Liberti Church Carrara Sermons

Daniel 1:1-21 | Daniel and his friends faced a seemingly impossible situation. Removed from their homeland and taken away as captives to Babylon, they now find themselves facing a powerful combination of isolation, indoctrination, seduction, and oppression. Babylon was dedicated to eradicating any remembrance of their true homeland, their true identity, and the true God. And yet in the midst of the most hostile city in the world, Daniel and his friends thrived. Like Daniel, believers today can thrive in cultural exile when we remember that God is in control and that God is with us. When we remember that God is in control, we grow in humility. When we remember that God is with us, we grow in courage. If we are to bless our surrounding culture without bowing to it, God’s people need both.

Prayer is the vehicle God has sovereignly chosen to accomplish His purposes in this world. It is human weakness, leaning on the strength of the Infinite. Pray with us, that God’s Word would continue to speed ahead and be glorified. Pray that we would not lose heart, as we run the long race with our eyes on the prize. Pray that Jesus would direct our hearts and continually redirect our eyes to the steadfast love of God. At the end of it all God's Word will triumph. Knowing this, God's people can charge forward in prayerful, joyful participation.

Ours is a day of great anxiousness. From global unrest, to the rise of terrorism, to the powerful way in which platforms like smart-phones and social media have changed the way we connect, combined with a hundred smaller daily pressures normal to life in this world...there are plenty of reasons to be anxious. How do believer's fight for joy, while living in the cultural smog of anxiety? From Genesis to Revelation, at the heart of the gospel are two life-changing, anxiety-destroying words: God provides. God's people were never meant to carry the weight of worry, but to cast it at the feet of a loving Father. For the Christian, every single anxiety the Enemy shoots at their heart, God calls them to use as kindling in the bonfire of prayer.

Jesus talked more about the reality of hell than everyone else in Scripture…combined. While it is true that God is love, it is also true that ‘love’ is not all that God is. God is also holy. And just. Heaven and hell are the results of both His love and His justice. Throughout scripture, we also see that God sends no one to hell against their will. As C.S. Lewis observed, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’” It is against this dark backdrop, that the gospel of God’s love toward us in Jesus Christ shines brilliantly. Jesus endured the hell of being forsaken by God on the cross, so that all who trust in Him would never have to.

We live in a world with contested gender theories and sexual ideologies, and the issue surrounding homosexuality has been followed by a shadow of confusion of controversy. Navigating a way forward to best understand our sexuality is a daunting challenge. However, with the unchanging nature of God’s word and the truth of the gospel, we find hope and encouragement. Jesus brings a word confronting religious hypocrisy while also extending forgiveness and pardon to those suffering from sexual sin. Through a new identity in Christ and the help of the local church, those with same-sex attraction can find fulfilment and sufficiency, to live faithfully for Christ and attest to his redemptive work through the gospel.

We live in a cultural context that often blinds us from our daily need for Jesus. Both materialism and morality can give the illusion of being fulfilled by "the good life"; yet both fall woefully short in the presence of Jesus. He makes clear that these things block us from entering the kingdom. Jesus came to give us something far more satisfying and beautiful than "the good life"; He came to give eternal life and fullness of life to all who would humbly receive it.

The reality of suffering and evil has scraped and shaped every single one of us. Each of us has shaken our head at the state of the world and wondered, “Why, God?” And yet the problem of suffering and evil is not unique to Christianity; it demands an explanation from every worldview and religion. In this message we see that not only does Christianity give the best explanation of why there is suffering and evil, but that Christ alone gives the resources we most deeply need in order to face them without despair. While we are not always clearly shown the answer to our individual questions of ‘why?’ when suffering invades our lives, God does give to all who trust in Jesus a ‘what’, a ‘who’, and a ‘when.’

We all start things that we don’t end up being able to finish. But does God? Since the Bible makes clear over and over that “salvation is of the Lord,” the question is better framed, ‘Can Jesus lose a Christian?’ In response to this, God's people are given a wonderful promise: to the degree that Jesus is secure in the grip of the Father, the Christian is secure in the grip of the Son. So while it is true that only those persevere to the end will be saved, it is also true that God’s grace will preserve every genuine believer to the end. What God starts, He finishes.

Christians are to love those both inside and outside the household of faith, but we are called to a higher standard when caring for our Christian brothers and sisters. In Galatians 6, Christians are told to restore one another from sin and bear one another’s burdens. This cannot be done in isolation, but rather in community, under and according to the bible’s teaching. We do this because Christ has carried our burden for us and freed us to delightfully care for others through his strength.

