Scripture Alone, Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone, To God Alone Be The Glory
Sermons by Pastor Don Strand
Psalm 37:4
The One Big Idea: Everything in life falls properly into place when God is my first priority.
1. Resolved: I will never give up on my efforts to live for Christ because he will never give up on me.
2. Resolved: That everything I say will come from a heart of love, a spirit of humility, and a desire to honor Christ.
3. Resolved: To face every challenge, embrace every blessing, and act always with honor, knowing that I belong completely to God through Jesus Christ.
Genesis 6:9-9:17
The One Big Idea: God makes a new beginning as he continues building his good kingdom on earth.
1. The more I trust God, the more obedient I become.
2. Noah was the new Adam who points to Christ, but he could not be the last Adam or the promised Christ.
3. The story of the flood is ultimately about God’s faithfulness to his creation and his people.
Genesis 5:1 – 6:8
The One Big Idea: Our focus must always be on God’s eternal kingdom, not on any worldly kingdom.
1. The unbroken line of Adam through Seth to Jesus assures us that God is faithful to his promise to conquer death.
2. The hatred of God by the fallen spiritual creatures is directed at humanity.
3. God’s light of life continues through Noah until it was fully revealed in Jesus.
Genesis 4:1-26
The One Big Idea: Through common grace, God faithfully preserves the redemptive line of the seed of the woman until Christ returns.
1. A redeemed heart offers joyful worship, regular devotions, thoughtful prayer, and willing service out of gratitude to God.
2. Human effort, no matter how advanced, is always spoiled by sin and can never resolve our problems.
3. God’s grace preserved the redemptive line from Eve to the cross and will continue to preserve the line in his church until Christ returns.
Genesis 3
1. The essence of coveting is the belief that I need somethin I do not now have to be happy.
2. The result of Adam’s sin was his inability to continue in, or return to, the condition in which he was original created.
3. Jesus Christ restored the imago dei and gives it to all who believe so that what he is they will one day be.
Gen 1:14-17
The One Big Idea: Genesis 1 shows us the pattern on which we are to base our lives as God’s people.
1. Days 1 and 4 describe the same creative act from different perspectives that solve the problem of a dark and empty world.
2. Genesis 1 presents the model for how God wants his people to work.
3. The creation narrative tells us how God wants his people to order their lives.
Genesis 1: 3-13
the One Big Idea: God’s intent in creation is not for a static, unchanging reality but a developing world that points us to its final consummation.
1. The first day is not the beginning of creation, it’s the start of God’s fashioning and filling of the earth for our habitation.
2. Genesis 1 is a covenant statement on the character and reason for creation.
3. God used both divine fiat and divinely ordered natural processes to create the heavens and the earth.
The One Big Idea: The doctrine of creation is the starting point and distinguishing characteristic of true religion.
1. We must be aware of our presuppositions as we seek to understand our Bible.
2. From a Christian perspective, the Enlightenment was a great leap backward into the darkness.
3. Genesis 1 reveals man as the crown of creation and is the starting point for the redemption to come through Christ.
Luke 19:28-40 and Genesis 1:2-4
The One Big Idea: The original mission for God’s people as his light of truth to all nations has never changed and will continue until Jesus Christ returns.
1. God will never be without a witness. It is our privilege as living stones to be his witness.
2. The worldviews we face today are essentially the same as those Jesus faced in the first century.
3. The basis of the Biblical worldview that drives the vision and mission of God’s chosen people is found in Genesis one.
Genesis 1:1, 2:1
The One Big Idea: Creation is a two-state reality in covenant relationship with its creator as his temple kingdom.
1. Genesis 1:1 says all things, seen and unseen, were created by God out of nothing when time began.
2. Jesus Christ is present always and everywhere in the Bible’s redemptive story.
3. God’s plan for a spiritual-physical temple for his children will be complete when Jesus returns and unites heaven and earth forever.
Key words:
Cosmogony: A theory of the origin of the universe.
Aramaic: A Semitic language spoken in Israel since the 6th century BC.
Targum: Aramaic translation of the Old Testament.