Sermons
Text–Driven | Christ–Centered
Title: 4 Truths Every Christian Should Know
Text: 1 John 5:13–21
It’s about 11:30 at night. I get a call. On the other end of the phone is a friend who is broken. I can tell he is fighting back the tears. A battle he will lose shortly. A child who beamed with potential and radiated with life had his life ripped away from him in a tragedy. A freak accident—a one-in-a-million type of situation—robbed a family of their only son.
Title: Is There Enough Evidence?
Text: 1 John 5:6–12
The most publicized criminal case in American history involved a former professional football star and actor. He was on trial for two counts of murder after his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her male “friend” Ronald Goldman were found dead in June of 1994. The rest of that year and the entirety of the next year, Americans became infatuated with this case. Newspapers, the evening news, and talk shows made this case the story of the year in 1995.
Title: Perfect Love
Text: 1 John 4:13–21
A group of professional people posed a question to a group of four- to eight-year-olds. The answers they received were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think:
Title: God’s Love
Text: 1 John 4:7–12
We have taken a break from our 1 John series entitled “Authentic Christianity” for a couple of weeks. We are returning now to the book of 1 John. As you have noticed, while we are walking verse by verse through this book, John has a very unique writing style and way of thinking. God used this human instrument’s personality to pen down exactly what He desired to be written.
Title: Putting Teachers to the Test[1]
Text: 1 John 3:24–4:6
There are approximately ten thousand physicians practicing medicine in America who have a fake foreign medical degree. If these counterfeit doctors were evenly distributed in every state, there would be about two hundred in the state of Kentucky. Just think about this: many American citizens are receiving medical treatment from doctors who lied on their medical school loan applications. Instead of using the money received from this loan to get a degree, they decided to buy one instead.
Title: Examining Ourselves Before We Come to the Lord’s Supper
Text: 1 John 3:11–23
I am going to preach to you today. I am going to preach to your ear and your eye. I am going to expound the Scriptures, which is preaching to your ear. I am also going to administer the Lord’s Supper. That is preaching to the eye. Both are going to proclaim the redemption we have in Christ.
Title: Satan’s Spawn and God’s Seed
Text: 1 John 3:1–10
Ravi Zacharias was born in India and migrated to Canada with his family twenty years later. He is a nationally known apologist. He defends the Christian faith in universities like Harvard, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and Oxford.
While reading about Ravi, I came across his Christian testimony. He came to Christ on a bed of suicide when he was seventeen. His father had just finished telling him that he was a total failure in life. He told him he was born a failure. In the darkness of that moment full of desperation and hopelessness, Ravi picked up a Bible by his bedside and came to Christ.[1]
Because we live in a fallen world, some biological fathers are not a reflection of our Heavenly Father. God has broken images of Himself; they are fathers.
Title: We Have Spiritual Discernment
Text: 1 John 2:18–29
God reveals to us that we have received an anointing or, as some versions translate it, an unction. I remember hearing some old preachers pray for an unction to function. Often you will hear people pray for preachers that they will have an anointing while preaching. In this text, we are not talking about preachers. We are reading about every Christian. God has given you an unction—an anointing. In the Old Testament, anointing took place by pouring oil on a person to commission them for a specific task. Prophets, priests, and kings were anointed. In the New Testament, anointing referred to the Holy Spirit coming to live inside of believers.
· If you have believed the claims of Christ, you have this anointing.
· If you have been forgiven of a debt you could not pay, you have received this anointing.
· If you have ever realized how blatantly your sin is an affront to God and that without Christ you are bound for hell—not for a moment, or even a minute, or even a millennium, but for eternity—if you have realized that and have been truly converted to Christ, you have this anointing.
Title: The Love God Hates
Text: 1 John 2:12–17
The statement “The Love God Hates” strikes some people at their core. How could a loving God hate anything or anyone? “God is love” is a theme that I will cover in this series of messages from 1 John (1 John 4:8). What contradiction—what inconsistency—to say that a God who is love expresses hate.
Title: GOD IS LIGHT
Text: I John 1:5–10
One group of theologians translated verse 5 this way: “Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you.”[1] I like the emphasis! John received the gospel message and passed it along. John summarizes the gospel in three words: “God is light.” If you have received the gospel, you have received the light. John is asking us this morning, “Where will you take the light?” There are (very likely) people at your job or on your street who have never heard a clear presentation of the gospel. They are living in darkness. You have the privilege to bring them light. Will you?
Title: Who is Jesus?
Text: 1 John 1:1–4
Christianity is unique among all the other religions of the world. Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam all have their adherents, but I contest that Christianity is superior to them all.
