Our Current Archived Sermons!

We've gotten a lot of questions recently about where to get our most recent sermons, and how to open the player to access the menu. We're working through revamping our church website in the very near future, to streamline things and make the website more easy and simple to work with. But for now, we do have a decent archive of recent sermons for you to listen to. Here's the link to the full player - open the link and scroll down to see the list of sermons available for you to listen to. This is also accessible right from the home page of the Grace Brethren Church website - the player's on the right, and click the little square icon in the bottom right corner to open the full player. The link above just simplifies things a bit.

I'd encourage you to make use of this, especially if you have small kids that keep you out of part of the service, or you've been working in the nursery, etc. Hearing sound preaching of the Word of God is a huge component to our worship as Christians. Make sure you get a good dose of it.

Enjoy the sermons - hope this is a helpful tool for you during the week as you look ahead to our next Sunday gathering. :)

Preparing for Sunday, 8/5/12

 

Hard to believe August is already here and summer's drawin' to a close. Crazy. But here we are, and it's so good and so necessary for us to meet together as a church, to encourage one another to stay the course of the Faith and to value Christ above all. And all the more as we wait for Christ's immanent return. Hebrews 10:23-25 says,

"Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for [God] who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (emphasis added)

 SO, tomorrow Marshall Walter will be preaching on 1 Corinthians 4:14-21. Follow the link to read the passage and prepare your heart and mind to hear from the Word tomorrow.

We'll sing the following songs together tomorrow:
1. Open The Eyes Of My Heart
2. The Glories Of Calvary
3. Come Thou Fount
4. Jesus Thank You

I just want to highlight a verse of one of the songs this week. In "Come Thou Fount," the last verse we'll sing says "Oh that day when freed from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face/Full-arrayed in blood-washed linen, how I'll sing Thy sovereign grace." Let's count the cost of what we sing tomorrow, and prepare our hearts by reading the passage from 1 Corinthians, and/or from our other study of Scripture, to sing that with our hearts fully engaged. That we will hopefully sing together, encouraging one another as we do, longing for the day when Christ will return and end sin's reign in our lives once and for all. And praise God that we have the perfect righteousness of Jesus substituted to us, so we can stand before God and call Him "Father." And we can truly long for that day with hope and joy and confidence.

Hope to see you tomorrow. Get your coffee, warm up your voice on the drive in, and let's genuinely worship as the gathered Church.

Preparing for Sunday, 7/29/12

Hey guys,
hope you're planning to be there with us tomorrow morning. We have some good stuff going on in our gathering. We have the opportunity and joy to participate in communion together, to remember Christ's death and sacrifice for our sins, and to value Jesus Christ above all the other things that compete for our attention and affection. I quoted Rick Holland several months ago because some of his quotes about communion are very helpful. I thought I'd include a quote this week, by J.C. Ryle, quoted by Rick Holland in his book Uneclipsing The Son. Ryle says,

"A sense of our own unworthiness is the best worthiness we can bring to the Lord's Table (communion). A deep feeling of our own entire indebtedness to Christ for all we have and hope for is the best feeling we can bring with us."

Jordan will preach tomorrow on 1 Corinthians 4:6-13. Follow the link to read the text beforehand, take some notes, think through what Paul's getting at in the passage, and maybe even read the 3 chapters leading up to this passage to get ready!

Here's our song list for the morning:

1. Blessed Be Your Name
This song's theology is solid, and its poetry is quite good. This tune proclaims the great joy in knowing God's sovereign goodness. That we can bless the name of the Lord (desire only God), whether He "gives or takes away" from us in this life. Great, great truth in this song.

2. Before The Throne Of God Above
This hymn unpacks the person of our Savior, and what He's accomplished for His people in His death and resurrection. It says that before the throne of God, where sin is judged and a sinner cannot stand, we have a great High Priest who lives and pleads for us! If you've been saved because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Christ Himself pleads for you and stands always in your place in the courts of God.

3. All I Have Is Christ
This one is a final response to the truths we've been singing about - that God has drawn us to Himself, paid for our sins once and for all, and welcomed us into eternal, joyous life, all through His Son. The last verse of this song says, as a response to the Gospel, "O Father, use my ransomed life in any way You choose/And let my song forever be 'My only boast is You!"

See you in the morning, 9:00!

Also, hope you'll join us for our Sunday RENEW night (the last one for the year!) at 5:00 PM for food, 6:00 for singing and teaching. More information in service tomorrow morning if you need it.

