As James ends the letter, he is giving people practical commands on how to live their lives. And in so doing, he is painting a picture of the spirituality, a picture…
James is saying that the belief that you control your life is an illusion. It’s a Life-Control Illusion. He’s saying: You don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow. There are…
Our path through James has been filled with essential wisdom about our action, speech and thoughts, but I feel like the topic of Patience and Suffering is one of that…
James asks: "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" Do you experience relational conflicts in your life? Do you find yourself in fights and quarrels? Think about people in your life…
Continuing in the sermon series Book of James: Wisdom for Real Life. James describes two kinds of wisdom and the results of both within community. One is selfish and brings…
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me is not true." Do you have an anger problem? Do you sometimes have problems controlling what you…
Continuing the sermon series Book of James: Wisdom for Real Life. James calls the bible the word of truth. In order to apply the truth to our lives it is…
Why is favoritism so evil? Is God biased for the poor? Where do basic human rights originate from? How does the gospel drive us to stop favoritism? These are some…
What's more important: faith or works? There is a lot of confusion regarding this question. What does James mean when he says, "faith without works is dead"? What does Paul…
Jesus warns us that we cannot serve both God and Money. What does Jesus want us to do, follow the American dream or follow Him? What does it mean to…
Even though the Holy Spirit compelled him to go to Jerusalem, Paul ended up getting arrested, beaten, almost killed, jailed without just cause for several years, then shipwrecked, and almost…
When Paul arrived in Jerusalem, he came to a problem. Tens of thousands of Jews had become Christians in Jerusalem and all of them continued to to zealously follow the…
In Ephesus, as Paul preached the Kingdom of God, the coming of the Kingdom of God resulted in the filling of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, prophesying, healing, and…
Priscilla and Aquila lived in Rome until Emperor Claudius kicked-out all Jews from the city. They then settled in Corinth, where they met Paul. The couple worked and ministered together…
When Paul got to Athens, the greatest intellectual city of the world, he was not impressed; rather he was greatly distressed because the city was full of idols. So, he…
As more and more Gentiles became Christians, a major dispute broke out between certain law-oriented Jews, on the one hand, and Paul and Barnabas, on the other hand, regarding whether…
God brought three absolutely different kinds of people together into a new church at Philippi. Lydia was an upper class fashion executive. The slave girl was of the lowest socioeconomic…
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most significant event in history. If the resurrection is true, all claims of Christ are true, and he is the Lord. If the…
The church at Antioch was the first multi-ethnic church; it had people from Africa, Asia, Palestine, and Europe coming together and worshipping God. It was a radically inclusive community in…
We looked at the story of Peter's vision and Cornelius' conversion from two perspectives: Peter's Perspective: The Holy Spirit was on the move to bring the gospel to the Gentiles.…
Saul was a Pharisee, a zealous follower of the Mosaic Law. he believed that righteousness and approval from God came by obeying those laws. When he heard Stephen claim that…
The Ethiopian eunuch was wealthy, successful and powerful, but he was not satisfied. He was on a quest for God. So, he traveled thousands of miles from his country to…
When Stephen was killed, the church deeply mourned. The persecution got intense. Saul (Paul) went on a crusade against Christians putting them into prison. Why did bad things like this…
We often seek the miracles of Jesus but overlook the wonder of his humanity. The fact that he's been where we've been, felt what we've felt, makes him uniquely suited…
They killed Stephen because he preached against the need for the temple. In the context of the Second Temple Judaism, in which the entire religion was focused on the temple,…
We are going through the Book of Acts. The title of the series is The Movement of the Holy Spirit because it is about how the Holy Spirit transformed the world.…
Despite imprisonment and warnings from the authorities Peter and John continued to preach the Gospel. Their boldness came from understanding that (1) God was in control, (2) that people needed…
Let me give you a little background as to where we are. The people were praying for the Holy Spirit to come. And the Spirit came in a powerful way.…
This movement of the Holy Spirit does not just go around whacking people one by one. It creates a community. It’s an amazing community. It’s called church. It’s beautiful. I want…
Is Jesus really the only way to salvation? This is such an important question because there are so many people in our culture that question this: “How could there is just…
After God used Peter to heal a handicapped man who was born crippled, Peter takes the opportunity to preach the gospel to an amazed crowd that had gathered. His Jewish…
In the Old Testament, which was the part of the Bible written before the birth of Jesus, it predicted that a King will come who will bring salvation to the…
When Peter preached his first sermon, people were cut to the heart and asked, "What shall we do?" What caused this cutting of the heart? First, it was the truth…
We are going through the Book of Acts. The title of the series is The Movement of the Holy Spirit because it is about how the Holy Spirit transformed the…
In the upper room, as they prayed, the followers of Jesus were guided by God to find a replacement for Judas. The process they followed gives us an evolving guideline…
This Jesus movement became the greatest revival, the greatest spiritual awakening that led to the transformation of the world. It became the leading force in a Roman society that was…
If you look at the Book of Luke, Jesus always talked about the Kingdom of God. He said: the Kingdom of God is near you. Kingdom of God is like…
Galatians 5:22 says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” We can’t produce the fruit (which is a transformed life…