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.
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.
Greg began with Luke 1:5-7. The focus was on Elizabeth and Zachariah, both of whom where obedient to “the Lord’s commands and decrees.” The next sentence in the text starts with the word “but” and indicates something unexpected and in this case disappointing for Elizabeth and Zachariah. “But they were childless…” and “…both well advanced in years” which to first century Jewish ears would have sounded like a curse. Greg used this passage to raise a few questions: What do we do when we feel that God has not honored a promise? What do we do when it looks like God has let us down? How do we deal with disappointment with God?
Topics: Blessings,
Pain & Suffering
In the last two weeks Greg spent time showing the flaws in the “conspiracy theory” and the “legendary theory.” This week he addressed another theory that secular scholars offer to answer the question: “What happened to produce the Gospel accounts?” The resurrection could have been a hallucination. Greg had five responses to counter this theory.
Topics: Defense of Christian Faith,
Resurrection
In this message, Greg explains the “Legendary Theory.” This theory maintains that though the authors of Luke weren’t consciously lying and trying to deceive people (they genuinely believed what they where saying), they were just wrong about essential things like Jesus’ being both the messiah and God! They were not trying to deceive, but they themselves were deceived, according to the Legendary Theory.
Topics: Defense of Christian Faith,
Resurrection
Greg introduced the Book of Luke by first providing some context for the Gospel. Then he launched into a big question that occurs to many who read the Bible in general: “Is this true?” In other words, is the Gospel about Jesus that Luke researched and presents true? And to get at this he broke it down as follows: either it is true or it is false. If it is false, then it can be false in one of two ways: intentionally false (Conspiracy Theory) or unintentionally false (Legendary Theory). This week’s message focused on showing how irrational the Conspiracy Theory is.
Topics: Defense of Christian Faith,
Resurrection
Kevin Johnson, our community pastor, continued his two-part series. He began with an affirmation that it is the very nature of God to speak to us and lead us. Not only in exceptional situations but as a general rule! God is not a single independent entity, but a community of three persons. Community, and therefore communication, is as the foundation of God’s reality.
Topics: God's Will,
Presence of God,
Simplicity
Kevin Johnson, our Community Pastor, introduced this week’s message with a statement: “I want to hear from God.” Every culture seems to have felt this desire. It’s a human urge to be connected with our Source, with God, with our Creator. We want to make contact with the divine somehow, and different cultures have developed many diverse ways of expressing this. Does God speak to us today?
Topics: God's Will,
Presence of God
“Why did Jesus have to die?” We all know that Jesus died “to take away the sin of the world.” But what about a more complete explanation? How can Jesus be justly punished for our sin? A common explanation has been that the Father’s wrath against our sin moves God to destroy us because a holy God cannot tolerate sin. The Son becomes a buffer and takes the punishment in our stead. While this is true, it is not the entire truth. Greg challenged this thinking by reminding us of some of the biblical descriptions of the work of Christ. Jesus reveals the love of God, not merely conceals God’s wrath.
Topics: Salvation
Jesus gives us the greatest commandment, to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We've all heard this command, but we tend to resist the basis for loving our neighbors — loving ourselves. The “small story” we often live in focuses on what we've done, what was done to us, and what we dislike about ourselves. The Big Story is the eternal perspective. It includes not only us, but what God has done, is doing, and will do through us. In Christ, we are to see our story as part of the Big Story. With God's help we can embrace this process to overcome the evil within.
Topics: Love,
Transformation
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