Four Oaks East Sermons: Recent Episodes
Four Oaks Community Church
Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 8:16-9:5. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Sermon transcription:
Today we are pausing our sermon series in 2 Corinthians. We
do this every year. We call it Vision Sunday. We reflect on where we’ve been
and where the elders and pastors feel like God is leading us. The immediate
question you may have is: What’s up with the rocks? We are in the Old Testament
today. Old Testament discipline style. No? Haha, well ok. Anyway, that is where
we are.
Let me tell you this story that I mentioned in the Four Oaks weekly this week. When I was in seminary I took a pastoral counseling class. Basically before they unleash you to counsel messed up people, they want you to know how messed up you really are. Believe me, there is a lot of stuff there. For part of this process they have you construct what is called a genogram. Not be confused with the riveting family game, Jenga. Totally different thing. A genogram is basically a physical representation of your family history and lineage. It is not just an ancestral tree of all your long lost country cousins, which, apparently, we have many that are barefooted in the east hills of Tennessee. It is much more than that. It is actually a tool to utilize and identify family relational patterns, problems, issues, and strengths. The goal in constructing the genogram is to really make you more self aware about who you are and where you come from. Not to dwell in it, not to live in it, but to help you develop healthier patterns of relating in the future.
A couple of things really stood out as I journeyed down this
path of ancestral enlightenment. First, I had family members far and wide
across the fruited plains that filled these things out. Apparently they are
much more comfortable writing things down about the family than they are
actually saying them. As I’m reading these questionnaires, I’m realizing that
we are not going to be doing a genogram debrief at Thanksgiving this year. That
is not going to happen.
Secondly, despite all the issues that were uncovered in that family exploration, which undoubtedly would be in yours or mine or any of our families, one theme was strikingly clear. Out of all of this mess God has been amazingly faithful. To bring spiritual life out of sinful humanity, it is an amazing thing. I just sat there and looked at my dad’s line. None of these are exaggerations, or maybe only slightly, but seriously. Living on a mountain, in a shack, one step above deliverance and banjos, has an outhouse, shoots squirrels for food, hitchhiking to work as a teenager, a hard life, and then just seeing God miraculously and sovereignly save him so that he is the one Christian in my family for an extended season while growing up. Just seeing how God’s faithfulness, God’s will, God’s way prevails. I believe when we boil it right down to its essence, the 26 years of Four Oaks can really be summed up in that way. In the way my friend Kent Hamilton says it, “You know, in the end, God wins.” God gets his way. I believe that when I reflect on these 26 years, one of the things that God has given us by his grace is a unique capacity as a church family to trust in his goodness and to walk in faith. We know he’s got this. We know that he is faithful, that he is in control, that he is going to have his way. So, today we are going to take a quick peek at the Four Oaks genogram to help us understand where we have been, to help point us forward to where we think God is ...
2 Corinthians 6:1-13, let me read this for us then we will dive in.
Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says,“In a favorable time I listened to you,and in a day of salvation I have helped you.”Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.We have spoken freely to you,a Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.
Pastor Paul continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Sermon transcription:
I invite you to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. As you are doing so, let me as you a question: have you ever made a bad trade or a bad deal? A deal so awful for you, so one sided, so short sighted that you had to ask yourself how could I have missed it? How could I have been so dumb? How could I have been so obtuse? I can’t believe I did that. History is full of those kinds of bad exchanges. I think the French are still kicking themselves for selling us half of America, right? For pennies on the acre. Poor French. They just can’t get that right. The Boston Red Sox had a vision to fund a Broadway play and so he didn’t have the money but he did have a really good baseball player that he sold to the NY Yankees for $100,000. Who was it? The Babe, right? That didn’t turn out so good for the Red Sox. It worked out really good for the Yankees.
