Grace Church Waco Sermons

Luke 4:1-14 // In the wilderness, Jesus succeeds where everyone else has failed. Jesus overcomes the diabolic temptations of the devil by the power of the Spirit and by the word of God, but he is more than an example for us to follow, he is the Son of God and Savior of the world.

Luke 3 // It's the everyday prerogative for a Christian to have a heart ready and open for Christ. A ready heart is a repentant heart, a baptized heart, and a beloved heart.

Luke 2:22-52 // Jesus prepares himself in the house of God so that he might become the home of God, his very temple, and we might find our eternal home with God in him.

Luke 2:1-21 // Reentering a familiar story, we find a political drama with four characters, three announcements, two realties, and one gospel truth.

Luke 1:56-80 // God uses silence to help us notice and proclaim his redemptive power. We need to learn to listen by tuning into the Spirit and focusing on Jesus.

Luke 1:26-55 // In this story Luke demonstrates Mary's faithful response to God as one who has apprehended both what God can do, and what God is going to do. As we grow as disciples we should follow Mary's example in believing God and surrendering to him as his servant, and magnifying God and rejoicing in his faithfulness and salvation.

Luke 1:5-25 // We are naturally prone to mistrust the timing of God and given to impatience with his promises. But in God's impeccable timing, he always answers our prayers and silences our doubt, precisely when he means to. 

Luke 1:1-4 // The gospel of Luke is written for the sake of our certainty. We all bring in skepticism to Jesus: we feel too much like outsiders, questioners, insiders, or sinners for his gospel to be for us. The promise of the gospel of Luke is that in reading and seeking Jesus, we will find him - a personal living relationship with the living God - the answer to our insecurities and doubts.

Matthew 9:35-38; Acts 13:1-3 // The church exists to make disciples and send them out into the kingdom-building work of God.

Romans 15:7 // In the gospel, Jesus' welcome for us is glad and unending, and so should our welcome be for others.

Psalm 134 // We were created to tell the truth about God, to bless God by honoring and praising him for his perfect blessedness. The Gospel of Jesus answers all of our objections to this great purpose, and brings us into the Great blessings of God for us.

Psalm 133 // In Psalm 133 we learn that the unity of God's people comes down from God as a gift of his grace. Unity is the resting pulse of the Church as each of us has been joined to Christ as sons and daughters, and to one another as brothers and sisters, by faith. The unity of the church is not the accomplishment of the church, but a revelation of God's anointing and life giving grace.

Psalm 132 // On our journey to God, how do we know our zeal to come and worship God will not be met with disappointments or rejection? Because we stand on the work and promises of Jesus, the son of David.

Psalm 130 // When you cry out to God from the depths of your sin, there is no end to the depths of his forgiveness.

Psalm 131 // The psalm is short enough to put on a coffee mug or commit to memory. But if we are really going to put it to practice, we need to understand two actions: embracing limitation as a gift from God, and unburdening our cares before God.

Psalm 129 // A key marker of our identity as pilgrim followers of Jesus is our association with Jesus in persecution and opposition. When we understand God's righteousness and mercy towards us, we see that persecution is not the worst the worst thing. The worst thing that could happen to us is being cursed by God, and it already happened to Jesus so that we could be blessed.

Psalm 127 & 128 // Satisfying and lasting work is not linear—working towards an end goal where we cease working—but cyclical, cultivating and enjoying the fruit of our labor. None of it can be done without God's help, which means the blessing of work only comes through throwing aside the chains of self-importance and depending on God for our value in work. In the gospel, we know our work is not in...

Psalm 126 // When we face trials and difficulties, often the first thing to go is our confidence in God. But Psalm 126 directs us to trust in the faithfulness of God despite our circumstances. With his help, God leads us to recall his faithfulness, count on his faithfulness, and take part in his faithfulness.

Psalm 124 and 125

Psalm 122 // In Psalm 122 David shows us that a sense of arrival on the journey to God is marked by anticipation and zeal for the worship of the Lord… “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” We see from the Psalm that our journey is one that is shared - so even though it is deeply personal it’s not privatized. We see that the Lord has set a place for worship that is characterized by the unity presen...

Psalm 121, 123 // On our pilgrim journey to God we all need help. We are regularly beset by weaknesses, obstacles, temptations, frustrations, and more. Where we turn for help in our time of need and where we fix our eyes in the days of our journeying shows us who we are and who we trust. In Psalm 121 & 123 the psalmist shows us through songs of honest lament and honest confidence that we look to t...

Psalm 120:1-7 // The first psalm of ascent is challenging to our ears and hearts because we would likely not sing it very often. God gives us songs of lament like Psalm 120 to make sense of the deceptive and violent world around us so that, in our distress, we might cry out to him for deliverance; lamenting the realities of sin sets our longing hopes on the coming reign of Jesus. Until his return,...

Galatians 5:16-26 // We all want to live a fruitful life. As Christians, we particularly want our lives to be full of, and to show, the fruit of the Spirit. But how do we get the fruit of the Spirit? Paul answers this question in Galatians 5:16-26 by showing us first how not to produce Spiritual fruit: not by legalism, attempting to earn the grace of God, nor by license, distorting freedom as a me...

1 Corinthians 12:1-13 // Paul tells the Corinthian church that he doesn't want them to be uniformed about the Spiritual gifts. Neither should we be uniformed. The gifts of the Spirit are 1) a variety of service-oriented spiritual empowerments or skillful manifestations of God’s presence; 2) given to every believer who professes Christ as Lord; 3) from the sovereign will of the unified, Triune God;...

Romans 8 // The Holy Spirit applies the full assurance of the gospel to the whole life of the believer - from no condemnation, to no separation.