Sermons - NBC Nazarene

   We are still in Psalm 91, as Nick talked about, and we’re going to be there for a little bit. We’re going to actually just be there today, and we’re going to finish out on the 29th, on Palm Sunday, this little sermon series, “Walking Through Psalm 91.” We’ve talked about living under the shelter of the Most High. We talked last week about this kind of bird language that’s used here that is all about God’s protection. This week we’re going to start in verse 5; we’re going to go through verse 10, as he talks a lot about fear and God’s protective hand from visible and invisible threats. So here we are, Psalm 91, starting at verse 5, and it’s just a continuation, obviously, of the psalm that he’s been talking about. This is what Psalm 91:5–10 says: “You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but ...

  Happy March, everyone! Whatever that means. We're five weeks away from our Easter celebration, so just be preparing your hearts for that. That’s really what the Lenten journey is about—it’s a preparation time for us to ready our hearts and our spiritual walk so we can truly gather and celebrate the wonderful resurrection of Jesus. We're kind of “marching” through Psalm 91. We began last week with the first two verses, and today we’ll continue with verses 3 and 4. Psalm 91 is one of the most popular psalms, and I’m going to read verses 3 and 4 today: “Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness will be your shield and your rampart.” There are passages in Scripture that feel like fortresses—places where we can find comfort and ease. I don’t know if you have those in your own life, but there are scriptures that feel like home or like a fortress. Whe...

  "Some believers simply visit God. We visit Him on Sunday mornings or in emergencies. When something breaks and we’ve tried every other option, then we go to God. But God is not looking for visitors. He’s inviting us to reside. "

  Well, over the last few weeks we have been on a journey together talking about holiness—the reality that God is holy and that He has designed His people to be holy as well, to reflect Him in everything we do. My hope today is that each of us would take a kind of personal inventory and ask ourselves: Is my life a reflection of Jesus in every way? That really is the goal of the Christian life—that day by day we would look more and more like Jesus and that our lives would reflect Him. This morning we find ourselves in 1 Peter 1:15–16 , which will serve as the foundation for what we talk about today. We’ll move through several other passages as well, but this is our starting point. In this opening section of the letter, Peter is encouraging the believers he is writing to live holy lives—to be different, to be set apart, to be unlike the world around them and instead reflect the character of God in everything they do. Peter writes, “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy i...