VOLUME 2021 | ISSUE 08 | SEPTEMBER
CROSSCURRENTS FROM PASTOR PETE Greetings St. Andrew’s! Can you recall the best sermon you’ve ever heard? Maybe there is a powerful phrase that stuck with you. Or maybe there’s an illustration or story you heard that brought a gospel concept to life. Or maybe, like me, you remember the unplanned things said by children during the children’s message that put everyone into hysterics. More important than remembering a sermon you’ve heard is developing a habit of hearing sermons. This is because every Biblically-based and Christcentered sermon actually has the same message of truth, which has no expiration date: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. By grace, you are loved into a forever family, and God will never let you go. I’ve come to appreciate that my sermons have a limited shelf life in people’s memory banks. This is because sermons are not meant to be remembered. They are meant by God to be a tool used by the Holy Spirit to inspire action and holy living. If you want to impress a preacher, don’t tell them what you remember about their sermon, tell them what you were inspired to do, relying on your faith in Jesus! What risk did you take? What act of love did you demonstrate? What light did you reflect? Jesus gave the best sermon ever and it’s contained in Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7. Referred to as “The Sermon on the Mount,” it contains the core of Jesus’ moral teaching. Jesus teaches His disciples how to live as a part of the community of the blessed, as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Over the next few months, we will be diving deeper into Jesus’ teaching in this greatest sermon ever told. I pray that more than simply being memorable, God will use this series to inspire and lead us to a greater reliance on God and a boldness to act as disciples of Jesus!
NEW SERMON SERIES: BEST. SERMON. EVER. Best. Sermon. Ever. …a series on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7 The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) contains the core of Jesus’ instruction about what it means to live on the earth as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s all of these things: practical, confusing, instructive, meddling, challenging, and life-giving. This sermon series will be a deeper dive into this greatest sermon ever given, sitting at the feet of Jesus as our Teacher, Rabbi, Savior, and Lord. “To read the Sermon on the Mount is to discover what it means to be Jesus’ disciples; to read it with faith is to receive power to be Jesus’ disciples.” - F. Dale Bruner in Matthew, A Commentary.
Counting it all joy, Pastor Pete Sermon Scriptures – September 2021 Series: Best. Sermon. Ever. September 5: Matthew 4:23-5:2 September 12: Matthew 5:3-12 September 19: Matthew 5:13-16 September 26: Matthew 5:17-20
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