While we think it a blessing to be pain-free, if we were utterly insensitive to pain we would be in grave danger.  Pain is a warning that something is wrong and that a remedy is needed.   Apathy is, quite literally, to be without feeling.   As dangerous as it is to be without feeling to physical pain, it is eternally deadly to be without feeling toward God.  Listen as Pastor Wheeler examines some of the warning signs of spiritual apathy from Nahum 2.

Get the 08-26-2012 Bulletin and listen to Apathy Unmasked, Nahum 2:1-13.

Think for a moment about what brings you comfort?  Did you include the wrath of God on your list?  In “God’s Strange Comfort,” Pastor Wheeler continues examining the great paradox in the minor prophet, Nahum between the wrath of God and comfort to His people. 

Get the 08-19-2012 Bulletin and listen God’s Strange Comfort, Nahum 1:1-15.

The Puritans referred to God’s mercy as His familiar work and His wrath as his “strange work.”  Listen as Pastor Wheeler begins preaching through Nahum to examine the relationship between God’s wrath and His mercy.

Get the 08-12-2012 Bulletin and listen to God’s Strange Work, Nahum 1:1-15.

How do you manage conflict? Persuasion, Compulsion, Negotiation, or Avoidance?  Consider God’s tenderness as He leads us to repentence through His kindness.  Like all Christians Jonah has cultivated an insurgency in his heart against the Lordship of Christ.  Rather than destroy Jonah, God addresses Jonah through His Word and through Providences.  How willing are you to have God say, “brace yourself” and answer me?  Yet it is through this confrontation that God leads us to accept His Lordship and mercy.  Listen as Pastor Wheeler continues to examine Jonah 4:1-11.

Get the 08-05-2012 Bulletin and listen to Brace Yourself, Jonah 4:1-11.

Are you a sulky Christian?  Are you fretting because God has been gracious to the wicked?  Jonah was a sulky Christian.  He even viewed God’s grace as a “great evil” and he “burned” with anger because of what God had done.  Jonah was sulky because he wanted Christ as savior but not as Lord.  Rejecting the Lordship of Christ will make you a sulky Christian.  Embracing the Lordship of Christ, however, unveils a wideness in God’s mercy.  Listen as Pastor Wheeler examines some traits of those who reject the Lordship of Christ and become sulky Christians.

Get the 07-29-2012 Bulletin and listen to Wideness in God’s Mercy, Jonah 4:1-11.

“Forty days and Nineveh will be overturned.”  This short sermon sparked one of the largest mass revivals in the history of the world.  God’s Word is powerful and it does not return void.  Listen as Pastor Wheeler examines Jonah’s urgent and personal message of justice and mercy.

Get the 07-22-2012 Bulletin and listen to The Word of Power.

The revival in Ninevah was the largest mass revival in recorded history.  But Jonah didn’t have a rock band or special children’s services or a high-octane youth breakout session.  Jonah didn’t have funding.  He didn’t have a vision statement or a two year plan.   What was God’s method for reviving Ninevah?  It was simple.  God used a man preaching the message of the gospel.  A second-chance God offered doomed men a second chance through the preaching of a second-chance Jonah.  Listen as Pastor Wheeler examines God’s unchanging method for revival from Jonah 3:1-5.

Get the 07-15-2012 Bulletin and listen to The Method is the Message, Jonah 3:1-5

“God will not use a man greatly until He has broken him deeply” – A. W. Tozer. Listen as Pastor Wheeler considers the “God of Second Chances” from Jonah 3. Do you need a second chance? Listen to see what God can do with failed men who yield themselves a faithful Savior.

Get the 07/08/2012 Bulletin and listen to The God of Second Chances: God’s Unchanging Mercy, Jonah 3 

The life of faith includes doubt, fear and depression.  They are not out of place in the life of a Christian anymore than weights are out of place in a gym. These experiences are the weights that break us down and await the feeding of the Word and Spirit to heal and grow.  This week Pastor Wheeler continues a look at Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the great fish to see how we breathe while in the deeps and how we get out of the deeps.

Get the 07/01/2012 Bulletin and listen to Out of the Deeps, Jonah 1:17-2:10 

Depression for the Christian is not “the dumps,” but “the Deeps.”   The Deeps is that strange place that feels a lot like hell on earth, but is that place of victory.  Jonah was literally and spiritually in the Deeps, but we can see from his experience in the belly of Sheol how God brought him through depression to gain the victory.  Pastor Wheeler looks at Jonah’s prayer to consider how we are to respond when we are in the Deeps.

Get the 06/24/2012 Bulletin and listen to The Deeps, Jonah 1:17-2:10