Julian's Sermons

  God wants a relationship with you. Relationships are partnerships. In our partnership with God, he is the mother and we are babies. As babies, we do not contribute much to the partnership. Babies sleep, eat, cry, and dirty diapers. We sleep when we are not actively blessing others. We eat when we are so consumed by our own needs and desires that we forget others matter. We cry when our prayers are self-centered. We need a diaper change when we get caught up in our sin. We are saved by grace, so we cannot contribute to entering into a relationship with God. However, all of us can work on having a healthy relationship with God. Babies grow! We partner with God by focusing on him and allowing him to guide us. We let him work in our lives so that if we ever do anything good, he gets all the glory. If we want to improve our relationship with God, we will find ourselves praying for others, giving in secret, calling that family member who does all the talking. As we love God more, we lo...

  God created us for a relationship with him. When we live in a relationship with God, we live according to our purpose. Originally, God created Adam and Eve as a kind of kingly-priests. As king and queen, they were to rule over the created order. As priests, they cared for the garden in Eden where they dwelled with God on behalf of creation. Adam and Eve sinned against God. They are cast out of God’s presence. Sin increases in the following generations, to the point where God judges the world with a flood in his justice and holiness But Noah found favor with God and serves as the second Adam. We see the flood did not take care of our sin. We need a savior. In Gen 3:15, God promises a savior. Gen 12 narrows this promise to Abraham, a descendant of Noah. God tells Abraham that he will have children and that in him, all the families of the world will be blessed. SIOS: God fulfills his promises to Abraham in Israel. This is the history between the covenants with Abraham and Israel . I...

  You can believe all the right things, do all the right things, be in the right church and still not be a Christian if you do not have a relationship with Jesus. Memorizing the Bible, knowing all the right answers, developing amazing self-control so that you sin less than others is not Christianity. Repeating the Lord’s Prayer, memorizing the Apostle’s Creed, being a good citizen, does not make anyone a Christian. It is all about a relationship with God. He is our Father in heaven and he wants us to know that we are his prized possession, the apple of his eye, his beloved sons and daughters. Living as a Christian is living out of God’s love for us! Our right beliefs, conduct, and spiritual practices feed our relationship with God. Without the relationship, they are vanity of vanities! The Bible’s way of talking about our relationship with God is through Covenants. If we are in a covenant with him, He has made us part of his family. He calls us friends. Nothing is more important in...