Billings Vineyard Church Sunday Sermons

When looking at how the true meaning of grace and we are to receive and show grace as Christians. If we are to truly take the teachings of Jesus to heart, grace should lead to a heart of living God's will. A major factor in living God's will is a call to ministry and being a single body working together. Being called out BY Jesus and FOR Jesus TOGETHER.

When we think about grace, on the surface one tends to think about forgiveness. But when you look at how Jesus showed grace, it goes beyond just forgiving someone. The growth you personally receive when you are able to show grace as Jesus did, you learn that it grows more than just peace, it grows generosity of the heart and spirit.

While Philemon reads the letter from Paul that was delivered by Onesimus, Philemon is convicted to understand the love of Jesus by showing the same love and mercy to Onesimus. Learning that the denial of one's thoughts on justice is less important than the love and mercy we have been shown by Christ and our call to do the same to others.

In Paul's letter to Philemon from prison, we are introduced to a complex relationship between Philemon and Onesimus and the humility that must take place for both men to be in good standing with each other. Paul points out that grace is free through faith, but that obedience to love is needed when a relationship breaks down.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right relationship with God and others. Easier said than done! As we jump into a few weeks in this letter Paul wrote to a man named Philemon, we will explore the sacrifice and self-knowledge it takes to have righteous relationships built on love.

Everything Paul writes to the Galatians is through the promise that God is good, and God loves you (and everyone you come in contact with). In his final words of this letter, Paul drives this point home, and encourages the Galatian church to sacrifice their own will for the will of God.

Paul writes letters to encourage churches love well, and he is passionate about it. How does the church love well? By paying attention to what we are growing in the garden of our soul, and helping our Christian family do the same.

The church in Galatia was preoccupied with activities that would prove of one being knowledgeable about God, but Paul points out that the actual goal is being known by God. This reciprocal relationship is the key to freedom.

We explore Jesus as the rock that crashes into the bad theology of legalism. We discuss the journey that God has us on, from self-serving childishness to innocent childlikeness, and we recognize that God is always at work in our lives, even when we don't see it.

What is faith? How do we get it? What happens after we get it? As we continue to explore Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia, we dig into faith, a term easy to say but hard to define.