The Epic Story of Your Life

I had the honor preaching in “Big Church” for the final Sunday of 2020, and brought a rather unusual message. I’m not sure Star Wars, Die Hard, Stranger Things, Nemo and Kung Fu Panda have ever all been in a sermon together until now. But I do hope it will both challenge and encourage you. I’ve long been a student of Story and dove into the Elements of Story and why the Gospel can’t help but make an appearance even in stories written by people who do not know or follow the God of the Bible. Enjoy:  

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A GPS for Life?

Sermon Summaries are simply my sermon notes taken on my iPhone WordPress app during church. I love taking notes, but then they are lost in a stack of spiral journals. This way they are archives, searchable, and I can share them too! I love my GPS, if used properly, can lead you to where you want to go, giving step by step directions. This is possible because of satelites in space that are looking down; they see exactly where you are, where you want to go, and all the possible route, hazzards and obsticles between the two. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have GPS for our life?! If there was someone watching from above who knew exactly where I am, where I want to go, and all the possible paths, dangers and challenges along the way? Yes! What I need is A God Positioning System! The passage is: Jeremiah 39-42 Background: The Remnant of Israel were going to run to Egypt after the heir to the Jewish throne killed the Babylonian governor of the land, but first they consulted Jeremiah. This all looks very good – but in the end they didn’t take God’s advice and were later killed in…

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A Shift in Focus

We are in the midst of difficult times and difficult decisions. Every day we are hearing from the news reports and those we know personally that times are tough and the consensus seems to be that it will get worse before it gets better. The answer? It isn’t politics or government solutions. Even though I am frustrated with how much of our current economic problems are a direct result of our government’s meddling, the reality is that even if our economy was hummin’ along, we would not be free from problems and we would still have storms. Focusing on the current economic crisis is a distraction because the goal isn’t economic prosperity, it is spiritually prosperity. There are four aspects of the Christian Life that we often focus on in our desire to be a better Christian: Faith, Humility, Love, and Holiness. In church this morning, the pastor speaking suggested that instead of trying to have more faith, be more humble or loving or holy, we instead ought to focus on living what he called a God-Centered Life. He defined it this way: “A God-Centered Life is a life lived wholehearted for God without any consideration for our own needs.”…

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