Yesterday I finished my ALIVE sermon series that started on Easter. The series was topical as it focused on essential issues in in life. These issues are universal, but the way Christ-follower’s deal with them is unique. In a nutshell, here are the five sermons.
#1–ALIVE FAITH–this was the Easter sermon. I decided to preach not on the resurrection of Jesus so much as the resurrection of our faith. Many people who attend church on Easter have a connection to church and God, that is why they come. The problem is they let their faith die. This death can be because they are brain dead (logical problems) or because they are cardiac dead (they’ve been hurt.)
#2–ALIVE FAMILY–Far too many families, Christian and otherwise, are broken and near relational death or on the morgue slab. But there are some concrete things that families can do to be alive again. Part of this involves a broad definition of family, investing time, and creating boundaires.
#3–ALIVE DREAMS–By far and away this was my favorite sermon in the series. Sometimes our dreams are dead because of life and we need to revive them with concrete actions. Other times, our dreams are needing to be euthanized so we can dream new dreams.
#4–ALIVE FINANCES–One of my key goals this year was to preach about money more. So far I haven’t lived up to that, but I’m doing better than int he past. One third of Jesus’ lessons were about money. I’m nowhere near that. This sermon used five words to highlight how we can bring our finances back to life: Wait, thrift, ant, give, record. My favorite part was the ant–based on the instruction from Proverbs 6 for us to observe the hard work and preparation of the ant.
#5–ALIVE CHURCH--I used Revelation 3 and the church at Sardis to talk about the things that can bring a church back to life again that is dead as well as keep a church alive in the first place. A fun part of this sermon was that I read, straight from my iPhone, a part of a blog post from a friend who pastors in Florida. Thanks David for helping our church keep it real.