Russellville United Methodist Temple Sermons

We begin this new series by examining a psalm about what it means to be nourished by God. Regardless of our age, being rooted by the waters of the goodness of God provides us with abundant life to do his will and the strength to hold on when the winds of life blow.

Reorienting our hearts to worship is a lifelong and moment-to-moment undertaking. No matter how hard we try or how many safeguards we have in place, our worship will always drift whether due to our sins or our life experiences. Ultimately, even with our best intentions and most faithful work, it God who finishes the work in us. While we may be tempted to depend on many lesser things to direct our...

Authenticity is incredibly important in worship, yet it is never strong enough to carry the full burden of our affection for God on our way home to him. We can delude ourselves into thinking that our lives are God-honoring because we're being genuine about our affection for God, while completely missing the sanctification the Spirit brings us on our journey.

Some of the most lauded acts of worship are the suffering and death of people in the following of Jesus. However, sometimes we suffer as a consequence of our sins against others. We must be careful to not quickly claim that our suffering means we're being faithful. It may be quite the opposite. When we learn to discern this, we can offer all our suffering to God as an act of worship.

Worship must flow from the heart of an individual, but the truest worship of God calls us to worship in community.

Christian worship in general is intended to glorify God. However, shockingly many songs reference God less while referencing self more, and much teaching follows the same pattern. While this may be indicative of narcissism in the guise of worship, it may also simply be indicative that a relationship with God is two-sided. We have a story, and it revolves around him.

When we think of worship, we often think first of the songs of praise we sing. Since the beginning of the church, it has been debated what instruments, songs, and styles are deemed appropriate for Christian worship. However, the vision of a kingdom comprised of people of every kind suggests that our songs of worship should be just as diverse.

Tradition has been a part of worship since before Christ walked the earth. While we often think of it as performative ritual, it is actually more about shaping our lives to be more like Jesus. Today, we'll discuss what the bible says about tradition, and we'll learn how to integrate them in a way that enriches our spiritual journey beyond the Sunday morning gathering.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked elements of worship is the word of God. As much as we often value this as the basis of our faith in our time, we often struggle to actually listen to it for what it says. As a result, our worship can be redirected to our own understandings of scripture instead of the God of whom scripture attests. In order to reorient our worship to God, we must challenge ourselv...

As we previously discussed, a major element of worship is our expression of it. How followers of Jesus show their worship outwardly is a part of what draws others into worship. However, sometimes, the expression becomes intoxicating, and we can forget the one for whom we offer our expressions of worship. Our calling to follow Jesus includes expressive worship that still bows in ultimate humility b...

As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Christians of all kinds find themselves at an impasse. Rather than stoke our political tempers and rely on the rule of humankind for solutions to division and injustice, fearing the loss of religious privilege, we must offer our greatest worship to God, remembering that no matter the state of the world,...

Guest Speaker Demara Goodrich

We rightly connect worship with a sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit, whether he is felt in the mind, the heart, the soul, or otherwise. However, we can mistake our own feelings for his presence, thus learning to crave the possible feeling of God instead of truly desiring him above all things. Instead, we must learn to not be ruled by our feelings and emotions, but rather invite God to rule...

While it should bring us joy to be in the presence of the Lord, our lives often present us with baggage that causes us to wonder where God is or why he would allow our pain. Although we may tend to suppress our negative feelings about God or life because church culture often tells us to be happy no matter what, scripture gives us license to bring all of our feelings before God—positive or negative...

Worship can often become a self-serving effort that loses its meaning when we forget its purpose. Our affection for God should transform us to act justly in a world of injustice, rather than be silent or add to the injustice.

Our churches often gather around what we call a “service,” but who is the object of our service? Answering this question can be confusing, but in doing so, we can determine the greatest object of our worship.

Scripture is one of our greatest guides and has instilled worship through diverse expressions for millennia. What makes it so powerful, and how can we understand how to use it as a flame that lights our way, rather than a flame that burns us down?

Jesus described a world in which worship would not be defined by a person's location or ethnicity. Rather, worship should be a reality born from the genuineness of our hearts for who God really is. When we focus on these deepest aspects of worship, we become empowered to draw others into the same kind of worship.

The journey of our lives is guided by faith. The objects of our greatest faith define who or what we worship. What we worship, we follow, and the path we follow determines our destination. In this introduction to a new teaching series, we'll begin to explore what it means to be guided by a world whose affections are for itself, and to be guided by the God whose affections for us run deeper tha...

The greatest freedom comes in knowing that nothing in this world binds us, not even life itself. We are not slaves to this life, this world or the corruption within it. This frees us to lay down our lives, knowing the life we live in the Spirit is pure, unending, and cannot be taken away.

One of the greatest obstacles to living free in Christ is our pride. While we should never affirm the wrong people do to us or others, we often fall into the trap of unforgiveness. Rather than give into the force of our pride, how can we choose humility and forgiveness in light of the cross of Christ?

One of our greatest privileges in our time and place in the world is the freedom to say basically anything we want. However, scripture teaches us that the misuse of this privilege can cause incredible harm. How can we discern where the line is drawn between speech that harms and speech that blesses, and how can we learn to control our speech for the good of others and the glory of God?

Guest Speaker (For Freedom) | April 19, 2026

Jesus had a destiny to save humankind through his death and resurrection, a destiny he freely accepted. As his followers, we often struggle with the concept of destiny because it causes tension with our desire to live in freedom, a calling scripture clearly gives us. How can we learn to live in this dual reality wherein two seemingly contrary things can be true at once?

Freedom in Christ is ultimately centered on the resurrection of Christ. His gift to us is not only that we experience eternal life after death but that we live fully empowered over sin, death, pain, and judgment as long as we live.