Sermons About Idolatry
The Confusion of Language and Dispersion of Nations At Babel
The confusion of languages and the dispersion of nations at Babel.
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Assurance, Intercession, and Purity
Do any of you know people that are amazingly self-assured? Their confidence just overflows when you are around them. Sometimes being around them can be encouraging, and quite honestly, some times it can be intimidating. Maybe they have the effect on you that you try your best to be at your sharpest, wittiest, and most intelligent when you are interacting with them. Either way, everyone in the room senses their confidence. A lot of athletes are like that. When the game is on the line, they want the ball in their hands. When the Super Bowl is on the line, they want the ball thrown their way. They want to stand at the plate at the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded. Moments like that are what many kids dream of and play out in the backyard every day. I had that moment my very first organized baseball game. I may have told you guys this story before, but it bears telling again. I was in 4th grade in my very first little league game. I had not stepped onto the field the entire time. My uniform would not even need cleaning. It was the bottom of the ninth, we were down, there were 2 men on base, and my coach decides to put me in as a pinch hitter. I watched the last two pitches whiz by, I struck out, and we lost the game. I handled that like many other 9 year olds do by crying my eyes out. Fast forward 20 years later, and the exact same situation came up. I was playing church softball, it was the playoffs, and I step up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. It was not lost on me at that last time that I was in the same situation, and the last time I was there I didn't come through. However, this time, I hit a bloop single that brought in two runners, and we won the game. Winning the game was enough to erase most of the pain of the 4th grade, but I was pretty sure that I was never going to be any team's go to guy on the baseball field. No matter whether you are confident or not, built into self-assurance or self-confidence is this attitude that sounds like the expression, "If it is going to be, it is up to me." There is a sense in some folks, right or wrong, that they just know if something needs to get done, they know they can count on themselves. Though this issue wavers back and forth between confidence and pride, it got me thinking about confidence and assurance in God. If I asked many of you, "Is God powerful enough to do anything?" I think many if not most of you would say, "Yes." "Is he powerful enough to create, heal, call things into existence by His very word?? I think most of you would say yes. But if I asked you if He was powerful enough to keep your salvation secure and in the process assure you that your salvation is real, I don't know if I would get as many affirmations. For some reason, we think God is powerful enough to do anything He wants in the material world, but when it comes to our heart, salvation, and assurance of that salvation, we think God either cannot or has chosen not to make us secure with Him. This Sunday, at Sovereign King, I want to remove that doubt today. Rather, John in this last sermon from 1 John wants to. John is going to use language like "knowing we believe" and "knowing you have eternal life" and "having confidence" in God. He is going to talk about what the life looks like that has confidence in God and what God has done.
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Psalm 16: Delighting in God
The Scriptures teach that the heart is the motivational drive shaft of life. Whatever we treasure, whatever we most highly value, whatever we think most significant will give form to our lives. We'll spend our limited resources pursuing joy in that thing. Therefore, we must learn to ravish our hearts with the excellencies of God in order to come to deeper joy and obedience. Psalm 16 - and many other Psalms - is about how to bring our hearts to delight and rest in God alone.
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Get a bigger God!
What keeps us from God's calling on our lives? We need grace but we cling to idols. We need to die and rise with Christ.
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What is Primary?
Week 1 in the Passionate Love | Peculiar People series. Preached by Lead Pastor Paul Vroom on January 11, 2009 at Missio Dei Church in Mokena, Illinois (www.mdchurch.us). Scripture from 1 Corinthians 2:1 - 5.
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Advent: Joy 2008
John 15:11: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.†Hebrews 12:1-2: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.†John 17:13: “But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.†We can fight for joy as we trust in Jesus and His gospel. We fight because Jesus fought for us. We have joy because Jesus is filled with joy for His Father.
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The Marks of a God Approved Leader - A Good Lesson From a Bad Leader
How do we fix society? Leadership! But what is leadership? Influence! Each of us is a leader for God has placed each of us in relationships where we have influence. King Saul was a leader however, instead of using his influence for good, he used it for evil. Instead of fixing society he was making it worse. And so God rejected him as king. From this bad example we learn four marks of a God approved leader.
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Song of the Risen Holy One
The Psalmist is preaching the gospel to himself- recounting what it means to take refuge in the Lord, and the earthly & eternal benefits he receives. All of this is guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus for our salvation.
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House Rules Part 3
If you are even a casual student of scripture, you will find that there are just some verses and commands in the Bible that just seem...well...hard. There are just some verses that seem practically impossible to obey and some almost don't even make sense. We look at them and think, "Well God, you will just have to do that in me if you want me to do that because I don't see that happening. For example: - Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. o Are you kidding me? Why would I hate my parents? - Matthew 5:39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. o We devise elaborate explanations about why we don't to obey this one. - Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. o We hear that and think, "Yeah, but there are few people that I know I am better than." There are always good, practical theological explanations for these verses, but when it comes down to it, obeying them is just flat out hard Here is thing. When we hear those verses and we think, "God is just going to have to do that if He wants me to obey," we are actually thinking correctly. We often fall into the mistake of thinking all the other verses in the Bible are easily within our grasp. If that was the case, Jesus surely didn't need to die. I Corinthians 15 makes it clear that Jesus' death on the cross was for the payment of our sin and His resurrection was for our new life. The only reason you and I can obey with a desire to glorify God is because Jesus' enables us to now. Otherwise we would be the dead men we've always been. You know there is an old hymn that sings, "I was sinking deep in sin/far from the peaceful shore." That hymn though sweet is completely wrong. We aren't sinking deep in sin; we are dead in our sin. The hymn really should sing, "I was lying dead in sin on the bottom of the ocean floor." If we are going to obey any verse, hard or not, it is because the Spirit helps us to obey. We don't discount the hard work obedience is, but as soon as we get away from dependence on God for that obedience, we have become lazy in our walk with Christ despite the contrary. Well this week in the book of 1 John, we are going look at one of these hard, nearly impossible passages of scripture. We want to pursue it well and understand its application for us, and then we want to ask our God to help us to obey.
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