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Friday, February 16, 2018

2017 Advent Sunday 3 - The Joy of Shepherds

I am sure they never forgot that night. I wonder if any of them ever went to hear him teach after he grew up. I wonder if any of them were there the day He gave his life. I wonder if any of them saw Him after His resurrection. I wonder if any of them were there the day of Pentecost. These things we may never know. But this thing we do know, that night they met the source of all Hope, all Peace, and all Joy. They went away from that place with great joy glorifying God.

Friday, March 3, 2017

ADVENT 2016 - Joy

Listen as Pastor Rick continues the Advent series with this sermon about joy.

"...through it all they were sustained by a deep abiding everlasting joy. It is joy to know that sin is forgiven. It is joy to no longer bear the shame and guilt of sin. It is joy to hear the whisper of His voice in our spirit. It is a joy to be saved by the Savior. It is a joy to be restored to our Maker. It is joy to live no longer for earth but for Him. It is joy to look beyond any suffering here we might bear to Him Who loves us, who gave himself for us, and one day will come back to earth in person to restore us to everlasting joy."

Thursday, March 2, 2017

ADVENT 2016 - The Hope of Forgiveness

Listen as Pastor Rick begins the Advent Series with a sermon about forgiveness.

What is your greatest hope? I would contend that your greatest hope is to be loved completely by someone who understands you, accepts you as you are, and forgives you when you are in need of it. Someone who loves you with abandon without reservation. May I introduce you to Jesus the Christ – the God Who loves you today just that way? He designed you, created you, sustains you, and understands you. He accepts you as you are when you come to him with a humble penitent heart. He forgives every sin and wipes away every stain if you will only let Him in. He loves you with abandon and without reservation as he demonstrated that first Christmas long ago when his tiny helpless form was wrapped in strips of cloth and laid in the hay.

This is the hope we proclaim this first Sunday of Advent: the hope of forgiveness: the hope of being among the living forgiven! Are you living in this hope today? Are you forgiven? Have you opened the door of your heart to the Christ: JESUS who came to save you from your sins? He stands at the door knocking. Won’t you let forgiveness in?

Favorite Quotes!

"I stand vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not."
- John Piper

Careless seems the great Avenger;
History's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness
'Twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne,--
Yet that scaffold sways the future,
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.
- James Russell Lowell

"Some wish to live within the sound of Church or Chapel bell; I want to run a Rescue Shop within a yard of hell."
- C. T. Studd

"I preached as never sure to preach again and as a dying man to dying men."
- Richard Baxter

"Would ministers preach for eternity! They would then act the part of true Christian orators, and not only calmly and coolly inform the understanding, but, by persuasive, pathetic address, endeavor to move the affections and warm the heart."
- George Whitefield

"I set myself on fire and people come to watch me burn."
- John Wesley

"It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher"
- George Whitefield

"We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results."
- R.A. Torrey

"Nothing is more needed among preachers today than that we should have the courage to shake ourselves free from the thousand and one trivialities in which we are asked to waste our time and strength, and resolutely return to the apostolic ideal which made necessary the office of the diaconate. We must resolve that we will continue stedfastly in prayer, and in the ministry of the Word."
- G. Campbell Morgan

"The heart makes the preacher. Men of great hearts are great preachers. . .
We have emphasized sermon-preparation until we have lost sight of the important thing to be prepared -- the heart. A prepared heart is much better than a prepared sermon. A prepared heart will make a prepared sermon...It would not do to say that preachers study too much. Some of them do not study at all; others do not study enough. Numbers do not study the right way to show themselves workmen approved of God. But our great lack is not in head culture, but in heart culture; not lack of knowledge but lack of holiness is our sad and telling defect -- not that we know too much, but that we do not meditate on God and his word and watch and fast and pray enough. The heart is the great hindrance to our preaching. . . "
- E.M. Bounds

"God is looking for broken men who have judged themselves in the light of the cross of Christ. When He wants anything done, He takes up men who have come to the end of themselves, whose confidence is not in themselves, but in God."
- H.A. Ironside

"Science is a window through which we may view the spectacular and glimpse the hand of God."
- Rick Alexander

"Never forget: things are not as they seem to have always been nor will they remain always as they are." - Rick Alexander

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