RiverOaks Presbyterian Church, Tulsa: Recent Episodes
You are as important to your church as your fingers are to your body. Your church is as important to you as your body is to your fingers.
When death is unexpected, we are tempted to blame ourselves or blame God. But we only find peace, when we trust the one who has defeated death.
Why is the virgin birth important? Because without it, Jesus is not God and he is not sinless. Therefore, he could not have died for our sins.
We must cooperate with God's grace if we want to be part of his wonderful work of redeeming creation.
Temptation comes when we doubt God's goodness, and begin to long for created things more than we desire the creator. When we remember his sacrifice for us, we know he loves us, and we remember to trust him.
Sexual intimacy is created by God to be wonderful and powerful. Therefore, we must be careful to keep it in its God ordained channel of permanent, covenantal marriage.
After tragedies like the one at Camp Mystic, we have some hard questions to face. Why would God do that? How will he heal this? Can he still be trusted? Ultimately we know we can trust him because he gave his son for us.
The Lord has been extremely gracious to us, and expects us to be gracious to each other.
Joel tells us to repent sincerely, urgently, specifically and corporately because God is good and will show us grace.
Paul warns Timothy that there will be men seeking the office of elder for terrible reasons, and they must be avoided.
God has not given us a spirit of fear. So if fear is driving our lives, we are not following God.
Our hope, the day we dream of, is the day of resurrection. On that day we will receive our glorified bodies, see our savior in the flesh, and begin to live with him forever.
When the truth is preached in an authentic way, a gospel community develops where people love each other.
All funerals are sad, but some are more complicated than others. When the emotions of sadness, anger, regret and guilt get tangled, we need help to sort them. In this sermon, I try to identify what emotions are healthy, and which ones should be rejected so that healing can take place.
God takes our weaknesses, mistakes and sins and redeems them according to his beautiful purposes.
Have you ever felt like Jesus has forgotten you-- We all feel that way sometimes, but our feelings are wrong. Even in the valley of deep shadows, Jesus is with us and prepares a table for us.
Jesus has invited all sinners to feast in the kingdom of God, and he has invited only sinners to feast in the kingdom of God.
When we sow to the flesh, we reap exactly what we deserve. When we sow to the Spirit, we receive infinitely more than we ever dreamed.
Because of God's work in us, Christians always persevere to the end. --Philippians 1-6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. -ESV-
The Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the truth of the gospel, convicts our hearts of our sin and misery, and renews our wills so that we are persuaded and enabled to embrace Christ.
What did Jesus' death accomplish-- Did it make salvation possible or did it save, justify, and perfect his people.
We do not see ourselves clearly so we must look for the fruits of legalism, like anger, bitterness, jealousy or regret, to see if we live by the law.
God started loving us before the foundation of the earth because of the love with which he loved us. We pursue righteousness because he chose us, not vice versa.
Why doesn't everyone teach the doctrines of grace-- --Is God really in control-- What is he in control of--
In times of tribulation, more than anything else we need a more accurate view of Christ.
To know how we got here, we need to know where we started. Genesis 1 tells us we started with a good God who can be trusted.