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Weekend Recap – Freedom?

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My 1/30/22 sermon at Crestview, Freedom? (1 Corinthians 9:1-14), is now online. On the heels of 1 Corinthians 8 with all of its instructions that our freedom or rights should be governed by love and that knowledge won’t deliver on what it promises–it puffs up, but love builds up–chapter 9 comes to question everything. As you read 1 Corinthians 9, you’re immediately struck by how many questions are asked. I summarized this with three questions that inform our freedom. And, I hope my sermon encourages you to lay aside your rights for the sake of the Gospel.

Weekend Recap – Love Preferred

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My 1/23/22 sermon at Crestview, Love Preferred (1 Corinthians 8:7-13), wrapped up the first half of the book of 1 Corinthians. And this sermon, in particular, gave some more thought to what I taught last week on the failure of knowledge to deliver. Knowledge puffs up, and love builds up. So, when the Corinthians are flexing their freedoms to encourage the eating of meat sacrificed to idols, they are bypassing love and smashing the weaker Christian. The warning for us is that it damages our souls too: we are sinning not only against someone for whom Christ died but are also sinning against Christ Himself. The stakes are high. Love is the most excellent way. I hope this helps you walk in it.

Knowledge Is Power?

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In my sermon at Crestview on 1/16/22, Knowledge Production Line (1 Corinthians 8:1-6) got us back into our study of 1 Corinthians. In my introduction especially, I was digging into this prevalent notion in our world that knowledge is power. But, when we’ve come to know Christ, we see that knowledge coupled with love is where the true power is (see 1 Corinthians 13 for further explanation). At any rate, I hope this sermon encourages you.

Weekend Recap – Into God’s Word 2022

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Each year at Crestview, we begin with a Week of Prayer and then end with a sermon emphasizing the importance of God’s Word for our lives. This year, I preached the sermon on getting Into God’s Word in 2022. I’ve been reading and studying Deuteronomy a lot, so this proved to be an excellent time to use an essential part of the ending of that book.

Deuteronomy 32 is a song of Moses that came after his closing remarks to the people. Immediately after this song, as Ray Ortlund says…

https://twitter.com/rayortlund/status/1478380363433091082

This song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:1-47) gave us so much to think about related to God’s greatness, our great sinfulness, God’s justice, and His compassion. I used these realities to apply them toward our intake of God’s Word. And, I hope this word encourages you.

Weekend Recap – Advent Joy

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My 12/19/21 sermon at Crestview, Advent Joy (Luke 2:8-12), is now online. I tried to dig into what is producing joy in our lives and the reasons why the Gospel is the good news of great joy. I hope this sermon encourages you and helps you prepare your heart for Christmas later this week.

New Song – O Come, All You Unfaithful

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At Crestview this Advent singing, we love singing many of the cherished carols of Christmas. God has given us such a gift in the music the church has. This year, we introduced the song O Come All You Unfaithful. Here are a lyric video and lyrics:

Lyrics: 

Verse 1
O come, all you unfaithful
Come, weak and unstable
Come, know you are not alone

Verse 2
O come, barren and waiting ones
Weary of praying, come
See what your God has done

Chorus
Christ is born, Christ is born
Christ is born for you

Verse 3
O come, bitter and broken
Come with fears unspoken
Come, taste of His perfect love

Verse 4
O come, guilty and hiding ones
There is no need to run
See what your God has done

Bridge
He’s the Lamb who was given
Slain for our pardon
His promise is peace
For those who believe

Verse 5
So come, though you have nothing
Come, He is the offering
Come, see what your God has done

Music and words by Bob Kauflin and Lisa Clow © 2020 Sovereign Grace Praise/BMI (adm. worldwide by Integrity Music). Sovereign Grace Music, a division of Sovereign Grace Churches. All rights reserved.

I love these lyrics and this song. We opened our service with this song last week and invited everyone to come and enter in to find hope in the good that Jesus Christ has come for us. I hope it encourages us.

Weekend Recap – Advent Hope

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We enjoyed a fantastic day yesterday at Crestview. My AM Sermon, Advent Hope (Malachi 4:4-6), helped connect the notion of hope to the coming of Jesus (both first and second advents were in view). I hope that’s an encouragement.

Speaking of Advent, Thomas Cranmer, an English Reformer, wrote some masterful prayers (called Collects) to help guide people during advent. Here’s the first one:

Collect for Advent I:
“Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son, Jesus Christ, came to visit us in great humility: that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead; we may rise to the life immortal.”

https://theanglicanbreviary.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/advent-collects-2/

The highlight for me was getting to be a part of two young women in our church who gave strong testimony of how Jesus has changed them. Here are some pics I’ve collected from yesterday’s baptisms:

Weekend Recap – Thanksgiving Week

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We enjoyed a wonderful day yesterday at Crestview celebrating Thanksgiving. We continue to use our 2021 Gratitude Guide to reflect on God’s goodness and how we have reason to give thanks. My sermon on 11/21/21, I Thank God (Luke 18:9-14), dug into the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector to give us some diagnostic questions to consider as we think about our gratitude to God.

If you don’t follow the church’s facebook or instagram accounts, check them out. We opened our dinner last night thinking about Psalm 92:1, It is good to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praise unto Your name, O Most High. We had time for people to give thanks and we also opened by singing praise to God’s name as we sang the Doxology together. Here’s the video:

Have a great Thanksgiving week, giving thanks to God for His many blessings.

Weekend Recap – The Darkness

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Yesterday, at Crestview, I preached sermon #2 in our mental health series. The sermon, Confidence in the Darkness (Psalm 43), focused on how God gives us firm footing for the mental health challenges we are facing. In this series, the graphics were designed to show the light and the darkness. Where week 1 was after eliminating the stigma around mental health, this sermon was about giving people in the darkness some sort of spiritual ballast to stabilize them in the fog of mental health realities. I hope the sermon encourages you.

Weekend Recap – Walking In The Light

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My sermon at Crestview from 11/7/21, Walking In The Light (1 John 1:5-10), is online. This sermon was my intro to a short series on mental health and aimed to remove mental health-related stigma among church people. God has meant for His people to be a people shaped by the good news so that people can open up about their realities and be helped with the Gospel, safely, over time. John wrote this passage so that believers can know they have eternal life, and one application would be how we’re walking in fellowship with others. This issue and others were at play in this sermon.

Also, in the sermon, I mention a quiz related to whether we’re part of the stigma. Visit NAMI’s Pledge to Be StigmaFree for more info.