Edgefield Church Nashville – Sermons

How can a local church stay faithful over the long haul? By pursuing what God is doing through his gospel.

In Psalm 72 we see God?s promise of a coming King who will once and for all fulfill the hopes of God?s people. By studying the promises made so long ago, we find hope and rest in Jesus, who is the King God promised to send.

How can we bring the light of Christmas into the darkness of our lives? Psalm 43, read on this side of the coming of Christ, shows us two simple steps. Talk with God about the darkness. And talk to your soul about Jesus.

David?s song of praise for God?s deliverance points us to the great reversal we all need. We need someone who can rewrite our stories of darkness, mourning, and death into stories of morning, gladness, and life.

James finishes his letter by calling us to do for each other what he had done for his friends through his letter. He calls on every one of us to pursue everyone with the truth, because everything is on the line. We?re all responsible for helping each other bridge the gap between what is true about God and what is going on in our lives.

Throughout his letter James has been showing us what it looks like to live as if we truly believe that God is and that he is for us in Jesus. It makes sense, then, that he would close his letter with a call to prayer. Prayer demonstrates the fear of the Lord that is the source of all wisdom.

How does the return of Jesus help us endure the hard things of life with patience? James offers us three examples.

With powerful, unmistakeable images James warns us that wealth can lead to our destruction. But how can we recognize when wealth becomes deadly? James gives us two examples. We're in danger when our wealth depends upon hoarding, and when our self-indulgence depends on exploitation.

What is the wise way to think about the future? James warns us against any planning that assumes the future belongs to us. Instead, wisdom means trusting the one who gave his own Son for us.

Given our tendency to measure success by results we can see and control, how can we embrace our calling as Christians with freedom and joy?

James says you?re either God?s friend or God?s enemy. So what is friendship with God? Who are God?s friends? And how can I pursue friendship with God?

James is a down-to-earth letter, so it?s no surprise that he takes up a problem that?s common to all of us: conflict with other people. But what James has to say about our people problems is surprising all the way through.

James claims that the wisdom of the wise shows up in meekness or humility. Why? Because the wise know wisdom comes as a gift, not an accomplishment. The wise know wisdom is for serving others, not proving themselves. And the wise know wisdom is for making peace, not winning battles.

James says your tongue or your speech is to your life what a bit is to a horse or a rudder to a ship. Given this incredible power, what can we do to use our words wisely?

Throughout his letter, and especially in this text, James makes one main point: faith apart from works is dead. But what does James mean? And how should we respond?

The purpose of our local church?and every local church?is to glorify God by our life together. In other words, God gets glory when our way of life together doesn?t make sense and wouldn?t be possible apart from his power.

Genuine faith in Jesus leaves no place for partiality in Christian community. Bottom line: if you want to be with Jesus, you lose the right to be picky about who you?re willing to love.

James wants to show us that genuine faith always makes a difference in how we live our lives. In other words, faith always works. In this passage he shows us why faith works, how faith works, and where faith works.

James opens his letter full of commands with perhaps the most surprising command of all. He insists we?re to see the trials we face in life as cause for joy. It is through trial that we grow in maturity, through trial that we?re protected from a faith that?s not genuine. So sort of trial should we expect? And where can we get what we need to persevere?

To make the most of the letter of James, like any other biblical text, we need to know what it?s meant for and how we should use it.

Ecclesiastes is a book about meaninglessness and death, but it?s also a book about joy. Many times through the book, the author follows up sections on the depressing emptiness of life under the sun by telling us to enjoy ourselves as long as we live. How can we live with joy in a world so full of vanity?

In two places Ecclesiastes laments the power of injustice, and in both places the author ties injustice to the problem of death. If death is our end, why do human lives deserve to be protected equally? And if the just and the unjust both end up dying, why worry with justice at all? Our only hope for the justice we crave is a God who sees all things and will judge us?all of us?after death.

When we look to wealth to make us happy or to make us secure, we?re only striving after wind. But when we trust the providence of God we can fully enjoy his gifts, and when we trust the promises of God we can hold his gifts loosely.

Can lots of pleasure make a short life meaningful? That?s the question the author of Ecclesiastes set out to answer with the lavish lifestyle he describes in this passage, a lifestyle where did anything and everything he wanted to do. His experiment reached an awful conclusion, but his wisdom paves the way for a joyful alternative.

Ecclesiastes catalogs the meaningless of life ?under the sun? ?the world as it is if there is nothing and no one that lasts forever. The author takes up his first example with a question: what good is all of our work? The answer? It all depends on our perspective. Under the sun, our work is a dead end. But in the Lord, our work is an opportunity.