Brian's Sermons

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Note: this sermon was prepared and delivered by Rusty Simpson. I am simply posting the notes I took while he preached in order to keep the series intact. Kindness comes from the Greek word chrestotes , which means goodness, gentleness, excellence , uprightness or the goodness of one's heart toward another . This can include the goodness of God's heart toward us. The Bible is all about God's kindness to us. We fall away, but He shows kindness to us and brings us back to Himself. Anything good that happens to us in our lives is an example of kindness from God. Unfortunately, we often fail at kindness. Two kindness failures are shallow kindness and lack of kindness altogether . Shallow kindness is when you "pretend" to be kind but really don't care. Like a salesman might do to tr...

When I was in middle school, I found a bumper sticker at a novelty store. It was white with red letters which boldly stated: I can resist anything but temptation. Isn’t that true? If it weren’t for temptation, we’d probably be doing pretty well in our quest to live sin-free lives. But sadly, we don’t always do such a good job resisting. Jesus knew the human condition. That’s why he instructs us to pray; Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. At first glance, this seems really straightforward. We all need help in overcoming temptation. If I asked you: “how many of you have been tempted already this morning?” the only ones who wouldn’t raise their hands would be the ones who were tempted to lie. Let’s first look at temptation itself. In biblical thought, to tempt meant to test something or someone in order to determine or demonstrate worth or faithfulness. Temptation also refers to an attempt, often by Satan, to incite a person to sin. Jesus knows all about tempt...