Sunday Sermons

My sermons from this past Sunday are available online here:

Sunday AM - The Gospel and Sanctification - Galatians 5:16-26

Sunday PM - Only Jesus - Luke 9:37-43

Weight Loss Continues

This is just a quick post so you can see that I've now lost 44 pounds. You can read how in a previous post here. Still a ways to go, but I feel great thus far!

February 14, 2011

May 13, 2011

July 20, 2011

Sunday Sermons

Yesterday I continued preaching through our gospel series in the morning. You can listen to or download the sermon below.

The Gospel and Justification - Galatians 2:15-21

Last night we continued through our study in the Gospel of Luke. You can find that sermon below.

The Glory of Christ Revealed - Luke 9:28-36

The Gospel is the Power of God

Romans 1:16-17 - For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "the righteous shall live by faith."

If it's true that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, why do we so often try to come up with a new strategy? I'm all for figuring out ways to get this gospel to others, but let us make sure we get this gospel to them!

Sunday Sermons

This past Sunday's Sermons are now available online:

AM - The Gospel and Our Response - John 3:16-21

PM - Costly Discipleship - Luke 9:18-27

Suffer Well

I have greatly enjoyed reading Joe Thorn's book Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself over the past couple weeks. It's a great book and easy to read. The content, however, is encouraging and challenging in many ways. As I was finishing up the book today I read his chapter entitled "Suffer Well." The first paragraph was great:

Dear Self, 

God does not promise to rid your life of affliction and difficulty. He does, however, offer to give you the grace needed to suffer well, and through grace to discover the riches and beauty of the gospel. It isn't wrong to ask God to relieve you of your pain, but it is more important that in the midst of the pain you rely on the promise of God to work such experiences for his glory and your good--to use these times as a means of perfecting your faith, strengthening your spirit, and transforming your life in such a way that you are becoming more like Jesus. 

He goes on to write:

To suffer well doesn't mean you put on a stoic face and muscle through the situation without a word. It means that through your suffering you trust God, bless him, look to him, and point others to him.

He then ends the chapter by writing:

Do you want to become more like Christ? Then you must suffer, and suffer well. 

The chapter is based on Romans 5:3-5:

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

The Gospel and Our Substitute

This morning I preached the fourth sermon in our series on the gospel, "The Gospel and Our Substitute." After being away for the last week on vacation it felt great to be back with Cypress Lake Baptist. I am truly a blessed man to be called their pastor!

In the Spring of 2003 I took a Christian Doctrine II at The College at Southeastern with Dr. Pete Schemm. My Christian Doctrine classes (and Systematic Theology in Seminary) were truly some of my favorite classes. I loved learning about the doctrines in Scripture and how they are understood and applied. When we studied the doctrine of Christ I remember Dr. Schemm talking about four Christological passages. In these passages he talked about the importance of seeing Jesus with these four categories: He came, He lived, He died, He rose. That has stayed with me for the past 8 years. Those were my points from the message this morning. Not only those points, but the fact that they all were done in place of sinners, as our substitute. What an amazing Savior we have in Jesus Christ!

I also had the chance to quote Joe Thorn this morning from his book Note to Self (which I highly recommend). The following quote was helpful in stating the core of the gospel:

At its core, the gospel is Jesus as the substitute for sinners. We could summarize the whole by saying that in his life Jesus lives in perfect submission to the will of God and he fulfills his righteous standard (the law). In his death on the cross he quenches God's wrath against sin, satisfying the sovereign demand for justice. In his resurrection he is victorious over sin and death. All of this is done on behalf of sinners in need of redemption and is offered to all who believe. This is therefore very "good news."

Baptist 21 Egypt Video

Baptist 21 imb Egypt video from imb connecting on Vimeo.

Sunday Sermon

Yesterday morning I preached my third sermon in the gospel series. This sermon was focused on the fact that everyone born of man is a sinner by nature and by practice. No one wants to hear they are a sinner, but we all need to hear this truth. You can listen that sermon here:

The Gospel and Our Sin

During our PM service a friend of mine preached for us. We didn't record his sermon, but the message was about worship. It was a great message. It really challenged me to think about my response to my Savior in worship.

Renewing Your Mind

R.C. Sproul writes:

The key method Paul underscores as the means to the transformed life is by the "renewal of the mind." This means nothing more and nothing less than education. Serious education. In-depth education. Disciplined education in the things of God. It calls for a mastery of the Word of God. We need to be people whose lives have changed because our minds have changed.

True transformation comes by gaining a new understanding of God, ourselves, and the world. What we are after ultimately is to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are to be like Jesus, though not in the sense that we can ever gain deity. We are not god-men. But our humanity is to mirror and reflect the perfect humanity of Jesus. A tall order! 

To be conformed to Jesus, we must first begin to think as Jesus did. We need the "mind of Christ." We need to value the things He values and despise the things He despises. We need to have the same priorities He has. We need to consider weighty the things He considers weighty. 

That cannot happen without a mastery of His Word. The key to spiritual growth is in-depth Christian education that requires a serious level of sacrifice. 

That is the call to excellence we have received. We are not to be like the rest of the world, content to live our lives with a superficial understanding of God. We are to grow dissatisfied with spiritual milk and hunger after spiritual meat.