Sermons

We ask God for what we need in life, but even when our prayers are answered, the joy does not last long, and new problems come. God does not ignore our real needs, but he sees the root of a problem deeper than what we want right now, and he deals with it.

At the time of prayer, Peter and John meet a lame man who is begging, and instead of silver and gold, they declare that in the name of Jesus Christ he is to get up and walk. This miracle was not meant to show off the apostles’ power; it was meant to reveal the saving authority of the name of Jesus and to turn people’s eyes to him.

Our prayers must not become a list of requests for getting what we want; they must be a time of asking God to shape us into the kind of people he is making us to be. The name of Jesus is more than a power that meets our needs; it is the saving power that turns us from sin and brings us back to God.

Repentance, which means recognizing sin and turning back to God completely, and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ are not a price paid to gain salvation. They are the fitting response to the grace God gives. Through them, people receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit and go on to live a new life.

Those who receive the gospel are not simply changed as individuals. They are built into a community that learns the apostles’ teaching, shares fellowship with one another, breaks bread, and prays. Their faith does not stay as knowledge alone. It shows itself in practical love and service as they share their possessions and their time.

To such a community the Lord adds day by day those he is saving. We do not strive to build the church by our own strength. Relying on the grace the Lord gives, we grow as a community that is the body of Christ, learning the word, loving one another, and serving our neighbors.

When the 120 gathered together in one place on the day of Pentecost and prayed, a sound like the rushing of a mighty wind came, and tongues like fire, distributed among them, rested on them. This was not a miracle that suddenly fell from the sky. It was the fulfillment of the Holy Spirit whom God had promised long before through the prophets.

The coming of the Spirit is the beginning of the new covenant, in which the law engraved on tablets of stone is written on human hearts. God’s presence does not stay in one particular place, the temple, but dwells within the body of each believer, and this is remarkable grace. Because of this, people who speak different languages hear the same gospel, and the division brought about at the tower of Babel is healed as they become one.

The world dismisses this strange event as drunkenness, but Peter proclaimed that it was evidence that Jesus Christ had become Lord and Christ, just as the prophet foretold. The Holy Spirit is not one who gives special powers; he dwells within us and makes us bear witness to Jesus. We must not take the presence of the Spirit for granted, but must obey his leading and live lives that reveal Jesus Christ.

After his resurrection, Jesus does not answer the disciples’ question about restoring the physical kingdom of Israel. Instead, he promises that the Holy Spirit will come upon them, that they will receive power, and that they will be witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

The church’s task is not accomplished by human ability or programs. It is the work of being witnesses of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit alone, and only those prepared according to God’s will can carry it out.

To fill the empty place, the disciples chose candidates, prayed, and then left the decision to God by casting lots. The church is a place that seeks God’s will rather than its own judgment when deciding important matters, and that waits for the power of the Holy Spirit.

Twenty-three years have passed since Watercourse Church was founded. Many have left, yet new souls have come to fill their places, and the church still stands. This is not the church’s own strength; it is because God planted us.

We mistakenly think that God will receive us only once we have offered him something. But the gospel is not a matter of proving ourselves; it is the truth that God has already accepted us in Christ. Genuine faith means living out our days with thankful hearts, as people who have already been given grace.

A tree is set in the ground not to remain there for many years but to bear fruit. Neither age nor weakness can serve as an excuse. Whoever is planted in God still yields fruit, even in old age.

Our fruit is not for our own display but for making God known. Each of us must live by the Word wherever our lives have placed us, bearing witness to the gospel through love and forgiveness.

The years ahead must be measured not by what the church has accomplished, but by how beautiful the fruit is that the planted Word produces in our lives. We need to become a church where the gospel ripens in homes and workplaces, and so reveal God.

The walls of Jerusalem are broken through, and the king flees, only to be captured. After being made to watch his sons die, he has his eyes put out and is led away to Babylon. The temple is burned, and all of its vessels are carried off.

This judgment did not come because Babylon was strong. It was the fulfillment of the word God had long spoken in warning through the prophets. The people held fast to the confidence that, with the temple standing, they could not perish. Yet what God desired was not the temple but a sincere heart at its center.

The church can fall, and so can church office and long years in the faith. But God’s covenant does not fall. A king taken into captivity was later released and given a seat at the king’s table, and his name remained in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

After King Josiah died, the southern kingdom of Judah fell within twenty-three years. In that time the throne changed hands four times, and the nation swayed back and forth between Egypt and Babylon. King and people alike reckoned only which power to cling to in order to survive.

