One Hope Church Sermons: Recent Episodes
One Hope Church
What part does man play in God's plan for restoration? What part does God play? Agency means effort, work, and action. This sermon explores how God uses Nehemiah, and in general, human agency, to accomplish his plans. He uses all aspects of humanity, our heads, our hearts, and our hands to creatively and meaningfully take part in the restoration He has in store. These intentional actions demonstrate our faith in a fallen world.
Paul finishes his letter to Timothy talking about wealth and riches. Paul does not criticize the wealthy but lays out how to fulfill the role correctly. Ultimately, it is trusting God by pursuing godliness, not wealth, that brings contentment, joy, and generosity. This is a truly rich life.
Healthy elders lead to a healthy church. In 1 Timothy 5, Paul writes to Timothy about how to bring order and health to the church and to ensure that the church is functioning in a way that will help it to endure long-term. This sermon focuses on how to honor and hold elders accountable in a biblical way that leads to a healthy, enduring church.
Propriety simply means what is proper. This sermon explains Paul's instructions to Timothy in 1 Timothy 5 about how we ought to conduct ourselves and proper relationships within the church. These proper relationships are mapped onto the God-given, structured patterns of human creation and create a context for faith.
There is something that we are all hungering for. We often confuse our hunger for something from God with a hunger for God himself. God is looking for people who burn for him, but there are obstacles to spiritual hunger. How do we hunger for God himself? This sermon focuses on three enemies of spiritual hunger, apathy, the orphan spirit, and prayerlessness, and how to overcome them.
How do you know if you are in the presence of godly leadership in the church? Good leaders create leadership for everyone. This sermon explores further what Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3, about finding and raising up godly leaders.
This sermon continues to explore what God’s design for his people is as we live together as the body of Christ. Paul encourages Timothy and all believers to place a priority on praying for all people, people they know and people they don’t. We are also reminded that prayer might not change our circumstances, but prayer always changes us.
We further examine Paul’s letter to Timothy talking about how to lead the church well. Paul shares it is gratitude to God that fuels him to give his life in service. When we are filled with gratitude like Paul for what Jesus has done for us, we serve Christ out of delight. The Coopers also share about their ministry and how God is using them overseas.
This sermon introduces the theme of 1 Timothy and how we live together in the household of faith. The foundation of our life together is the Gospel. We have a responsibility to defend and preserve the Gospel which is revealed to us in the Bible. Together, we preserve the truth of the Gospel through word and deed, in doctrine, and in life.
Jesus says in Matthew 22 that loving God and others is what is most important to God. But, how do we actually grow in our love for God? In this sermon, we look at five movements of love in order to grow in our love for God that overflows into our love for others.
Paul writes to the Corinthians not as a teacher, leader, or business manager, but as a father. One of the greatest needs for the church today is for spiritual fathers and mothers. The church is a spiritual family and the call is to raise up spiritual generations of disciples through the love of Christ. In this sermon, we discuss how to become spiritual fathers and mothers.
Fear and anxiety are at all-time highs in our culture. Fear can keep us from responding to God’s call on our lives and from experiencing the fullness of God. How can we overcome our fears? Joshua 1:9 gives us four keys to overcoming our fear and following God to the fullest.
Joshua faced difficult circumstances as he was leading the people of Israel into the Promised Land. He was able to face difficulty without fear because of his confidence in the presence of God. As individuals and as a church, we can do the same, since we know God will never leave or forsake us.
Acts 6 tells us the story of a growing church that inevitably encounters struggles and difficulty. The early church shows us the path to keep prayer and the preaching of the word as primary while empowering other spirit-filled leaders to help accomplish the day-to-day ministry. This leads to greater unity in the church and provides principles for the church in every age to live by.
The Church is God’s plan A to reach the world with the Gospel. The local church does this by facilitating essential and committed relationships that create the environment for transformation. These diverse relationships allow the Holy Spirit to have the environment to remake people in Christ’s image. Our task is to develop these life-giving communities, utilizing the gifts of the Spirit to further expand our reach and raise up new leaders.
Peter preaches the first Spirit-empowered Gospel message after Pentecost, and 3000 people come to faith. It is the first revival followed by the first global missionary movement as many are sent back to their home with the very gospel that saved them. Peter’s gospel was all about Jesus. Do we preach the same gospel with our words and our lives?
The promised Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost, and the church is born. The people of God are now filled with the Spirit of God and are empowered to witness for Jesus through words, wonders, and good works. The Holy Spirit moves today in the same way that he moved in the book of Acts. We should seek to be filled by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and live by the Spirit so that our lives will be a witness to Jesus Christ.
