Suncoast Community Church Sermons: Recent Episodes
Suncoast Community Church
The vision of Suncoast Community Church is to be a church for the unchurched, serving all in acts of love. Our goal is to break down the barriers that separate the church and our community, christians and non-christians, churched and un-churched. We have been filled with a passion for serving our local and global community in the name of Jesus Christ.
When we post something, we get immediate feedback, and, therefore, we feel close to people. But as one person said, social media really gives us the illusion of companionship, without the demands of friendship. And so, we can be very comfortable relating to people online, but many of us, we’re longing for something more face-to-face. It is time for us to be present and engaged to show people we love them.
Whatever-ism is the spiritual issue where we accept and believe anything. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus is diluted by my belief in everything or anything. This is seen in a lack of passion and a full dose of apathy.
Loophole-ism occurs when a person, who considers themselves a Christ-follower, picks and chooses the commands of Christ that they want to follow based on their own preferences. People with a case of Loophole-ism often find ways to rationalize their decisions.
Legalism makes being a Christ-follower all about rules. It can take the form of being judgmental of anyone, including yourself, who doesn’t measure up to the rules a particular group or community has set.
We are all familiar with knockoffs and counterfeits. Twenty-dollar Rolex watches, candy cigarettes with fake sugar smoke, and pirated copies of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At times, we allow our lives to become an acceptable forgery. Our feelings of inadequacy convince us to mask our human imperfections. On the outside we look put together, but in our hearts we know we’re slowly coming undone.
Pain often puts us on a wild goose chase. Our minds are flooded with the slight possibility of finding those hard to locate answers to our suffering. We wake up in the morning thinking, maybe today is the day it all makes sense. We hunt and chase the most elusive question known to the hurting heart: the “why.” Why did this happen? Loss, abuse, betrayal, and our frequent trips back to our destructive patterns have left us baffled, bewildered, and confused.
On our path to freedom, nothing unlocks more opportunity in our lives than the basic act of taking personal responsibility. Now matter what has happened, either positive or negative, you get to decide what life looks like from here on out. That fact is, no one else will live your story for you, and no one else is going to take your place. It belongs fully to you.
Sometimes it’s hard to see how pain, loss, and unforgiveness pull levers in our hearts sending us on meaningless witch-hunts. Unresolved pain keeps us in a dead life where we are stripped of anything authentic. And though we might not understand what’s going on, thankfully Jesus does. He promises us it doesn’t have to be this way.
Life is a weird but wonderful mystery that none of us can fully understand. There are good parts - birthday parties, being debt free, weddings and newborn babies. Then there are really hard parts - battles with loneliness, kids who need chemo again, that affair and the divorce, our silent suffering, and our unseen addictions. These are the parts we want to begin to talk about.
In the continued story of Elisha and Naaman, we see Gehazi attempt to get paid for Elisha's healing of Naaman. This speaks to his greed and inability to obey. We can follow his path or greed and sin in our own mistakes in life.
The story of Elisha cleansing Naaman of his Leprosy, found in 2 Kings, has many elements regarding pride that we can apply to our own lives. Naaman has to overcome his own pride to follow the directions of a prophet. Often today we have to overcome what others think of us to be able to submit to God's commands.
In this sermon we discuss generosity, as shown in 2 Kings 4:8-37. This is the story of a woman who gives unconditionally to Elisha and receives blessings in return. Through this we can see three principles of grace which we can apply to our own lives.
In Becoming CEO week 2 we pickup with discussing the price of leadership. To illustrate the compromises becoming a leader requires, we discuss the life of Joanna wife of Chuza. Though only mentioned twice in the bible, her life is an excellent example of leadership.
In this weeks sermon we discuss the story of Eli (found in 1 Samuel chapter 2), and use his story as a model for how outward leadership can fall apart as a result of poor family leadership.
In 2 Kings 4:1-7 Elisha confronts a crisis situation. He performs a miracle with the small amount of oil that a widow owns to produce enough money to get her family out of debt and provide for their future. What do we do when we face our own calamities? We need to take inventory of what we have so that we can see what we are making available for God to use.
Too often it is our need to be rescued that initiates our cry to God for help. Today God wants us to reach out to him and thank him for all our blessing and not just come to him when we are in need. We also often see that God's response is more than we anticipate, because our God is a god of abundance.
After Elijah's ascension, Elisha begins his role as the prophet for the next generation. Elisha comes to a city where the people complained about the water. With God's power, Elisha takes ordinary objects (a bowl and salt) to cleanse the water. This story illustrates how God can take our ordinary selves and work miracles.
In this sermon, we look at the story of Elijah's ascension into heaven and the transferring of his spirit to Elisha. After Elijah was gone Elisha "took up his mantel" and his spirit. We can learn from this about how we can increase our own spiritual fitness.
Life is stressful, with busy schedules, illness, relationships, finances, etc. God gave us hope for peace with his son. Instead of allowing our stress and busy schedules to make us miss out on Christmas, we need to allow the meaning of Christmas to give us a deeper understanding of our relationship with God and the world.
The christmas season often can bring stress on relationships. This stress can lead to conflict and the need for reconciliation. As we are seeking forgiveness with friends and family we are reminded of the forgiveness that God offers us. Unlike legal or relational forgiveness, God offers us redemptive forgiveness. This is forgiveness that clears a way for a renewed relationship to take place.
What can we learn today to help us reduce the financial stress in our lives? What can we do to calm the stress that comes with this season of gift giving and spending? To calm this stress and find peace we need to realize three things: that all we have belongs to God, that we are more blessed when we give, and that our eternal security is not in money but in Christ.
Reading through the story of the good samaritan gives us the opportunity to place pick a character that we most identify with. Are we the robbers, the priest, the levite? True compassion for one another is not just emotion, it is something that compels us to act.
We need to ensure that our hearts beat for what God's heart beats for, and that is a lost and broken world. For awhile the church has become great at pointing a critical finger at the lost, and doing everything but reaching them. Instead, we need a passion that leads us to engage with the lost and begin to have relationships that can bring others to Jesus Christ.