Turning over a new leaf

It's almost the new year. That's hard to believe in some ways. But, time rushes on, and we head into 2011 with some trepidation. If the news in the last few weeks has been any indication, we're in for a bumpy ride ahead. But God is still in control, and what goes on in the world isn't outside of His sovereign plan.

Sermon, Dec 26
Direct Link

Christmas Time is Here

So I forgot to upload last weeks message. It was sort of a strange Sunday, because I didn't actually preach. There was a fairly serious emergency call in our district that paged out right in the middle of Sunday School. Thankfully, as far as we know, everything was going to be all right for the patient, but I didn't get back in time to preach. So, on a moments notice, Clyde graciously filled in for me. You can listen to his message from last Sunday.

So there are two messages on this post, and this most recent one has to do with waiting on the Lord's salvation. We tend to be pretty impatient, but God brings things about at the right time.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Sermon, December 12
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Sermon, December 19
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Giving Gifts

What motivates us to give gifts? And what brought the wisemen all the way to see a small child in a little country of little consequence? And what prompted God to give His Son as a gift to us?

Sermon, December 5
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Christmas around the corner

So this isn't exactly a typical Christmas sermon, but I hope the thought of the approaching holiday gives us some pause to consider why we do some of the things that we do. If we don't know why, we should find out. That goes for every aspect of our faith.

And for the ipod folks out there, now that our file hosting solution is in place, you can add the blog to itunes and get the sermons much more easily. In itunes, go to the Advanced tab, and select subscribe to podcast. When the dialog box pops up, copy this in to the box:
http://kendrickchurch.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Itunes will automatically reel in the new sermons each week. What a deal!

Sermon, November 28
Direct Download

Thankfulness and Justice

Sometimes I wonder if I really got across what I was trying to say. Today was one of those Sundays. Perhaps it was due to working through the sermon while my brain was addled with a cold. Sort of made everything a little fuzzy in my thinking ;-) But, thankfulness and justice really do go together, and it's an appropriate subject for us to consider before this great American holiday.

And another note: I did upgrade the file hosting service to a paid membership, so there will be no more waiting for downloads, and no more ads on the page. Also, I will be able to post a direct link to the mp3 here on the blog, so that may help the iTunes people. If I can set up an rss feed, that would help even more for anyone subscribing :-)

Sermon, November 21
Direct Download

The Persecuted Church

Hmm...

Somehow I neglected to get the sermon uploaded and the blog post done before now. Hopefully it's better late than never!

Anyway, this Sunday we spoke about the Persecuted Church, and I hope that this message challenges us to remember our brothers and sisters in Christ that face suffering because of their faith.

Sermon, Nov 14

Using Your Gifts

This is the last message in the Spiritual Gifts series, and hopefully it is an appropriate challenge for all of us to keep growing and seeking what God has for us in our Christianity.

Sermon, November 7

Not the end of the world

Today we were back into the discussion of spiritual gifts, specifically in the context of how our gifts must be used in love. The gifts themselves are not the end all be all of our spiritual life, but sometimes we lose focus of the long-term view. We have spiritual gifts, and while they are important, only love endures.

Sermon, October 31

Love is...part 4

In this passage of I Corinthians 13, Paul makes some sweeping statements about the extent to which love goes. Like our fascination with heroes, we want to see this love in action, but it's hard sometimes to think that it can really exist in such radical ways. Nevertheless, Paul still gives us the definition of God's limitless love, and encourages us to imitate it.

Sermon, October 24

Love is...Part 3

One verse at a time we're making our way through this chapter. In the context of serving with our spiritual gifts, we need to serve with love. Love must delight in what is true and right and good. Love cannot rejoice in what is wrong, unrighteous. That's a high standard as we think about the ways we like to tolerate certain kinds of evil. But there is no place for it in the body of Christ.

Sermon, October 17

Love is...part 2

Last Sunday, we were gone on vacation, a rare vacation actually spent vacationing! At any rate, we're back at it this week, and back into 1 Corinthians. More thoughts on love, more things to ponder through.

Oh, and if anyone is reading this, there is a concert at Kendrick coming up on this Friday evening, the 15th, at 7:00. Come hear some great music by Ernie Couch and Revival!

Sermon, October 10

What is love? Part 1

Today we looked at verse 4 of 1 Corinthians 13, and tried to examine what love is really supposed to be about. Paul uses some very specific and action-oriented terms to show us that love is seen in its fruits. A feeling or a declaration of terms isn't what God's love is about. Love needs to be expressed concretely.

Sermon, September 26

Authenticity

What is authentic Christianity? What is authentic Christian service? Can we minister "for God" and actually miss the boat somehow? Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, says that without love, a Christian could have amazing spiritual gifts, but they would count for nothing. That's a pretty harsh idea, but if we are lacking true love, we are only serving to serve self.

