Sermons

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (8) The Psychological Man

The great assumption of the Psychological Man is that it is possible to be psychologically whole apart from God, while the great truth from the beginning to the end of the Bible is that to live apart from God is death. Man’s wellbeing depends entirely and completely and utterly on being in a state of reconciliation with God – being accepted by God – loving God and being loved by God and living for the glory of God.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Seventh Commandment (2) Singleness

The only way that the things of earth can truly satisfy us is if they point us to God and satisfaction in him. And one of the points of all the pleasures and satisfactions in life is that they are not enough. We cannot be complete without God. Our hearts cannot right rest apart from God. And so marriage and sex make the point that they are not enough. They can never be what God must be in our lives.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (7) Expressive Individualism

Our happiness and greatest wellbeing come from living for God rather than living for ourselves. We were not designed to find our deepest happiness by focusing on ourselves. We are designed to find our deepest happiness in God. The Bible is actually very concerned with man’s happiness, but as a result of living for God rather than living for ourselves. The picture that the Bible paints of a life in the service of God is a wonderful picture of fulfillment and wellbeing and profound happiness. The Bible makes it clear that the deepest joy that we can know is joy in the Lord and in his service. Psalm 32:11 says “Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Seventh Commandment (1) The Protection of Marriage

The mysterious intimacy of marriage is used by God to describe our relationship with God which is also described in the New Testament as the relationship between Christ and the church. One of the great purposes of marriage is to point to and help us to understand and to long for the intimacy between God and man and between Christ and his church that is the ultimate fulfillment of human life.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Biblical Responses to Secular Beliefs (6) Postmodernism

The problem as the Bible expresses it is not that man is unable to find the truth apart from revelation from God, but rather that mankind is not looking for the truth in the first place. The biblical approach to the whole subject of mankind and the truth is that we know the truth about God and the world but by nature we suppress what we know to be true. The problem is not that we cannot find the truth. The problem is that the truth is all around us and we hide from it because the truth is that God is our Creator and our King, and we refuse to submit to him.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Sixth Commandment (4) Preserving and Nurturing Human Life

This is really a wonderful subject to think about because it is rooted in the fact that God is very prolife. He has life in himself and he has given life to us and he has made us in his image so that we have the capacity to experience life at a very deep level. We are spiritual beings and we are psychological beings and we are physical beings and the life that we are given to live is experienced at all of these levels.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

How Much Should We Give?

So, if we take everything together, we find that 10 percent is a number to give us an idea of what is appropriate and how well off we are financially will influence whether we give more than that or less than that. But the pressure that comes to us from the Bible is towards stretching ourselves and making sacrifices. Certain people are held out before us as examples to inspire us. And if we consider our giving in the light of the general teaching of the Bible on the Christian life, this is an area where we should consider as an area for growth just as we must always be striving to grow in living not for ourselves but for Christ.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Sixth Commandment (3) Jesus and the Sixth Commandment

Clearly Jesus is passionate about relationships between people. Clearly relationships are a priority for God. The Sixth Commandment speaks directly about murder, but it addresses us long before it comes to murder. The Six Commandment is about living at peace with all men. What Paul wrote in Romans 12:8 summarizes what Jesus is teaching in these verses, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

Stewardship

The life of stewardship is not a life of asceticism where the focus is mostly on self-denial and sacrifice. But neither is it a life which is all about ourselves and our pleasures without any self-denial and sacrifice. We are saved to love. Love is other-centered. Love involves doing things for other people. Love involves putting others before ourselves. And it involves being engaged in building the body of Christ – supporting the work of the kingdom, contributing to the great commission.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra

The Sixth Commandment (2) Different Kinds of Killing

The Bible is the story of how God is overcoming death. The great plan of salvation that the Bible describes is about God’s victory over death. That victory was not painless for God. It required him to absorb the penalty for sin himself in Jesus Christ. While it is not true to say that God died when Jesus died, the close relationship between Jesus’ divine and human natures means that there is a sense in which death came close to the very heart of God when Jesus died.
— Rev. Jerry Hamstra