House Church Sermons

In this lesson we explore the phrase: "his commands are not burdensome". We break this down into two parts. First we explore what "his commands" are. Second we will see what they are not designed to be a burden but designed to lift us up, help us live as we are meant to live and be joyful.

Faith-living is Obedient living. Faith-living is other-world focused. When we live by faith sometimes life goes well with us and sometimes it does not. Hebrews 11 shows us that and then the book of James helps us learn how to put this type of faith into action.

1 John 5:1-5 describes what a person "born of God" looks like. They are people of faith, displaying their faith in acts of love and obedience.

1 John 4:19 states the kind of character we are to have.1 John 4:20 states how NOT to love God1 John 4:21 states the command we are to follow

An examination of faith from Hebrews 11

I continue part two of "No Fear" by expanding on thoughts from Johann Albrecht Bengel a German theologian and writer who lived between 1687-1752. He described people living in one of four states. Without fear and love; with fear without love; with fear and love; without fear with love.

"We are like Jesus" the latter half of 1 John 4:17 says. We will see how we are like Jesus and therefore how we can live without fear. If understood properly we will see that this message is totally God-centered and we can live confident lives, without fear and in perfect love.

So many Christians struggle with standing confidently before God. I think the reason is that they look at themselves, their failings, sins and struggles instead of looking confidently to his love and sacrifice that completely cleanses us and places us in a right relationship with him.

We define faith in this lesson by looking at how non-Biblical thinkers define faith and then how the Bible defines it. The Bible talks of "the faith" meaning the historical record that lays out the perameters of what we are to believe. Then our application to "the faith" is "our faith," how we live out our lives the way God directs us.

Part of examining "God is love" is looking back to 1 John 3:11ff and seeing John's circular style of writing. He has already introduced love and now he brings it into a greater explanation. One helpful way to understand what love is, is to look at its opposite. I introduce several ideas based in previous scriptures in 1 John but look at "sin" as the opposite of love. We th...

James helps us improve our "State of Affairs". The context of James 4 causes us to reflex on our worldview. Friendship with the world is enmity with God. We must see the world as it truely is and then rely on God's grace - he gives us more and more grace (4:5). We then find 10 imperatives that are in the aorist tense. This means we are to make deliberate decisions. Each command stat...

For many, faith is based in believing something that cannot be proven. Yet, Biblical faith is not that - it is belief based in facts. We will see this in 4:14. Once faith comes then God calls us to live in agreement with him. This is living in God and God in us. We see this in 4:15. We then discover in 4:16 that knowing and trusting go hand-in-hand and we trust in God's love.

This verse gives us two anchors of how we can have confidence in our relationship with God. The first anchor is mutual abiding - he lives in us and we live in him. The second anchor is his Spirit working in our lives. We examine what John means by this in this lesson.

No one has ever seen God. Why bring this up at this point in the text. It seems to me that it is a sub-theme of "God is love" and how we can be assured of his love for us. It is based in his love in our lives being displayed toward one another

Spirituality is for every Christian, not just an elite few. Spiritual health is based in what you do and what you know. It is based in being "so loved" and it is based in how we love one another. We examine these four concepts in this lesson.

God's message is more than words - it is an action. It is love shown. The gospel message is a demonstrated message in the action of love. It is important to understand what love is and how it was shown to the unloveable. To properly define love we must look at God and begin to get a glimpse of him for he is the definition of love

The Greatest test of living and knowing God is in how we learn to love and love in the way God shows us. When we learn to love right we get to know God and begin to understand Him.

In searching out the Spirit of God we find in this passage it has to do with discovering what is central to your life. Where's your center? is the question I ask. It is not in what you do or how good of a Christian you are. It has everything to do with learning to live a Christ-centered life. It has everything to do with who you are listening to. Are you listening to the call of the world or...

We do a quick review of 1 John 3 in this lesson and then begin examining 4:1. The first word of chapter four is "beloved" which I believe is God's description of his children. We are God's beloved ones. He then tells us one way of how to live based on who we are (the beloved). We are not to live naive lives but lives of wisdom.

I introduce this lesson by tying it into the previous verse. We then look at the relational aspect of life in God. A mutual abiding and obeying his commands. John writes in a circular fashion. He states a proposition and comes back and expands on it. This is an example. He has already spoken of this in 2:3-6. Here he expands on that concept.

We introduce this section looking at the awesomeness of God, yet he is a God who calls us his children and wants a relationship with us! Because of that we can approach God with confidence and we look at this centers us in God and the Scriptures. John says we will receive anything we ask, which is an all-encompassing statement that we unpack to discover what he means.

When we remember the three reasons John wrote this letter (Joy, not sinning and assurance) it helps us disect this passage. We do not set our hearts at rest but God has set our hearts at rest because of what he has done in Christ. This, therefore, gives us confidence toward God.

In the section of 1 John 3:11-18 we have spent five lesson which have pointed us to God's motivation in our lives. Often Christian's take their cue for motivation from the world's way -fear, reward, ambition or others. John takes us back to the first book of the Bible, Genesis and says, "Don't be like Cain" and shows us where our true motivation lies. This is true mot...

John is describing in these verses truths that motivate us in proper living. He contrasts our life of love with that of Cain and his life of "hate". Part of our struggle as Christians is that we forget where we dwell. We are not of the world but of Christ and live out the life of Christ in love.

If we live our lives the way God calls us to live - lives of love - one would think that the world would find this appealing. However, the world's heart is a heart of hate and so John warns us not to be surprised when the world hates us. There is something radically and fundamentally wrong in the world and we are children of God helping turn an upside down right-side up. As good as this is, i...