Christ Church MN Sermon Blog

  UNGLUED: Prayer That Strengthens, Sends, and Sets Us Free Scripture: Acts 4:23-31 At an annual physical, a doctor might ask two simple questions: What are you consuming, and what are you strengthening? Those same questions can help us examine our spiritual lives. When hope begins to fade, prayer is not another obligation meant to make us feel guilty. Prayer is where God strengthens us, fills us, and reminds us who we are. In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested for healing a man and speaking about Jesus. When they were released, they returned to the believers and reported the threats they had received. The church’s response? They prayed. Not for an easier life. Not for their enemies to disappear. They prayed, “Enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (Acts 4:29). The opposition fueled their passion. Notice how their prayer began: “Sovereign Lord.” Even after facing threats and persecution, these believers recognized that God remained in control. Their circ...

  UNGLUED: From Unraveled to Unstuck Scripture: Isaiah 6:1–9 Sometimes coming unglued is exactly what we need. In Isaiah 6, the prophet sees the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne. The temple fills with smoke. The foundations shake. Angels declare, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.” Isaiah’s response is immediate: “Woe is me for I am ruined.” Standing before the holiness of God, Isaiah recognizes something we all must eventually confront: We cannot save ourselves. We cannot explain away our sin, hide behind good intentions, or make ourselves worthy through effort. Isaiah is unraveled. But that is not the end of his story. Unraveled by His Holiness Encountering God’s holiness brings us face-to-face with our need for Him. Isaiah confesses that he is a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips. His brokenness is personal, but he also recognizes the brokenness surrounding him. This moment of humility matter...

  Unglued: Spirit • Church • Mission There are moments when someone needs to tell us, “Watch what you eat.” Sometimes we need the same kind of wake-up call for our spiritual lives. Are we growing? Are we developing an appetite for everything God has made available to us in Christ, or have we become satisfied with what is familiar? The writer of Hebrews interrupts his teaching about Jesus our great High Priest with a spiritual dietary warning: “We have a great deal to say about this, and it is difficult to explain, since you have become too lazy to understand. Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God’s revelation again. You need milk, not solid food. Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.” — Hebrews 5:11–14 The problem was not tha...

  Unglued: Spirit • Church • Mission Sometimes we want God to give us the full memo before we move. We want the complete plan, every detail explained, and every question answered. But often, God simply asks for our obedience: “If you hear Me, move.” That desire is at the heart of the Unglued series. We do not want to be a people who merely wait for God to move. We want to become the kind of people who move when He speaks—people who keep in step with the Holy Spirit. But that raises an important question: How can we know that what we are hearing is truly the voice of God? The Voice That Instructs and Pursues Throughout Scripture, God’s voice is both a voice of instruction and a voice of relationship. Jesus said: “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.” —John 10:27 The first recorded words God spoke to humanity appear in Genesis 2. God told Adam that he could freely eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God’s words beg...