Orchard Community Church Sermon Audio Pastor Dave Daye

We conclude our sermon series on the local church called "A Peculiar Unity" by looking at Ephesians 3:20-21 in a sermon titled "The Power and the Glory." There are times throughout history when having faith in Jesus has not been popular. Followers of Jesus face persecution and ridicule. It is easy to get discouraged and feel like being a Christian and being part of the church just isn't worth it. We wonder how much longer the church will exist in this crazy and messed ...

We continue our sermon series called "A Peculiar Unity" where we are looking at the importance of the local church in God's plans.  In a sermon called "Guardrails," we look at how our unity must be shaped by a common mission and shared values as we look at the mission statement and core values of Orchard.  I hope we are all be challenged to make sure our own lives are in line with these important principles as well as working together to keep the focus of our church on track as well.

I remember as a kid watching reruns of the show called "The Lone Ranger." Just the title gives away the basic idea which is that there is one person, who is all by himself, taking on the world. Of course, he wasn't actually all by himself as he had help along the way. But our culture today values the idea of a person who does not need anyone and is able to take on the world all by themselves. Yet we all feel the need for help along the way. No one can truly be a Lone Ranger....

If we want a cup of coffee, we have a lot of different places to go. We can go to Tim Hortons one day, McDonalds on another day, and then Starbucks on another day. There is nothing wrong with this. But what if we have this attitude toward the church? There should be a difference between our attitude toward our place for coffee and our local church. The key difference is commitment. This sermon is called "Committed to One Another" and looks at what it means...

There are many ways to be united with other people. You can find others who are just like you. You can find others who like the same things you like. You can find people who hate the same things you hate. But at some point something can change. Maybe you don't like or hate the same things anymore. What happens to the unity then? If our unity is dependent on our sameness with other people then the unity falls apart when we realize we are not completely...

"When God wanted to bring the incredible message about new life through His Son’s death and resurrection to the world, He didn’t create a program, build a structure, or start a country. He used a group of people. Though these people were different from each other and were each flawed, what joined them together was that they had been changed by Jesus." I wrote these words when I first came to Orchard in order to have something to put on our website to explain to people what Orchard is al...