Worship
Sermon Series Archive 2006-2008
This series will challenge you about being so financially free that when God calls on you to go somewhere, do something, or give something up, you won't have to give it a second though. Jesus makes it clear that the way you spend your money is the key or the bottom line to your heart. #1 Honesty God's Part and our part
#2 God's purpose for work and wealth
#3 Making good sense of money
#4 The secret of financial freedom
#5 Freedom from money's control
#6 Money and Marriage
#7 Financial Freedom God's Way
The image of God as the Master Tailor clothing us is seen from the first chapter in the bible to the end. It goes from animal skins to bright and shining robes. The gospel vision is that God clothes us in the righteousness of Christ.
The Book of Esther reminds us of our spiritual life as the Bride of Christ finding favor with the King, "Christ Jesus", which will have a powerful, life-changing effect in our life. Through His favor and not our own efforts, we can achieve astounding things that will benefit not just ourselves but everyone around us, even those we do not know. 
Saint Augustine wrote his "Confessions," as I understand, for two purposes. First, to confess his own sin, folly, and shortcomings in his life and second, to confess the grace and glory of God shown to him, in spite of himself. It amazes me how much my life is filled with good things, while God can be amazingly absent because of my hopes, dreams and agenda.
During my spiritual sabbatical God sweetly began breaking and unearthing my man-centered nature that is within me. This drove me to my knees to wholly surrender to repent of it, and die to it. So that I can enjoy a meaningful life of loving sacrifice and live diligently seeking God in intimate worship.
Things are not always as they appear to be! Sometimes things look great on the surface but they are a disaster underneath or vice or versa. Only our personal thoughts beneath the surface reveal what really going inside of us like; I am defective, I am a burden, I am un-loveable, Its not ok to feel, Its not ok to say what you want, Failure equals worthlessness, I must be competent 100% of the time. That’s why emotional health and contemplative spirituality, when interwoven together, offer nothing short of a spiritual revolution, transforming the hidden places deep beneath the surface of our lives. 
Why do bad things happen to good people? This is one of the most difficult questions in all of theology. We have to recognize that the problems of tragedy, injustice and suffering are problems for everyone, no matter what our beliefs are.
Job didn't understand why God had allowed the thing He did, but he knew that God was good and therefore continued to trust in Him. Let's take this journey together with Job and learn some of these timeless truths: Job learned that bad things turn out for good, his good things can never be lost, and the best things are yet to come.
This exploration into the life of Jonah brings into focus the dynamic implications of hearing, embracing and responding to the Gospel message. We looked at what might seem a strange place to learn about true joy. We looked at one of the most bitter, cynical, reluctant, grouchy, selfish, rebellious persons in all of Scripture. We dived into the story of Jonah, took a behind-the-scenes look at Jonah's life and asked the question: why does Jonah tell God "No"? Or perhaps, more importantly for us: why do we tell God "No"?
Consider this: we are living in a time when the housing market is crashing, stock prices are falling, unemployment statistics are rising, and interest rates are dominating the headlines. Therefore, we learned what Jesus has to say about budgeting and how to reduce debt, increase savings, increase investing, and generosity. We invited our friends and neighbors to come along with you on the journey to reorder your finances. We learned to invest and reap the rewards.
We recognize that it is God who is on a mission. He who created us and has loved us from the beginning, and has sent His Son to redeem us, continues to pursue us, and to work within us. He is the Good Shepherd who is tending the flock. The ministry is His ministry. Our role, then, is to participate in what He is doing. We neither determine our own agenda, nor merely imitate His, but rather participate in His, according to His call and guidance.
When Jesus was born, some people welcomed Him, some ignored Him, and some rejected Him. There was no room for Him at the inn in Bethlehem, so the Son of God was laid in a manger where animals stayed. Even today, some people welcome Christ and some ignore or reject Him. Jesus came to earth to be our Savior and to die to pay the penalty for our sins. We discovered how you can welcome Christ as your Lord King and Savior into your life.
Standing around Jesus as He speaks are people with no spiritual qualifications or ability. Consider this: Jesus spoke the beautitudes to those living in awful circumstance. What Beatitude might Jesus speak to you because of a certain condition you have that seems appalling? (Example: Blessed are the unemployed, or infertile, or the always ordinary but never outstanding, or those who fail). The Beatitudes are explanations and illustrations of the availabilities of the Kingdom through a personal relationship with Jesus.
Standing at the altar we all had a picture of what our marriage would look like. The problem is this picture of marriage ends up as expectations that we unload on our spouse. The weight of these expectations will rob your marriage of love and joy. As a spouse you never feel like you measure up and you never feel you are good enough. So what are you to do with your expectations?
God on Film: Discovering the meaning behind the movie. During summer 2007 we explored the spiritual themes of Even Almighty, one of the biggest movies during that summer. It was an adventure!
"I thirst" expresses a purely human physical need. The human body requires liquids for continued life. Without it, we will die. Proverbs is often misunderstood and explained to be all about health, wealth, and success and that's all anyone needs to live. But rightly understood, Proverbs lays out the gospel which is truly all we need to live. Rather than offering techniques for getting ahead in life, the book of Wisdom reveals our deep brokenness and our need for a Savior, and the hope we have in Christ.
The hit TV show LOST is a compelling drama about a "lost people" struggling for community, survival, help, and hope. Passengers of Flight 815 are stranded on an unknown island, being lost with few, if any clues about finding their way. For many people today, this is exactly how they feel concerning their faith and many of the more difficult questions about God.
No single 24 hour event in human history has received more attnetion than the last 24 hours of Jesus' life. Every hour, every second, every moment, every heartbeat, every breath, all hold the potential for new life.
According to study after study, the communication gap alone is immense between parent and child. Have you ever wished your kids had come with an instruction manual? Watching the sign posts in your child's life, like their personality, their strengths and their weaknesses will help you train and direct them so that you can enjoy your children through the seasons of life.
If we at New Hope are going to reach our redemptive potential in God in the coming year of 2007, then we will need courage of biblical proportions.
In this series, we want to allow God to grow our hearts and to enlarge our hearts four times. We don't want the new year, 2007, to sneak up on us and find ourselves with hearts two sizes too small.
Healthy relationships do not just happen by accident. We need tools for improving our relationships and marriages that are effective as they are time honored.
Most of us want to live lives of purpose and meaning. The world around us tells us how we can find that fulfillment; indulge your self-serving desires and appetites because in the end, it's all about you and what you can get. Jesus' message is a radical departure from that majority opinion.
Discover the meaning behind the movie; we explored the spiritual themes of some of the summer's biggest blockbuster movies in 2006. It was an advunture.
One of the characteristics of healthy relationships is good communication; that is, people learn to speak certain words to each other, words like: "I love you" or "I'm sorr" or "How can I help?" or even, "Why did you do that?". The same is true in our relationship with God. If we want our relationship with Him to be healthy, we have to learn to develop good God-directed or "vertical" communcation habits.
Dan Brown did us a favor. He challenged us to go back and study what we believe and why so we don't have to be defensive about it. We don't have to check our brains at the door and commit intellectual suicide by becoming Christians.
