Sermons About Mount
Kingdom Credibility: Giving (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 6:2-4. Christ continues to warn about hypocrisy in worship by illustrating several common areas of high risk. Giving must be done, yet it must be done without the slightest hint of self-promotion.
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Kingdom Credibility (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 6:1. The Kingdom is a lifestyle generated by a transformed heart, not some sort of church-ianity. Christ powerfully warns about a typical setting, a temporal motive, and a tragic result of religious hypocrisy.
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Something About George
We all miss Our Beloved Pastor George, each of us in our own way. Steve brings a unique message, dealing with a few of his qualities and how we each have, or can have those same qualities in our own life. Remember, you must move on and live your life in God's will.
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Kingdom Demands for Love: Part 3 (AM)
Adam continues through the Sermon on the Mount (5:43-48). Jesus' demands for love far surpassed the demands of Jewish culture then and the natural ability of our hearts now. Only the Gospel of grace can enable us to meet God's standard of perfection.
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Kingdom Demands for Love:Pt 2 (AM)
Adam returns to Matt 5:38-42 and Jesus' presentation of a radical Kingdom view of love. Kingdom love demands the surrender of our culturally expected, deeply ingrained, daily habit of personal promotion and defense.
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Sandcastle Lives
We've all been in conversations when we realize half way into a paragraph that we don't know what the other person is talking about, because our mind has drifted... OR ... we wonder if the person we're talking to is actually listening, because there is a "far-off" look in their eye and they don't seem to be tracking with us! Jesus wraps up this long message with a very basic challenge: It is not the "hearer only" who will benefit from these principles, but the one who actually "builds upon" these words! He has offered a sure foundation that will carry us through the storms of life ‒ the only question is whether or not we will build on it? "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground it sinking sand." Key Passage: Matthew 7:24-29
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God Is Faithful! The Drought Is Over!
We had a time of sharing this week. It's always great to hear what God is doing in our midst and in our community.
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Kingdom Demands for Love: Pt. 1 (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 5:38-42. Jesus again confronts the religious norms of His day. The Pharisees abused the Mosaic Law to allow personal retaliation, but Jesus outlined both the spirit of the Mosaic Law and the demand of the Kingdom Law for love.
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Just Ask ... ?
We witness it nearly every day…the sacrifices that good parents make for their children. The financial and time commitments that go into raising healthy kids are HUGE but you seldom hear a parent complain! Jesus points out the best of our traits as earthly parents and then draws a comparison…if this is how good moms and dads look after their children... how much more will your heavenly Father...? How much have we understood about the Father’s generous heart toward His children? Will we trust? Do we believe? Will we be bold enough to ask? Key Passage: Matthew 7:7-12
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Kingdom Demands for Truth (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 5:33-37. Christ makes the highest demands possible on kingdom citizens to be people of truth.
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Why Worry?
Will I trust my heavenly Father to take care of me? OR will I take matters into my own hands? Balancing my responsibility to work hard, give generously, save regularly, and spend wisely with an absolute confidence that God is my provider is a difficult balance for all of us to maintain. It is so easy to begin to believe that we have to look after ourselves, and to become consumed with "having enough." Jesus challenges us to put our trust in Him alone and to give up the useless habit of worry…easy to say ... hard to live out! Key Passage: Matthew 6:19-34
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Kingdom Demands: About Divorce (AM)
Christ continues to present His commands for kingdom citizens. By limiting divorce, Christ exalts the covenant of marriage and establishes yet another high, counter-cultural kingdom standard.
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Kingdom Demands: About Lust (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 5:27-30. Christ deals yet another devastating attack on self-righteousness as He clarifies His expectations about lust. Radical amputation is the only right response kingdom citizens have to both actions and attitudes of sin.
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How Do We Pray?
It almost sounds like a silly question ‒ how do you determine if a prayer is “good” or not? Is it by the number of words (longer prayers are better) or by the particular words we choose (spiritual sounding prayers must be better), or is it the time or day or place that I choose to pray that makes my prayer “good”? Silly, huh!? Yet how many of us have not asked those questions ourselves, or been asked them by others, or wondered about what it was in particular that made prayer powerful, eff ective, and meaningful. We are a people who pray….there is no getting around the fact that in the good times and in the bad…there is something within us that calls us to “talk to God…” But prayer can be a discouraging and confusing venture…. knows what we need before we ask? Key Passage: Matthew 6:5-15
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How Do We Pray?
