Harrisonville Church Of The Nazarene

We as a culture are afraid of submission - we want to stay in control of our lives and our futures. Jesus did not have this fear. Jesus' full submission to the Father in the Mount of Olives demonstrated to us that submission to the Master does not destroy our will, it crucifies our will so that God can be Lord of our lives and use us for his kingdom purposes.

In life, even when we have set a goal to guide us, many things can take us off course. As Mary shows us, gratitude serves to orient us back to God, back to the purpose for our following Christ on the journey of discipleship

Part of the Christian journey is training for endurance, for the long road ahead, because God promises us not an easy road but that we will go through tough times. The answer is not to abandon the journey, the answer is to recognize that our endurance comes from one source… the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith.

As followers of Christ, how we respond to spiritual crises that arise in our lives will be determined less by the split second decisions we make in that moment and more by the disciplines we are able to build into our daily living. It is by persevering in prayer, Bible study, and fellowship and accountability that we will be better prepared for the storms and trials, because it will be in that training that we will have learned to rely wholly in God.

As today's passage shows us, even Jesus had to face temptation in his life - which means that no one is immune from it. Becoming a mature Christian does not mean not facing temptation - becoming a mature Christian, becoming more like Jesus, requires standing firm in the face of temptations.

As Albert Einstein put it, "He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. When is the last time you were in awe of something? When is the last time you were in awe in the presence of God? It is during those times when we are reminded of God's great mercy toward us. It is during those times that we are able to learn humility and compassion, so that we are transformed more and more in the likeness of Christ.

We are not Chosen By God in order to live comfortable, self-centered lives. We are chosen by God so that we might be witnesses of his inbreaking kingdom! This is why all Christians are gifted and equipped to help people move from being unchristian to newborn Christians…and from newborn Christians to mature Christians.

When we encounter the gap between our present suffering and the promises of God, we can respond in different ways. Some choose despair and pessimism, some choose "functional atheism" (God may exist, but if I want something done I have to do it myself). But there is a third path, the path of hope: hope that believes God sees the troubles in which we live, and is doing something about them.

It is not enough to "add a little God" into the parts of our life that we want to improve or make better. Following Jesus has always involved baptism, death to our sinful self so that we can be made alive in Christ. God's desire for you is that you might live out your baptism daily: by dying to yourself and living for Christ.

In Ephesians 1:4 Paul writes, "God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world." God loves us not because of anything we can do or earn but because God is love, having chosen us for salvation before the beginning of time. The fact is that God loves you as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.

As we have been exploring throughout this sermon series, God's call to follow him involves taking risks, away from a safe, comfortable life to a life of obedience and trust in God only. God's promise to us is not that we will prosper at all times - God's promise to us is that even in the midst of times of darkness in our lives he will be right there with us.

As the Savior of the world was being born in a humble manger, God's angels are surprisingly nowhere to be found. Instead of announcing these great news to kings and rules, a host of angels appears to a group of poor shepherds on the countryside. As much as anything in the Christmas story, this teaches us much about the God we serve and the kind of person Jesus would be - someone who sought the outcasts, the poor and powerless of the world, with the great love of God.

Zechariah's call was to have faith that God could make the impossible happen, but Mary's call also involved accepting danger and uncertainty into her life. In spite of her young age, Mary's faith allowed her to say yes to this life of sacrifice, a life that would require her to give everything up, but a life that would also be filled with the kind of joy and purpose only God can give us.

Being visited by an angel is not a common place occurrence; they are life-changing and altering experiences. In fact, angel visits in the Bible tend to change people's trajectories, and not towards comfortable or carefree lives but towards deeper commitment and reliance on God. Zechariah's life was shaken by one such visit, which we will learn about in this sermon.

Rev Ben Hayden, hospital and military chaplain, joins us to talk about grief and how the Bible helps us to understand this process we all face at different times in our lives.

The path to wisdom requires us to be careful about what we allow into our lives. While we might believe certain behaviors only affects us, the truth is that anything we allow into our hearts will eventually be expressed in our lives.

The wisdom in the book of Proverbs is given to us to serve as bridge between theological knowledge and practical living. It is not enough to have knowledge about God and how we are to live as Jesus-followers. We must put that knowledge into action in our everyday lives. Wisdom is more thank knowing how to live well... it is doing the hard work of actually living well.

The old saying goes, "practice makes perfect", and what is true for the professional athlete or musician is also true for the disciple of Jesus Christ. Reconciliation is vital for the Christian because you cannot experience the depths of Christ's love until you share the depths of Christ's love.

Harrisonville Church of the Nazarene

Jesus appeals to people because he exemplifies the single-minded life of someone who lived out what he preached. However, his was not an easy life - Jesus chose a path of sacrifice and self-emptying, and he calls us to follow his example.