Quite possibly the worst exchange or deal in the history of mankind, some of you have probably heard this, was engaged in by a man named Ronald Wayne. Ronald was a fledgling computer enthusiast/entrepreneur and he founded this little company in the back of a garage in Paulo Alto California with two other guys, but soon into the venture he sold his share of the company, which was 10%. He sold that share for $800. He agreed to forfeit any future claims against said company, which just happened to have the name of what? Apple. Now valued? Do you want to guess what 10% of 118 billion dollars is? With revenues of 233 billion dollars? That was not a great exchange for young Ronald.
In our text this morning we have the story of another kind of exchange. This is not an economic exchange or a business transaction. Paul is going to unpack for us a relational exchange. This exchange has been initiated and offered to us by God himself and Luther, when he read this passage, said that “This is amazing! This is the great exchange.” We are co-opting that title except we are going to call it The Greatest Exchange. We are going to one-up Luther. Isn’t that always fun to do? 2 Corinthians 5:21. Four Oaks, today we are looking at one verse. Can you handle that? Just one.
Guests, you need to know that we are preaching through 2 Corinthians and that is our typical practice, to preach through books of the Bible and to take those books in chunks. Sometimes, though, we come across verses that are so profound, so world-view altering that we just need to camp out on that verse and 2 Corinthians 5:21 is one of those verses. In fact, I believe, and this is not pastoral hyperbole, these are 24 words that can literally change your life and give you hope wherever you are. Lets read that verse and get to it. 2 Corinthians 5:21
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Lord, some of us may have never thought deeply at all about our salvation. So we are asking that you would give us an encounter with your word that really shapes our heart, that shapes our mind, that shapes our worship, that shapes our life. That gives us a renewed sense of what you have done for us and how you did it. Lord, we are asking that because we think that it would honor you for our souls to find their joy in you. For a lot of us, we need renewal. We are flat. We ne...
Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 5:18-20. Download the sermon guide (Book 3, Week 16) at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Sermon transcription:
2 Corinthians. The title of this series is “Weak is Strong.” To be honest it has been something of a brain bending study so far because one of the things we are learning, as we get deeper into this epistle of 2 Corinthians, is that it describes life in two seemingly incompatible experiences. We started out in chapter 1 finding where Paul talks about comfort in suffering. In chapter 3 he talked about glory manifesting through shame. In chapter 4 it was about life working through death. In chapter 6 we are going to discover riches through poverty. In chapter 12 we are going to look at power through weakness. It is like 2 Corinthians just reaches right down into the center of human existence and just kind of fiddles with all of our categories and that is a good thing. God wants to make some adjustments in our thinking and in our heart and I know that is going on for me as I study this and I trust that you are having the same experience.
This morning we are in 2 Corinthians 5. Just three verses today, verses 18, 19, & 20. The title of today’s message is The Ambassador’s Appeal. Lets just jump together right into verse 18.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
Let’s pray. Lord, there are undoubtedly two different categories of folks here this morning. Lord, there are those who have been reconciled to you through Christ and those you are pursuing for reconciliation to you through Christ. Lord, my prayer is this morning, as we delve into this important passage, that you would reach all of us in some significant and personal way, through our time together. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
The other day we had a family from church over for dinner and as they were leaving I showed them one of my few earthly prized possessions, apart from my wife and children. It is a frame excerpt of a sermon that was preached by Charles Spurgeon. You might recall, Charles Spurgeon 19th century famed London pastor known as the prince of preachers. The reason why this sermon is framed is because portions of it are in his actual handwriting. It was a gift to me from Pete Greasley, remember Pete, he is the pastor from Wales, he has preached here a couple of times. Once, Charles Spurgeon was asked by some people who were visiting his church about the secret of his success. They asked, “What is the source of the extraordinary power that you appear to have as a preacher?” He replied simply and without hesitation, “My people pray for me.” Spurgeon was emphatic about this. Spurgeon wanted there to be no misunderstanding that the secret of his success and the potency behind his power and his ministry was God. To this point, thus far, much of the letter we have been studying together has been dedicated to Paul’s defense. As you probably recall, there are false teachers that have infiltrated the church and they have launched an attack on Paul’s credibility, requiring ...
