Sermons

  Everything Is Awesome & Nobody Is Happy Citizens of Heaven Introduction: Have any of you ever heard the tale from Greek mythology about King Sisyphus? King Sisyphus was punished by the gods for his immense wickedness and villainy by having to roll a massive boulder up a hill. After he rolled the boulder up the hill, it would roll back down and he would start the process over. He was to do this act of rolling the boulder up the hill and watch it roll down for eternity. Over and over again, forever, King Sisyphus would push the rock up the mountain only for gravity to pull the rock back down. It is a story for the ages because so many people can relate to the feelings of persistent discouragement.  Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like King Sisyphus? Have you ever felt trapped in a constant cycle of discouragement and despair? Have you ever felt that nothing you do really matters, like nothing that you do has an eternal significance? Do you feel that every day

  Everything Is Awesome & Nobody Is Happy Pressing On, Finishing The Race Opening Illustration: How many of you have iPhones? Lots of you do. Good. Then you may have experienced something that I have experienced on a regular basis. Like most of you, I get lots and lots of texts. I would say that the majority of texts that I get are people requesting prayer. They may have a relationship on the verge of breaking down. They may be looking for a new job and ask me to pray for them. They may even be considering asking a young lady to marry them. Again, “Stuart will you pray for me”. On every occasion that I receive a text like that, asking for prayer, I inevitably reply “yes”. I do my very best to stop and pray for that person right there. Sometimes that are times where closing my eyes in prayer is not a good idea so I have to delay the prayer. I have actually gotten into a pretty cool habit. When someone texts me for prayer, I usually respond with a prayer via text.  I say all this bec

  Everything Is Awesome & Nobody Is Happy The Risky Business of Christian Living  Opening Illustration: Friends, it is a dangerous world out there. I think that we would all agree with that. We have all lived through a global pandemic. We have seen first hand how a small virus can cripple the mightiest country in the world. For a short time, the Coronavirus had people locked in their homes, social distancing, and wearing masks. The recent pandemic has revealed to all of us just how fragile life can be and how easily we can see our civilization break.  Did you know that there are entire fields of study dedicated to the rational and often times irrational fears that plague humanity?  Acrophobia is the fear of flying. Lots of people have that fear even though they statistics tell us that air travel is absolutely the safest way to travel.  Anginophobia is the fear of choking. Lots of people have that fear even though there is only a 1 in 2,535 chance that you will die from ch