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From the Pastors at Joy

Post Category: Christian Living

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Your Smartphone -- Ten Diagnostic Questions

In his 2017 book, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, author Tony Reinke writes: ...

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Is It OK to Love My Life?

There is a big difference between thankfulness for what God has given us and sinful idolatry. How do we know that difference?...

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Savoring Psalm 119 in 2017

Preaching on Psalm 119 this past week was a very rich experience for me. By God’s grace, studying the Scriptures in preparing to preach is something I deeply enjoy. But I can recall few times where I have been more moved and impacted personally by the text I am studying than I was this past week from exploring Psalm 119 in its entirety....

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SEVEN WAYS WE CAN GUARD AND REPAIR RELATIONSHIPS

Two Years ago I preached a sermon from the book of Philippians on working out a gospel culture at Joy Community Fellowship. One of the men who has been instrumental in my thinking about the idea of a gospel culture is Ray Ortlund, lead pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville Tennessee....

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The Christian and Government Part 2 - Submission and Prayer

When reading through the New Testament, there are a couple undeniable truths about the relationship between Christians and the government they are under....

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Reading the Bible in 2015

As a new year dawns on us, I want to again take the time to encourage you to give yourselves to the regular habit and discipline of reading the Scriptures daily. Last year as a church we used a reading plan that took us through the New Testament over the course of the year. I’d like to encourage us to a bit more this year, though I’m mindful that no one plan is going t...

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Look! A Distraction!

We are distracted. We are so distracted, and so accustomed to it, that after a while we almost become distraction. We lose the ability to be still. We fear the quiet. We are intimidated by the moments where there is nothing to look at, nothing to do....

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The Missional Impact of Worship

I closed last Sunday’s sermon with a personal illustration of how I attempted to bring the two principles from Psalm 103 that we considered (David’s determination to worship, and the ground of his determination) to bear on my own life. Let me give another illustration, which will lead right into the third point of my sermon, which I omitted and said I would r...

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Practical Tools for Extended Scripture Memorization

Last week I was challenged by these words from John Piper: “What would your ministry be like, if it were led by folks who memorized whole books of the Bible?” With the question, there was a link to an article written by Jon Bloom titled, Ten Reasons to Memorize Big Chunks of the Bible....

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When Life Doesn't Make Sense

One of the most challenging aspects of living a life of faith in Jesus is how to make sense of the innumerable pains and heartaches we experience in this fallen world. No matter how many times we quote Romans 8:28, it’s just hard to believe sometimes that an infinitely good, all-powerful God is governing even the tiniest details of our lives. ...

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