Sermon Transcription:
“Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.b The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
On February 15th 1921, in an operating room in the state of New York, a doctor performed a simple surgical procedure. The doctor’s name was Dr. Evan O’Neill Kane. He had this rather unconventional, some might even suggest it was audacious, belief that the general anesthesia, where they sedate you completely and knock you out so you are not awake at all during the surgery, was hazardous. He believed that local anesthesia, where they numb one part of the bo...
Dustin Crawford, lead pastor of True North Community Church in Atlanta, continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Pastor Dustin Crawford
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Before I get started I just want to share a little bit about
our church plant and just say thank you. Without your sacrifice and generosity
giving to Sojourn Network, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. We wouldn’t be
able to share the gospel, so I just want to thank you from the bottom of my
heart. We are overwhelmed by your generosity for us and for the other 14 church
plants. I’d like to share a story so that you can rejoice with us because when
you give, you are going with us. The salvations that we see and the
reconciliations that we see in marriages and all the beautiful things that we
see because of the power of the gospel, you are participating with us and so
I’d like to share a short story.
There was a guy named Jonathan Walker, we call him Waka, and if you have ever seen our website, he is the guy who does all the photography for our website. He is a nonbeliever. He is one of the first guys I met once we moved to Atlanta. He is on Instagram and somehow someway, me and my wife went to a Braves game and he saw a post that my wife made about me wearing all my Braves gear. He sent me a message that said, “I just don’t understand the tattoos. I don’t understand that you guys want to move to the inner city and work among the down and out and the hurting and the poor and you are a pastor. I don’t get that so I’d love to meet up for coffee if you have time.” I was like “I’ve got plenty of time!” So we got to coffee and over coffee he shares his story. Over the course of about 3 years ago he was in the process of committing suicide. He was getting ready to walk out into the MARTA, which was the train system. His sister called him twice and since she called him twice he figured it must have been an emergency. So he answered the phone and didn’t take his life by the grace of God. Over the course of the next two months or three months as we are journeying with him and sharing the gospel with him, sharing our life with him he starts to wonder what the hope is that we have that he feels like he is just missing. He’s got this deep hole within his heart that he is just longing to feel healed, to feel satisfaction, to feel joy in the midst of sorrow and he is thinking “What is it?”
So he pulls me aside after community group one night and he is wrestling saying “You are answering questions that I have. No one has ever done that. You are talking about things that I really struggle with and you don’t say it in a way where you are just blowing me off and saying ‘believe this’, you are sharing your doubts and your hurts and you are fighting to trust the Lord. What is this? What do I need to do to have my sins forgiven?” So I got to share the gospel with him and now we are walking with him. We don’t know if he is saved yet, but he is right there and your giving makes things like this possible. So we can rejoice with this, and without your giving, Waka would have never heard the gospel, so I thank you and I praise you for Christ in you so thank you so much.
Today we are going to be in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10. This is a meaty passage, a weighty ...
Pastor Paul continues our Wonder advent series with a sermon from Matthew 2:1-12
I’ve got to be honest; I am really jazzed about this Christmas season. Gilbert crew got back into our house after our little kitchen fire mishap and they have been busily scrubbing every surface. I didn’t know that there were that many surfaces to scrub in a house. Our house has never been cleaner since it was built. So, I would love a little Advent fire every year. It would be awesome. I love Four Oaks at Christmas. The lights, the Christmas Eve service (Melissa, no hair spray this year as we are passing that flame around) Melissa caught on fire one year but any way parents its ok. We have safety monitors, so it’s ok. Love our décor back here and if you don’t like that, if you’re a traditionalist, bah humbug to you.