Acts 13:13-52 | In Acts 13, Paul's first sermon demonstrates God's sovereign initiative in Salvation from Abraham all the way to Christ; to whom the Old Testament continually points. As Paul preaches the gospel of grace he urges his audience to continue in the grace of God. While the Jews initially seemed pleased in hearing Paul's presentation of the gospel, they became jealous as they saw multitudes of gentiles responding to the grace of God. As we consider the reviling response of the Jewish audience, we are invited to reflect on our own response to the gospel and to consider what may be hindering us from continuing in God's grace.

Acts 13:1-12 | Faithful mission means living with gospel-intentionality in our normal daily rhythms, while trusting God’s sovereign timing for gospel-opportunities. As Barnabas and Saul are sent out to preach good news across the Roman Empire, they collide with both great opportunities and great opposition. A dramatic encounter with a demonic sorcerer named Elymas ends with a Spirit-filled Saul preaching God’s Word, a blind and defeated Elymas, and the most powerful Roman official in the region becoming a follower of Jesus. As we learn to trust God’s timing and treasure the Holy Spirit, we will find that God can accomplish more through us in one day of Spirit-filled activity than we can in 10,000 lifetimes of self-reliant striving.

Acts 12:20-25

Acts 12:1-19 | In the face of imprisonment, the death of a fellow Apostle and an imminent execution of his own, the Apostle Peter displays a Holy Spirit empowered composure fuelled by a hope in the unshakeable promises of God. Through this passage we see the church model earnest prayer for their persecuted leaders. The reality of our faith is revealed in the presence of trials and suffering. When we know that our lives are held by Christ, we learn to trust in His goodness regardless of any outcome.

Acts 11:19-30 | As the gospel continues to spread, revival breaks out in the city of Antioch! It was here that the disciples were first labeled “Christians” (meaning, “little Christ’s”). They were filled with the Holy Spirit, captivated by the message of the gospel, and the surrounding city saw in them an otherworldly quality of life. While they were a spiritually young church, they were also a devoted church. Antioch gives us a picture of a healthy church that is devoted to God’s mission, led by servant-leaders, committed to God’s Word, and radically generous with their wealth and possessions.

Acts 10:44-11:18 | Bono famously (and rightly) quipped, “Religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building.” There are few parts of biblical Christianity more misunderstood and yet more vital for our daily lives than the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force to be wielded or a genie to be conjured. He is the Sovereign God, who delights in putting the spotlight onto Jesus, and leading us into repentance and faith as the normal rhythms of the Christian life.

Acts 10:36-43 | In Peter’s sermon to Cornelius and his household, Jesus is preached as a great saviour! Like Peter, every single Christian has a story to tell of what Jesus has done historically (the gospel!) and what Jesus has done for them personally (your testimony!). But Peter also proclaims Jesus as a great and just judge. The only event in history that answers the ultimate questions of evil, justice, love, and forgiveness is the cross of Jesus Christ. Not only is Jesus the judge we need to make sense of the evil around us; He is the only Judge who left His bench and was judged for the evil inside of us.

Acts 10:1-36 | Heaven will not be middle-class white people singing in English (thank God). The multitudes around the throne will be a diverse, global, family of men and women from every tribe and language and culture of the earth, with the name of Jesus on their lips! Yet in order for the good news to penetrate the Gentile world, some walls were going to have to supernaturally come down in the hearts of the early Jewish Christians. In Acts 10, we see the collision of two very different worlds – Jew and Gentile – being confronted with the gospel and being made one in Christ.

Soli Deo Gloria declares the main theme of all the “Solas”- that God has done all the work of faith, grace, Christ, and Scripture - so all glory is due to him, not us. He has chosen and blessed us, not because of anything we have done, but because of who He is. As we come to understand God’s unconditional love for us, we are moved to obedience, worship, and evangelism out of a thankful heart.

In contrast to our culture of religious pluralism, Christianity holds to the exclusive claim that Salvation is found in Christ Alone. The reformers contended that the person and work of Jesus was both necessary for salvation, and sufficient for our sanctification. Sadly, we are often tempted to add to the finished work of Jesus. The truth is that Jesus + Nothing = Everything; and Jesus + anything else... ruins everything.

On what are you leaning the weight of your life? To possess saving faith means that the weight and hope of our lives has been transferred off of ourselves, and onto Jesus alone. The great Reformer Martin Luther said that this doctrine – justification by faith alone – is the article by which the Church stands or falls. To be saved by grace alone ‘through faith alone’ means salvation cannot be earned or worked for; only received as a gift by shifting the weight of our lives onto the work that Jesus accomplished on the cross, for all who trust in Him.