Sermon, September 19

Not All the Same

In the body of Christ, each person has different gifts. This is necessary so that we have full functionality of the whole body. We need to be able to serve as God has directed each one of us, and that involves understanding that we are not all the same, and that the diversity of gifts extends further than we like to think sometimes.

Sermon, September 12

Our Amazing Body

This section of 1 Corinthians 12 deals with an extended metaphor, using our own human body as an example of how the body of Christ is to work together. One body, many parts. Each individual part forming the whole unit. It's a good place for us to see how important each member is for the health of the whole.

Sermon, September 5

Gifts and more gifts

This was a bit crazy, but I tried to list all the spiritual gifts that are listed in the four main New Testament passages. Without going into detail yet, and in trying to survey them, my hope was to give us a sense of what God has gifted, what He has deemed that we need, what will benefit the body. Lots of opinions, but hopefully I stayed near the middle of the fence today.

Sermon, August 29

The Goal of Spiritual Gifts

Today we dug into the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 12, and saw how Paul begins to explain spiritual gifts to the Corinthians. It's a good place to start since it seems that Paul is trying to cover (or re-cover) the basics of how spiritual gifts work. Hopefully we will be able to put together all the pieces as we continue through these chapters.

Sermon, August 22

A New Direction

Now that Judges is over, we're going to head on to a new series discussing spiritual gifts. In this message, we tried to establish the historical context of the Church, its mission, and why God gave the Holy Spirit. It's basic stuff, but we needed to make sure that we were on the same page as to why things are the way they are.

Also, this is a little late in getting on the web because we had another church picnic and baptism service on Sunday after church. We had a great time down at the reservoir in Pueblo. Four people got baptized, two kids and two adults. It was really exciting to see these four make public confessions of Christ and their desire to follow Him. Keep them in your prayers, and thank God for His continuing work in people's hearts and lives!

Sermon, August 15

The Worst of Times

Judges is really a book about raw, unbridled sin. The last two stories serve as a cap to show what it means when it says "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." The stories are not pretty, in fact, the second one, if it were turned in to a movie, would no doubt earn an "R" rating. But this is where we have to come to grips with the truth of human depravity. Not that everyone is as bad as they could be, but no one is as good as they should be.

Also, we are considering moving to a paid, premium account on the file sharing server. Right now, if you download the sermons, you have to wait for 60-70 seconds, plus we have heard that occasionally some less-then-appropriate ads have come up. Hopefully soon we can rectify those concerns and make it better for everyone that uses this service.

Sermon, August 8

The Story of Samson

Samson presents some interesting elements in his narrative. By no means did we exhaust the details of his story, and certainly there is a lot more material to work with, but I wanted to show the nature of how Samson fits in to the greater whole of Judges. God can use anyone; Samson with his lusts, Delilah with her deceit. They go through the consequences, but somehow God uses them.

Sermon, August 1

Where Are We Going

It seemed somewhat appropriate to diverge from Judges once again. There was a lot on my mind, and I fear that translated into a lot of stuff in the sermon :-) So, this message is really about trying to determine a heading for the good ship Kendrick, and hopefully getting as many people as possible involved in the process. I know I don't have all the answers. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't know hardly any of the answers! But I know that God wants to do more here at this church, and slowly, somehow, we will figure that out.

Sermon, July 25

Vows, Victory, and Very Terrible Choices

Today we covered the story of Jephthah and his foolish vow. Jephthah presents us an interesting study in how God can use people even if they aren't...perfect...people. The passage presents us with some pretty mind-bending concepts about what God allows to happen and how the statement "the heart is deceitful above all things. Who can know it?" is very true.

Sermon, July 18

Two for One deal

Okay, I know you're not really getting your money's worth, but I am posting two sermons today! That means double the listening fun! It also means that somehow last week I completely forgot to upload the sermon. It was the 4th of July. I'm sure that threw me off :-)

Anyway, the first is a communion message, dealing with our worship of God. And today's came from Judges 8 and 9 about flawed leaders and God's grace.

Sermon, July 4
Sermon, July 11

Trumpets and Jars

Gideon's unlikely victory against Midian was not because of some special tactical plan that he developed, nor was it the skill of the 300 men that he led. It had everything to do with God renewing the faith of the people to once again trust in God and come back to Him. I am amazed more and more, going through Judges, how gracious God is with His people. And, by that same token, I am amazed with His grace and mercy towards us. How and why He continues to bear with us patiently is a mystery, but when God acts on behalf of His people, there is no doubt that it is HIM.

Sermon, June 27

The Rise of Gideon

Our text today came from Judges chapter 6. Here, we meet Gideon and see how God called him to serve and lead Israel against their enemy the Midianites. Gideon's reluctance stems from the fact that he really didn't think that God was going to do anything. They were going to be locked into their dreary and depressing existence, but God showed him otherwise.

