No More Normal: Simplify

Reading: Luke 20:45-21:4; Matthew 19:16-30

There is no sermon for January 9; Carey and I were away due to a conference. This last Sunday, however, we picked up our "No More Normal" series again. Our focus was on counteracting the busy-ness that fills so many of our lives and crowds our focus on Christ.

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Click here to download a recording of this sermon. Note that the file is large enough that you'll get a message warning you that Google Docs can't scan it for viruses; just click on 'Download Anyway.' Also note that the audio quality isn't great on this sermon.

Preached on January 16, 2010 at PLWC.

New Year's Resolve

Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:4-9; Hebrews 3:1-19

This week's sermon is sort of a break in between the two halves of our "No More Normal" series, but it's also sort of preparing us for the second half of that series. Sometimes the temptation is to reflect too much on our past failures and shortcomings when we're entering a new year (and when we're trying to go beyond normal); this time, we wanted to stop and encourage one another for what we're doing well.

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Click here to download a recording of this sermon (minus the first few seconds, I'm afraid).

Preached on January 2, 2011 at PLWC.

No More Normal: Victory?

Reading: Genesis 3:8-15; Isaiah 43:16-44:5

This is the last of our "No More Normal" sermons for this Advent; we'll be picking up the series again in January after a brief break. It seemed appropriate to end this phase of the series by proclaiming the hope of victory, which is all too often not the norm in the Christian life.

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Preached on December 19, 2010 at PLWC.

No More Normal: Weak or Strong?

Reading: Isaiah 52:13-53:12; 1 Corinthians 4:8-16

Once again, we used an un-Christmasy text for our Advent sermon this week. Usually we want to focus on the cute baby in a manger, but this time we looked at the Suffering Servant and what that tells us about our own lives as Christians and as a church.

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Preached on December 12, 2010 at PLWC.

No More Normal: Which Spirit?

Reading: Joel 2:1-2, 12-18, 28-32; Isaiah 11:1-10

This is the second in our "No More Normal" series. This week our focus was on the Holy Spirit's role in Christmas and how if He's involved, things should be anything but normal.

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(Sorry, no recording this week — technical difficulties.*)

* "Technical difficulties" means "I forgot to set the timer to start the recording." Oops.

Preached on December 5, 2010 at PLWC.