Disciples Church Sermons

The Good Shepherd has Good News for us. Does he know your name? Are you following him?.

This Sunday we will look at why we can be confident that we can remain faithful to the end.

Our spiritual growth is important to God. In his second letter to the churches, the Apostle Peter encourages Christians to grow in their faith, and provides practical instructions.

We see this very much in the life of Noah (and his family) after the flood. God counted Noah righteous because of his faith, but he was still capable of making poor decisions and allowing his sinful nature to control his heart.

And there would be a sign. Something they hadn't seen before. A rainbow. God would put a sign in the sky to remind everyone that He would never again send a world-wide flood to destroy everything.

Noah's response? Praise, worship and sacrifice. All entirely appropriate for someone who has experienced redemption.

The world was so evil, and God was so heart-broken, that He decided to start again. But not completely from scratch. He preserved a remnant. When all humanity turned against Him, God rescued a few. He kept His promise.

Once again, God shocks us with his willingness to work through an imperfect person to bring about His perfect plan. Sometimes, faith is messy. If it is real though, it can bring about incredible transformation.

Like Joshua, we need to have faith that God will bring about victory in our lives. It is unlikely that it will involve taking over a city but it will mean fighting to conquer the sin that remains..

As we go back to our Faith Lived Out series for the next three weeks, the first passage we will look at is just this kind of situation. Almost everyone in the whole nation of Israel is complaining about the Lord and doubting His power to bring them into the Promised Land safely. But a few remain faithful and we can learn much from their example.

And yet He remained faithful to His promise of redemption, and purposed to save one man and his family.

Still, God is faithful, and He gave grace to one man, who would be the means of a fresh start.

This is the result of God's plan to redeem a people for Himself. It has been His plan from the beginning, and He has ensured it's implementation, even amidst a fallen, broken world, and people who have rejected Him.

Adam and Eve had another son, to replace Abel. Like his brother, Seth was a worshipper of the one true God, and so were his descendants.

In a world gone very wrong, God's plan to redeem a people for Himself is now to be unfolded. And it involves God being incredibly gracious.

As we bring this series to a close, we will be encouraged once again to let the Gospel influence every part of our thinking, planning, trusting and doing.

Not only will God graciously resurrect all believers to eternal life, but we also get new bodies!

But because Jesus DID rise from the dead, God's plan to redeem people is real and true. It is living proof that Jesus really is the Messiah - the One we can put our trust in for salvation.

This concluding section of the chapters on spiritual gifts (especially tongues) once again contains some points that are quite controversial, both within the church and within culture generally. So we hope you can join us as we let God's Word speak to us about how we are to roll as we gather together.

This Sunday we will conclude Paul's instructions to the Corinthians on these issues, with a call to not be childish about spiritual gifts, but to be wise and mature to use what God has given for the purposes for which they were intended.

His answer reinforces the argument he's been making for the last two chapters: spiritual maturity is not evidenced by whether you can speak in tongues - instead, it's whether you are prepared to put the interests of others ahead of your own.

And just so we are clear what he means by this, chapter 13 contains a long definition of what love looks like. We often hear it at wedding ceremonies, but the original application was much wider than just husbands and wives! This is how God's people should relate to each other, and the Gospel empowers us to do it.

Spoiler alert - it's not to prove we are better or more spiritually mature than another believer!

Taking verses out of context or divorcing them from everything Paul has to say on this topic can lead to some unhelpful practices that neither encourage believers nor glorify God.

But as a result, we providentially get some helpful instructions on how we should do the sacrament of Communion, together. With emphasis on together. We are not saved into isolation. We are saved into the Body of Christ, the Church, the family of God. And we need to reflect this when we celebrate the Lord's Supper together.