City Light Church Sermons

Vicksburg, Mississippi
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This is the full collection of sermons preached at City Light Church in Vicksburg, MS. For more information on the church and its ministries, please visit citylightvicksburg.org

  1. 6d ago

    The Connected Life: Pursuit of Selflessness - Audio

    "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:1-11 How do we remain rooted to Christ and to one another in today's age, which presents itself as offering connection, but actually offers disconnection? You must resist the allure of the digital world to make everything about you. Social media preys on our most vulnerable aspect: our ego. Self centeredness is addictive. But what we should be practicing is self-forgetfulness.We should count others more significant than ourselves. The temptation to make life into a competition--and find pleasure in comparing ourselves to others and judging ourselves as better than others--is deeply rooted in pride. To walk in unity, as we should, we must practice humility. We are told to let nothing we do be done from conceit, or empty glory. The dopamine we get from likes and comments on social media are nothing more than this empty glory. Chasing those likes is exemplary of sinful pride. We need to evaluate how we are using tools like social media. The Bible instructs us to resists our natural, unhealthy desire for validation and to be humble. Humility is the desire to see others centered before we want to see ourselves at the center. Note that pride is not merely thinking too highly of yourself...it is thinking of yourself too much, in any direction. Gospel humility is to spend less time thinking of oneself in order to leave room for others. We should look to Jesus as our perfect example: the God of the universe who made himself of low reputation. The God of the universe who consistently looked to the needs of others. The God of the universe who was consumed with living a life that poured out rather than taking in. Jesus has put to death our need for validation in his own death. We have no need for pride, as our God has already given us our worth. Three final notes: 1. Promise over posts. The only place we can get validation is through God's promise. 2. Presence over posts. Cultivate presence with God or physical presence with others rather than blasting your curated life out to everyone via social media. 3. People over posts. We are called to share the gospel, feed the hungry, and support the poor. And the only way to create the space to do that is to empty ourselves of the focus on ourselves.

  2. 6d ago ·  Video

    The Connected Life: Pursuit of Selflessness - Video

    "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Philippians 2:1-11 How do we remain rooted to Christ and to one another in today's age, which presents itself as offering connection, but actually offers disconnection? You must resist the allure of the digital world to make everything about you. Social media preys on our most vulnerable aspect: our ego. Self centeredness is addictive. But what we should be practicing is self-forgetfulness.We should count others more significant than ourselves. The temptation to make life into a competition--and find pleasure in comparing ourselves to others and judging ourselves as better than others--is deeply rooted in pride. To walk in unity, as we should, we must practice humility. We are told to let nothing we do be done from conceit, or empty glory. The dopamine we get from likes and comments on social media are nothing more than this empty glory. Chasing those likes is exemplary of sinful pride. We need to evaluate how we are using tools like social media. The Bible instructs us to resists our natural, unhealthy desire for validation and to be humble. Humility is the desire to see others centered before we want to see ourselves at the center. Note that pride is not merely thinking too highly of yourself...it is thinking of yourself too much, in any direction. Gospel humility is to spend less time thinking of oneself in order to leave room for others. We should look to Jesus as our perfect example: the God of the universe who made himself of low reputation. The God of the universe who consistently looked to the needs of others. The God of the universe who was consumed with living a life that poured out rather than taking in. Jesus has put to death our need for validation in his own death. We have no need for pride, as our God has already given us our worth. Three final notes: 1. Promise over posts. The only place we can get validation is through God's promise. 2. Presence over posts. Cultivate presence with God or physical presence with others rather than blasting your curated life out to everyone via social media. 3. People over posts. We are called to share the gospel, feed the hungry, and support the poor. And the only way to create the space to do that is to empty ourselves of the focus on ourselves.

