Genesis Church - Sermons

Do you have an early memory of watching the original cartoon version of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Based on the Dr. Suess book, and now having two full-length movies, this character is … “A mean one.” In the two movie versions, the Grinch is mean because he was a lonely, bullied orphan who felt ostracized by the Whos of Whoville, leading to emotional pain, anger, and bit...

Christmas movies are such a big part of the holiday season. Over the years there have been some great ones. While having different story- lines, the movies people love during December have a common theme. The main character expresses a deep longing of the human heart in the hopes that the wonder of Christmas just might be the answer. Of course, there are blown up Christmas trees, bandits, a cl...

We’ve spent the last couple months looking at a 1,700 year old creed, thinking about the core truths believed by Christians everywhere. But one might ask, what do these things mean for me? Among other things, our belief in Jesus comes with the promise of our own empty grave and resurrected body. The Christian belief in the final resurrection has always been a doctrine that separates Christia...

“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Wait, we believe in the Catholic Church? I thought we were Protestant! The Nicene Creed echoes the language of almost every creed in church history using this wording to confess belief in the doctrine of the church. If we interpret the word “catholic” as speaking of an institution, we do have a problem. But the church...

As we’ve seen so far in our current series, 4th century theologians,worked very intentionally to ensure the Nicene Creed had a very clear, Biblical understanding of the person of Jesus Christ. But what do Christians believe about The Holy Spirit? Is The Holy Spirit a force or a person? Is The Holy Spirit God or a created being or some sort of entity? And what exactly does The Holy Spirit do?...

In our study of the Nicene Creed, we come to the line “Whose,Kingdom Shall Have No End.” Why is this line included? We’ve learned about Jesus’ divinity,,His humanity, and His place in the Trinity, but if we mess up any,of those, we will have a Jesus who either isn’t truly king at all, or,He has a kingdom that will one day pass away. Today in our study, we will see tha...

Who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven. If you have been with us the last few weeks in our exploration of the Nicene Creed, you might be asking, “Does all of this really matter?” We have discussed some pretty deep theological ideas. Seems like a lot to think about. Doesn’t doctrine like this divide? We might think that unity is more important than doctrinal clarit...

Sometimes the smallest things make earth-changing differences. At the Council of Nicaea 1700 years ago, the exclusion of a single “i” defined all Christian doctrine. There was much debate about whether Jesus was homoousios or homoiousios with God the Father. Sounds like a fun debate, right? Ousios is Greek for “substance or being.” Homo means “the same,” whi...

The central and glorious mystery that defines the Christian faith and separates it from all other paths is the miracle of the incarnation. God stepped into human flesh, became one of us. The One who was eternally begotten as the Son of God was born in human history, taking the likeness of men. This means that at one point God indwelt a zygote, was born a human baby, went through adolescence, and l...

When Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”, He was asking the single most important question that can be asked of every human. In 325 AD, that question became front and center for the early church. The core dispute at Nicaea involved the nature of Jesus Christ. If there is only one God, how could both the Father and Jesus the Son be truly divine? The group following th...

They are questions all of us ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How does all of this exist? How we answer these questions will deeply shape the way people live their lives. The Nicene Creed goes directly to the point with the declaration, “We believe in one God… maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” The reality that God is the maker of heaven and earth decla...

John Calvin taught that there are two essential aspects to all true knowledge: knowledge of God and knowledge of self. These two beliefs are deeply interconnected. To rightly know God is to rightly understand ourselves and the world around us. Belief in the idea of God is virtually universal; most people around the world believe in some concept of the divine. However, the Nicene Creed points way b...

The Council of Nicaea was a gathering of church leaders in 325 AD to address a theological controversy in the early church. They searched the Scriptures carefully to understand the central truths concerning the nature of Jesus as truly God and truly man. The outcome of this incredibly important gathering is the 1700 year old creed still used in churches to this day that defined the essentials for...

Farming during the harvest is hard work. It is so much easier for farmers to sit at McDonald’s with a group to drink coffee and tell farming stories. But, any farmer knows the season of harvest is the whole purpose and goal for farming. Therefore, they watch the field, and when the crops are brown and the grain is ripe, farmers get to the fields. Followers of Jesus are a type of farmer. The...

Combines are the tractors that farmers use to gather the harvest. They are extraordinary tools used to cut the crops, sift the grain from the stubble, and fill hoppers with grain for storage. Before the harvest begins, farmers work hard to make sure these majestic machines are ready for the task and then head to the fields. Jesus gathered His small group, the 12 disciples, and He intentionally inv...

One of the most amazing aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry is how He saw crowds. We tend to see masses of people, lumping them into categories, and gazing over the tops of their heads. But whenever Jesus saw crowds, He looked into the soul of each person. They were precious to Him, image bearers, His special creation. His mission was gloriously simple, to proclaim the Kingdom and change the...

We reach the end of our Top 10 Series by looking at the end— the final day, the Day of the Lord. Our question for the final sermon is, What does the Bible teach about the end of the world? Honestly, it didn’t take long for the first generation of believers to start wondering about this. They knew the Old Testament and Jesus both predicted an end to the world: a final judgment and the n...

Our Top 10 Question this week is a good one: Who are the women of the bible and why are they so important for us to know? We won’t rehash the recent sermon about gender roles and differences; yet, the truth is that often religion has failed to recognize the importance of women in the Biblical story, and the beauty of their inclusion in God’s mission and purposes. In some ways, the incl...

Another great question for our Top 10 series this week: How did we get the Bible and how do we know we can trust the canon we have? The Bible is by far the most translated and read book of all time, but more than this, Christians have consistently believed that the 66 books of the Bible collectively are the very Word of God. They are not just human books about God; rather, God spoke through the pe...

This morning’s message is from the 21st chapter of the book of Revelation as we seek answers to the question, “What is Heaven?” The apostle John was visited by an angelic messenger and given a vision of the future. The future that he sees is a future shared with all who call on the name of the Lord for salvation. These 8 verses give us a glimpse into what awaits us once the fulln...

Nothing like jumping into a hot one, but that’s our topic this week: What does the Bible Teach About Gender Roles? We live in a culture that is deeply divided and greatly confused, not just about gender roles, but even the existence of gender. As we look into the grand story of the Bible, the Scriptures paint a beautiful picture that affirms the full and beautiful equality of every human bei...

David Meyer is bringing the message today on the question, “How can we talk to people about Jesus when they have no faith background yet struggle with objections?” We are honored to have David and Brenda with us today from Ecuador! This week, we will be looking at the way the Apostle Paul approached this question with the people of the city of Thessalonica. The people of Thessalonica w...

Welcome and happy Independence Day weekend! We hope you have enjoyed the holiday weekend. As we give thanks for our country, we have an interesting question today from our Top 10 Series: How should we approach US politics and the role of Evangelical Christians? There are two things we shouldn’t discuss in polite society, religion and politics, and this morning we are going to discuss both. O...

Have you ever wondered about what happened after the resurrection of Jesus? Where did He go? What did He do? Today’s topic from our question-based summer sermon series focuses on the question: “What happened in the 40 days between Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension?” While we can certainly dig into the physical actions reported in the Bible that Jesus took during those 4...

If you’ve been around Genesis any length of time, you should have picked up by now, that we love the Bible—God’s Word. It is how God has chosen to make Himself known to us and how we know what He expects from His followers. One of the consistent drum beats heard here is that you need to be reading and studying the Bible on your own and not just listening to us on Sunday mornings....