Grace Chapel Knoxville Sermons

This Sunday we discussed the importance of God's presence in our church. Jesus' primary message to the disciples in John chapters 14-17 was that they learn to abide in him, being rooted in a loving, healthy relationship with God. This is such a vital part of a healthy, mature church body, that we must rely upon the presence of God. This will produce healthy fruit in the life of the church, and empower us to reproduce the life of Jesus in others.

This week Jonathan Allen spoke about the familiar parable of the houses built on the sand and on the rock. He discussed the three characteristics of the wise man: coming to Jesus, hearing from Jesus, and doing what he says. As Christians, we should be making all decisions by going through all three steps in this process, but too often, we neglect one or more of these crucial pieces. As a church body, we want to build our house on a strong foundation, so when the inevitable floods of life come, we can be a safe space for our community to take shelter.

This Sunday we returned to our Built Together series and focused on using our Treasure to build up the church. There is a key mindset shift that Jesus invites us into in Luke 12, calling us to move from striving to stewarding. The Lord is our generous provider, and we can learn to trust Him for provision and lean on Him to help us use all that is in our care well.

This week, we spent time celebrating the previous year, looking ahead to some plans for this year, and sharing an update on church finances and the remodel project for our new church home. We hope this is encouraging and equipping for all of us as we step into this next season together. As a church family, let’s humbly and prayerfully submit our plans and our ways to the Lord in this new year!

In part 2 of our mini-series on the book of Haggai, we shift our focus from the prophet’s call to self-reflection, to an exploration of who our God is. His ways are so good, from His faithful presence and commitment to fulfill His promises, to the cleansing, protection, and provision we have in him. May our prayer be, “Oh Lord, we look to you and consider your ways toward us.”

This week we discussed the first chapter in the book of Haggai. The people of Israel had finally been allowed to return to their homeland after many years of exile and rebuild God’s temple. Almost immediately, the people encountered opposition, and the project was halted. At the beginning of Haggai, the Lord is encouraging his people (through Haggai) to consider their ways. How they had spent their time and money on their own homes, but His temple lay incomplete and neglected. As our church is entering a new season with our own building project, we want to make sure we are always considering where our priorities and attention lie.

This week we explore Psalm 90, a psalm of Moses. As we begin the new year, it’s a great time to reflect and seek the Lord regarding our need for help, deliverance, and guidance. As Moses reminds us, we have a loving and faithful God whom we can call on and trust. May you be blessed this new year as you seek and submit your life to Jesus.

In week 4 of our Advent series, we explore the incredible gift of peace that is available to us in the person of Jesus. Peace isn’t the absence of conflict or difficulty, but the presence of Jesus bringing freedom from inner turmoil by setting us at one in him. May we all learn to hold our peace, as we are prepared in advance for the trials to come, sustained amid the storm, and set at peace as we walk forward in freedom.

In week 3 of our Advent series, we spend some time meditating on Luke 2:8-20 as the shepherds receive good tidings of great joy. As we explore the gift and power of joy, let’s pause to consider what the Lord has made known to us, so we may in turn make known the joy of our salvation to others.

This week, we take a journey through the lives of several characters from the Advent story: Joseph, Simeon & Anna, Mary and the Wise Men. We see how, in each of their stories, faith was absolutely central to their discovery of the Messiah.

This week we began the Advent season focused on the Hope we have in Jesus. The hope that is offered by the Lord is meant to comfort us, give us a clear path forward, and remind us to rely on Him and His promises not our own strength. May we find hope in this season, and be intentional to encourage one another by sharing the hope we have been given.

Today Pastor Jonathan teaches us about thanksgiving and worship. We take a fresh look at Psalm 100 and we see that every act of worship and thanksgiving is a response to the God who first loved us. He always initiates and we respond.

As humans, we are born with a finite amount of time and individual gifts and talents. It is important for us to identify our gifts and talents and also to steward them well. This week, by looking at the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, we learned about the importance of rest, tending opportunities to love well, looking to Jesus for solutions, and participating in the miracle that God is doing in and around us. We may feel inadequate, but he doesn’t measure us by how much we have; we are measured by how we use it. If we take our talents to Him, he is the great multiplier and can do things that we cannot even ask or imagine.

This week we finished up our exploration of the spiritual gifts by focusing on the gift of speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues. While often a controversial topic, the scripture encourages us to seek this gift and gives clear direction on how to handle it in a healthy way that encourages and builds us up individually and corporately. May we always remember that God himself is the gift. Therefore we grow in Him as we cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit, we walk in love with one another, and we eagerly desire and pursue the spiritual gifts for the purpose of building up the church.

This week we are continuing our exploration of the Spiritual Gifts as we work through Romans 12 and 1st Corinthians 12. We pray you are encouraged and the whole body is built up, as you discover, use, and grow in the gifts that the Holy Spirit so graciously imparts into our lives.

This week we begin a new section in our series as we continue learning how to operate in love to build up the Body of Christ. We will spend the next several weeks exploring the spiritual gifts. Let’s respond as Paul encourages us in his 1st letter to the Corinthian church, not to be ignorant of these gifts, but open to the Spirit of God and how he chooses to equip us so that we may walk in His Power, motivated by His Love, in order to build up and encourage others!

In this week’s message, we heard from our good friend Mark, as he unpacked the vital importance of having a healthy, biblical view of the Church. Often, we can have subtle, broken thinking that skews how we view the church and our role within it. One of our primary issues is how individualistic we have become in our reading of scripture and our understanding of our relationship with one another in the church. May we all have our mindset renewed to understand the crucial role of being in a community of believers who are being built up in love.

In this week’s sermon, we spent time reflecting on the healing that comes when we live in awareness of the other members of the body of Christ and choose to cooperate with the work Jesus is doing to restore his body. In Romans 12:12-18 Paul gives us a very practical application for how we can love well through our contributions, hospitality, and actively sharing in the lives of others. Let’s purpose to live in full awareness of the body of Christ, and love each other well.

Building a community of believers is an endeavor that can feel intimidating at first glance. There is some difficulty that can come when people are doing life together. However, John 15 tells us that there is great joy when we love each other well. As we are moving towards our new physical building, let us also work to build a community that enjoys the gifts of diversity, love, and perseverance, working to outdo one another in showing honor.

This week we explored several key aspects of how the Bible describes the church community. We need to understand our nature as the church and live out this truth. It gives us clear direction on how to live in relation to our Father in heaven, and with one another. We are an interconnected body, a building that needs the structure and support of constant gathering, a family that gives us a place of love and relationship, a flock that receives care, nurture, and support from one another and ultimately from the Good Shepherd.