Aligning first with Egypt, then with Babylon, then turning back to Egypt once more, the kings chose differently each time. Yet as God saw them, they were all one and the same. They had simply shifted their ground as circumstances changed, and not one of them stood upon the word of God. Though Jeremiah cried out for them to turn back, the king would not listen, while other voices proclaiming peace rang louder.

Even as the nation crumbled, God kept Jeremiah safe and left people here and there to help him. The kingdom fell, but those who held fast to the word remained. Today God still asks the same question: not whether it is Egypt or Babylon, but whether you are standing on my side.

Josiah became king at the age of eight and led a reform that no one before him had achieved. When the book of the covenant was found during the repair of the temple, he tore his clothes before it; he pulled down the idols and high places throughout the land, and with the people he kept the Passover. Yet this same king went out to war against the king of Egypt, was struck by an arrow, and died to no purpose.

Measured by the logic of reward and retribution, it is a death that cannot be understood. The Hebrew word ‘to know’, however, speaks not of grasping information but of a deep union in love. It was in this way that God knew Josiah, and the promise that he would go to his grave ‘in peace’ meant not a death free of suffering but wholeness and completion.

Josiah’s early death was a merciful removal, which delivered him from the terrible destruction at the hands of Babylon and the captivity that were soon to overtake Judah. As with Abraham, with Joseph, and with the cross of Jesus Christ, the work of God is always accomplished in ways that overturn our expectations.

New ordained deacons and senior deaconesses are being installed. Yet church office is neither a rank nor an honorary title. It is a charge from God, who loves the church and therefore summons people to serve it.

Those who feel afraid because of their shortcomings are showing a healthy heart. Moses, too, pleaded his inadequacy and declined God’s summons. But God does not wait for finished people. He holds fast to those he has called until the end and brings his work in them to completion. What an officer must put on first is not a title but compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience, and above all these, love.

The church is built up not by office but by character and love. Stephen was great not because he was appointed a deacon but because, even as he was dying, he prayed for his enemies. Philip came to be remembered less as a deacon than as an evangelist. What God seeks is not ability or achievement but faithfulness, and on that day a single word will be enough: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

While the temple was being repaired, the Book of the Law was found, and as its words were read aloud, Josiah tore his clothes and wept. He did not lay the blame on his fathers but counted himself among those under God’s wrath, and though he already knew judgment was coming, he sent men to inquire once more of God’s will.

That the Word had to be found at all shows how long it had lain buried in dust within the temple. The people held fast to the assurance that the temple stood among them, while the Word that belonged at the center of their lives was nowhere to be seen. To be pierced and unsettled before the Word is nothing strange; it is the response of a spirit that is still alive.

The prophetess Huldah declares that the judgment on all Judah would not be withdrawn, yet God had heard the tears of one man, Josiah. God looks not for the flawless but for a broken spirit. Wherever there is even one person whose heart is torn in this way, whether in a home, a church, or a nation, God will not forsake that place.

Gathered for worship outdoors, among trees and grass in full growth, the sermon speaks of faith that grows as well. To faith must be added goodness, to goodness knowledge, and then self-control and perseverance, until at last it arrives at love.

Mature faith is measured not by the amount of service given or the number of years spent in the church, but by how closely a person is coming to resemble Jesus. Peter, hasty and hot-tempered, denied Jesus three times, yet God did not give up on him; instead he made him the rock on which the early church was built. As a tree grows sturdy through seasons of wind, rain and snow, faith grows through hardship and waiting.

Growth in faith shows itself not in remarkable powers but in the small things of daily life: guarding one’s words, being honest, being considerate of others. Faith does not grow in isolation but within a community where people hold one another up, and where that growth leads in the end is love. However much someone knows and however great their abilities, without love they are nothing; this is the conclusion of the day’s message.

Manasseh became king at twelve and reigned for fifty-five years. In his day Judah, the southern kingdom, stayed loyal to Assyria and prospered. It rebuilt the high places Hezekiah had torn down, served Baal and Asherah, and shed innocent blood. Yet outwardly all was at peace.

The heart of the problem was not the number of idols. Life was comfortable and prosperous, so the people stopped listening to the word of God, and that was the most wicked state of all. The same deception is at work today, when technology and success brainwash people into thinking they can live without God.

Only after Manasseh was taken captive by Assyria and dragged away in chains did he humble himself greatly and fall on his knees before God, and God brought him back to the throne in Jerusalem. What matters to God is not who succeeded but who obeyed. The only strength that can overcome the last days is obedience that is faithful unto death.