Sermon June 20

New movie in the works

Last Sunday, Christian singer Ginger Millermon blessed us with a wonderful time of worship and praise. It was great having their family with us, and everyone enjoyed the concert. I didn't blog earlier in the week because of that, but wanted to put a little plug in for a new movie coming out.

A close personal friend of mine is a filmmaker, and they are trying to get the word out about their new movie that is yet-to-be-produced. Knowing their Biblical worldview and having seen their first movie that they made (Wait Your Turn) I can eagerly recommend this to you. Check out their website, find them on Facebook, and share it with others!

Eminent Tyranny
Ehrenkrook Entertainment

Learning to Fight

It doesn't take very long in Judges to start running into unusual characters and stories. We really didn't even talk about what Ehud did, but we did talk about Jael. We sometimes seem to be averse to violence, but violence was a part of the time of the judges. For us looking back, we can see the depth of man's sinfulness, which hopefully moves us toward repentance in our own hearts for the times that we disobey God.

Sermon June 6

A special guest

Today was a bit different than normal in that one of our missionaries that we support here at Kendrick was able to come to share with us today. His name is Theo Kisavi, and he and his wife work to provide support and training to people in Kenya, primarily through working with children. Part of their ministry is an orphanage there that feeds and cares for children in the region, and if you'd like to read more about what they're doing, you can check them out at this website HERE.

Missionary Theo Kisavi, Sermon, May 30

Idolatry

Going through the book of Judges is a bit like watching a trainwreck: horrifying, but you can't look away. In the passage we studied today, the narrator gives us the synopsis of Judges, including a description of the cycle of sin, servitude, supplication, and salvation that Israel would follow.

Idolatry isn't as far removed from us as we would like to think, and can be anything that we exalt over the worship of God. Today's passage is a good reminder to be careful of creeping idolatry in our own hearts.

Sermon, May 23

Church Membership Session 5

Some more links for you to peruse

I forgot to add the links for The Christian Thinktank, an excellent resource for anyone wanting to delve further into serious theosophical discussions, and strengthen their faith.

www.christian-thinktank.com

And here's links to the articles we discussed in Sunday School.
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/nowhim.html
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/gutripper.html

Starting off in a new book

This morning, we began a new sermon series in the book of judges. Judges is a pretty straightforward book in the Old Testament, but the content is sometimes a bit depressing. Israel did what was right in its own eyes. The cycle of sin, discipline, repentance, and deliverance happens over and over again. It's a good place for us to look and see God's gracious dealings with His people, and also see how little sins have grave consequences.

Sermon, May 16
Church Membership Session 4

Mother's Day

Mom's are pretty special, no doubt about it. But that's like saying that the Empire State Building is tall. No kidding, Sherlock!


Anyway, mother's can have tremendous influence not only on their own children, but generations of children after them. We may never know what effects our current actions can have, but mothers can certainly see from the women we looked at today that the effects can be far reaching.

Sermon, May 9

Last words

With our passage today, we complete the second letter to the Thessalonias. There is some very practical, up-front information to them, and it's still very valuable to us today.

Sermon, May 2

Marriage

We had a bit of an unusual service today, but unusual in a good way. A younger couple in our church had recently gotten married, but asked if we could do a vows ceremony at the church sometime later. Well, that sometime ended up being today, and we had a short ceremony for them right after I got done preaching, basically. My message today centered on marriage; it only seemed right to do that! It all went very well and was pretty neat to see how it worked out.

Sermon, April 25
Church Membership Session 3

Working for a living

Today's passage came from 2 Thessalonians 3:6-12. The main idea seems to be this, that if we are able, we need to make some sort of effort toward taking care of our own needs. The church is not a place to "freeload". While there are plenty of people that we can assist, and some that genuinely need complete help, we also need to help some people find a way to be productive, and not an unnecessary burden. This seems harsh sometimes, but in the long run it eliminates dependence, frustration, and disunity within the church.

I'm going to add a couple of new links as well over on the right side. One is for The Resurgence, a website from Mars Hill church in Seattle. There's always something interesting to read on there, and usually I end up being challenged by it. Also, an important group to be familiar with is The Gospel Coalition. They are committed to keeping the truth of the gospel as the main thing within churches, and they have some top-notch guys that are a part of it.

And I apologize for the broken links some experienced last week. I'm not sure what happened, exactly, but I will double check these ones and make sure they work.

Sermon, April 18
Membership Session 2

One of the things that happens when you record yourself talking is that you realize that you sound like an idiot. So, I apologize for the uhs, ums, and other speaking foibles that I have. I am working to correct them, but man, is it hard!

For this post, there are several links here. One is the sermon, obviously. The second is for Fox's Book of Martyrs, a must read for any Christian. I referenced it in the sermon this morning, and you can read it online for free.

