College Wesleyan Church Sermons

Ethan Linder - Haggai 1:2-9; 2:2-9; 1 Peter 2:1-5. Haggai is an often-overlooked prophet – his book has only 2 chapters, and his main focus is restarting a building project God’s people have long left dormant. Our time and place may demand a different “building project” than Haggai’s, but his central questions hold up: why is there so often a gap between God’s priorities and ours? And how do we fa...

Logan Hoffman - Ezekiel 37:1-14. In Ezekiel 37, we see depicted in a vision a moment that many of us have or will experience. A moment where it seems God has abandoned us, where God’s favor has failed us, and so we are without hope. In that moment we are the dry bones, far removed from the life we once had and well beyond the hope of rescue. It is in this moment that God chooses to show up through...

Andrea Summers - Amos 9:11-15; Acts 15:1-19. God is raising up a remnant outside the church that is marked by the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Our urgency in prayer is a hopeful one as we envision and make room for a great ingathering of more people into the tent that Amos and James pointed us to.

Andrew Morrell - Isaiah 61

Steve DeNeff - Deuteronomy 28:1-2,15. Throughout Israel’s history, God has used the prophet to protect the nation’s identity and to guide her moral and ethical practices. Strange as it may seem to some, the same people are called for today, in our society, because we’re confronted with the same moral and ethical challenges. But who are these prophets? And what is their message? What is the core of...

Steve DeNeff - Deuteronomy 28:1-2,15. Throughout Israel’s history, God has used the prophet to protect the nation’s identity and to guide her moral and ethical practices. Strange as it may seem to some, the same people are called for today, in our society, because we’re confronted with the same moral and ethical challenges. But who are these prophets? And what is their message? What is the core of...

Jesus promised his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit following his departure from them. And while the gift was delivered, our understanding (or misunderstandings) of this gift of God may impact our reception of the gift and the Spirit's impact in our lives.

Steve DeNeff - John 20:26-28; Revelation 5:6a, 7-14. The Ascension gets little attention in today’s Church but to the early Christians it was the climax of the gospel. In the Ascension, Jesus is not only savior but King. What does that mean for the way we work, and witness, and worship?

Steve DeNeff - Matthew 28:11 -15; 1 Corinthians 15:12 -23. There is no place where the resurrection of Jesus is more gospel than in the death of someone we love, or in our own death. Yet there is confusion over what, exactly, the resurrection means for those who have died. Many even Christians are victims of the wrong story. So what is the right one? What are the implications of Jesus’ resurrectio...

Ethan Linder - Colossians 1:15-23, 3:1-14. We talk often about the resurrection as a central event in Christian history, and it is. But what bearings does the resurrection have–not only on what we usually conceive of as our “spiritual life,” but our ordinary habits, dreams, relationships, and losses? If the resurrection isn’t Good News for that, we need another gospel… but if it is, our lives have...

Steve DeNeff - John 20:19-23; Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13. The Church is the core element of God’s plan to redeem the world. She must rediscover her calling or risk becoming non-essential to society. At the center of that calling is what we, her members, strive for and become.

Steve DeNeff - Matthew 28:16 -20; Ephesians 1:3-14. Some of Jesus closest friends are those who doubt even as they worship. How does Christ, risen among us, show himself again through the Body to those who doubt? How do we overcome our doubts with something more powerful than proof?

Steve DeNeff - John 19:40-20:1; 2 Corinthians 5:14-6:2. People of the resurrection (or Easter People) are people of the first day. But what does that mean? And how are their lives better - noticeably different - because of it?

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 3:7-8a; 6:6-8; 1 Peter 1:3-9. The First Easter is the Last Exodus. Let the march begin!

Emily Vermilya - Exodus 13:17~14:14. In the establishment and execution of his covenant with Israel, God was anything but efficient, at least by human calculations. What if our fixation with getting through the desert to the Promised Land comes at the expense of knowing God in deeper and more significant ways. What if in our relationship with God, the journey through the wilderness is just as sign...

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 16:1-3, 6-12; Mark 8:11 -21. The social and political climate of our day gives us plenty of reason to despair, to expect the worst, to be overly critical, to find a culprit and blame them. There is a pathology to despair that follows us long after we’ve left Egypt. The good news of the exodus is that we can be delivered from this. But deliverance involves choosing what to bel...

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 31:12-13, 16-18; Matthew 11:28-30. On the seventh day, the Lord rested but He never told you to… until the Exodus… so there’s more to the Sabbath than a day off .. a lot more.

Dave Drury - Exodus 3:10 - 4:17 . We all experience those moments of regret, embarrassment, and self-doubt. Even the most brash among us, when they are alone and honest with themselves, can admit they don't feel they measure up. The call of Moses in Exodus 3-4 is a key moment defining what grace means in scripture. Moses felt inadequate in many of the ways we feel inadequate, he felt inadequate co...

Ethan Linder - Matthew 4:1-11, Exodus 35:4-29. What does it mean to walk in the way of Jesus when you’ve been raised in the values of the Empire? This is a tension every person living the Spirit-filled life experiences; but it can easily go undetected. The danger for many Christians isn’t sudden wickedness–it’s a subtle drift toward allowing our vision of “normal” life to be built around prioritie...

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 17:1-7; Matthew 6:25-33. Throughout the exodus  story, God is “testing” the people (15:25), and the people are “testing”  God (17:2, 7). But what does that mean? How are we tested today?

Amanda Drury - Matthew 17:1-13. What does it look like to "come down the mountain" after experiencing the presence of God? What do we do with encounters with God that we can't quite wrap our minds around? What do we do when those encounters dry up? How can we faithfully live as followers of Jesus Christ regardless of whether we are on top of the mountain or on the ground below?

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 19:1-6; 20:1-21; Matthew 5:17-20. Once ought of  Egypt, the people of God struggle with the “ghosts of Pharaoh,” the  remnants of their past life that weigh them down. True freedom comes in  the form of obedience.

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 13:17-18; 14:5-8, 10-14; John 8:31-36. What does  it really mean to “believe” when everything is on the line?

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 6:1, 6-9; Luke 4:14-21. For all who are in bondage, God promises deliverance, but that usually involves more than we think.

Steve DeNeff - Exodus 3:1-8a, 10; Mark 1:14-20. The work of Jesus is to  form a New Community devoted to another way of life and through that  community to offer an exodus (a way out) from the anxiety and  exploitation of bondage.