This past month, we’ve been studying some of what God’s Word has to say about Practicing the Way of Peace. Today we will be jumping ahead to the teachings of Jesus on the topic of conflict resolution. He addresses the issue of conflict and reconciliation on several occasions throughout the four gospels. Most of our…
Last week, we looked at the early life of David and his interaction with a foolish man named Nabal. At this early point in his life, David did not display a high level of maturity when he responded to Nabal’s disrespectful remarks. Much has happened in David’s life since that encounter—way too much to even…
We are in the second week of a new sermon series called: “Practicing the Way of Peace.” The focus of this series is the biblical approach for resolving conflict. In every situation we find ourselves in each day, the potential for conflict exists! In our discussion last time, we asserted that what we say always…
We are starting a new sermon series this morning—“Practicing the Way of Peace.” This five-week series will be focused on the biblical principles concerning conflict resolution. As we live our lives, conflicts are bound to happen—there’s really no way to avoid them. The question, then, is not how can we avoid them but how should…
Our journey through the One Another statements of the New Testament takes us today to Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus. In order to fully understand the original intent of this passage, we must consider the context–or the text that goes with our text. When we do this, we discover that Paul is focusing…
When did priority become priorities? How can multiple things be the “most important” thing? The fact is that our culture today pushes the idea of ‘priorities’ but our effectiveness is drastically limited when our priorities are multi-faceted. In this message, we try to lay aside our pre-conceived ideas about priorities in our lives and look to see what God’s priority is in Scripture. Simply put, God’s priority is for us to be conformed to the image of His Son. But as Voddie Baucham explained, “Instead of striving for godliness and multigenerational faithfulness, many Christians have settled for just getting by. Unfortunately our children are paying the price.”
Repeat yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves YOU, grows YOU or makes You happy.
Being self-centered in a relationship causes many problems: We mislead others when we are self-absorbed. We misunderstand others when we are self-conscious. We misjudge others when we are self-righteous. The only way to overcome our self-centeredness is to become Christ-centered! A heart given to Christ is a heart that joyfully focuses on Him. We see…
Relationships are hard! It doesn’t matter what relationship we’re talking about—relationships are hard. A few minutes ago, we watched as two sisters collided after years of hurt feelings and pent up bitterness. Hostility reigned in that relationship! Years of joyful memories and glad celebrations were lost because of one moment—one decision. What was that decision? It was when one sister assumed the worst from the other and retaliated with hurtful words. When we make assumptions about others, we typically assume the worst. Why? The answer is inside us!