Tag Archives: Justin’s sermon

Sunday in Review – 12/9/18

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Today, the Franklin’s hosted, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached.

The (Advent) story–

Brother Angelo is tidying up the hermitage for Christmas! Brother Francis comes home and Brother Angelo tells him how three robbers came to the door for food, but he turned them away. Brother Francis rebukes Brother Angelo and Brother Angelo goes to find the robbers with some food. He finds them, gives them supper, and asks for their forgiveness. In a legend, it says that the three robbers later came down to the hermitage and lived there.

The sermon–

Today is the second week of Advent. It’s about peace and preparation.

  • Eliza read Isiah 40:1-5
  • The above passage is quoted in Luke 3
  • We also read a letter wrote roughly one thousand years ago by St. Bernard
  • Mark 14

God loves us and we can have peace that Jesus will come.

The coming of Jesus as a baby isn’t the only important coming. The other one is the coming of Jesus into our lives!

Sunday in Review – 11/25/18

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Today the Franklin’s hosted, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached.

The story–

Jesus heads to Jerusalem for the Passover and drives all of the money changers out of the temple.

The sermon–

We started by reading Ephesians 1:1-14

God will bring everything into unity and harmony.

There is a lot of upset these days. God will fix it all.

Then we read Matthew 5. You should apply this passage to yourself. Next Justin read a few parts from a George MacDonald essay.

Sunday in Review – 11/11/18

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In today’s service, the Franklin’s hosted, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached the sermon.

The story–

We read a story about Jesus, Mary, and His disciples. The wedding they attended ran out of wine to serve the guests and Jesus helps out by turning water into wine–His first miracle.

The sermon–

It is Veteran’s Day today. The topic is non-resistance.

What do we mean when we say Christian non-violence?

  • not be dormant and do nothing, but try to be a peacemaker of the situation
  • Use as little force as possible. Try to seek a peaceful outcome.

Specifically think about not resisting with force. This flies in the face of heroism. People do great things while at the same time doing great damage.

Take our president for example. You punch me, [the president] I punch harder!

We read Romans 12.

Romans 12:14 – Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

When we want to fight back, God will provide for us, He will help us! When we refuse to take the matter into our own hands, we show a confidence that God will make it right.

Confidence vs. Cowardice

Some people think that if you face a burglar without a gun, you are a coward. That is not true. That is confidence that God will help you.

We have confidence in Christ. He went through the same things.

Just because we practice non-violence does not mean that there are not bad people. Just because we want to be peaceful does not mean that war will disappear.

Some people think: “This is impractical. If there isn’t a strong arm, what is life?”

Then we read Romans 13.

Which kingdom is most important?

How is practicing non-violence not merely an expression of cowardice or convenience?

It’s more about taking someone’s life. We are not going to do that. When you call the police, is that just handing the violence over to someone else?

This is part of expressing our lives as Christians. Do you have confidence that God will make it right?

We read 1 Corinthians 9 and closed with the Lord’s Prayer.

Sunday in Review – 10/14/18

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Today, the Franklin’s hosted, Simeon read the children’s story and Justin preached the sermon.

The Story–

Jesus is starting to do His Father’s work. He comes to the place where John is preaching and both times, John points Him out in the crowd. Andrew and John follow Jesus and become disciples. Then they bring Simon and Jesus re-names him Peter. After that, Philip and Nathaniel come to Jesus too. Jesus is starting His preaching ministry.

The Sermon–

Last week, we read about the anointing of Saul and this week, we started off the sermon by reading of David’s anointing. (1 Samuel 16)

What does it mean that God can see the inside of you?

  • He can see your thoughts
  • God looks at your character.
  • He can see your potential.

Again, God does not look at your outward beauty, but at your heart!

So how should that impact our daily life and what we do?

  • God will see your heart whether or not you’re actually trying to glorify Him.
  • Psalm 139 — we can’t fool God, but we can fool ourselves.
  • There is no point in trying to pretty up the outside when the inside is the thing that needs the attention the most.

God is not judging our lives on how many people we bring to Him, or how much money we donate to the church or other causes.

God did not come to save the rich or beautiful. We should try to look at people the way God judges them.

Sunday in Review – 9/30/18

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Today was the last service of September. The Franklin’s hosted, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached the sermon.

The Story-

Jesus is now full of the Holy Spirit and disappears into the wilderness to pray to His Father. He stays there 40 days and nights without eating and then Satan shows up. Satan tempted Jesus three different times, but He refuses every one.

