Sunday Sermons Bullard Church of Christ

Colossians 3:12-13. If you’ve lived even just a little time on earth, you’ve had someone do something to you that hurt, and you’ve done something to someone that hurt them. Forgiveness is something we have to deal with every day, isn’t it? Paul begins Colossians 3 with, "If then you have been raised with Christ". He's writing to Christians and everything that follows verse 1 is all about how Christians are supposed to live. That includes forgiving the way God has forgiven us.

Matthew 9:35-39. If you're already a Christian, what's your story of how you became one? Think about the key people who were in your life who led you to Christ? What if those people had not been in your life? What if they had not taken the time they took with you? What if they had been too busy to talk with you? Would you be a Christian today? One question we can ask to diagnose our spiritual health is to ask ourselves, "Do I care about the lost?" Jesus shows us how much he cared about the lost and how his disciples should too.

2 Corinthians 7:8-11. The question we’re asking today is, “Do you grieve over sin?”. That’s an important question, because whether you’re a Christian or not, you still sin. But when you sin, the question is does it grieve you? There are two different ways we can feel sorry for our sins, Paul says. One is the way God wants us to feel and the other is the way the world feels sorry for wrong. Godly grief is sorrow for having sinned against God, for having lost God’s approval. But it includes making a course correction, making a change in your life, your thinking and actions. Worldly grief is sorry for getting caught and for losing the world’s approval. You’ll never win trying to win the world’s approval. As soon as you get their approval, the current beliefs of culture will change, and you’ll find yourself having to change too. You’ll be in a constant state of changing your beliefs and lifestyle to follow the world and keep the world happy with you. To deal with sin in our lives, children of God need to see sin for what it is, to examine our own sin and come to hate it, knowing how ugly and terrible it is. It is our grief over sin that leads us to repentance and to a stronger devotion to God.

Mark 6:30-37. An important part of our Christian lives is to care about the needs of others, which we see in the life and teaching of Jesus. We also see the early church made this a priority. Naturally, we think of caring about the physical needs of others, like food, clothing, or other kinds of material help. But Christians should also help meet the spiritual needs of others. What we see in Scripture is that the church grows when we meet the spiritual and physical needs of others.

1 Peter 1:3-11. Have you ever heard someone say they love Jesus, but they don’t like church? Have you ever felt that way yourself? It can sound ideal to pursue a kind of spiritual individualism where loving Jesus is enough and there’s no need for the church. But we’re going to see in the Bible that love for God and his church go together. Peter's command to love one another deeply flows from our new life as a member of God’s family. Loving our brothers and sisters in the Lord’s family are the proof of our love for God. God’s love for us isn’t abstract. He showed his love for us by sending Jesus to the cross for us. In the same way, we must show our love for God by loving his church. We can’t just say the words, we have to show it with action.

Hebrews 11:16. There’s a lot to love about traveling and seeing new places. There’s a lot to love about this world. But there’s something the Christian must always remember – that how that hotel room or AirBNB isn’t your real home, this world isn’t our permanent home. The Christian’s real home is in heaven with our Savior. Abraham and all those named in Hebrews 11 were looking not for a new country here on earth, but for a better country found in heaven. But how is it that Christians are able to have a home in heaven? It is only because of the resurrection of Jesus. The fact that God raised Jesus from the dead proved that everything Jesus taught was true and that he truly was and is the Son of God our Savior and that in him we can have forgiveness of sins and a home in heaven.