Melbourne Heights - Sermons

No matter how hard we try to keep up with all of our commitments, things always end up on the back burner. Sadly, our relationship with God tends to be one of the first things we put on the back burner when life gets busy.   So what can we do to make sure God remains a priority in our lives when life gets busy? We can slow down and remember who God is.

Many of us struggle to tell other people "no." Because of this, we fill up our time and schedules with things that aren't that important to us.   So if we want to overcome our busyness, we need to learn to set boundaries. And we need to learn to make sure that all of our yeses count.

We live in a culture that often tells us that our worth comes from our work. So, we think that we have to be constantly busy just to show how valuable we are.   So if we want to be able to slow down and make time for what really matters, we have to understand where our value truly comes from.

Even though the New Year has only just begun, many of our calendars are already filling up. But no matter how busy we get, we still try to cram more events and activities into our lives.   But our chronic busyness is taking a toll on our lives. So we need to find ways to slow down and make time for what matters the most in our lives.

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving each year, it feels like everyone has tips and tricks to make us more thankful. But the truth is that in spite of all of these tips and tricks, we still aren't great at being grateful.   And we're never going to be great at being grateful until we realize just how blessed we are.

Though diversity divides, the Holy Spirit unites. At Pentecost, people from countless cultures heard one message in their own tongues through the Spirit's power. Despite our differences, we gather as one body, filled with the same Spirit that descended at Pentecost.   No matter where we're from, who we are, or what we've done, there's always room for one more in the Spirit's co...

When the ghost of Jacob Marley came to visit Ebenezer Scrooge, it seemed unlikely that Scrooge would ever change his ways. But as three other ghosts visited that Christmas Eve, Scrooge saw the error of his ways and changed forever.   There are times when it feels like we'll never be the people God created us to be. But the Holy Spirit is constantly at work in our lives, showing us where we mes...

There's no such thing as a perfect person. We all mess up. We all make mistakes. We're all still works in progress. But even though we aren't perfect, that doesn't mean that God gives up on us.    The Holy Spirit is constantly at work in everyone who follows Jesus, helping us become more like Christ.

Halloween is a time for trick-or-treating, scary movies, and ghost stories. But not all ghost stories are about spooky specters of things that go bump in the night.   Our faith is filled with stories about the Holy Ghost (or the Holy Spirit). And these aren't stories we tell around campfires to creep each other out. These are stories we tell in church to help us understand who God is and how G...

In the Bible, names reveal something about a person's nature or character. That's also true for the names of God we find in the Bible. The names of God we find in the Bible tell us that our God is great and powerful and that there is no one like our God.   But there is one name for God we find in the Bible that reveals as much about how God sees us as it does about who God is...and that&#3...

We all know how rare it can be for someone to keep their promises. Politicians break their promises. Parents break their promises. People break their promises. And, in Genesis 17, it looks like God might just break a promise too.   But instead of breaking a promise that God made to Abraham and Sara, God proves that he is a God that can make a way where there is no way. God shows that he is a God w...

There is an old adage that tells us, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." This piece of advice is true whether you're interviewing for a job, going on a date, or just introducing yourself to someone for the first time.   And it's even true for when we're first introduced to God in the Bible. When we're first introduced to God in Genesis 1, God wants...

In Exodus 3, God tells Moses that God's name is "I am." And this isn't a one time thing, this is the same name for God that is used more than 6,500 times in the Bible.   But it still seems like a strange way to introduce yourself. So why does God introduce himself as "I am"? Well, that name has a lot to teach us about who God is.

When we think about the future, there are a lot of things that we could worry about. We can worry about problems we'll face, people we'll have to deal with, or our performance at school or work. And all of these worries can feel "heavy," as Marty McFly might put it.   But, in this sermon, we'll be reminded that Jesus tells us not to worry because God is always with us no matt...

What does it mean to be rich? Is it about having so much money in your bank account? Or earning so much money every year? For the Goonies, being rich means having enough money to keep developers from destroying a neighborhood.   But, as the movie plays out, the Goonies realize something we all need to learn. Money doesn't make you rich...love does.

When Rocky Balboa stepped in the ring with Apollo Creed nobody thought he would last longer than three rounds. But in spite of the odds, Rocky believed in himself. He put his faith in himself into action, and did what no one had ever done before.   As followers of Jesus, we are called to put our faith into action as well, trusting that God can help us no matter what challenges we may face.

The new  Super Mario Bros.  movie reminds us that there are times when we mess up and make mistakes, and don't feel super about ourselves. So we end up wondering if God could love someone like us.   But despite our imperfections, God's love for us never wavers. No matter how many times we mess up or how unworthy we feel, we are precious in God’s eyes.

When you're a kid, life seems to be filled with things to celebrate. You celebrate losing a tooth or finding a toy. You celebrate every holiday that pops up on the calendar.   But when you get a little older, you only seem to celebrate life's biggest moments. But God never wants us to hesitate to celebrate everything that he does for us from the big things to the small ones.

When we're little, we learn to make quick assessments about a lot of different things. We learn to quickly pick out which box of cereal we want to eat, which cartoon we want to watch, or which book we want to read. The problem is, we also learn to make quick assessments about people.   But when we learn to look past a person's cover, we can recognize the inherent value and worth in every i...

Whether we see a classmate fall on the playground or see a friend cry when their toy gets broken, we learn from a young age that we need to comfort people who are sad. But, as we get a little older, we learn that not all of life’s problems can be solved with a hug or a band-aid.   In this sermon, we'll talk about how we can move beyond band-aids to offer real comfort when people are sad.

From the time we're young, we learn that people won't always get along. But in our world today it seems like we're more divided than ever. So, as followers of Jesus, we need to shine His light when people disagree.   But how do we do that? In this sermon, we'll discover the best way to shine Jesus' light when people disagree is to learn to be empathetic with everyone we meet.

No matter how much we may want to shield and protect our children, we can't keep them from learning that our world can be a dark place. But another important lesson our children learn early on is how big of a difference a little light can be.   As followers of Jesus, we are called to let the light of Jesus shine through us into the darkness of this world.

It's easy to tell when a plant is growing. The stem will lengthen, branches will form, and eventually fruit will sprout. But how do you know if your faith is growing?   In church, we typically try to measure our faith by talking about how often we read the Bible, or how long we pray, or how frequently we attend church. But none of these things truly measure our faith. Just like a plant, or fai...

Do you remember the first time you swung a baseball bat...did you hit a home run or strike out? What about the first time you rode a bike...did you go sailing down the street or fall into some bushes? Whenever we try new things we usually fail more than we succeed.   The same is true for our faith. Nobody has a perfect faith...so we all have to start where we are and keep working until our faith g...

We live in a world that often tells us that we're not good enough. We hear it from car commercials. We hear it from our co-workers, we hear it from our own kids.   So, it is easy to believe that God feels the same way about us...that we're not good enough. But in this sermon, we'll see that not only does God believe we are good enough, God also calls us to do incredible things.