New Life Church Sermons

As Jesus and His eleven remaining disciples walk toward the garden of gethsemane where Jesus is soon to be arrested, He is teaching them some of the most crucial lessons they’ll need in the days ahead. Firstly, Jesus is preparing them to be hated by the world. They need to expect it, and embrace it as a part of following Jesus. Secondly, He’s teaching them to embrace the new super power He’s about...

Have you ever wanted to grow in your spiritual walk, but didn’t know where to start? I think a lot of people are in that boat. Well, in John 15 Jesus gives us the key to unlock the spiritual growth code. And it’s far simpler (and deeper) than most imagine! Jesus uses the analogy of a vine and its branches to teach us how to grow. If we abide in Him and He in us, Jesus promises us a fruitful life t...

It seems like most churches these days either have bad teaching or no teaching on the Holy Spirit. In fact, it could easily be argued that the Holy Spirit is the most neglected power source on planet earth. As Jesus gathers His disciples into the upper room for one last time before the cross, He spends alot of time teaching them about the Holy Spirit. He even connects keeping His commandments to t...

Gaining by Losing - Jeremy Woods, Guest Pastor 04.11.21 by New Life of Asheville

In a world full of sorrow and darkness, we’re all looking for a lasting source of joy. Two thousand years ago, the disciples of Jesus were thrust into deep sorrow as their savior was nailed to a tree and then buried in a borrowed tomb. All was lost, or so it seemed. The Apostle John opens his Easter account with a woman weeping in the dark. By the end of the narrative, she’s clinging to Jesus in u...

As we step into chapter 14, the disciples are understandably troubled. Jesus has just predicted his death, Judas’ cold-blooded betrayal, and that Peter would deny him 3 times that very night. Their world was spinning as angst filled their minds and hearts. In our day as in that day, many minds and hearts are filled with troubled thoughts and anxious feelings. Jesus says that the antidote to the tr...

As Jesus continues to press crucial Kingdom values into His disciples’s hearts before He goes to the cross, we come to some difficult and yet beautiful challenges in the back half of chapter 13. In Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, we see that we have a Savior who is well acquainted with our pain. We also come face to face with the terrifying reality that it’s entirely possible for people to play the part...

The night before Jesus was crucified, He gathered His disciples in a room for a final time of sacred friendship and teaching before his arrest. During this “last supper” Jesus not only instituted what we call communion or the Lord’s Supper for the first time, but also taught His disciples some of the most crucial lessons they would need as they launched into a hostile post-resurrection world. The...

As we come out of our Lament series we were reminded, maybe even for the first time, that it’s good and proper to lament before our God. However, lamenting isn’t the only good and proper rhythm we should establish as a people of God. We also need a sabbath rhythm of rest in our life. In fact, it’s not negotiable. We serve a creative God who established a holy day of rest. God rested. He establishe...

As we come out of our Lament series we were reminded, maybe even for the first time, that it’s good and proper to lament before our God. However, lamenting isn’t the only good and proper rhythm we should establish as a people of God. We also need a sabbath rhythm of rest in our life. In fact, it’s not negotiable. We serve a creative God who established a holy day of rest. God rested. He establishe...

As we close out our series on lament, we look at the words of Jeremiah who understood lament better than most. The context for Lamentations 3 is utter devastation. The Babylonians have sacked Jerusalem, people are dying, others are being enslaved, houses destroyed and the temple burned. It’s in the most hopeless of situations that Jeremiah pens some of the most hopeful words in Scripture. In this,...

Where do you tend to turn when things go sideways in your life? Most of us turn to self, others or self-help resources before we even consider turning to God. But what if that’s one of our primary problems in life? Psalm 46 teaches us that where we place our trust makes all the difference. We learn to reject the fear of men, seek the presence of God and remember the power of God in our times of tr...

Has the last year been strange or what? Some days, it feels like our world is spinning out of control, but it’s precisely when we feel this loss of stability that we need to be reminded that God is fully in control. Not only is He in complete control, His mission is advancing all over the world! In Jeremiah 29, God’s people must have felt defeated as they were taken into exile by the evil Baylonia...

This week, we move into the 3rd element of a lament: asking God for help. A lot of us aren’t very good at asking for help, and even when we do, oftentimes we go to the wrong sources seeking it. King David teaches us how to ask for help throughout the psalms, but we’ll drill down into Psalm 22 this week. Here are some truths we can glean from this particular psalm: where you go with your pain, defi...

As we continue diving deeper into the lost art of lament, we turn our attention to the element of lament that many find most uncomfortable. Pouring out our complaints to God. No other world religion or worldview offers this level of raw & real engagement with a God who actually welcomes it. Psalm 88 has been called the darkest psalm in the bible. It’s painfully raw, real and dark. And yet, it...

Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to hope and trust. It’s the song that the people of God sing between pain and promise. And modern-day Christians need to re-learn this historical practice like fish need water! In some sense, biblical lament must begin with self-examination. So much of the turmoil and pain in our lives, tends to be self-inflicted shrapnel wounds from our own sin. So how do we...

For thousands of years, God’s people have had a unique method of handling the storms, pain and disappointment of life in a broken world. Saints in the Old Testament practiced it, followers of Christ in the New Testament modeled it, and Jesus Himself embraced this practice in His most pain-filled moments. But over the last century or so, the Western church has seemingly lost this practice, and we a...

As we step into a brand new year after what has been a pretty difficult year in 2020, we need to be reminded of who Jesus says He is! In John 11, we get a glimpse into one of the most incredible miracles Jesus performed, as well as one of the most audacious claims He ever made. Jesus shows up at a funeral of a friend and says I am the resurrection and life. He then raises a dead man to life to aut...

The Gift - Christmas Eve 2020 - Chris Dillon, Lead Pastor 12.24.20 by New Life of Asheville

Choose Joy - Joe Dillon, Guest Preacher 12 27 20 by New Life of Asheville

The setting for this particular I AM statement is key. The Israelites were in the midst of a huge celebration called the Festival of Tabernacles/Booths. This is the time they set aside to celebrate being led by God in the wilderness. At night, they would light massive lamps or candles in the temple courtyard that would cast a warm glow over the city of Jerusalem to remind them of the God who led t...

This particular I AM statement from Jesus may be the most controversial one in our age. For Jesus to claim to be the way, truth and life such that no person can come to the Father except through Him, flies in the face of our pluralistic culture that despises even the concept of absolute truth. And yet, this statement from Jesus isn’t so much a judgmental condemnation of those far from Him, as much...

If you’re familiar with vine imagery in the Old Testament, you probably know that the nation of Israel--God’s chosen people of the old covenant--were oftentimes referred to as a vine. And almost every time this connection is made, it’s made in the context of God’s judgment for Israel’s failure to produce fruit. And so when Jesus steps onto the scene and says: I am the true vine, He is in essence s...

Jesus’ statement: I am the door (or gate in some translations) is likely one of the least spoken about I am statements of Jesus. It may not be as glamorous as some of the other I am statements, but it’s a practically important claim by Jesus with profound implications for your life. Jesus being the door for His sheep has all sorts of embedded truths that are truly life-changing. Jesus is saying th...

According to those who study such things, sheep are apparently some of the most unintelligent, stubborn, and hopelessly helpless animals on the planet. And so at 1st glance, when Jesus claims to be the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, it could almost feel offensive that we are the sheep in this analogy. And yet, when we realize how perfectly loved and cared for we are by the Goo...