patience.

Theologians call it God’s “immutability”: the idea that God is unchangeable in His essence, His nature, and His perfections. Firstly, this is good news because it means God’s PERSON, God’s being, is unchangeable. Secondly, it’s good news because his CHARACTER is unchangeable. Thirdly and finally, this is good news because it means God’s PLANS and PROMISES to you are unchangeable.

God uses this story to teach us that he is both a God of steadfast love and a God of righteous judgment. And therefore, we need to be sure that we get right with him. Repentance is how we do that.

It is not unreasonable to believe in the divinity of Jesus, that it is not unreasonable to believe in miracles.

It’s often when we are at our very lowest that we have the deepest insights about who we are and who God is.

No matter how deep our distress, we can call on the Lord for help.

First, sin always leads to a storm. And secondly, there is love in the storm.

What Jonah teaches us from the very beginning is that it is foolish to run away from even the most demanding assignment from God. When God calls us to do something, the only way to go forward is to trust and obey.

The book of Jonah presents Jonah as disobedient, selfish, bitter, angry, and foolish. And yet, no one would have known the details of the story to tell it except Jonah himself. So the evidence suggests Jonah, on the other side of his own repentance and restoration, is inspired by God to tell his own story in a self-deprecating manner that highlights how foolish he had been.

...Because He is the One who supplies EVERY need. It’s ALL from Him. There is not a single breath we draw that hasn’t been given to us by Him. And so, the only fitting response is to praise him, to give glory to Him.

The logical connection is this: the more contentment we experience in Christ, the less we feel we need materials things to be content. So our grip on money loosens. We realize we don’t need those things to be happy, so we’re happy to give them away to others. Contentment leads to giving.

We can be confident Christ will strengthen us because He is faithful to complete His work in us.

Contentment does not depend on WHAT we have, WHERE we go, WHAT we DO, or WHO WE ARE.

Even when we're well taught about the Christian life, we have to work at resilient perseverance.

We have both the opportunity and responsibility to develop our thinking in godly ways.

The object of prayer; the outline of prayer; the outcome of prayer.

Rejoicing in the Lord is a vital part of what we do together when we worship.

What do YOU do when you have a strong difference of opinion with someone at church? Well Paul does three things I’d like us to emulate: He entreats them both; He calls for mediation between them; He asks them both to “agree in the Lord.”

What we learn in this passage is that it is a sad and sorrowful thing that there are people in this world who are enemies of the cross of Christ, and some Christians are in serious danger of drifting off with them – joining them in a lifestyle as dishonoring to God as it is futile and empty. This reality breaks Paul's heart. It reduces him to tears... it is out of those tears that he calls us to live a different - distinctive lifestyle.

It’s sometimes said that seeing is believing. Baptism helps us to see and to believe. It helps us to SEE something that might otherwise go unseen, and in seeing it, we are helped to believe.

There is a goal God wants all of us to pursue.

Paul tells us: if you want to KNOW Christ more deeply, more vibrantly, you must: Know the power of his resurrection, share in his sufferings, and become like him in his death.

There is nothing more important than knowing Jesus Christ.

What IS righteousness? Righteousness just means “being right with God”. The state of being fully accepted by God.

What must I do to gain Christ, to gain salvation and eternal life, and to be right with God?

In a culture that celebrates and, to some degree, pressures us to affirm people in whatever they are feeling, the danger is that we won’t cultivate what you could call a spirit of rejoicing as part of our discipleship, spiritual formation, health, and happiness. The truth is we need this.

Faithful Christians… represent a cause greater than themselves, as soldiers do; risk everything for that cause, as soldiers do; receive honor, as soldiers do.

What will your legacy be? You are building one right now…

How can we live life now so that when the time comes for us to go be with the Lord, we can do it without regrets?

WHY should we do all things without grumbling? HOW can we do all things without grumbling?

God delights in giving grace to sinful human beings.

If God is fully in control of the universe, such that even the fall of a sparrow is ordained, as Jesus says in Matthew 10 - do my choices matter? If God ordains everything that happens, am I anything more than a puppet or a robot? Should I DO anything or just let God do the work?

If we’ve experienced the love of God in Christ, we are to share that same love with each other.

The reason we face a struggle is that, as Christians, we belong to a different kingdom than this world.

The gospel imparts an identity that calls for a new quality of life. Scripture calls those who have received the gospel to live in a manner that is worthy of the gospel.

The story of Paul’s life is Christ. That’s what he means when he says, “For to me, to LIVE IS Christ”.

Because of Jesus Christ, we can endure profound hardships with courageous faith.

To grow in Christian love, we need to grow in knowledge.

The truth of the gospel can be defended and confirmed.

When Jesus gave us the Lord's Supper, he also gave us what he called a new commandment.

A true Christian can have a deep confidence sustaining all of life because, from beginning to end, the Christian life is God's work in you.

When we talk about the joy of Paul, it’s not a solitary joy. The kind of joy he has can only exist in partnership with other believers.

Christ calls his people, having received his grace, to stand side by side for the gospel.

Jesus came into our world to fulfill a mission of grace and redemption.

The church is a uniquely important fellowship of people called together by the living God.

To truly live as disciples of Jesus, we must have a radical change of perspective.

The life of a disciple of Jesus begins with a spiritual rebirth that enables life-long growth.

A disciple of Jesus Christ is committed to living all of life in light of the Bible as the life-giving, life-shaping Word of God.

Jesus is the bread of life, and we satisfy our souls with him by continually believing in him.