The Sermon-

What does it mean that God loves us?

  • Josh read Exodus 34:5-9
  • April read Hosea 2
  • Stephanie read Hosea 11
  • Simeon read Hosea 14

Back to the original question: What does it mean that God loves us?

  • He is still with us no matter what we do.
  • He does good and kind things for us even if we don’t understand.
  • We don’t know the right things and He needs to guide us.
  • We then talked about the metaphors between Israel and God — Husband and wife, Father and child.

Josh read Hebrews 12:3-10

I think we tend to look at God’s love as stoic or merely benevolent, but it’s actually very passionate! God is continually seeking our gain, He wants us pure! God loves us all equally.

This connects with the lost sheep parable. The sheep was being fervently sought for and once it was found, they celebrated!

Sunday in Review – 8/28/18

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Hello! Today the Franklin’s hosted church. Simeon read the kids story and Justin preached the sermon.

The story-

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are back on the road to Nazareth, united once again! The next 18 years of Jesus’ life are wrote out in 1 verse — 28 words!

After this, John the Baptist comes and preaches and baptizes people. Jesus knows it is His time!

The sermon–

Justin recently listened to a biography on St. Francis of Assisi. (lots of plane time flying to France! 😉 )

We read some from Job 6 and then learned about St. Francis of Assisi…

  • Francis was not born a saint, but a warrior!
  • At one time, he fell sick before a battle and then received a vision from God to rebuild the church.
  • He went to court with his father and was named a ‘fool’
  • But appeared had a huge impact with his simple followers on Popes and rulers

Justin read some more about St. Francis and the had some Psalm reading and also read aloud Hebrews 12:28

You must remember that God is the reason for everything. He is the reason you are alive and living in this world!

Sunday in Review – 9/9/18

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Today the Franklin’s hosted church, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached.

The story–

Jesus went to find John who was preaching nearby. John was baptizing many, many people. They wondered who John was. John denied being both Elijah or the Messiah. Jesus and John met (most likely for the first time) and John baptized Jesus. Then the Heavens opened up and God to spoke to the people. “This is My Son in Whom I am well pleased.”

The sermon–

We started with Acts 2 and Justin wanted to talk about conversion. Justin read Acts 2:1-47

What does it mean to surrender? What prompts surrender in a town or in person?

  • Fear
  • Knowing you’re beaten

We read Acts 16, the story of a jailer being converted and then talked about the Roman Empire.

Josh Acts 17:22-34

If you surrender to someone, what does that mean?

  • What happens next is not up to you
  • You gave up
  • You’re recognizing the victory or superiority or the other party.

We gain way more than we lose when we surrender to God.

Justin then read Luke 9:57-62 and we closed with the Lord’s Prayer.

Sunday in Review – 6/17/18

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Hello! Happy Father’s Day! 🙂

Today Amanda hosted church, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached.

The story was about the wise men following the star, meeting Herod, and visiting and worshiping Jesus.

Justin wanted to talk about God as our Father for Father’s day and read a few passages about that. Here are the ones we read…

  • The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
  • Matthew 7:7-12
  • Matthew 10:19-20
  • Galatians 4:4-7
  • 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
  • Proverbs 3
  • Malachi 2:10
  • Psalm 68:5

Sunday in Review – 6/3/18

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Today church was hosted by the Wolfe’s.

Simeon read to the kids about the angels appearing to the shepherds and telling them to visit Baby Jesus.

In today’s sermon Justin read the story of the death of Polycarp, a 2nd century martyr. Then Eliza, Jude, and Tracy read Acts 5. We talked about the the attitude of the early Church in rejoicing in suffering for Christ.

Some things that were brought up in our discussion:

  • Jesus says all the trials we face will be made up for in the Kingdom of Heaven.
  • It should be a joy to serve Jesus and come to shame for Him.

Sunday Review – 4/8/18

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Hello, today we met at the Wolfes house, Simeon read the story, and Justin preached.

We started reading stories for the Childrenbased on the Gospel accounts. We read about about all the things that the prophets said about the coming of the baby. Then we read the story of the Angel Gabriel coming  to visit Mary. He declared that she was going to be the mother of the King and her cousin Elizabeth was going to have a baby too.

The sermon covered John 14:15 – 14:31 and we discussed Christian attitudes towards sin. Can we be perfect and cease from sinning?