We have been caught up into the grandest story of all time, the story of the Church. What Jesus began in His life, death and resurrection, we are called to finish. The Church is the body of Christ on earth today and has been filled by His spirit to finish the story that God is writing. When we catch a vision of His story in our everyday life it restores our purpose, motivation and passion to live for Jesus.
Jesus prayed, so we need to pray. In John 17, Jesus prays for his disciples and for all who would believe in Him over the ages. As we listen to Jesus pray we can receive his prayers for us, and we can also learn how to pray like Jesus.
Jesus teaches his disciples that there will be a cost to following Him. He says the world will hate you, persecute you and even kill you because it first hated me. This is a sobering reality for many in the world today. What does it mean for us to be ready for persecution and the hatred of the world here in the west? Whatever may come, Jesus teaches that the Holy Spirit is the power to endure and testify in the midst of hardship and persecution.
In John 15, Jesus begins to unpack what it means to live out of our union with Him by giving us the rich metaphor of a vineyard. In this, we see that God’s purposes for us are to produce God’s fruit by God’s power. The key to our walk with Christ and bearing fruit for Him is to abide in Him. In this sermon, we look at what it means to abide in Jesus and to bear fruit for Him.
Jesus concludes John 14 by teaching about the peace that He gives us. The peace of Jesus is not the absence of conflict, but rather a deep sense of wholeness, harmony, welfare, and well-being. We have peace with God through the atoning work of Jesus and we have ongoing peace with God through our reconciled relationship with Him. When we live out of this peace we can follow Jesus’ call to “not let our hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
Jesus teaches the disciples in John 14:18-26 that if they believe in Him then God Himself will live inside of them. It is one of the most profound and life changing truths in the Bible. How can we experience this union with Christ in a greater degree? Jesus’s answer to this is to simply love Him and follow Him. In this teaching we look at what that means.
Learn how to read your Bible in a consistent way that also grows your relationship with God.
What does it mean to ‘pray in the name of Jesus’? At its foundation, it is based on our union with Christ. In John 14:13-17, Jesus teaches that praying in His name means having access to God, cultivating a friendship with Him, and a heart to glorify Him. It means praying with the authority in the name of Jesus and by the power of His Spirit. When we cultivate these things we cultivate a more effective prayer life that leads to doing the greater works of Jesus.
What did Jesus mean in John 14:12 when he said ‘we would do greater works than He did?’ At the very least, it means we will do the same works we see Jesus doing in the gospels. But what does that look like? And what does that mean for our everyday lives? In this teaching, we unpack the answers to these questions and why it is so important to the mission of the church.
Jesus claimed to be God because He is God. He calls us to believe His words and His works. If Jesus is God, then we can give and receive forgiveness. We can have real hope for redemption, restoration, and reconciliation in our lives. We can be a part of God’s mighty work in the world today.
Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). What does this mean for our everyday life? Following Jesus is a way of life, not just a decision. We need to know which path we are walking and what it means to walk with Jesus. We are also motivated by the final destination for those who trust in Jesus: a place so glorious it is beyond human imagination. And remembering this truth helps us persevere in times of trouble.
Have you ever asked yourself “How am I going to get through this?” On the eve of his arrest, Jesus teaches His disciples how they will persevere in life and ministry when He is gone. He teaches them about love, the Holy Spirit, faith, joy, peace, and unity. He redefines His disciple's relationship with Him as friends. It is through our friendship with God that we will be able to endure and even flourish in life and ministry.
Sometimes especially when we're weary, we need to be reminded that we have everything we need in Jesus. As we journey, we need Jesus to regularly serve and wash us the way only He can. And as a result, we must do what Jesus did but the power that Jesus has.
The story of Elijah and the false prophets of Baal reveals God's power and His heart for His people to know Him and experience His unmatched goodness.
The Church is a collective of people living, serving, and working together in different ways for the same purpose in following Jesus. Learn about different parts of the body that is One Hope Church.
How do we connect with God when we're in the most desperate situations? When we are facing challenges or needs are great?
What does talking with God look like? How should we approach him? What role does corporate, regular gathering with the people of the church play in our relationship with Him?
In this special Family Day message, we learn about the prodigal son and the kindness of God, the Father.
Part of learning to talk with God is knowing how to reconcile times when He seems silent. What could He be teaching us? What is the purpose and plan in the silence? How do we respond?
Confession usually feels heavy and isn't something we regularly want to think about. But confession is an essential rhythm of having a relationship with God.
Praising God is foundational to learning to talk with Him because praising God tunes our hearts to hear His voice. It turns our attention from ourselves and circumstances and towards the one over and above all - God. Praise is something we do naturally, expressively, and communally.
