IBCD Sermon Weekly

The first Sunday of Advent has the theme of “Hope”. The first candle is called the “prophet’s candle” because it represents the Old Testament expectation of the coming Messiah. Hope is more than wishful thinking, it is living with expectation. As Christians, we are to be people of Hope because we have the risen Christ to assure us of our own victory over sin and death.

Today we are looking at an argument Paul had with Peter regarding Peter’s relationship with non-Jewish believers. Paul retells the story of this conflict in order to illustrate the point to the Galatians that they are making a mistake by placing themselves back under the law of Moses.

In the letter to the Galatians, the old belief which is having a hard time dying was the necessity for a person to become first a Jew, men by circumcision, women by baptism, before then becoming Christians. It was essentially placing oneself under the Old Testament Law, and then, somehow, fitting in Jesus and his sacrifice for our sins. It was trying to have both of these religious beliefs somehow...

In the letter to the Galatians, Paul gives a lot of autobiographical information. One reason he does this is because he is a living example of God’s grace and forgiveness, which the Galatians seem to be trading in for going back under the Mosaic Law.

Today we are starting a sermon series through Galatians. It is a letter in which Paul gives a lot of insight into who he is and why he believes the way he does. (He is an intense guy.) Understanding the man helps us understand what he wrote, so today we will be looking at Paul’s perspective on himself and on Christ.

As the prophecies of Amos come to an end, just like we so often see in the Psalms, what begins as sad or broken ends with a note of hope because, even though sometimes it does not feel like it, God does have a plan. And the plan for Israel was to be a nation from which salvation would come – a fact Jesus reminds the descendant of the Northen Kingdom of Israel of when he speaks to the woman at the...

Amaziah the High Priest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. He is undoubtably aware of the parallels going one between the first Jeroboam and the unnamed prophet 150 years earlier and the current Jeroboam and Amos. (1 Kings 13:1-10) Amaziah is not about to let this turn into the kind of event which took place 150 years ago - so he decides to cut this whole thing short. As a result, he is only remem...

One of the questions Amos forces us to ask is what makes a nation, a community or individual righteous? How does God measure righteousness? This is the lesson in the plumb line.

As we continue in the book of Amos, one of the themes in his preaching was the abuse of the poor by the rich. It was an abuse of economics, and an abuse of justice – both of which often went hand in hand. In Chapter six, he uses words to paint a picture which presents a group of people who are living lives completely numbed to reality by their comforts and entertainments.

It seems that the people of Israel felt that God had to be with them, had to support them, and would never allow their Kingdom to fall simply because they were Israelites. They were the people of promise, the children of Abraham, and God simply had to be with them, and for them, because of who they were. They could not conceive that God’s hand could ever be against them. Are we any different? What...

I know my first inclination when I face difficulty is to say, “life is hard in a fallen world”. However affliction is different. Affliction has the element of the “deliberate” attached to it. Most often affliction is brought about by some area of unrighteousness in a nation, or an individual’s life; it is brought as a wakeup call by God, not Satan. You may say, “That seems cruel of God,” but when...

Several weeks ago, a couple months ago in fact, the Lord laid on my heart to preach out of the book of Amos. I have to admit my first thought was, “Amos? Why Amos?” However, as I read, prayed and studied it became apparent that Amos was a man who struggled with the question of “What makes a nation righteous?” He struggled and then preached without compromise and, as a result, made himself a few en...