The last link is for the recording of our evening service. We are working on membership classes, and for those who are unable to attend, or are curious to learn more, please have a listen. If you have any questions, email, call, or drop by, because I would love to talk with you.


Sermon, April 4
Fox's Book of Martyrs
Membership Session 1

Easter Service

It was truly a beautiful morning, and it was so great to be out on the prairie, having our sunrise service. Yes, it was a little cold, but I was so pleased to see how many ventured out for the worship. And then, to head back and have Easter Sunday service back at the church, well, it was just a good morning all around.

The recording is for the whole service, so the specials are on there, and the singing, and the message. I can't vouch for the sound quality of the file, but hopefully you can get a taste of our service today.

Service, April 4

Palm Sunday

What I was hoping to do this morning is to capture some of the emotion and excitement around the Triumphal Entry, but I'm not entirely sure I succeeded. Jesus was not an accidental martyr, He endured much shame and scorn and pain to pay for our sins willingly.

Sermon, March 28

Stand Firm

The message today deals with some of the issues of election and sovereignty surrounding the end times. It's by no means a complete exposition of those concepts, but hopefully it makes things a little clearer. With that, our admonition is to stand firm in the midst of a world that will reject God more and more. Not an easy task...

Sermon, March 21

The Mysterious Man of Lawlessness

Who is the Anti-Christ? When will he appear? What will those future events really look like? It's hard to say, but Paul deals with those issues in this passage. Perhaps we don't get answers that satisfy all of our questions, but these are the answers that God wants us to have. So, we can be content with that, and hopefully we can discern the truths of what is to come.

Sermon, March 14

Justice Is Served

Moving on into the second half of chapter one, Paul talks about the Day that is coming when Christ returns and He metes out justice upon those who have not obeyed the truth. It's a frightening prospect, but one that should spur us to evangelize the lost, and encourage us that God will set all things right.

Sermon, March 7

The Second Letter

We started 2 Thessalonians this morning, and just covered the greeting, which is roughly the first five verses. Paul jumps right in to the issues facing the church, but also praises them for going through it. We don't know exactly what was going on, but they were being persecuted, and that persecution was causing their faith and love to grow. Why? Well, that's what we tried to answer in the sermon today.

Sermon, February 28

The end of the letter...

This sermon wraps up the end of 1 Thessalonians. There are lots of instructions that Paul throws in at the end, but they are all highly applicable and very straightforward. It's a good way to close out this epistle to his friends and challenge them to new goals in their Christianity.

Sermon February 21

Love in the Church

Somehow forgot to get this posted last night, but here it is anyway! Our passage in this message was all about the attitudes that the congregation needs to have towards their leaders. Paul also dealt with things that promote peace and unity, not only within the body, but with those outside as well.

Sermon, February 14

In the Fight

Today's message came from 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. Paul purpose is to attempt to answer the "when" of the Lord's return, but it becomes something more than that. The discussion turns into an exhortation to be ready, precisely because we don't know when. But, the timing is irrelevant when we live as though He could come at any time.

Sermon, February 7

When Christ Returns

So we're discussing what happens to those who die, and those who remain behind. It's a perplexing question for many because of the uncertainties involved. We all want to know what's beyond that door of death. But for the Christian, there is hope, hope of eternal life. Some of the specifics regarding that hope and the events that are to come are the subject of our passage today.

Sermon, January 31

Loving One Another

Since people are so perfect, it's easy to love one another, isn't it? Actually, we all know that to show love to people can be hard, particularly when there is strife, difficulty, pride, and all the other emotions and conditions that go along with the human experience. But, within the church, we are called to love one another more and more, and to live out our lives in good testimony to the world around us. That's what our passage was about in this sermon.

Sermon, January 24

When in Rome...

You might not want to do as the Romans do! In our text today, Paul urges the Thessalonians to pursue sanctification, to live lives that are pleasing to God. Specifically, he speaks to them about sexual immorality, which is still applicable to us in our culture today.

Sermon, January 17

The growth of a church

There's a lot of stuff in chapter 3, but it all seemed to fit so nicely together that it seemed a shame to cut it up. So, we covered the whole chapter today, and I think the theme (in some ways) is growing through trials. Hopefully it makes sense, and there's plenty of applications to pick from!

Sermon, January 10

The Ups and Downs of Christianity

Sometimes we tend to look at Bible people as bigger-than-life, superheroes who never had the problems that we lowly people do. But that romantic view of things really isn't accurate. They struggled with persecution, unanswered prayers, discouragement, and more. But as I talked about in this message, it's how we go through those ups and downs. Paul chose to focus on the people, on their salvation and subsequent growth. Today's passage deals with Paul's relation to the Thessalonians and these very issues.

Oh, and one more thing: Happy New Year!

Sermon, January 03