According to the World Health Organization 54% of the people on earth in 2014 live in cities. So, Jesus went into cities, sent His first disciples into cities and continues to work through His followers in cities today. Since urban centers have unique challenges, this message announces 3 reminders that our exalted Christ gave to Paul during his time in the metropolis of Corinth. These truths have significant implications for all of us who love, live within and long to faithfully join Jesus in His mission in our city today.
Sermons by Dean Wertz (Page 29)
Along with great memories and celebrations, Christmas is an annual reminder that not everything is right. Tonight we celebrate the first coming of Jesus who was born a child and yet a King. To all who believe and surrender to Him as their King (i.e. “the Lord of all”) He provides His divine presence, guidance, forgiveness and purpose so we can join Him in His mission to provide glimpses of His heavenly kingdom in our broken world until He comes again to make all things new.
Sin is the exchange of good things for the ultimate thing: love of God and love for people. Although it can be difficult to admit, we all have a living and relentless sinful nature that drives us to wander from God’s created purpose of delight in Him and service for others. On this 4th Sunday of Advent the good news comes from an angel to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” In this message we celebrate how the arrival of Jesus provides salvation over the penalty, the power and eventually the presence of sin for those who believe in the One whose birth this angel announced.
Today we step away from our journey through Acts to celebrate the first Sunday of Advent. “Advent” means “coming” and it is a term to describe the four Sundays that precede Christmas in which God’s people celebrate Jesus’ first coming in Bethlehem as well as His awaited second coming. On this first Sunday of Advent, just before the busy month of December begins, we discover that faithfulness to King Jesus produces peace and enables us to become His couriers of peace in our distressed world.
Why are many of us reluctant to tell others the good news about Jesus? In this message we observe a key motive that fueled the Apostle Paul to lovingly and courageously explain the message of Jesus to many in the metropolis of Thessalonica in the midst of opposition. Maybe the solution to our fear and timidity isn’t more education or a new method. What if we learned and became apprehended by the same reality that compelled Paul? That “…there is another king, Jesus.”
Sometimes we all get stuck – stuck in traffic and stuck in unhealthy reoccurring thoughts, attitudes and habits. Like the struggling prey of a python, our unsuccessful attempts toward liberation can lead us to despair. In the Apostle Paul’s first visit to the ancient Macedonian city of Philippi, we meet a young girl, a business woman and a law enforcement officer who all find themselves entrapped. The good news for them is great news for us – our stuck-ness need not remain. True deliverance beyond tolerable recovery is available because a loving and infinitely powerful Deliverer is at hand.
When we followers of Jesus first learned and accepted the good news that Jesus is Lord of all, submitting our lives to His leadership and receiving all of His rewards, it was natural to want to share this message with others. Yet, in many cases not everyone was as interested as we would expect. This can discourage us and dampen our light. If you long to see more of your current friends and family living with God and joining Him in His mission to heal the world, the eternal realities revealed in this passage will encourage you to keep shining knowing that God often works in and through us in ways that we could never imagine or believe.
While most cultures recognize the power of intentional relationships between someone with mastery in a particular field and an apprentice, this approach for development is often neglected here in Denver. Investing in another person can be time consuming, messy and threatening when those we train excel. In this message we explore Paul’s commitment to apprentice Timothy in order to discover some compelling reasons to engage in apprenticing others as Paul and, more importantly, Jesus did.
Do we enter the family of God based on what we do for Him or by trusting in what He has done for us? The good news (gospel) is that God sent His Son Jesus because He loves us apart from what we do or do not do for Him. After we believe this message by faith, our process of transformation begins in His way and His timing as He conforms us to become more like our Lord Jesus. This is amazing grace. In today’s message from Acts 15 we discover that this unconditional love of God is so foreign to the human way of thinking that people often add requirements beyond faith in Jesus. When people do this we must follow the example of Jesus’ first disciples by lovingly, yet firmly, affirming, “We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus” for God’s sake, our sake and the sake of the world.
God often leads disciple making communities to send and support specific people to show and tell the good news that Jesus is Lord of all beyond their own city. In our recent journey through Acts 13 and 14 we have seen how God called Paul and Barnabas from their church in Antioch to take His message of grace throughout Galatia. In our message today, we learn that after their journey God led them to circle back to their sending partners in Antioch in order to “declare all that God had done with them.” Today we hear a brief summary of this text followed by a report from Don and Janet Guizzetti. Don and Janet are followers of Jesus and partners with Hope who have who have recently returned from their second missionary trip among the people of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (West Africa).