It almost sounds like a silly question ‒ how do you determine if a prayer is “good” or not? Is it by the number of words (longer prayers are better) or by the particular words we choose (spiritual sounding prayers must be better), or is it the time or day or place that I choose to pray that makes my prayer “good”? Silly, huh!? Yet how many of us have not asked those questions ourselves, or been asked them by others, or wondered about what it was in particular that made prayer powerful, eff ective, and meaningful. We are a people who pray….there is no getting around the fact that in the good times and in the bad…there is something within us that calls us to “talk to God…” But prayer can be a discouraging and confusing venture…. knows what we need before we ask? Key Passage: Matthew 6:5-15
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Kingdom Demands: About Anger (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 5:21-26. Christ begins His presentation of kingdom demands by focusing on the heart of murder: anger against a brother.
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Swelled Egos and Shriveled Souls
One of the greatest preachers of the 20th century was a man by the name of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He has written volumes on the Sermon on the Mount and he said that the 6th chapter of Matthew is both a very searching and painful section of Scripture. “I think,” said Jones, “that this chapter is one of the most uncomfortable chapters to read in the entire Scriptures.” Why is this so? What is it about these few verses that are so challenging for us today? The answer to this lies in the fact that these verses have the potential to open up our heart and reveal to us our true inner motivations. It holds a mirror up before us and it will not allow us to escape. Key Passage: Matthew 6:1-18
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Kingdom Righteousness (AM)
David preaches Matt. 5:17-20. With this crucial intro to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ explains and elevates the standard of righteousness.
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Can You See the Father in Me?
The text we come to this weekend may well be the most controversial portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It is a section that has intrigued people for centuries, has drawn some to the teachings of Christ, and has pushed others away. Great leaders, both Christian and “non”, have built their philosophies of peaceful non-resistance on this text. Our Anabaptist heritage is firmly rooted in the concepts Jesus teaches here. How do you respond when you have been injured by another? There may be no more powerful expression of the “family heritage” that runs in the DNA of the child of God, than in looking at our willingness to forgive others when we have been personally wronged. It is also one of the most difficult principles to live out! Key Passages: Matthew 5:16 & Matthew 5:38-48
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Kingdom Effects
Adam preaches Matt. 5:13-16. Christ moves on from presenting the character of kingdom citizens to explaining the preserving and illuminating effect they should have on the watching world.
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Kingdom Persecution (AM)
Adam preaches the final beatitude. True kingdom citizens ought to expect persecution, not for obnoxious character or outlandish comments, but for living an insistent Christ-like life. Lack of persecution calls true conversion into question.
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Fighting for peace (AM)
Matt. 5:9 reveals the exclusive right to internal and eternal happiness for the peacemakers. In contrast to the world's constant pursuit of war or of cheap peace, kingdom peacemakers actively make peace happen on the basis of truth and in imitation of the greatest Peacemaker, the crucified Christ.
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Show Me The Love
In Matthew chapter 5 Jesus touches upon a number of issues which speak to all of society today. Whether the issue be murder, adultery, divorce, taking oaths, revenge, or loving your enemies Jesus is wanting us to learn one truth: that it is the spirit of the law and not the law itself that matters most. Key Passage: Matthew 5.21-30
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Kingdom Cleanliness (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 5:8. Focused on internal heart reality, this Beatitude announces blessing for those whose entire person is devoted to spiritual cleanliness. Kingdom citizens, clean from the inside out, will see God personally for all eternity.
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Lists, Loopholes, Legalities... Love
"Just give me the list - and I'll do it!" That phrase may be the exasperated cry of a person desperately trying to please another, and in far too many cases, it is how we have approached our relationship to God. We have reduced our "friendship with God" down to a sterile formula of "do's and don'ts" and as long as we have checked off all the items on the list, we feel fairly secure. But Jesus blows this kind of "list" Christianity out of the water, when He shreds the Pharisees for their attention to minute details of the law, yet have hearts that are cold and distant. What if Jesus was more concerned with your heart attitude than with your adherance to a list of rules? Novel thought? Key Passage: Matthew 5:20
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Kingdom Compassion (AM)
Adam continues the Beatitudes with Matt. 5:7. In contrast to popular thinking, Jesus further defines the kingdom citizen as one who has a transformed heart of compassion. Those who possess this heart are the exclusive recipients of mercy at the final judgment.
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Blessed Desperation (AM)
Adam preaches Matt. 5:6. True followers of Jesus as King long to live righteously. Their desperation for righteousness makes them blessed, because only they find the lasting source of satisfaction.
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Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount (AM)
Adam preaches Matthew 5:1-2. This crucial message prepares for Jesus' most well-known and most misunderstood sermon.
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Soul Prosperity
We need to live in God’s righteousness, peace and joy on the inside all the time, not just cry out to God for it when we are in a crisis. Our soul is prospering when we are walking in step with Holy Spirit.
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