Elmwood Church - Sermons
We are a multi-generational church family inviting all people into the life-giving way of Jesus. Learn more at http://www.elmwoodchurch.org.
Episodes
129 episodes
Testing and Mercy in the Wilderness
Numbers 21 shows how the wilderness exposes our struggle to trust God’s daily provision while also revealing his mercy. God uses testing for our good, invites us to depend on him in prayer, and points us to Jesus, lifted up on the cross as our ...
Encountering the God Who Sees
Genesis 16 shows how God meets Hagar in the wilderness, sees her misery, and extends grace she did not earn. The God who saw Hagar sees us too, and through Jesus he meets us in our deepest need, stays with us in suffering, and invites us to tru...
Training for the Race
1 Corinthians 9 calls us to approach the race of faith with disciplined investment. We do not train to earn God’s love, but because we already have it in Christ. Discipline helps us build practices and habits that form us into faithful, fruit-b...
In It for the Long-Haul
Hebrews 12 reminds us that the Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. To finish well, we must throw off both sin and anything that hinders us, live at a sustainable pace, and keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who has already run the race...
Restoring Balance to Our Doing for God
Luke 10 shows the need to balance doing for Jesus with being with Jesus. Martha’s service was good, but her worry and overactivity pulled her away from him. Mary models the better way: discerning when to stop, listen, and let service flow from ...
The Compassion of God
Luke 15 reveals God’s compassion toward sinners who repent and return to him. Like the father who restores his lost son, God forgives, restores dignity, celebrates reconciliation, and calls us to show that same compassion toward others.
A Christ Centered Plan to Deal with Anxiety
Philippians 4 gives a Christ-centered way to face anxiety: pray with trust, give thanks, bring requests to God, and filter thoughts through what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. God’s peace guards us ...
Healthy Pastor; Healthy Church: How the Gospel of Grace Enables a Church Body to Grow Together in the Future
Ephesians 4 shows that a healthy church keeps Christ, not the pastor, at the center. Christ gives leaders to equip the whole body for ministry, so the church grows as each member uses their gifts in love. As Pastor John returns from sabba...
A Prayer for Restoration
Daniel 9 shows us how to pray with humility and hope. Daniel confesses sin honestly, trusts God’s faithfulness, and pleads for restoration not because his people are righteous, but because God is merciful. In Jesus, the divide caused by sin is ...
The Great Invitation
Luke 14 shows God’s heart to fill his banquet with people who know their need for grace. Jesus invites the undeserving, the overlooked, and the resistant to come to him. We are called to receive that invitation ourselves and help compel others ...
Workers for the Harvest
Luke 10 calls us to see the world as Jesus does: a plentiful harvest with too few workers. Jesus sends his followers into a world where some will welcome the kingdom and others will resist it, but the message remains the same: the kingdom...
Praying Angry
Psalm 109 gives language for bringing anger, pain, and cries for justice honestly before God. Rather than acting in revenge or suppressing difficult emotions, believers are invited to give their anger to the Lord in prayer, trusting him as both...
Forgiveness: A Key to Freedom in Christ
In Matthew 18, Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant shows that those who have received God’s overwhelming mercy are called to forgive others from the heart. This sermon explores forgiveness as a decision of the will, not forgetting o...
God's Good Work
In “God’s Good Work,” Colossians 3:23–24 frames work and rest as part of God’s calling, not as separate from the spiritual life. From creation to fall, redemption, and restoration, work is shown as originally blessed, now affected by sin...
All For the Glory of God
Paul’s call in 1 Corinthians 10:23–11:1 shows us how to live with wisdom in a spiritually complex world. Because everything has the potential either to become idolatry or to become worship, Christians are called to filter all of life thro...
Fleeing From Idolatry
Unpack Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 10:14–22 that idolatry divides our allegiance from God. While the Corinthians faced the specific temptation of participating in idol feasts, the deeper danger remains for us today: treasuring created thing...
What Disqualifies Us From the Prize
This sermon reflects on 1 Corinthians 10 and Paul’s warning to run hard after the lasting prize of Christ. Through the cautionary example of Israel in the wilderness, we are reminded that persistent, unrepentant sin and idolatry can pull us awa...
Becoming All Things
Empty me. Fill me. Use me. What if the key to reaching the people around you started with a simple three-line prayer? This message unpacks how Paul's radical approach to connecting with wildly different people can inspire all...
A Legacy of Motherly Faithfulness
In this Mother's Day message, we turn to Exodus 2:1–10 and the story of Jochebed — a mother whose courage and trust in God changed the course of history. Her willingness to defy Pharaoh and entrust her son to God's providence points us forward ...
Laying Down Our Rights
In this message, we dive into 1 Corinthians 9:1–18, where the Apostle Paul sets a radical example for the church in Corinth — and for us today. Rather than demanding what he was rightfully owed, Paul willingly laid down his right to financial c...
Content With What We Have
What does it look like to live without anxiety in a world of overwhelming abundance?Drawing from Matthew 6:25-34, this message offers a framework for navigating material abundance without losing your soul to it. We dig into what t...