God speaks to us today. But do we know how to hear His voice? What does it look like to have a conversation with God? The book of Psalms gives us both a model and a method for how to talk with God. Psalm 1 is the introduction to the entire book of Psalms and shows us that true blessing comes from meditating on God’s Word. It is through meditating on God’s Word that we come to know His voice.
The Kingdom of God is the most important thing going on today. Jesus taught that we should pray for it, seek it above all else and preach it to all the nations. The Kingdom of God began with the first coming of Jesus and will be fully realized in his second coming. In between we live in the already-not yet kingdom. When Jesus returns he will judge the living and the dead and everyone who ever lived will spend eternity in either heaven or hell. The decisive factor is not whether we did enough good works, but rather if our names are written in the book of life. This happens when we put our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
Responsibility, strength, humility, presence, and impact. Biblical fatherhood is something to be celebrated and appreciated and a special calling.
If God has saved us, we should live for Him. What does it mean to resolve to live for God? We learn to love him completely, to desire what He desires, and to be a living Bible.
What is the Church? As the people of God, what does it mean to live on the mission and with the purpose God has given to us?
Jesus is at the center of the Scriptures, the center of all creation, and therefore should be at the center of our lives.
The universe is not the result of randomness but of a story being written by God. This is the story of scripture and it has four major chapters: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. The creation account in Genesis 1-2 teaches us that God created all things good. The Fall of Genesis 3 teaches us about the world we experience today in all of its brokenness. Genesis 3 also reveals God's promise of Redemption and Restoration which are come to fulfillment in the rest of Scripture.
Who is God? There are many different voices constantly trying to define Him and yet what does it mean to correctly answer this question? If we don't know who God is, we won't be able to correctly know ourselves. How does emotion and suffering affect our view of God?
What is biblical motherhood? How can we all be grateful for the women who have served to bring us into the world and learn from their example? Listen as Pastor Justin interviews 4 women from One Hope about their motherhood journeys.
What is the Bible? Who wrote the Bible? Can we trust the Bible? Why we should build our life on the Bible? Find the answers to these and other questions in week 1 of our This I Believe series.
God came as a man in Jesus, lived a righteous life, died for our sins, and rose to give new life. Have you ever wondered "what now?"
What's so important about Jesus rising from the dead? The resurrection means Jesus is who He said He is- the Messiah, Son of God, King of the kingdom of God. The resurrection means that sin has been paid for and the barrier between God and humanity has been removed. The resurrection also means that true, deep, lasting change is possible. It is through the resurrection that Jesus changes our lives.
Why did Jesus have to die? Walking through the garden, Jesus' trial, and His crucifixion, we see Jesus had to die because of the Father’s plan, to testify to the truth, and to give His life as a ransom. But the deepest reason, His ultimate motivation: God’s love.
We are all on a journey with Jesus and there are people that God puts in our lives to help us along the way. We need others to help us answer the questions “where am I with Jesus” and “what is the next step I can take with Jesus?"
Mark 13 is Jesus’ last teaching before going to the cross. He teaches His disciples that life is going to be hard and full of affliction but to take heart because the gospel must go forth. He promises to be with us in affliction and promises to return and deal with Satan, sin, and death and to put an end to suffering forever. What does it look like to live in light of these truths?
Jesus is the Christ, the living God. He invites us to come to Him with our needs, questions, doubts, and fears. But often we are hindered from coming to Him because of obstacles in our life, worldly pursuits, distractions, or our own misconceptions about Him. What does it look like for us to come to Jesus in all areas of life and to experience His power and presence regularly?
We are under the Kingdom reign of the resurrected King. When we enter into the Kingdom of God by putting our faith in Jesus, we are offered a kingdom life. This life means being under the authority of God to experience the blessings of God.
What does it mean to pray with faith to move mountains (Mark 11:24)? Jesus enters Jerusalem and goes into the temple to cleanse it fulfilling a prophecy in Malachi 3:1. He curses the fig tree that then withers as a symbol of Israel and the Temple because the power and presence of God no longer dwell in a building but in a body. And through the body of Christ, we now have access to God so that we can pray with faith.
If Jesus were to ask you “What do you want me to do for you?”, what would you say? Jesus wants to hear from us and desires to answer our prayers but may do so in a way we do not expect. What is important is that we come to Him to ask.
We tend to cling to temporal things rather than what is eternal. Jesus’ promises free us to release our grip on temporal things and cling to eternal life. What would it look like for us to cling to eternal things rather than temporal? How would that change the way we live? The things we think about?
