On this Father’s Day we are looking at a text in Ephesians that addresses husbands, wives, children and offers instructions to fathers specifically. We are going to try to answer a larger question about why God gave us families.
Just a friendly reminder: We mentioned a few weeks ago that some older sermons would be deleted to make room for new stuff. In the very early days of the website the “sermon” was posted as text. Here is an example titled The Gospel Is Our Privileged and Responsibility. Those take up very little space as far as memory on the server is concerned. About a year later we experimented with adding images and scripture slides to an audio recording. Here is a link to Getting the Gospel Right. This experiment lasted a few weeks and produced less than a dozen videos. Those are hosted on YouTube and linked from the church website, so those are not taking up any of our space here.
The videos were labor intensive and extremely time consuming to create and render in a final format that YouTube would accept. In September of 2016 we started posting the sermon audio to our church website which is hosted by WordPress. Here is a series on the first 12 chapters of Genesis. The audio player looks weird and I don’t think you can download the m4a files. These are from eight years ago, long before churches started scrambling around trying to figure out what to do during the Covid pandemic. We were somewhat ahead of the curve for a small country church back then but looking at this post today the design and the technology is outdated. This is the kind of thing we will be clearing. If you want to hear these recordings again you have a week or two then the oldest audio posts will be deleted. In 2024 we will delete sermon posts from 2016. Next year we will delete 2017 posts to make way for 2025 sermons to be uploaded. That is the plan at this time, we’ll see how it goes. I can’t imagine anyone is going back that far and listening to sermons that I preached when Obama was still in office. If you are this is last call.
The Rewards of the Faithful looked at the Hebrews 11:1 definition of faith, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen, and provided a few examples from the first 16 verses. This is the second half of Hebrews 11, offering many more examples and explaining what they waited for and have now received. As we began the invitation I read Matthew 25:46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” The Old Testament saints receive the reward we do and for the same reason; trusting in God that he is who he says he is and will do the things he has promised.
Peter told those in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost they needed to believe Jesus was the Christ and had been raised from the dead. What about people in the Old Testament, were they saved based on keeping the Law or based on good works? Let’s consider the faithful of the Old Testament and see what Hebrews 11 has to say about them. This is part 1 of 2.
On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell, Peter preached the first Christian sermon and 3,000 were saved. Let’s skip to Acts 13, where Paul and Barnabas encourage the believers at Antioch with a similar message: that children of Israel and all who fear God find salvation through Jesus Christ.
Today is Pentecost Sunday and we are finishing what we started last week. Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 is the first “Christian’ message, that is that we need to believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus the Christ in order to be saved.
Last week’s sermon was “Wait for the Promise.” This is part 1 of 2 on Pentecost.
*If you download the m4a file it will say Gift, not Promise. When you listen to the sermon you will see why I had the gift of the Holy Spirit on my mind.
After appearing to his followers for 40 days, Jesus ascended into heaven. His final instructions were to wait in Jerusalem where they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came up on them, and “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
If the question is “What would Jesus do?” then fish fry is always an option. Seriously though, this sermon is not all fun and games. We also praise him when it hurts.
I did not preach this morning and gave the entire time to our Gideon speaker, Jim Marrs from the Rome, GA, camp. The Gideons’ pastors and wives breakfast has restarted for the first time since the pandemic shut it down and 19 different churches in Gordon County had Gideon speakers this morning. If you have ever noticed the hardcover Bible in a hotel room or by your hospital bed those are placed by the Gideons. Printing and distributing Bibles is all they do and every dollar donated goes to that end. New Testaments are given to 5th graders, college students and others who serve as first responders or military personnel. Chances are you seen a Gideon Bible or been handed one in person. Since they first begin distributing Bibles in 1908 the Gideons International and placed more than 2.3 billion copies worldwide.
You can read more about the Gideons and donate to the printing and distribution of Bibles by clicking this link. We want to thank Jim Marrs for sharing with us this morning and those in our congregation that gave over $300 just in our service today.
Unity Baptist Church 