Pressure reveals who you are. Under intense pressure Shiphrah and Puah lived out their faith. Their quiet, principled resistance thwarted the cruelty of the tyrant. While Pharaohs passed into obscurity, these women’s names are remembered. What does it look like to live faithfully under pressure? Join us as we examine Exodus 1 and see what it looks like to walk by faith under pressure.
Category Archives: Sermons
02/13/2022 | “When God Seems Silent” | Exodus 1:8-14
We’re afraid of silence. It unsettles, makes us insecure, afraid. But no silence unsettles like the silence of God. Scripture consoles us that God is a not silent. He reveals Himself, is knowable. Yet at times He seems silent. What then?
God’s people were oppressed in Egypt under the hand of a xenophobic, genocidal Pharaoh. God’s promises were unfolding as he blessed the people with children yet as their blessing increased, so did persecution and adversity. But God did not deliver them. Why does God allow times of adversity and suffering in the lives of his people? We all ask this and many experience this personally. Join us this week as we examine Exodus 1:8-14 and wrestle with the question of why God sometimes appears silent.
02/06/2022 | “Promises Kept” | Exodus 1:1-7
Children’s stories are never just for children. Though simple, they are not simplistic. The same is true for the Old Testament. Tempted to read it as moral example or historical background, we often miss its meaning. For example, Exodus is not just a heroic story of Moses, a narrative of liberation, or a bridge from patriarchy to monarchy. But it reveals much more. Join us as we begin this story of promises kept. And a story of grace for our own lives as well.
01/30/2022 | “A Sad Conclusion” | Jonah 4
Conclusions resolve tensions, answer questions. Yet Jonah ends on a question. Asked to Jonah but also to you. Do you care about the lost? Do you know the spiritual state of neighbors? Are you indifferent to those under judgement? Are you a ‘Jonah?’ Listen as we examine Jonah 4 and consider these hard and revealing questions.
01/16/2022 | “Salvation Belongs to the Lord” | Jonah 2
Jonah flees, but God pursues. Jonah was called by God to Nineveh, but Jonah had other ideas. God sent a storm on the sea Jonah was using to escape and Jonah’s shipmates were forced to toss him into the sea to appease God’s wrath. But the “LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” In great distress, Jonah calls out to God and God hears. Jonah’s prayer reveals God’s power, sovereignty and faithfulness to deliver His people. Jonah’s prayer of distress ends with a cry of praise, “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” This truth that comforted Jonah should comfort for you. Listen as we examine this comfort in Jonah 2.
01/23/2022 | “A Godward Turn” | Jonah 3
Grace taught Jonah a lesson. When God sends you, you go. God used a sermon of judgment to save unlikely converts. The Bible’s shortest sermon triggers its greatest revival. From least to greatest, the Ninevites repent. The gospel is that powerful. Have you heard it? And believed it?
Perhaps you wonder if God could ever receive you. The example of God’s grace to Jonah and to the people of Nineveh should give you hope. Christ has died for sinners, and the Christ that saved them is offered to you as well. Listen as we examine Jonah 3 and consider the power of God’s Word and the kindness of God which leads us to repentance.
01/09/2022 | “A Fleeing Prophet and a Sovereign God” | Jonah 1
Jonah was greatly concerned over the condition of his people. He exercised his calling zealously. Yet in the book of Jonah, he receives an unexpected calling. He is called to speak God’s grace and mercy to the enemies of his people and his God. Nineveh is a wicked city at the heart of a wicked empire, proverbial for its rebellion and sinfulness. But one great theme we see in Jonah is God’s mercy to the Gentiles. Christ would come as the Savior of both Jew and Gentile a promise given even in the Old Testament to a pagan world.
God commands Jonah to go: “Now the word of the LORD came to Jonah …, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.’” Jonah goes immediately, but not to Nineveh. Jonah knows God’s gracious character and sees God’s gracious plan. And it is not what Jonah wants. So Jonah flees from God, the Ninevites, and his calling. But God is sovereign. It is God’s will, not Jonah’s, that is the last word. God is not finished with Jonah. In His sovereignty, He pursues him, and He shows mercy. Mercy that comes through discipline. Along with the wicked Ninevites, Jonah is shown the grace of God. Believer, the God who is sovereign in salvation in this book is also sovereign over your salvation. If you are His, it is because He has pursued you and brought you to Himself. Joining this Lord’s Day as we examine Jonah 1:1-16 and consider the fleeing prophet and the sovereign God.
01/02/2022 | “Profiling” | John 1:19-34
‘Going viral’ used to be bad. Now it is the goal of aspiring influencers. Being noticed is what we want. Social media profiles are fiction vs bio. But what of your spiritual profile, your faith and life. Are you WYSIWIG? Or is your profile fictional?
In John 1, religionists came to view John the Baptist’s profile. But John’s concern was not who he was, but what he was – a witness. What mattered most what not what John’s life said about John, but what it said about Jesus. What about you? Join us as we examine John 1:19-34 and consider what it looks like to be a witness.
12/26/2021 | “The Wrong Question” | Matt. 2, Micah 5:1-6
On the surface, the wise men and Herod ask the same question. But closer examination reveals a subtle difference. The wise men ask, “where is he, that we may worship him?” Herod asks, “where is he, that I may manage him and preserve my own autonomy?” All men ask these same questions. Believers seek him to worship him. Skeptics seek him to manage, discredit, and remove him from his place in their lives. What about you? What is your question when it comes to Jesus? Listen as we examine Matthew 2 and Micah 5:1-6 this week and consider the difference between these questions.
12/24/2021 | “Lessons and Carols”
The story of Christ’s coming is the most dramatic story ever told. While it reaches a beautiful high point with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, there is much more to this story – a story with origins in eternity past and implications in eternity future, a story of epic failure and dramatic rescue, a story that reveals a God quite different from the one our fears imagine. Come and experience the rest of this story in God’s own words and in song as we share in An Evening of Lessons and Carols.
Pottsville Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church 