Category: 2011 Sermons

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2011-08-07: Get Your Feet Wet – I Will Be With You

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Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – I Will Be With You
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:23-24,27
Duration: 25:22
Size: 11.6 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
I Will Be With You
Matthew 14:23-24,27

There are differing amounts of details but one common theme to the story – the assurance of Jesus that He is present.

Two things to remember this morning:

1. Although He often seems absent God is never far away.
2. Jesus is with us in the fears and anxieties of life but sometimes it takes time to see Him there.

Six Practices: Developing the ability to see Jesus through a clear inner vision.

1. An active and sustained prayer life

One other thing, prayer should be the first thing we do when we encounter storms and waves, not the last.

2. Daily Bible reading

“How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.” – Psalm 119:9

3. Honest worship

Worship is to Him and not us nor our circumstances, but to Him and Him alone!

4. Accountable relationships

When we face down our fears, a good friend can help us with our blind spots, especially in a storm!

5. Regular confession

Confession is good for the soul and for our sight!

6. Unqualified obedience

To follow Jesus is just plain hard sometimes.

The six practices I have just listed are the foundation upon which trust, the kind spoken of in the passage I just read, keeps us steady in the midst of the storm and its fears and anxieties.

What are three things that you can do to start (today) making some new progress with this practice?

1.

2.

3.

Now you have a simple starting plan to help you further develop your faith and trust in the Lord. Begin it…now!

Next week
Is That Your Final Answer?
Matthew 14:28-29

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2011-07-31: Get Your Feet Wet – The Wall Called Fear

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Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – The Wall Called Fear
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:26
Duration: 25:58
Size: 11.8 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
The Wall Called Fear
Matthew 14:26

Fear is sometimes an unexpected wall that comes across our path from time to time and when it does, we have a decision to make.

The thing about our boats is that they easily become our security rather than the Lord being our security.

We don’t have to be in a boat, during a “ghost seeing” storm, to scream out in terror or frustration or pain or fear.

Why do we expect Jesus to show up only in the nice quiet times and not in the earth shattering, emotionally impacting loudness of life?

One of the greatest fears we have is the fear of change – planned and unplanned.

How helpful has all the worrying you have done, been in your life? Has it helped to accomplish anything, other than giving you an ulcer?

“Sometimes we fear situations and problems in life because we unconsciously regard them as bigger than our God.”
Avery T. Willis Jr. and Matt Willis

Next week
I Will Be With You
Matthew 14:23-24,27

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2011-07-24: Get Your Feet Wet – The Call to Get Wet

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Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – The Call to Get Wet
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:28-29
Duration: 25:57
Size: 11.8 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
The Call to Get Wet
Matthew 14:28-29

Max Lucado writes, “Fear it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop.”

I. Peter’s Call to Get Wet

Peter asks for Christ to tell Peter to come to Him by walking on the water as proof of Jesus’ identity.

In the context of a very scary and fear filled situation, it seems to mean that Peter is asking Jesus to tell him to do something that required an extreme act of faith.

Eleven of the twelve looked at the situation with faces of fear. Peter looked at the situation with a face of faith.

II. Your Call to Get Wet

God was, and is, always calling people to Him.

God asks an ordinary person to engage in an act of extraordinary trust, that of getting out of the boat.

You and I have had, and continue to have moments in which we have to decide whether or not to truly trust God and get out of the boat thus risking failure, or not.

And we do and will feel inadequate to the task, to the call, but what He wants is us and our willingness and our obedience.

Some of the boats that we are in these days are sometimes the unsafest place to be!

If God calls you, you can run from it but you cannot hide!

Next week
The Wall Called Fear
Matthew 14:26

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2011-07-17: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord

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Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 3:15-18
Duration: 20:50
Size: 9.53 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
Grow in Grace and in the Knowledge of Our Lord
II Peter 3:15-18

I. The Age of Salvation

The human mind desires to see meaning and direction and coherence in history.

Let’s be a people who key off of God and see the times in which we live from his perspective.

II. Paul’s Letters as Scripture

So by calling in Paul’s support, Peter shows that there is agreement among the apostles.

The apostles are united with each other and with the Old Testament in one great inspired book of God.

III. Scripture Can Be Hard to Understand

The mind of God is vastly greater than our mind and will often be perceived by us as strange and complex, not familiar and simple.

IV. Misinterpretation Can Lead to Destruction

Another way to put this is that the interpretation of Scripture is a matter of life and death.

V. Guard Yourself from Error

The antidote to deception and destruction is growth in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

After “Jesus” there is no sweeter word in all the Bible than “grace.”

The best fertilizer for our hope and godliness is the knowledge of our future in God’s grace.

To him be glory both now and forever!
Amen.

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2011-07-10: Precious & Magnificent Moments – What Sort of Persons Ought You to Be?

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Sermon: Precious & Magnificent Moments – What Sort of Persons Ought You to Be?
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: II Peter 3:10-14
Duration: 23:09
Size: 10.6 MB

Precious & Magnificent Moments
What Sort of Persons Ought You to Be?
II Peter 3:10-14

I. Just What the False Teachers Need to Hear

His picture of the end is very simple: fire will destroy the sky, the earth and everything on it, and new heavens and a new earth will stand in their place.

Peter would have blunted the attack of his warning if he had given a long and detailed picture of how all the events of the end of the age fit together.

II. The Coming Day of the Lord

In the Old Testament the day of the Lord was the future time when God would vindicate his holy name, bring judgment on the unbelieving, and gather his people into a new kingdom of righteousness and peace.

So Peter was not saying anything new or unexpected.

III. New Heavens and a New Earth

When Peter emphasizes that this new world will be one in which righteousness dwells, he implies that the cause for destroying the old world was man’s unrighteousness, and that those who swerved from the righteousness of faith will not be included in the new world.

IV. What Will and Will Not Remain

Most people try to find meaning in life by building something that’s not just here today and gone tomorrow.

A life lived for the world will go naked into judgment; a life lived for Christ will be laden with eternal riches.

V. Without Spot or Blemish

How can we sinners hope to be found without spot or blemish?

And where shall we find power to walk in the light, to stand in the love of God when godless pleasures entice us, and to zealously pursue purity and peace?

Next Week
Grow In The Grace And In The Knowledge of Our Lord
II Peter 3:15-18