Cities Church Sermons

The resurrection means that what the Father has said about Jesus, and what Jesus has claimed for himself, is confirmed. Jesus is the eternal Son of God, fully God and fully man. He is the promised Messiah that the Hebrew Scriptures talk about. He is the King who has come. He is the Lord of all. He is the Savior of all the ends of the earth.

One way to describe the difference between demonic faith and real faith is that demonic faith believes that something is true, whereas genuine faith experiences the beauty and goodness of the truth. It’s like the difference between knowing that honey is sweet because you read it in a book, and knowing the sweetness of honey because you’ve actually tasted it.

The first thing to say is that your motives will be mixed. Those of us who have been brought forth by the word of truth still wrestle with sin and selfishness. That’s why we have to put aside filthiness and wickedness and continue to humbly receive the implanted word that saves our souls. There’s a fight in your soul between the firstfruits of God’s new world, and the remnants of the old world. So...

God’s plan in the new creation overall is the remake the whole world in righteousness and peace filled with his presence — that’s what heaven is. And God has made us, made Christians, to be the firstfruits of that on this earth right now.

One of our hopes as a church is to bring together two things which seem, in actual practice, to constantly repel one another. Bringing them together, holding them together is difficult, and many churches have fallen into one ditch or the other. The two things are practical help in living the Christian life and theological depth in understanding the character and works of God.

The great test of any world religion, any philosophy of life, any system of beliefs, and any individual person is pain and suffering. When we suffer, we find out what’s really inside, who we truly are, and how powerful, or weak, is the foundation on which we’re building our lives.

Community may not be the hottest topic, but it is controversial. It’s a big issue in our culture and the church. Our culture struggles with community. We have never been more connected in the history of the world, yet somehow, disconnected.

Think of it this way. You will cling to something forever. There will be something that you will seek to satisfy the ache and longing of your soul with forever. It will either be God, or it will be yourself. You will either come out of yourself into the clear sky of God’s glory and gladness and find your heart filled to overflowing, or you will curve inward on yourself, trying to satisfy your soul...

Now this is not the first time in the Bible where see we something like this. In fact, God’s presence with his people is a central theme throughout all of Scripture. It’s actually at the heart of who God reveals himself to be. He is the God who is there, and he promises to be with his people.

That’s where we are going to be today, 1 Corinthians 6:1–11. And the plan is pretty simple. There are just three main parts to the sermon: First, we’ll read this text and establish the biblical, Christian position on homosexuality; and then second and third, we’re going to look at two implications that this position has for our gospel witness in the Twin Cities. So, overall, there are really two q...

While our liturgy is not based solely off of Isaiah 6:1-8, this passage is one of the clearest, most succinct summaries of what the whole Bible teaches about the nature and order of worship. From Genesis to Revelation, Christian worship is always characterized by God’s self-revelation and man’s response to what God has revealed. In this way, Christian worship is an on-going conversation between Go...

Being defined by the grace of God frees us to do the hard work of forgiving. “I worked harder than any of them, because forgiveness is hard, yet it was not I but the grace of God that was with me.” It frees us to forgive, and to keep on forgiving.

So the course we’ve set this morning is to rehearse who Jesus is as fully God and fully man by looking at this remarkable Christological sentence in Hebrews 1:1–4. It is one sentence. Some have called it the most magnificent sentence in ancient Greek. I’ll read it again, and then I’d like for us to look briefly at the seven claims it makes about Jesus — sevenfold affirmations — and get to know him...

Think about your last few days. What did you use the good gift of technology for? What did you do with your phone or laptop? What did you watch on Netflix? What was the state of your heart during your daily or weekly scroll-fest on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter? How often did you use technology to sin against God and against your friends or family? How often did you use it to worship God and lov...

See, the Songs of Ascents give us a glorious vision of the new Jerusalem — end-of-time reality when God will be with his people and his Messiah will reign, but, it’s still a vision. It’s not reality now. Reality now is still in Meshech. For now we still live in Kedar. We’re looking to this new Jerusalem; we’re living our lives with our eyes set there, but we’re not there yet. And we should remembe...

God is going to do what the psalmist is asking. He is going to make Jerusalem become that vision the psalmist longs for. Jerusalem will be the place where God’s presence dwells. It will be the place where God’s people will be with him, surrounded by the worship of him.

David is saying here, within the Songs of Ascents: God will send the promised son. God will make a restored, new Jerusalem. I can calm and quiet my soul by remembering that God will do what he has said.

Solomon turns away from the vanity of self-salvation and he looks to children, namely, he looks to the promised offspring who will come after him to reign as king forever. And God loves to do it this way, you know. It would be like God to put the hope of the world in the hands of a baby...

These psalms are called the Songs of Ascents — that’s “Ascent” as in “to ascend.” And they’re called that because they’re connected to God’s people ascending up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was higher in elevation than the places around it. So to go to Jerusalem means that literally you are ascending. You’re going up.

God does not leave us to ourselves to work our way out of the mess of our own making. He doesn’t leave us to rescue ourselves, to help our own selves into qualifying for restoration, but he saves us utterly through faith — through relinquishing our own attempts to work our way to him, and acknowledging that we ultimately are powerless, and ready to receive his help.

Babel gives us another lens through which to view idolatry. We often talk about idolatry as what we place our hope in, or where we find our greatest and deepest satisfaction. Idolatry is seeking the satisfaction that we ought to find in God in created things. And that’s true. But Babel also poses other questions about how to discern idols.

He’s going to rule over all the nations on the earth, and all the nations on the earth are going to be blessed by his rule. It’s going to be a good rule. He’s going to be a good king. But how’s this work?

Noah does what God says because Noah trusts God, and this actually says more about God than it does Noah. We tend to admire Noah for his faith, and that’s legit. Hebrews 11 commends him for it. But something else to consider in this passage is not that Noah trusts God, but it’s that God is found so trustworthy.

What Genesis has been doing in chapters 4 and 5 — going back to the curse of the serpent in Genesis 3:15 — is setting up a tale of two cities: the city of man and the city of God. This is, in a sense, the great story of all of history: the story of two “offsprings.” Remember what God said to the serpent in Genesis 3:15.

So before we get into Chapters 4–5, let me just state again the main message in Genesis 3:15 we need to see and settle on. It’s that: God will ensure that the dragon-slayer, head-stomper, serpent crusher will come, but he will come with a war waged against him.