Matthew 2:10–11 God has indeed created us to find joy. But everything outside of God himself will be a lesser joy. Joy is found in Jesus. In other words, you will find your spend your whole life searching for joy until you come to Christ.  And texts like Matthew 2:10–11 give us great confidence that this is why we were created.

Mark 9:33–37 No Christian gets to say, “Children, that's not my thing. I’ll let the others take care of the kids.” Jesus’s response to that is to say, “If you can’t receive children, you cannot receive me.” Far from being a guilt trip to move us to receive children, Jesus promises here is that when we do receive these little ones, we will get more of God. But we must take time to think and pray about what it really means to receive children in Jesus’s name.

Job 33:14–30. When we suffer or others around us suffer, the pain can seem random, even meaningless. We may begin to feel like Job felt when he declared that God must be his enemy. But this is not how God works. God uses suffering for a purpose. Suffering is never random. God uses it for our good and his glory.

Job 2:11–13 and Job 13:4–12. In this section of Job, we are focusing on “wrestling with suffering”. Last week Ryan focused on encountering God in our suffering, and this week we are going to focus on encountering people in suffering. As we look at the text, I think you will see that we can comfort with silence and a few timely words. Because God is God, we don't have to be. So my sermon is broken down into two sections—

1. First, we're going to look at the significance of silence.

2. Second, we are going to see the wisdom in watching your words.

As counselors, we don't want to be speculating. So what should we say? God’s words. Stick to what you know, and make your words few.  

Acts 15:36–41, 16:6–10. You probably know the experience well: You begin to live out what you thought God’s will was and you realize, “I don't think I had this all right.” As we look at this passage, we will see that even when we don’t get all the details of God’s will correct, he is still working. This text’s main point is that God is always working whether we feel he is far away or near at bay. God is always working.

Acts 13:1–12; 13:43–52. The events in this text are incredibly important in the history of the church. But though there are sweet successes in the stories that we're studying, don't miss that both are preceded by opposition. As we look at this first missionary journey, we're going to have two significant meetings, and we are going to see this main point: opposition is an opportunity for boldness, not bashfulness, because God is working. 

Acts 10:1–48. As we have been studying through the book of Acts, we’ve been saying: the book of Acts is about the Holy Spirit empowering his people to proclaim the gospel to all people with all boldness and without hindrance. Today, we're talking about all people. I would summarize where we are going with this one sentence: No one is excluded from the gospel, for all are included if they come to Christ.

Acts 2:1–41. The Holy Spirit descends onto the people at Pentecost, and as Peter explains what is happening, he turns the spotlight to Christ. And the reason that Peter turns there is because Christ is what makes the coming of the Holy Spirit so different this time. Now the Messiah has come. He has died and rose again. And now he has ascended and is seated at the right hand of God. The Holy Spirit’s job is to point to this now risen Lord.

Acts 1:1–11. The book of Acts is about the Holy Spirit empowering his people to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people with all boldness and without hindrance. The gospel will go forth to the ends of the earth, and we play a part in that through our helper, the Holy Spirit.

Luke 17:20–37. Jesus will be returning, and his return will be much different than his first coming. Jesus will come back in a spectacular way, suddenly, and bring separation.

Luke 17:1–10, 11–19. As we have been preaching through Luke, we have talked a lot about who Jesus is, and we have said that Jesus is the Son of God who came in power and authority to empower his people through the cross. Today, we're going to see what it means to be a follower of this man, to follow the Son of God. We are going to see, as followers of Jesus, we are dependent on grace.

Luke 16:1–15. In this passage, we are covering one of the more complicated parables of Jesus. Listen to some of the titles we've given to this parable: “the dishonest manager”, “the unjust steward,'' even “the unrighteous servant”. Just in light of those titles, we've got to wonder what Jesus is going to commend from this parable. As we get to verse 9, we will see that Jesus zeros in on one of his applications—“Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth.” We will see from this text that we can serve God with our money, but we can’t serve God and money. We can use our money for godly, eternal goals, but we cannot love God and money. And loving God will satisfy, while money will leave us empty.

Luke 5:1–16. Today, we're looking at two miracles; miracles that show a pattern we see throughout the Gospel of Luke—Jesus constantly declares who he is by what he says and what he does. And that revelation demands a response. They all force this question on us: Who is Jesus? Who is this Jesus? When we answer that question, it is going to have implications. If Jesus is who he says he is, the very Son of God, then he deserves the response that Simon gave him: “I’m leaving everything and following Jesus.” 

Luke 1:39–56. Today, we get to look and see that Mary believed the promise of the Lord. What we're going to see is that the Mighty One, God, exercises his mercy on the humble who fear him, and we are to trust him and his plan just like Mary did. First, we're going to see who our God is and Mary’s faith through Elizabeth's eyes, and then we're going to see it in Mary's own song. 

Psalm 146. This psalm is the beginning of what are called the Hallelujah Psalms. This song points us to one, of many reasons, we should join in endless praise to our God. This psalm sings forth that our hope, our help, and our salvation does not come from man, but from God. 

Psalm 103. Well, like it or not, we are in a war. Satan will attack you today. And the front line battle almost always is our mind. This has been his tactic from the beginning. Our memory is quite forgetful. We forget who God is—whether he is good, kind, or even real. This psalm is a perfect opportunity to sharpen our swords for this battle. David is going to walk us through who God is as he demonstrates how to fight against the enemy in his mind.

Psalm 62. This psalm is not about any kind of hope that we could find here on earth. It’s about having hope amid the worst of trials here. It’s about the hope that we have when everything is going wrong and is only getting worse. This Psalm sings out the truth that God alone is our refuge because in him only do we find hope. Why? Because he gets the final word.

Colossians 4:2–6. Paul comes with a very simple plan for believers to begin to engage in evangelism. The plan is summarized very simply like this: “Let us pray to God and pursue him in order that we could make the best use of our time with unbelievers.” Paul wants us to pray to God and he wants us to pursue God so that when we have opportunities with non-believers, we make the best use of that time. We don’t have to be professionals. God doesn’t need you to feel like you have the perfect plan for evangelism. He simply wants you to be reliant. 

Colossians 2:8–23. For those in Christ, there is no longer any condemnation, and with that, he defeated the enemy. No longer do we have a record of debt against us, so we no longer need to obtain right standing with God by following a set of rules. Instead all we need to do is live in Christ.

John 6:1-15. We have been going through our Table Rock priorities, and today, we are talking about compassion. We have defined Mutual Care, which we talked about previously, as the church caring for each other. Now we are going to talk about Compassion, which extends the church’s reach into the community. We want to serve others in such a way that as they receive the gifts, they feel the call, not to love the gift, but to love the giver of all great gifts—Christ.