  3. Aug 9

    The CONNECTED Life: Truly Discerning - Audio

    Main Point: In a world flooded with disinformation, the church must reclaim the discernment only Christ can give. Pastor Brian Crawford opened with a striking quote from Denzel Washington on the 2016 red carpet: "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed." That quote, delivered to journalists who had just spread a false story, captured the problem Pastor Brian Crawford set out to address in this message from Genesis 3:1-6. We are living in an age of disinformation unlike anything history has seen before, and the church, rather than standing as a bulwark against it, is too often one of its most eager distributors. The Origins of Disinformation: The enemy has always spoken in lies. The first word Scripture ever uses to describe Satan is not "evil" or "powerful." It is "crafty." Pastor Brian Crawford unpacked that Hebrew word as meaning shrewd, cunning, and, in plain terms, slick. The serpent did not approach Eve with absurd, obviously false claims. He approached her with truish ones, statements slightly off center, close enough to make her question what God had actually said. That strategy has not changed. It fills our news feeds, our social media timelines, and our radio airwaves every hour of every day. Significantly, the Bible ends the same way it begins: Revelation 22:15 casts out those who love and practice falsehood. Jesus will have the final word over our slick enemy. The Heart of Disinformation: The problem is not your phone, it is your heart. Pastor Brian Crawford identified two desires that make us vulnerable: pride and payoff. Drawing on a landmark 2020 study in the journal Science, he described a condition researchers called "political sectarianism," in which people no longer simply disagree with the other side but moralize against them, quietly appointing themselves judges of good and evil. That is Genesis 3:5 in real time. When someone from our own camp shares a lie and someone corrects it, accepting the correction no longer feels like a neutral update. It feels like betrayal of the group, so we go silent rather than say we were wrong. The payoff works alongside pride. False and outrage-provoking content goes viral because the algorithm rewards engagement, not truth. Sharing novel information gives the sharer a status feeling, and in a growing number of cases, a financial one as well. Research has found that 30% of disinformation on social media comes from just 0.0003% of users who are financially incentivized to keep people inflamed. Ancient wisdom calls this the desire of the eyes. Our generation has simply figured out how to monetize it. The Escape from Disinformation: Be tethered to Christ, not to the digital. The answer Pastor Brian Crawford offered was not a better media diet, though he did call the church to find credible news sources and resist clickbait. The deeper answer was John 8:31-32: "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." When our greatest desire is to be like Jesus, when we sit at His feet rather than the feet of cable news, we are protected from the truish lies that target our pride and our passions. The two practical applications were direct: keep watch on your desire, filtering information through truth rather than through what you already want to believe, and keep watch on your ego, refusing to let in-group pride blind you to truth that comes from outside your camp. Guard your heart, and before you share anything, ask not "do I like it?" but "is it true?"

  4. Aug 9 ·  Video

    The CONNECTED Life: Truly Discerning - Video

    Main Point: In a world flooded with disinformation, the church must reclaim the discernment only Christ can give. Pastor Brian Crawford opened with a striking quote from Denzel Washington on the 2016 red carpet: "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed." That quote, delivered to journalists who had just spread a false story, captured the problem Pastor Brian Crawford set out to address in this message from Genesis 3:1-6. We are living in an age of disinformation unlike anything history has seen before, and the church, rather than standing as a bulwark against it, is too often one of its most eager distributors. The Origins of Disinformation: The enemy has always spoken in lies. The first word Scripture ever uses to describe Satan is not "evil" or "powerful." It is "crafty." Pastor Brian Crawford unpacked that Hebrew word as meaning shrewd, cunning, and, in plain terms, slick. The serpent did not approach Eve with absurd, obviously false claims. He approached her with truish ones, statements slightly off center, close enough to make her question what God had actually said. That strategy has not changed. It fills our news feeds, our social media timelines, and our radio airwaves every hour of every day. Significantly, the Bible ends the same way it begins: Revelation 22:15 casts out those who love and practice falsehood. Jesus will have the final word over our slick enemy. The Heart of Disinformation: The problem is not your phone, it is your heart. Pastor Brian Crawford identified two desires that make us vulnerable: pride and payoff. Drawing on a landmark 2020 study in the journal Science, he described a condition researchers called "political sectarianism," in which people no longer simply disagree with the other side but moralize against them, quietly appointing themselves judges of good and evil. That is Genesis 3:5 in real time. When someone from our own camp shares a lie and someone corrects it, accepting the correction no longer feels like a neutral update. It feels like betrayal of the group, so we go silent rather than say we were wrong. The payoff works alongside pride. False and outrage-provoking content goes viral because the algorithm rewards engagement, not truth. Sharing novel information gives the sharer a status feeling, and in a growing number of cases, a financial one as well. Research has found that 30% of disinformation on social media comes from just 0.0003% of users who are financially incentivized to keep people inflamed. Ancient wisdom calls this the desire of the eyes. Our generation has simply figured out how to monetize it. The Escape from Disinformation: Be tethered to Christ, not to the digital. The answer Pastor Brian Crawford offered was not a better media diet, though he did call the church to find credible news sources and resist clickbait. The deeper answer was John 8:31-32: "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." When our greatest desire is to be like Jesus, when we sit at His feet rather than the feet of cable news, we are protected from the truish lies that target our pride and our passions. The two practical applications were direct: keep watch on your desire, filtering information through truth rather than through what you already want to believe, and keep watch on your ego, refusing to let in-group pride blind you to truth that comes from outside your camp. Guard your heart, and before you share anything, ask not "do I like it?" but "is it true?"

