Northwest Church of Christ Sermons

Outline for Success

In this Senior Sunday sermon, Nathan challenged our graduating seniors and the entire congregation to follow a series of Biblical steps to success.

Seize Every Opportunity

So often today we are unwilling to talk to anybody about Jesus, the Bible, or church. But when we read the closing chapters of Acts we see Paul seizing every single opportunity, no matter what the cost to himself, to tell anybody and everybody about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Disruptive Diversity

In Acts, the church becomes a force for disruptive change. They begin to practice radical inclusion of people who had long been prevented from getting close to God in the Temple. Not only could Gentiles, Eunuchs, Samaritans, women, and all kinds of people become Christians, but God's presence dwelt in them when they received the Holy Spirit. But this kind of disruptive diverse community brought challenges. But that didn't keep the early church from continually striving to be an accommodating (not assimilating) community of Christ followers. Are we ready to become that kind of disruptive community today?

Spirit-Filled Vessels

Why don't we expect the Holy Spirit to show up and make a difference in our lives? In Luke and Acts Jesus promises us that when he leaves he will send what the Father has promised, and with that promise comes power that comes from the Holy Spirit. Too often we think we are too imperfect, too unqualified, or that we are waiting for the "right time" to let the Holy Spirit come in and move us to action, in many ways just like the Apostles were. But if we get over that, like the Apostles did, we can become courageous, speak to anybody and everybody about God, sharing with one another, and incapable of being silenced or killed. This is what it means to be Spirit-filled vessels. Are you ready?

Fourth Day

Jesus demonstrated through his trials with the Jewish leaders, Pilate, and Herod that he has incredible strength, courage, and confidence in his purpose as the Son of God. However, his followers struggled to understand or believe Jesus was resurrected, even after seeing him. They finally believe and then Luke's Gospel ends! But what's next? What happens after a follower of Jesus becomes convinced of the resurrection? Luke's response..."you tell me."

Through the Needle

This week the church read Luke chapters 9 through 19. This sermon focuses on how often Jesus brings up financial and money matters during this section. Jesus uses financial problems as symptoms to diagnose spiritual problems. We need to be willing today to use our financial struggles to evaluate our own spiritual lives so we can make ourselves more in the image of Christ.

A Different Kind of King

Over the last week we invited the church to read Luke 1:1-9:51 together. Today's sermon seeks to capture some of the major themes of this portion of Luke's Gospel The first is that Jesus set us an example of how to live by leaving Heaven and giving up being in very nature God to become a baby human. Throughout Luke are stories where Jesus, by teaching and example, calls his disciples to give up their own pursuit of personal greatness to exalt God and to lift up others. When we are able to do this, God truly will exalt us with Christ on the last day.

Raising Spiritual Champions

Jesus's ministry is the best model for passing faith to the next generation. He taught the disciples by demonstrating, including, and then empowering. He also didn't focus simply on knowledge and skills, but sought to spiritually form them into being like him for God's purposes through the power of the Spirit. Today, parents need to do this in the home by recognizing ways to practice spiritual formation, discipleship, and living out faith with their kids. It's only when parents first make their own faith real that they have a faith worth passing to their kids. This sermon was also intended to set up the Spiritual Formation Parent Workshop later that day.

Most Excellent Marriages

One of the great challenges for the authors of the Bible is to find ways to describe God's indescribable love. One of the ways they do this is by using images from human family relationships. So we get images like Ephesians 5:21-33 which describes Christ's love for the church using the image of a beautiful, mutually submissive marriage or the book of Hosea where God calls on a prophet to experience an unfaithful marriage to understand the pain God experiences when we reject him. So our marriages today should reflect God's love and design, the love of Christ for the church, and the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of believers. If your marriage doesn't, then it's time to get to work.

Faith at Home

This sermon focuses on the importance of parents as the primary disciple-makers of children and how its often the little moments that make the biggest difference in shaping them. Deuteronomy 6 calls parents to impress faith on their children, but for too long parents have been outsourcing this responsibility or forfeiting altogether. This sermon challenges them to step back into their God-ordained role and talks about ways the church will come alongside them on this journey to reclaim faith at home.