Julian's Sermons

  Throughout the Bible, God relates to his people. From the start, relationships are part of God’s plan for us. God made us in his image so we can have a relationship with him. Also, God designed us for relationships, friendships, and community with human beings. Genesis 2:18 spells it out: “It is not good for man to be alone.” Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson puts it this way: “ We all are born into the world looking for someone looking for us, and we remain in this mode of searching for the rest of our lives. ” Covid 19 has forced us to stay home, quarantine, and stay socially distanced. This goes against our nature, but no matter what hardship comes our way, health, or social, we can always cultivate our relationship with God who earnestly wants to know us. Some people insist they do not like being around people. Alone-time is good for spiritual growth, creativity, or productivity. Some people get tired from being in a crowd for too long. No one should feel guilty for wantin...

We all like friendships but do we need them? Science and the Bible teach we need them. (1) Scientists have discovered brain cells called “mirror neurons.” They activate the parts of our brains we need to do what we see other people doing. This means God designed our brains to learn from others. We cannot learn love, compassion, or mercy from a book. Our brains learn from seeing and imitating. (2) Thinking we can live without relationships is denying reality. We were born from the relationship of our parents and into relationships with parents and siblings. Without relationships, we would not go far in life as a baby or child. (3) Our brains are not fully developed until we are 25, but even in adulthood, relationships matter. Scientists have shown that healthy, intimate, safe relationships shape our brains to allow us to better navigate stressful emotional and social situations. Unless we heal from unhealthy relationships in our formative years, our brain will not be healthy. We will st...

Biblical illiteracy is a real pandemic in the Evangelical Church. The tragedy is that the “Evangelical” of Evangelical church stresses that we care about the Gospel, the Bible, evangelism, missions, being born-again, and having a personal relationship with Jesus. If we do not really care about the Bible, we cannot call ourselves Evangelicals. We are not who we say we are, and there are consequences. In this series so far, 1) we have seen that a strong biblical foundation helps our general well-being. Having an intimate relationship with God, as he reveals himself in the scriptures, gives us a strong foundation to face hardships. In times of suffering, if we have a strong relationship with God, who is supremely sovereign, we will run to him and not away from him. 2) We saw that indifference towards the Bible affects our spiritual maturity which in turn impacts our relationships. Immaturity will impact our choice of spouse, and prevent us from raising children in the ways of the Lord. An...