Tag: assurance

Apocalyptic Assurance

Full Sermon DraftDownload

Biblical Text: Revelation 7:1-17

This sermon is about the book of Revelation, specifically chapters 4:1-8:5, but more about what we feel when our minds wander to that book’s supposed subject. When we hear apocalypse we think endings, we think things that are incomprehensible, and we fear. But all of that is exactly the opposite of the purpose of the book. The purpose of the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ is assurance. The purpose is so that we know. And in the middle of the tribulation – not the fear induced popular “they left me behind” tribulation, but life in this fallen world – Christ is revealed and what he has done for his saints, the full number of them. This sermon is about that unveiling.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Assurance of the Word

061916wordle

Biblical Text: Luke 8:26-39
Full Sermon Draft

The text is one that still has resonance in the popular culture due of Horror Flicks. It is the possession of a man by “legion”. Leaving aside those trifles, the text stands as an important part of Luke’s narrative argument. Jesus has turned to parables, the chief of them the parable of the sower and the soils. The Word is being spread, and its reception is varied. Amid the varied reception, there is also a pattern. Those who should know, do not. Those who would seem to know nothing, are given full healing.

What this sermon attempts to do is examine the assurances of Word in the midst of such variance. That assurance is not some small trifle, but merely the promise of sane peace, and that nothing happens outside the command of heaven. And that command is given for our good.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download