Woodbury Church of Christ Sermons

With what has to be the shortest, most powerful and, arguably, least enthusiastic sermon ever preached, the mightiest empire on earth repents. Our inability to admit we're wrong has to be one of the quickest ways we derail our relationship with God. God isn't looking for perfection, He's looking for repentance.

There is nothing in the history of literature like Jonah Chapter Two. According to the story, Jonah is composing complex, epic Hebrew poetry, from inside the digestive tract of a huge fish. Unfortunately for Jonah his poetry is kind of overlooked in the sea of questions like - Can a giant fish really swallow a man out? Is the bible always literal? Was it a whale or a big fish? Jonah viewed this ne...

(Due to some technical difficulties the first 3rd of the message wasn't recorded. But don't worry, there's still lots of good stuff here! You'll be joining us in about verse 3.)  The book of Jonah is unlike anything in scripture. It’s a sophisticated piece of literary genius packed with wordplay, metaphor and nuance. Unfortunately, that mostly gets overlooked because people tend to dismiss it as a...

The number one most asked question on a road trip is - "Are we there yet?" We all want to have a sense of progress. We want to know if we're getting close to our goal. Discipleship is no different. If we can't see the finish line it's easy to get discouraged. We are going to use our recent Mexico Mission Trip to highlight how discipleship isn't only about progress but perseverance. (Due to technic...

In this world you will have trouble. It doesn't sound like we should expect a pain or problem free life, yet Christians are regularly confused by struggle and difficulty. How do we live in hope despite trouble? 

Anytime we walk into a church service we are often seeing the "floor model" version, everything is well lit, put together just right and looks inviting. However, real church is more like bringing home a box full of parts that needs to be put together (Ephesians 4:15, 16) It can be messy and difficult and it is totally worth it.  When we celebrate Graduation Sunday we are taking a real-life look "w...

Feelings of confusion, discouragement and being overwhelmed aren't uncommon for Christians. If these are left unchecked we can find ourselves on the verge of giving up on church, faith and even God. Here's the truth, there is hope! Paul the Apostle points us to something we need to do or gain but to something we already have! 

We have a pretty strained relationship with death. The English language has about 100 different wants to avoid even saying the word. However, one of the basic ways the resurrection of Jesus should transform our lives is without our relationship with the Great Unknown. If Jesus came back, we can believe we will too. 

Sin isn't something fun that God is just keeping us from - sin is something deadly God is protecting us from. Because of the resurrection, the relational dynamic we have with sin has completely changed - Sin, even the sin in your life, is just a bully and you can say no!

There's a pervasive misconception that Christianity is mostly about keeping some difficult, maybe impossible and definitely outdated, rules. But that idea doesn't come from the Bible itself. The early Christian writers had experienced an incredible shift in what life was all about. The resurrection life is not about achieving something that needs to be done, it’s about adjusting to something that...

Most of us have experienced tragedy that deeply affected us and made us shift our thinking about the world and the way it works. As a result, we may have become guarded and more fearful. Jesus spoke to people that didn’t think the world was the way it should be and he gave them what, at first glance, seems like strange advice.  He told them that the way to a better life was by “serving everyone”,...

Sometimes we find ourselves struggling with living the values and ethics of the Kingdom - not because we’re not sure what Jesus said to do, but because we’re pretty sure that it’s not going to get us the results we want.  Jesus continued to live the values of the Kingdom right up till his death. What we discover is that even death can’t stop the impact of this way of life! 

In a well plotted story there’s usually an “aha” moment where the different parts of the plot begin to come together. The Passover meal was a moment steeped in very specific, ancient tradition. Jesus comes along and simultaneously fulfills and transforms this practice. What emerges is a shocking truth about God’s ultimate plan to create a Kingdom of imperfect people. 

We all have areas in our lives where we want to have absolute control. But, when we invite Jesus into our lives as King, he's going to want to make some changes. What do we do when our lives and the Kingdom of God come into conflict?  Join us as we dive into a fascinating story that just about got Jesus arrested as he establish his Kingdom and asserted his authority as King. 

What Christians have come to know as the Triumphal Entry does look all that triumphant. A donkey and some palm leaves may not have looked like much to outsiders but to people who read the Hebrew Bible this was huge. Jesus was inviting everyone to see him as king and to live under his rule.  Disciples believe Jesus is the King and has ultimate authority to direct every part of their lives. 

You can’t know Jesus without knowing that everything he did and said was about the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom defied easy categorization - it wasn’t a place, it wasn’t a nationality. It was where the last were first and the first were last, where love was the law and forgiveness was the norm rather than the exception, it was all Jesus talked about. ...and it was going to change everything. 

We serve a God who cares about our "stuckness". No matter how we got ourselves in our situation or whose fault it is, our Father is concerned with getting us back on track. 

Sometimes we don't pray because we're afraid God won't answer. If God doesn't answer it brings up uncomfortable questions about God and faith. We don't quit praying, we just make vague, open-ended requests where, no matter the outcome, we can interpret it as a positive answer. What if we asked more of God? What would we discover about prayer and the character of God if we brought Him everything? 

2/17/19   God desires for us to bring what we are feeling, thinking, believing to him.

Jesus taught his followers about prayer by modeling prayer for them. The way Jesus taught prayer revolves largely around a shift in perspective. Our culture teaches to think about ourselves first and foremost. But the way Jesus taught us to pray focuses us first on God and then on others. Talking to God the way Jesus taught us to is about a reorientation in the way we see and interact with the wor...

2/3/19   As central as prayer is, in the entire bible there is arguably only one place where we get clear, specific, detailed instructions on how to pray. We call this section of Jesus’ teaching from the Sermon on the Mount - the Lord’s Prayer. Trying to piece together the different advice about prayer can create a little confusion about how prayer works.       Case in point, when Jesus sits down...

What’s is going on when those of us who claim to follow Christ struggle to live like Christ? Jesus said the problem began, not in the moment when we fell short of our own expectations, but much further upstream - in our hearts.       The author of Proverbs wrote we have to protect our hearts because what is in our hearts directs our lives. We are often unaware of some of the half-truths, desires a...

1/20/19   It is common in the Bible to read about a hard heart. What does it mean? Does God harden our hearts? 

1/13/19 In our day and age, the term “evil” is reserved for big, bad, dark stuff in the world. However, Jesus uses that exact word to describe what is in our hearts. He told us we could identify the evil in the heart by what comes out of us - particularly the words we say.  But we immediately run into a dilemma - our hearts don’t like to admit that there’s even a problem. Jeremiah says, that our h...

1/6/19 From the very beginning God has been interested in our hearts. Our hearts are the command center of our lives. We often try to change simply by learning or willing ourselves to be different but, unless our transformation engages our heart, the chances of success are pretty dim. What does the bible teach us about how to transform our hearts? And, what if changing our heart is the key to ever...