Like in Jesus' day, the idea of a biblical family is constantly challenged. What does Jesus have to say about marriage and children? What about the family of God? In his confrontation with the Pharisees, Jesus teaches that God values family so much that He plans to bring His Kingdom to earth.
True greatness comes through humble service. Jesus continues training His disciples and teaches them that to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven is to serve those who can give nothing in return. What does this look like in our lives today?
The transfiguration - Jesus becoming radiant upon the mountain - is a significant yet confusing event. Jesus reveals His glory to his closest disciples and yet they are still unsure of what this means for them.
We often do not see things or do things the way God does them. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the best example. As we look at the life of Jesus, we learn about what it means to follow God and where we find the power to do so. Following God is not about God conforming to our ways, but rather our ways conforming to His.
We are prone to trust a reality we can see, understand, and control. But Jesus came to open our eyes and ears to a reality where heaven meets earth.
You cannot live rightly without a renewed heart. What does this mean? How do you renew your heart?
Jesus feeds the 5000. But what does this familiar story mean for us today? Do we truly trust God to meet our needs and care for us? God reveals His compassion and power to the people then and to us now if we'll choose to see it.
When we truly follow Jesus, we will experience the power of God and persecution for God. As Jesus sends out His disciples to do kingdom ministry, we learn about John the Baptist’s humiliating death. It is a reminder of both the call to disciple-making and the cost of disciple-making.
In Mark 5:21-43, Jesus heals a woman of a 12 year affliction and raises a young girl from the dead. Does Jesus still heal today? If so, how does He heal? Why does He heal some and not others?
We are born into a spiritual war- a clash between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. The. good news is that Jesus came to wage war and to destroy the works of the devil. What does this mean for us in our daily life? How do we wage spiritual war? Mark 5:1-20 provides a battle plan for spiritual warfare.
Jesus reveals in His divinity and His humanity as He calms the storm. What does this mean for us?
Good soil bears good fruit. But what does kingdom fruitfulness look like? What are the barriers to bearing fruit? Our job is to sow the seed of God’s Word and God’s job is to grow the fruit. God will grow what we faithfully sow.
Jesus tells a parable of a sower and 4 different types of soil where the seeds fall. What does this parable teach us about God and about ourselves?
In every age and every culture we can fall prey to misidentifying Jesus as the Pharisees do in Mark 3:20-25. Wherever Jesus is not identified as Lord and Savior then evil is sure to follow.
God loves to do extraordinary things through ordinary people. We see this throughout church history and we see it in the calling of the twelve disciples.
What do you do when your heart becomes hard? Jesus loves us enough to confront our hardened hearts with both grace and truth. Will we respond to Jesus - broken for us - that we might be made new?
In an age where we can customize just about anything, God is not customizable. His way cannot be contained by our understandings, but He invites us into a relationship over rituals, mercy over mandates, and love over legalisms. This new way is the way of life but we have to choose to walk with Him.
Jesus has the ability, authority, and ardent desire to meet your deepest needs. In Mark, He cleanses the leper and heals a paralytic. While these are miraculous, the greatest miracle is that Jesus, as God in the flesh, forgives sin. He performs physical miracles to teach us about spiritual miracles and that no one is outside of God’s abounding grace. There is no sin that he cannot forgive.
Jesus begins His ministry through the preaching of God’s Word, the casting out of demons, and the healing of the sick. He demonstrates His authority and power as the true King of the Kingdom of God. Is the power and presence of the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ day the same for us today? If so, what does it look like for us?
The first disciples were men who were drifting through life until they were called by Jesus. He invited them to follow Him with their whole lives where they would experience transformation and be led into God’s purpose for their lives. But these promises were not just for this small group but are are for every believer in every age. Do you hear Jesus calling you to follow Him?
Underneath all of our deepest longings is ultimately a longing for the kingdom of God. The good news is that the kingdom of God is available to us through King Jesus. As we examine Jesus’ baptism, His battle with Satan and the beginning of his ministry we see why that matters for us today.
As we open the Gospel of Mark, we see in the first line what the gospel is about: Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. John the Baptizer came to point the way to Jesus and in some sense this is the calling of the church today. How can we help prepare the way for others to meet Jesus the Messiah?
Why is it important that we rest? Is resting all about what we're doing physically or more about where we're placing our expectations and hope?
We are living in a time of widespread fear. One of the most frequent commands in Scripture is to ‘fear not.’ But what does this actually look like? As Solomon concludes Ecclesiastes, he points us to the most important thing: teaching us to “fear God and obey Him.”
We have been blessed to be a blessing to the world around us. Given hope so we can share our hope with the people in our lives, communities, and around the world. How are you using your blessing to build God's kingdom?