  5. Aug 2

    The CONNECTED Life: Truly Connected - Audio

    "I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete." 2 John v. 12 This verse is an easy on to skim over, but its implications are important. The Apostle John emphasizes the importance of having an in person interaction as opposed to just writing his audience a letter. This verse cuts to the theme of today's sermon: We are being deeply changed by our digital age, as is the church. We have the consider how our life of constant connection to devices is changing us. A major emphasis about Jesus in scripture was his bodily presence--John emphasizes this when calls Jesus the Word made flesh. After Jesus's ascension, some naysayers were claiming that Jesus was never really on earth in bodily form, but all the gospels put enormous emphasis on Jesus's physical, human presence. One major way this is done is by how often the text mentions Jesus having a meal with others. This was such a major part of Jesus's ministry that the religious elite speculated that he was a glutton and a drunkard. Obviously this wasn't the case--there is also the story of his forty day fast in the wilderness--but it reveals just how often physical presence and fellowship over a meal meant to Jesus. In today's little passage, John ends his letter saying he'd rather not spend his time writing, but that he would rather speak in person and be present with the church to whom he was writing. John realized he shouldn't let the technology of his day--letter writing--replace physical presence. For many of us, screens and tech have taken over and our relationship with worship in community has been replaced by voyuerism. When we are so changed and conditioned that we are unable to be present or connect, it affects our relationships with others as well as our relationship with God. OUr attention to God has been reduced and has shifted. We often focus on supernatural signs and wonders in the early church, which we see at the beginning of the book of Acts, but the end of the book of Acts puts emphasis on what the early church looked like--believers attending temple and services TOGETHER, connected, and in community. A product of the Holy Spirit being with us is connectedness. God moves amongst us as a body, so we have to embrace the means by which he has given us to receive him and each other. Here are five applications of today's message for your day-to-day life: Application 1: Be more suspicious of our digital connectedness. What is it doing to us? To our connection with others? Application 2: Treat the absence of screen time like a discipline to be practiced, rather than an inconvenience to get through. Schedule time away from our screens. Application 3: Practice running to Christ instead of running to our phones. Application 4: Leave room in our lives for presence with others. Christ spent so much time eating with others, the elite insulted Him about it! Application 5: Resist the urge to trade physical connection for digital connection. Jesus showed up in a body, and He left with a body!

