Herod, A Symbol of The End of The Reign of Sin

In week two of our 2019 Christmas series, the cast member of Christmas was a rather unlikely one - a man whose life and actions in the Christmas narrative defy sentimentality, peace and joy. The Biblical authors include Herod for a reason. He stands as a symbol of the end of an era as a new age dawns upon the earth and in our hearts. What becomes starkly evident, though, as we understand the story of the birth of Christ, is that Herod’s kingdom and Christ’s kingdom cannot coexist. Their respective priorities are diametrically opposed. This leads us to consider whether we’re trying to do what’s actually impossible - trying to live as Christians allowing multiple kingdoms to reign and have influence in our own hearts.

Listen to this week’s sermon here.

“Always Winter, But Never Christmas”

Yes, Thanksgiving is this week, but this past Sunday, we launched into our 2019 Christmas series. Last year, we met 4 very ordinary members of the “cast of Christmas” through whom God did extraordinary things. This year, we met 5 more members through whom God satisfies our longing. This theme should feel particularly poignant to use after spending months examining the prophets - if the prophets leave us with anything it’s a sense of longing for someone to come and break our cycle of sin - for God to send His promised Messiah. In the first message of the series, we met Gabriel, whom God sent to herald the coming of spring upon a land and a people that had endured a self-imposed long, cold harsh and “Christmas-less” winter”.

Listen to the sermon here.

The Message To Wrap Up Our Series In The Minor Prophets

After spending 5 months with the minor prophets, we turned forward in our Bibles to Romans 10, where the apostle Paul answers his critics who are upset to know that their Jewish ancestors failed to be made right with God. Paul’s answer to them paints a brilliant tapestry of what the prophets - and the entire Old Testament, in fact - were all about in the first place. Listen to this week’s message to discover what the prophets were ultimately trying to get across and how that applies to your life today.

Listen to this Sunday’s sermon here.

Serve from a Posture of Love

Pastor Ramon Flores from Legacy Church in Yuma, Arizona treated us to a feast of God’s Word - in 2 languages this past Sunday. He reminded us that 1 Corinthians 13 is not merely a sentimental passage to be read at weddings, but instead an affectionate correction from the Apostle Paul to a Corinthian church that had lost its way by losing its love. The message was a stirring reminder that without love, our week-in-week out serving is nothing; that our employment of spiritual gifts is nothing. Love is not a beneficial byproduct of our life together in the church, it’s the essential posture we must take if our Gospel labor is going to mean anything. Tall order, you say? By God’s grace, we have the love of His Son to compel us. The posture of love which God calls us to is a posture which Christ perfectly assumed in His cross.

Listen to this week’s bilingual service here.

Busyness Left Unchecked Is a Threat To Your Very Life

As our church gathered to celebrate our two year anniversary, we also paused to consider the future years, and, Lord willing, decades of the ministry of Sovereign Grace Church fo Santa Ana and what it will take to persevere into the future. We’re convinced from Scripture that one of the most important components to perseverance is the ability of the people who comprise the church to regularly rest. And while the kind of rest we’re talking about includes physical rest, it’s much deeper and more profound than mere bodily reprieve. We need to learn to develop habits of regularly resting in the finished work of Christ.

Listen to this to this week’s sermon here.

By Being A Person Who Shows Compassion To People

As we finished up the book of Jonah together, we finally learned what it was that caused Jonah to flee to Tarshish after hearing God’s command to go and prophecy to Nineveh. He suspected God would show them grace. And when God did show them grace, it made Jonah angry enough to die. In this picture lesson, God teaches us something significant about His unchangeableness and something deeply concerning about the contradiction in Jonah’s heart. You and I are prone to living, even unknowingly if we’re not careful, with the same contradiction.

Listen to the message to learn the lesson Jonah failed to learn

Who Would You Least Expect God To Save?

In the third message in our series in Jonah, Jeff Schlieder guided us through the third chapter, where the city of Nineveh unexpectedly repents and turns toward the God of Israel. Like Jonah, we expect those whose lives oppose God to either overcome us and lead us away from God or we often hope, like Jonah, that they would somehow be destroyed or “driven out”. But when the grace of God through Christ is entered into the equation, a third and better way is introduced. Jesus drew the world to Himself without being overcome by the world, thus making the third option of grace possible. We should have a confident hope in God to save even our most unlikely neighbors.

Listen to the message here.

Jonah Didn’t Realize His Need For Grace Until He Hit Rock Bottom - Literally

In our second message in the book of Jonah, we finally met the great fish. But as has already been established, the story isn’t about the fish. At the end of the matter, it’s not even about Jonah. It’s about a great God and His great grace. Jonah 2 should haunt us with a sense of need for the same grace that Jonah was shown. The question that’s posed to you and me: will you listen to it?

Listen to this week’s sermon here.

The Final Book In Our Minor Prophets Series

One particular and minor element of the book of Jonah has been what readers and students have myopically focused on for centuries in the church - the big fish. Everybody knows that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish. But once we realize that the book of Jonah is about so much more than a giant aquatic animal, we avail ourselves to riches from God’s Word that stand to transform how we view nonChristians, how we understand God’s mercy and more. This past Sunday, in the first message from chapter 1, we learned that no matter how undesirable obeying God’s Word is to you, you cannot flee from God’s presence. You can simply live joyfully or miserably in God’s presence.

Listen to the message here.

Christmas In September

In the fourth and final sermon out of the book of Micah, God elevated our attitude toward the lowly by showing us through Micah 5:1-6 that He often works through insignificant people and insignificant circumstances to accomplish His greatest purposes.

The Messiah Was Born In Bethlehem To Remind Sinners That New Life Could Be Born In Our Hearts

We learn this foremost through the fact that Micah prophecies that God’s Messiah would be born in the most unassuming little town. The breadth of applications that this burins to our lives is staggering. Listen to last week’s sermon to elevate your attitude toward how God might work through lowliness in your life.

Listen to the message here.