Liberti Church Carrara Sermons

Peace with one another. Peace through life’s difficulties. Peace with God. We can spend our whole life searching for true peace, but we’ll never find it until we look in the manger. The wonderful message that Christians celebrate at Christmas is this: God came into our mess.

It is possible to have everything in the world, and still be empty. In Christ, we can know an otherworldly contentment because both the highs and the lows of this life have lost their defining power over our lives. To the degree that Jesus is our treasure, money and possessions lose their grip on our hearts and instead become tools to be used for God’s glory.

George Whitefield once prayed, “God give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye, and then let men or devils do their worst.” The Christianity found throughout the New Testament is one that is marked by a holy intensity and singular focus. In Christ, we are no longer defined by yesterday’s failures or victories. We now live in this world as citizens of the world to come, pressing onward toward our true home.

One of the greatest enemies of the gospel and our joy is religion. While religion hands out good advice, the gospel announces good news. Religion says, “Get to work!” but the gospel declares, “It is finished!” As it turns out, righteousness (or right-standing before God) is not a goal to be attained by trusting in our works, but a gift to be received by trusting in Jesus’ work for us. Captivated by the grace of God, Paul traded everything on his impressive religious resume for one word: Jesus.

One of the more difficult relationships to navigate in Scripture is the relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Yet as Charles Spurgeon once remarked, “One does not need to reconcile friends.” Because God is sovereign, we should be humble. Because we are held responsible for our choices, we should be actively living for God’s glory and the good of those around us. Only the gospel can change an entitled heart that grumbles about what it deserves from others, into a grateful one that dreams about it can give for others.

Like the Good Samaritan, when we live our life with margin to be interrupted – God gives us opportunity to get our heads up, look away from ourselves, & serve others with joy. Because Jesus is the true Good Samaritan who came down our road when we were broken by our sin, we can compassionately move towards the mess and brokenness in the lives of those around us.

Humility is the fiercest and shyest of all Christian virtues. It fiercely tears apart our ego, and yet the moment we talk about it or believe we have attained it; it flies away. In Philippians 2, we see that humility grows in our lives as we look away from ourselves, look outward toward others, and look upward to Jesus Christ as our Example and Rescuer. No other religion would say that their god is humble, yet Jesus chose to be emptied of His rights so that we may be filled with His love.

What is the essence of your life? Defining our lives by things that can be taken away from us, is like building a skyscraper on a frozen lake. Yet in the gospel we have a definition of life that empowers us to be fruitful in life and fearless in death. Christians can face anything, because the love of Christ is better than life and cannot be stolen by death.

There are few things that demonstrate the otherworldliness of Christianity, like the way Christians face difficulty and disappointment in our sin-fractured world. While we await and long for the day when Jesus wipes away every tear, Philippians 1 shows us that both the joy of faith and the pain of suffering are normal parts of the Christian experience. Paul had a definition of life and trust in God’s sovereignty that enabled him to experience joy, purpose, and hope in the midst of suffering.

Living a fruitful life is not the way into God’s love; it is the evidence that God’s love has made its way into you. Those who belong to Jesus will gradually and inevitably see the fruit of Christlikeness growing in their lives. It’s a process, but it’s also a promise.

One of the qualities that makes a Christian truly otherworldly is gratitude in the midst of discomfort. In a generation that is marked by entitlement, a thankful person is a powerful and subversive witness. Entitled people can never win because they always think they are owed something more. Grateful people can never lose, because they see everything in their life as a gift of God’s grace.

The book of Philippians is a letter from Paul – writing from prison – about the otherworldliness of Christian joy. We are all pursuing happiness in one way or another. Yet while our society is more technologically advanced and socially connected than any other to come before it, we are also more lonely, depressed, and unhappy than we’ve ever been. As C.S Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” Those who belong to Jesus can know the fullness of joy, because they have not attached their joy to their ever-changing circumstances, but to the security of His love.

We often try to make Jesus our “co-pilot”; second in command of our lives. But this isn’t how the Bible describes our relationship with Jesus. The reality is that our relationship with Jesus dictates all others. Even when we see God’s amazing direction and power displayed, we are often reluctant to submit to his guidance when it comes to personally living what he has called us to. We only experience the fullness of God when we are intimate with God, obedient to God, and have a correct fear of God.

If you think marriage will automatically fix issues in your relationship, think again. Marriage is not only the end of singleness; it is the beginning of a marathon. An enduring marriage is one that is built on the grace of God where both husband and wife love one another coherently, encourage one another continually, and repent to one another quickly. Fighting in marriage is inevitable, but fighting for a healthy marriage is essential.

What qualities should a woman look for in a potential husband, and a man look for in a potential wife? “Just follow your heart” makes for a great line in a Disney movie or a Grammy Awards acceptance speech, but in real life it usually ends in disaster. Fortunately God has not left us in the dark. Rather than blindly following our heart into relational pain, He gives his people certain qualities to look for in a potential husband or wife, as well as cultivate in themselves in light of the gospel. Don’t follow your heart, follow Jesus with all your heart.

Like a faulty vending machine that never delivers on its promise, the dating paradigm in Western culture is broken. Rather than conforming to the broken pattern of ‘hook-up, shack-up, break-up, repeat,’ Christian singles are called to be a counter-culture; a people who pursue relationships that demonstrate the gospel and display God’s will for human flourishing in the midst of a relationally-fractured world.

When we take our relational cues from culture instead of Scripture, the result is always brokenness. But what exactly is love? Is it just an elusive feeling that we fall into and fall out of? Jesus shows us that true love is a verb. It is the opposite of self-seeking; to love is to sacrifice oneself for the good of the other. And the greatest example of love, is Christ.

The power and grace of the Gospel unifies the church to live for God on His mission. In Acts, we see the members of the early church transformed by the Gospel in all aspects of their lives. Today, the overflow of the joy the Gospel continues to produce unity and generosity in the church.

In this lifetime, Christians should not be surprised by opposition. To follow in the footsteps of the Saviour, is to walk towards a Cross. Yet as the thermometer of cultural hostility towards the early church increased, so too did the courage of Jesus’ disciples. They had seen a resurrection. They had heard a powerful promise. And they kept preaching Jesus.

Repentance is an about-face, an ongoing war, and carries with it the promise of 'times of refreshing.' God's calls to stop running from Him and run to Him instead, is a call of love and mercy. Though our sin is great, the eraser of Christ's sacrificial love is infinitely greater!