Vienna Assembly Of God Sermons

Our rejoicing is in the fact that we are in God’s kingdom. We rejoice because we have received the good news. We rejoice because we have believed the good news! We rejoice because we have changed our way of thinking, and changed our priorities and changed our world view. I invite you, please - join me in this prayer that God will help each of you to be good workers, and that he will continue to send more workers! And then pray for our missions family, pray for your own ‘harvest field’ - those areas of influence in your life - your family, your workplace, your school, your community. Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into each of these fields.

Walking with Jesus through the Gospels, we are seeing fresh and powerful insights into his character and person.

We have learned in this last year more deeply than ever that the church is not a building, it is the people. God isn’t looking for steeples in order to find his people, he is looking for these rhythms of love and light pulsing out from his church into the world. You are the light embedded in the darkness-empowered to shine by God’s power. God is reminding us in 2021 that we are meant to flourish - in our homes, in our schools, in our workplace, in the marketplace - and as a church.

This chapter gives us details on how to flourish in life according to God's will and pattern.

What does abiding in Jesus look like for us in 2021? Learning from the experiences in the Gospels, it sometimes means taking a radical risk.

Biblical flourishing is not “success” in the way the world would describe it - it’s not about wealth or possessions or power. It is about a soul at rest in God, a settled account through the blood of Jesus, and a commitment to him and his mission in this world - to love our neighbor as ourselves and to see his kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

God desires for us to flourish. If we hold on to the faith, hope and love that God strengthened in us in 2020, and believe in the depths of our heart that God is in control and that God is good, we are going to flourish in life.

We are fulfilling our 2020 theme by seeing faith, hope and love come alive within the Christmas story. Today is LOVE. Today's readings: Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26; 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:26-38; Luke 1:46-55; Romans 16:25-27.

We are going to tie a ribbon on our 2020 theme by seeing faith, hope and love come alive within the Christmas story. Today is HOPE. Today's readings: Isaiah 61:1–4, 8–11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16–24

We are going to tie a ribbon on our 2020 theme by seeing faith, hope and love come alive within the Christmas story. Today is FAITH.

Expectation. Revelation. Formation. Advent: A season of waiting; an opportunity for formation; a time of longing and desire for freedom; a chance to name the thirst for light in a time of darkness, and reach forward to the glimmer on the horizon; a trembling anticipation of God’s goodness revealed, and of the joy of beholding the face of Christ.

This enduring love is only possible because God first loved us. This enduring love is not manufactured out of a vacuum. It is received as a free gift from God himself to us. As we have freely received, we freely give. So do not grow weary. Do not lose faith. Remain hopeful. Through the love of God and Jesus Christ, we will endure through every circumstance.

The challenge and the promise in this moment is to imagine the possibilities for our church family. We must reach out to share the love of God. The freedom of love is that we are free to love EVERYONE. And there is a desperate need for that love to be poured out in as many ways as possible.

The first thing that anyone or anything encounters when coming into contact with me should be love. There is nothing more powerful than that.

Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law. Romans 13:8

Love your neighbor. It’s bound to be inconvenient, and maybe risky, and even surprising. But this is the life! This is the vibrant, abundant, heart-full, soul-full, mind-full, strength-full, love-your-neighbor-full way to live!

Love Breaks. Love breaks down walls. We really can’t say we love God, yet hate our brother or sister. Even if they happen to live on the other side of a wall - a racial wall, a cultural wall, a generational wall, a political wall, an economic wall - there’s so many ways we build up walls and funnel ourselves into people corrals and divide up the who’s in and who’s out. But if you find yourself despising others, that is a wall that God desires to see broken. Jesus broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

TEXT: Romans 5:1-8. The scripture helps us more fully understand love in all its forms. The purest and most foundational love is that which is defined by God, which has its source in God, which is manifest to us through God’s initiation, which is in fact God.

The Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:28-34). If this isn’t the grid by which we evaluate life, if this isn’t the line upon which we lay the tracks, if this isn’t the foundation upon which we build, then we are not obeying the greatest commandment.