Sermons

Trials are something we don’t really look forward to, but they come into everyone’s life, shaping and testing us.  For some, trials shape us toward resentment, bitterness, and cynicism, but God makes the audacious claim that when trials come, they provide a reason for joy!  This week we’ll discover why and how that happens.

God’s back road of heartache can be excruciatingly painful. Sometimes is involves human betrayal, lying, deception, rejection or even being replaced. Yet, God can use even this pain redemptively. We’ll look at a woman who had failed in five marriages, yet found the love and acceptance her heart had always craved.

Although we wish this world were a lot more like heaven it certainly is not. It is meant to be hard. Why? Because our hearts are hard. As long as life is “smooth” we will have no motivation or reason to face and admit our sin, our need of a new heart, and a new life. Only…

We’re not good when the “unexpected” comes crashing into our lives. We’re REALLY not good when TWO big unexpected boulders crash into our lives. God re-routes Hannah to the back roads of the Unexpected, circumstances you never imagined YOU’d ever have to go through.  Along the way, Hannah found JOY she never expected to find, and…

We usually attribute loneliness to the failures of someone else. However, before we ever draw that conclusion, there are two failures of our own that precipitate a greater loneliness than what anyone else’s failures can bring. God can use our damaged selves as of one of the routes to true joy!

All of us experience unmet longings. We then redouble our efforts to fill our emptiness and loneliness we sometimes feel. Our efforts and the results are very short-lived. Surprisingly, God does not seem to be cooperating to get the people in our lives to come through for us!  What is God doing? He’s re-routing us.…