Sermons About Overcoming
Man vs Wild: Climb a Mountain
In Surviving the challenges of life you will need to climb a few mountains. It is in the times of struggle and challenge that often times we are able to connect with God in unique and life changing ways.
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Overcoming the World
I was in Texas for less than 48 hours this week, but in that brief time, I made a few observations. One: the folks in Texas don't know how to handle ice and snow any better than folks in NC. I never saw so many wrecks in my life. Two: even my non-English speaking taxi driver was an expert on the Dallas Cowboys and his ideas about how to fix them are better than the ones I hear from the present coaching staff. Three: When they say everything is big in Texas, they aren't joking. Even the churches are huge. I was in an area where on 3 different corners there were churches of over 10,000 folks each and there was a 4th just a mile up the road When you take a look at some of the pastors and churches in Texas, you'll notice that a large number of them have built their ministries upon the idea that all that God has done in this world and through Christ is really just for you and once we realize all that God has done, we will become better people. Within that philosophy of ministry, I hear nuggets of truth, but upon further consideration, it seems to fall short of the full picture. This point became clear when I heard two pastors speak at the conference One did this incredibly well done video piece of him teaching his son to ride a bike. In it, he talked about how through our failure, we learn how to succeed. His mantra was: try, fail, learn, adjust. He closed by saying that failure was God's way of making you a winner. Now that sounds like a decent theology right? Learn from your failures. God doesn't intend for us to hang our heads in the sand and mope when things don't go well. Yet, it still seemed a bit incomplete. Then, the next speaker came up on the stage, Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle. If you know anything about Driscoll, he is about a straight shooter as they come, and he is unconcerned and unimpressed with Christian celebrities. He spoke of Righteousness, Risk and Repentance warning pastors like myself not to base our righteousness on the success of our ministries, not to not become addicted to or too scared of risk, and to continually walk in repentance. Then as he closed, he offered this correction to the prior speaker. He said, "Oh yeah, one more thing: only in America will a pastor tell you that that the purpose of failure is so God can make you a winner. You might just fail, and all you will have left is Jesus. The bigger question is, ‘Is Jesus enough for you?'" That bold rebuke struck home to my heart. Folks, when we are said and done here on the dusty bowl called planet Earth, the fundamental question is going to be, "Do you have Jesus or not?" The size of this church, the job you have, the things that make you comfortable, are not going to count. Jesus is what counts. If I preach this sermon or if I preach them all year long, if Sovereign King grows, if we have 4, 6, 8 CE Groups, if we are serving the police well, if we do all of those things and lives are not changed and transformed because of Jesus Christ, we are wasting our time. If your life is not impacted and transformed because you met the risen Savior, then I'm wasting my time up here. Don't let the structure of things going on here distract you. I think our CE Groups are vital and the men's and women's study are vital, but they are means to an end and not and end unto themselves Instead allow the structure of going on here instruct you how you and those you know can be transformed by Jesus. Jesus is not a means to an end. He is not your way to have a happy, healthy, wealthy life. Jesus is the end. The goal is Jesus. When we get done with our day, whether or not it has gone our way or whether or not we feel blessed, ask yourself, "Was Jesus enough for me today?" If the answer is no, it is not because Jesus was insufficient. It was because you found Him insufficient and desired other things. What we are going to find in I John today is that He is going to describe the folks that get that, the folks that get that Jesus is the point. He is going to describe those folks as those that overcome the world.
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Living Without Fear
Generally, when we think of fear, it is associated with bumps in the night or what is lurking in the dark, or at the least, the fear of the unknown. As a kid, I went through the horror movie phase where that was all I wanted to watch. My horror movie obsession culminated in a 16th birthday party sleepover where we watched Friday the 13th movies parts1-5 straight through. However, fear is much more of an ever-present reality than the movies or even our consciousness wants to recognize. Fear rarely has to do with machete wielding, hockey masked villains or striped sweater wearing bad guys that visit you in your nightmares. But one the reasons folks watch suspenseful or scary movies is to prove to themselves that they are not scared. To many, admitting fear is admitting weakness, and very few people have enough honesty to admit that they live with a certain amount of fear. But here is a little social secret. Ironically, many of the people who make a point to demonstrate that they never fear anything are actually the people that are most scared. Generally, the most blustery of people that I know are just people that are incredibly fearful. - They fear that people will think they are not smart so they are constantly trying to show how smart they are. - They fear that people will not respect them so they demand respect constantly and take offense at the first hint of disrespect (whether real or imaginary). - They fear that they will be rejected so they act like they don't care if people accept them or not. - They fear that they won't be loved so they act like it doesn't matter if people love them or not which makes loving someone like this pretty hard. It's a pretty lonely existence to live in fear. So, folks cover up all that fear with over-confidence or critique of others or a prideful spirit. These are people constantly telling others what they have done or constantly giving you a social or even religious resume. All the while, they would never admit that they are just plain scared or as we said in Johnston County, "scart." Here is another social secret. To some extent or another, I have just described all of you. Everyone has a built protection device to keep their fears at bay. But what we are going to see this week at Sovereign King in I John is a proclamation that God is so powerful, He can overcome your fears. He can part the Red Sea, raise the dead, and yes, overcome your fears.
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Galatians, the Gospel, and Overcoming Temptation
Application of the teaching in Galatians for the purpose of overcoming temptation.
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Overcoming Obstacles
In this message we look at the obstacles that Jacob had to overcome to go home to his fathers land. As Christians we also must learn to overcome obstacles that stand between us and doing Gods will.
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Addictions.......Overcoming the Gorilla
We all have areas in our lives that are broken, areas where we struggle with sins that bog us down and hinder us from living life to its fullest. In this message, we go to the heart of God's awesome plan for overcoming and defeating addictions and sin. So let's listen and be inspired to live out God's truth in our lives!
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