I love this because we have a lot of gifted singers, artists, creative people, and talented people in these areas and I am not ashamed to say that I am not one of them, ok? This explains why when I was in elementary school in Chattanooga I was a part of the Chattanooga boy’s choir. I know, its shocking. Every year they would do the singing Christmas tree at the Tivoli theatre and my first year there, they asked me to be Joseph, mainly because I didn’t have to do anything, and I didn’t have to open my mouth. So I just stood there the whole time staring at the plastic baby doll in the manger and of course, the pinnacle of that performance and the pinnacle of every Christmas performance it seems is that as Mary and Joseph are gathered around the manger and the angels are there and of course they bring in the shepherds and trail them all in there at one time, so what it the coup de gras? They bring in the wise men, right? They are bearing their gold and frankincense and myrrh and they perch the star on top of the set. They play “We Three Kings, which I’ve always kind of liked. If you don’t remember the first verse, let me flash it up here for you. The first verse says “We three kings of Orient are, bearing gifts, we’ve traversed afar” (its not travelled, like I always thought, its traversed) “Field and fountain, moor and mountain following yonder star” So I asked Josh if we could sing that this morning and he selfishly refused. Something about “artistic integrity” and also something about “it not being Biblical”. That’s always an important criteria, so as I studied this passage this week, lo and behold, he is right! There is not necessarily three, they are not kings, probably not from the Orient and this was not a star per se. Other than that, this song gets it all right, ok? We are going to be talking about the star and the wise men so you can turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 2. Since we are talking about stars and galaxies and celestial events, it seemed like the appropriate time for me to break out the top ten spoilers of Force Awakens and relate them to the Christian faith, should I do that? Oh I wont even tell you about Luke and…. I won’t even go there.
Good stuff actually, part of an Advent series that we are calling “Wonder”. Seeing the supernatural in Christmas. You may say, “That seems like a strange thing, Pastor Paul, to be preaching on. Isn’t the whole point of Christmas, is that things are supernatural? Isn’t that the essence of it? That God became man? Why have we titled the series in this way? We love to get after the progressives and secular elites this time of year, who try to deconstruct Christmas and say it...
Pastor Josh continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 4:7-15. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Pastor Dave continues our Weak is Strong series with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 4:3-6. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Pastor Paul continues our Weak is Strong series at Killearn with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 4:1-2. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Pastor Paul continues our Weak is Strong series at Killearn with a sermon from 2 Corinthians 3:12-18. Download the sermon guide at fouroakschurch.com/guide.
Paul Gilbert continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on the importance of the sacraments.
Pastor Joshua Hughes continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on God's new people.
Pastor Dave Harvey continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on the invasion of the kingdom of God.
Pastor Dave Harvey continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Paul Gilbert continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on justification by faith.
Pastor Dave Harvey continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on the redemption accomplished by Christ.
Pastor Paul Gilbert continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on God's plan to redeem men and women for himself.
Pastor Dave Harvey continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on the effects of the Fall.
Pastor Paul Gilbert continues our "Truth Matters" series with a sermon on the roles of men and women in the church.
Click here for the Kevin DeYoung sermon on the authority of scripture in the ministry of Jesus that Pastor Dave referred to in his sermon.
Dave Harvey continues our "Beyond The Shadowlands" series with a sermon from Romans 8:34
Pastor Dave Harvey begins our "Through The Shadowlands" series with a sermon from Hebrews 10:11-14
Pastor Paul Gilbert continues our "Unconquered" series with a sermon from Acts 22:17 - 26
Guest Preacher Daniel Montgomery, Lead Pastor of Sojourn Community Church, calls us to our identity as gospel witnesses.
Guest Preacher Daniel Montgomery, Lead Pastor of Sojourn Community Church, calls us to our identity as gospel witnesses.
Pastor Dave Harvey continues our "Unconquered" series with a sermon from Acts 10:34-11:18
Pastor Dave Harvey continues our "Unconquered" series with a sermon from Acts 10:34-11:18
Pastor Paul Gilbert continues our "Unconquered" series, with a sermon from Acts 4:32 - 5:11
Pastor Dave Harvey contines our "Unconquered" series with a sermon from Acts 2:1-13. In this sermon he describes how the Holy Spirit descended upon God's people, birthing the church and giving the church power and unity of witness.