Preparing for Sunday, 7/22/12

Hey folks,
for your reading pleasure, exhortation and edification, Jordan will be preaching on 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 tomorrow. He'll be addressing faithfulness to the Gospel as a steward appointed by God, and not fearing the judgement of men but fearing God alone. Hopefully the mindset Paul reveals in this passage keeps us from being wimpy Christians in our witness to the Gospel, and in how we process and respond to the criticism of others. Give the passage a few reads before tomorrow's preaching to get ready!

We'll sing the following songs tomorrow morning:

1. Forever
Our "call to worship" for the morning, with this song we call each other to sing praise to our God who has promised to always be faithful to His people. The songs says, "For the life that's been reborn, His love endures forever." God promises never to desert the ones He has caused to be born again to new life in Christ. What a great truth to spark some hearty singing as we gather tomorrow!

2. O Worship The King
This is a "reworking" of a classic hymn, that rejoices in more of God's character. In the 3rd verse, there's a unique description of God's attributes: "Immeasurable might, ineffable love." "Ineffable" means something is so great, it is beyond adequate description. Not many songs employ this word to describe God's love, but I think this is appropriate here, that the God of infinite, sovereign might would love us to the point of giving His Son as a sacrifice, to pay for our sins.

3. Come Thou Fount
One of our church favorites, this hymn meditates on several aspects of the Gospel. One to be aware of for tomorrow is the prayer in verse 3, for God to bind our "wandering hearts" to Himself. We know that our hearts would wander from God if He, in His grace, didn't hold us close, planted and rooted in the work of Jesus for us on the cross.

4. Behold Our God
A new song we introduced about a month ago. We'll end our whole set tomorrow by proclaiming "Behold our God, seated on His throne/Come let us adore Him!" God is worthy of all of our adoration. He is supremely valuable, and the source of joy. And because of the Gospel, we can draw near to Him and behold His full character with joy.

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Also, we hope you're planning on being there tomorrow night for RENEW. Counting tomorrow night, we have 2 more RENEW summer nights. Lets make the most of these, and come out for a time of fellowship/food, singing, and teaching from the Word. Tomorrow night is "bring your own family picnic" night, and Joe Keller will be teaching us. See you there!

A Quote To Ponder: "We shall not sing solos.."

Food for thought, on how our singing in our church gatherings reflects our worship in the new heavens and new earth:

"[In Heaven] We shall sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in eternal fellowship. We shall hold high converse with the noble host of the elect, all reigning with Him who by His love and His potent arm has brought them safely home.

"We shall not sing solos, but in chorus shall we praise our King. Heaven is a place of victory realized. Whenever, Christian, thou hast achieved a victory over thy lusts—whenever after hard struggling, thou hast laid a temptation dead at thy feet—thou hast in that hour a foretaste of the joy that awaits thee when the Lord shall shortly tread Satan under thy feet, and thou shalt find thyself more than conqueror through Him who hath loved thee."

- Charles Spurgeon, in Morning and Evening, via Tolle Lege.

A Quote To Ponder

"A Christian's heart should be brimming everyday with the song of Calvary."

- C.J. Mahaney, in The Cross Centered Life

Preparing for Sunday, 7/15/12

Hey folks,
here's to a little last-minute prep for Sunday morning. I'll keep this short, since time is also short.

Jordan will preach tomorrow morning on 1 Corinthians 3:16-23, focusing on all we've been given in Christ, by God Himself. This is the Apostle Paul's big killer of boasting in this passage: that God truly has and continues to give us EVERYthing in His Son. So why would we boast in which teachers we follow in the Church, or in abilities that we have, or programs we've been a part of? We need to guard ourselves against becoming short-sighted to the big, huge, grandiose picture of what God really has given us in Christ. Hope you'll be there with us to hear the sermon tomorrow, as Jordan unpacks this text.

We'll sing the following songs:

1. Let Your Kingdom Come
(New song from last week. I'm including the YouTube player for this at the bottom of the post. Give it a few more listens!)

2. Before The Throne Of God Above
Here's a line from this hymn, that tells us exactly how to fight the accusations and temptations of the Devil. Ready? "When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within/Upward I look and see Him there Who made an end of all my sin/Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free/For God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me!"

3. Christ Is Risen
"Let no one caught in sin remain inside the lie of inward shame/But fix our eyes upon the cross, and run to Him who showed great love/And bled for us, freely He bled for us."

4. It Is Well With My Soul
"My sin, Oh! the bliss of this glorious thought/My sin not in part, but the whole/Was nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more/Praise the Lord, praise the Lord oh my soul!"

Hope to see you in the morning!