Recent Sermons
In addition to sermon audio and video files, many of our sermons have other resources available like extended summaries and study guides. Our archive dates back to 1992 and all resources are free to download and distribute. Most sermons are by our Senior Pastor, Greg Boyd.
Greg started out by reading through Luke 1:13-17; Luke 1:42,44; and John 18:36. Luke’s gospel starts with the birth of a revolutionary movement—the beginning of the Kingdom of God. It’s like a mustard seed that though small at first will prove victorious in the end. We, as Christians are to be known by how different we are from the world. That is, how truly we love one another and the world.
Topics: Controversial Issues,
Kingdom of God,
Non-Violence
Stina Busman preached this morning on grief. She offered this question for reflection: What do we do when we have to live with and after disappointment and defeat? As we all know, some things in this world go profoundly wrong. For Stina, it was the loss of Scott, her fiancé. Stina closed with a challenge: who will write the end of this chapter: Jesus or the enemy? We may grieve deeply, but we do so with great expectation!
Topics: Hope,
Pain & Suffering
Efrem spoke about familes and how they can be a great place to pass down a blessing or they can be a place that can pass down curses. Using Genesis 4:1-11 he tried to help us understand why the events that happened in the story of Cain and Abel could occur.
Topics: Identity in Christ,
Relationships,
Sin
Greg spoke this week on “The Invisible Society: The Truth about Angels.” The word “angel” is a transliteration and means “messenger” in Greek. We see in Scripture that God sometimes sends an angel as a messenger to God’s children. Greg offered these four teaching points during the sermon:Angels are real, there are LOTS of angels, angels are under God’s direction, not ours, and some are good, but some are evil.
Topics: Spiritual Warfare
Sandra Unger began this sermon with a visualization exercise. We were asked to picture in our minds the following people: a mailman, nun, rapper, basketball player, pilot, Christian and finally a disciple of Jesus. For many people, it was easy to conjure up a picture of the first five but the last two posed a problem. Following Jesus is actually remarkably simple. Submit your entire life to Christ and he will give you a new one. It’s not difficult to know what the right thing to do is. But it is often very difficult to jump into the unknown territory that comes along with doing the right thing.
Topics: Discipleship
Greg began by reading Luke 1:8-10. In previous messages we heard about how the Old Testament teachings are often a shadow of what is to come in the New Testament. Specifically, the temple of the Old Testament foreshadows what the Christian and the Christian church should be today. The primary functions of the temple were sacrifice, prayer, and worship.
Topics: Worship
Rev. Brenda's message today was entitled: Operation Push: Pray Until Something Happens, and was based on John 5:1-19. As stated in verse 19, “the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing.” Jesus walked with his spiritual eyes open in order to see what the Father was doing. He knew he had to stop and say what he could see. That is why Jesus was accurate in prayer. He only said what he could see. He only did what he could see God was doing.
Topics: Healing,
Prayer
This week we got a glimpse at the real Woodland Hills Church! The Body of Christ is made up of all the followers of Christ, not just the church staff. A healthy body makes efficient use of all its parts. The video we saw showed much more of our actual church body than we usually get to see. Greg referred us to two main texts to support this idea that church is about the people, not the building or just the leadership.
Topics: Community,
Spiritual Gifts
This week's message on “Smelling Good to God” was drawn from Luke 1:8-10. Greg used this text as an opportunity to show how the Old Testament temple structure and worship offer insights into the language and imagery of the New Testament. A significant part of Greg's message centered on the new reality of us, both collectively and individually being the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19). Collectively, as the community of faith, we are the Body of Christ, and the temple of God. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. So, what then does this mean? Since we are all now priests of God, we also share the responsibilities of priests. If we feel that our lives are not very dynamic and exciting in terms of our Christian walk, we may want to accept this challenge! God wants all of our lives. As we yield more and more to God, we will experience the peace that comes from drawing on the true source of Life.
Topics: Community,
Presence of God,
Sacrifice,
Worship
The church needs to be positioned as an agent of God's love in the world. People decide which church to attend based on a lot of things (location, denomination, who’s preaching, etc.), but they stay in a church because there is love. What does this love look like? Efrem offered us four elements of what it means to be “the beloved community” and a force of love in the world. To illustrate the kind of life being advocated, he used a humorous but poignant comparison between Batman/Batgirl and Superman/Wonder Woman. Efrem’s challenge was to understand that we were born to live as children of God. We are intended for great things in this world and beyond.
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