Author Archives: Jerry Wierwille
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Pentecost – A Day We Will Never Forget Date: May 15, 2016 Audio Sermon: Click on the play button below. Pentecost is a Jewish festival known as Shavuot that takes place each spring to commemorate giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, to make an offering of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and to honor God as the owner and provider of the harvest. But during one particular Pentecost about 2,000 years ago, everything changed. That Pentecost was a Pentecost unlike any before it because on that day the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled as promised by God (Joel 2:28-29) and prophesied by Jesus Christ (Luke 24:49). On Pentecost, God poured out his spirit upon the 12 apostles gathered together in the Temple area along with a demonstration of God’s power through the apostles when they began to speak in other tongues as “the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts […]
Psalm 5:1-3 NLT O LORD, hear me as I pray; pay attention to my groaning. Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you. Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly. Prayer isn’t a “cash in your lottery ticket” and “get-whatever-you-want” enterprise. We often see only one side of prayer—the part where we ask God for something. We tend to come to God in prayer with our list of requests, filling our prayer time with asking for things. We come hungry for what we desire to see God do. Is that wrong? No, certainly not. We ought to come and lay our requests before God. “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6 […]
Psalm 51:10 ESV Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. God Is Relentless in His Pursuit God’s love is unquestionable, for He has put up with an unimaginable degree of disobedience and rebellion in our hearts. God’s love is also so unreasonable because of His never-ending patience and mercy with our stubbornness and refusal to surrender to His will at times. What love is this that is so inexhaustible and unyielding? When we might expect our failures would evoke an attitude from God of “Enough is enough, I’m done with you!” He never ceases to pierce the deepest part of our hearts and draw us back to Him in such gentle and mysterious ways. It was the ultimate expression of such an unfathomable love when God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for a world that didn’t deserve him so […]
Psalm 37:7 GWT Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Our world is inundated with the cultural mindset that if you just work hard enough and make the necessary sacrifices, you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. This “super-human,” “I am unstoppable,” “I’m the only one who can make it happen” mentality is completely self-reliant and dependent upon one’s own capabilities and dedication. If we think that we must grit our teeth and work as hard as possible in order to achieve our dreams and goals in life, and that simple brute force and sold-out commitment to the task at hand is the only way to make it happen, then why don’t we just keep working on Sundays and forget about God? It’s All About Us What many have been falsely led to believe is that success and achievement are among the highest goals we […]
Don’t Be Offended! Date: February 28, 2016 Audio Sermon: Click on the play button below. We live in a world where being offended has become almost everyone’s favorite hobby. Everyone has some axe to grind and gets offended over something. However, is offence something that we are naturally disposed to? Is being offended an involuntary reaction to something we just don’t like or agree with? This sermon addresses issues surrounding what it means to be offended, what being offended involves psychologically and emotionally, and how we are often prone to react to situations by becoming offended. Furthermore, pivotal questions are considered such as, “Can we help becoming offended?” “Can being offended be something good given the right circumstances?” and “In what way can we understand being offended in order to grow in our Christian walk?” If you are someone who is easily offended, I hope this sermon will be a […]
GOD – Our Spectacular Creator Date: January 8, 2016 Video Sermon: Click on the play button below description. God is SOOO spectacular! How spectacular is God? Well that is hard to explain because, you see, we say many things are “spectacular.” But the way in which God is spectacular exceeds all preconceived notions of the word “spectacular.” God is spectacular in a way that words cannot really explain. One of the most convincing testimonies about how spectacular God is can be seen all around us―CREATION. While there are so many things on the earth that are spectacular and amazing, the sun, moon, and stars in the sky are even more amazing. In this presentation, I have tried to give a glimpse of the incredible beauty and size of the universe. The beauty and majesty of creation, reflects the beauty and majesty of the Creator.
What do silence and solitude have to do with spirituality and Christian faith? There is a long and rich tradition of seeking in silence the Divine and self-discernment within Christianity. This sort of practice developed a lot in the 3rd-5th centuries with the rise of monasticism in Christianity. One of the earliest desert monks wrote extensively about a concept called hesychia, which is practicing a deep inner stillness and silence. Hesychia isn’t just about finding a quiet environment or a place without distractions. It is about cultivating a profound inner tranquility and quietness in your soul. Much of the practice of hesychia has to do with wrestling the endless stream of thoughts that flood into our mind, which if we are not careful of and paying attention to, can be relentlessly noisy and drown out all shimmers of silence and stillness in ourselves. With increasing practice of contemplative prayer and […]
It is undeniable that God has acted in His creation throughout history in many ways. The Bible contains countless stories of God intervening in the lives of humans and working to bring about His will and purposes. God spoke to Moses in a burning bush (Exod 3:2), He guided the children of Israel through the wilderness in a cloud of smoke and pillar of fire (Exod 13:21), and He answered Elijah’s prayer and sent fire down from heaven upon Elijah’s offering (1 Kgs 18:36-38), just to mention a few. The Old and New Testaments are filled with accounts like these where God interacted with his people and acted decisively to cause miraculous events. These accounts and many others in Scripture paint a very colorful picture of God which can easily be distorted and wrongly understood. When our understanding of God is skewed, it can leave us discouraged and in doubt […]
“I work with young people every day who long to make an impact in their generation. I talk with young and old alike who crave purpose and seek to make a mark on the world. But here is the key to making an impact in the earth: give yourself wholeheartedly to God. I don’t mean throwing our hands up in a worship service. I mean giving yourself wholeheartedly to God. Devote your life to radical, unbalanced, extravagant pursuit of God. Follow Him in obedience to His Word, prayer, fasting, giving, holiness, and devoting your life to fulfill His commandments and the Great Commission…. Extravagant love for God is the right response to the cross. People will always be looking for a way to stay near the fence. They’ll tell you to calm down, to not live so radically. They will tell you you’re doing ok when you aren’t. They’ll constantly […]
“Spending too much time on the details rather than the dreams. This is a natural corollary to the mistake of staying busy. When life gets busy and I get invested in all the dirty details flowing my way, I lose site of the dreams that God has for me. Here’s the reality: those dreams usually come when the pace of my life slows enough to do stuff like read, pray, rest, experience new places, and meet new people. Dealing with the dailiness of life doesn’t allow for that. It needs to be planned and prioritized. We need to create space to experience God and all that he has for us.” ~Tony Morgan and Andy Stanley, Killing Cockroaches, 186. Sometimes I feel like I am not sure exactly where I am going in life. When I try to really figure out where God is leading me I tend to get all […]