  6. Aug 2 ·  Video

    The CONNECTED Life: Truly Connected - Video

    "I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete." 2 John v. 12 This verse is an easy on to skim over, but its implications are important. The Apostle John emphasizes the importance of having an in person interaction as opposed to just writing his audience a letter. This verse cuts to the theme of today's sermon: We are being deeply changed by our digital age, as is the church. We have the consider how our life of constant connection to devices is changing us. A major emphasis about Jesus in scripture was his bodily presence--John emphasizes this when calls Jesus the Word made flesh. After Jesus's ascension, some naysayers were claiming that Jesus was never really on earth in bodily form, but all the gospels put enormous emphasis on Jesus's physical, human presence. One major way this is done is by how often the text mentions Jesus having a meal with others. This was such a major part of Jesus's ministry that the religious elite speculated that he was a glutton and a drunkard. Obviously this wasn't the case--there is also the story of his forty day fast in the wilderness--but it reveals just how often physical presence and fellowship over a meal meant to Jesus. In today's little passage, John ends his letter saying he'd rather not spend his time writing, but that he would rather speak in person and be present with the church to whom he was writing. John realized he shouldn't let the technology of his day--letter writing--replace physical presence. For many of us, screens and tech have taken over and our relationship with worship in community has been replaced by voyuerism. When we are so changed and conditioned that we are unable to be present or connect, it affects our relationships with others as well as our relationship with God. OUr attention to God has been reduced and has shifted. We often focus on supernatural signs and wonders in the early church, which we see at the beginning of the book of Acts, but the end of the book of Acts puts emphasis on what the early church looked like--believers attending temple and services TOGETHER, connected, and in community. A product of the Holy Spirit being with us is connectedness. God moves amongst us as a body, so we have to embrace the means by which he has given us to receive him and each other. Here are five applications of today's message for your day-to-day life: Application 1: Be more suspicious of our digital connectedness. What is it doing to us? To our connection with others? Application 2: Treat the absence of screen time like a discipline to be practiced, rather than an inconvenience to get through. Schedule time away from our screens. Application 3: Practice running to Christ instead of running to our phones. Application 4: Leave room in our lives for presence with others. Christ spent so much time eating with others, the elite insulted Him about it! Application 5: Resist the urge to trade physical connection for digital connection. Jesus showed up in a body, and He left with a body!

  7. Jul 26

    City Light Live: What God Measures - Audio

    As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”Luke 21: 1-9 God is watching how you give-what you are trusting in- rather than what you give. . When we give in full view of others, we receive our reward - the admiration of others. But while human eyes and human ears would overlook this widow's gift, God sees, and declares that the small coins the widow offers are a much greater sacrifice than the giving of others around her. Like the widow, we should trust God to take what we give and make much of it. When we give with the proper spirit, God can and does do this even out of scarcity. The temple being admired in this text was sturdy and full of splendor, but as he did with the widow's sacrifice, Jesus sees the temple's true substance. The white marble stones of the temple couldn’t hide the predatory nature of those within it. And Jesus saw to the heart of the matter when he told the crowds that not one stone of the temple would be left standing on another. The people here saw the temple's incredible appearance, but Christ could see its coming destruction due to the wickedness within it. The temple was destroyed, but now the temple is being built with living stone--those whom God saves--as a holy nation of people for God’s possession and a kingdom of priests. The crowds ask Jesus when the foretold destruction will happen and he reveals that it won't happen all at once, but it will happen slowly, after rumors and wars and tumults. He reminds his people they are not alone and calls them to faithfulness.

  8. Jul 26 ·  Video

    City Light Live: What God Measures - Video

    As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.” “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”Luke 21: 1-9 God is watching how you give-what you are trusting in- rather than what you give. . When we give in full view of others, we receive our reward - the admiration of others. But while human eyes and human ears would overlook this widow's gift, God sees, and declares that the small coins the widow offers are a much greater sacrifice than the giving of others around her. Like the widow, we should trust God to take what we give and make much of it. When we give with the proper spirit, God can and does do this even out of scarcity. The temple being admired in this text was sturdy and full of splendor, but as he did with the widow's sacrifice, Jesus sees the temple's true substance. The white marble stones of the temple couldn’t hide the predatory nature of those within it. And Jesus saw to the heart of the matter when he told the crowds that not one stone of the temple would be left standing on another. The people here saw the temple's incredible appearance, but Christ could see its coming destruction due to the wickedness within it. The temple was destroyed, but now the temple is being built with living stone--those whom God saves--as a holy nation of people for God’s possession and a kingdom of priests. The crowds ask Jesus when the foretold destruction will happen and he reveals that it won't happen all at once, but it will happen slowly, after rumors and wars and tumults. He reminds his people they are not alone and calls them to faithfulness.

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About

This is the full collection of sermons preached at City Light Church in Vicksburg, MS. For more information on the church and its ministries, please visit citylightvicksburg.org

Information

  • Creator
    Vicksburg, Mississippi
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    853
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026
  • Show Website
    City Light Church Sermons