NewHopeGilbert.org | 480-497-4101 | 1380 E. Guadalupe Rd., Gilbert AZ, 85234 |

New Sermon Series: “Why Faith?”

Posted by admin on Sep 28th, 2010 in Headlines, Worship

On September 12, I preached a sermon entitled, “Why Church?”, but that question cannot really be answered until we answer the question, “Why have faith at all?” It is this question that every human being must wrestle with on a personal level at some point in their lives.

For me, I faced this question back in college, where I took a smorgasbord of philosophy and world religion classes in order to find answers to not just this question, but also to many related questions: What is truth? Can it be absolute? What about other religions? What about evil and suffering? How could a loving God judge and punish? What about injustice in the world? And finally, how do these questions all relate to God’s character and what does it mean to have faith in his character?

In this new sermon series, I want to adress those questions.

Oct. 10: Injustice: Why is There Suffering?–The Omnipotence (all powerful) of God

Oct. 17: Exclusivity: What About Other Religions?–The Omnipresence (all presence) of God

Oct. 24: Hell: How Can a Loving God Judge and Punish?–The Justice of God

Oct. 31: Literalism: Isn’t the Bible Historically Unreliable?–The Revelation of God

The Purpose of Worship

To come together before God to honor Him for who He is and to discover what He’s done for us through Jesus Christ.

Worship Formats

We have three main worship formats on Sundays

8:30 a.m. - Traditional Service
10:00 a.m. - Contemporary Service
6:00 p.m. - X-ALT Youth Worship

We also invite the Korean community to join our brothers and sisters in the Korean Gilbert Church @ 1 p.m. on Sundays.

Our Traditional Service features singing from the hymnal and a few liturgical elements that invite the congregation into participatory worship.

Our Contemporary Service is both contemporary in music, but also more contemporary in its structure. The participatory nature of this service is less conventional.

Conversations with God

No matter what style of worship you feel comfortable with, we believe worship is a conversation between the congregation and God. And in like many conversations the goal is to get to know the person you are talking with.

So worship at New Hope begins with an invitation by God to enter into a dialogue and to relate with one another. As we approach God we recognize how awesome God is so we burst out into praises because of God's infinite worth. However we also begin to realize that God is God and we are not. We begin to realize just how pure God is and how pure we are not, so we are honest and acknowledge it.

God reminds us that His infinite Grace through his Son, Jesus Christ has purified us and we are able to approach God confidently to hear what he has to say. God speaks through His Word, through his Son. We hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and when we do we are inspired by Jesus' love for us. When we get to know Jesus we get to know God.

So we respond. We sing God's praises, and we ask the Holy Spirit to empower us to live as Christ calls us to live. We recommit ourselves to follow Christ day after day and so bring honor to Him in the world. That is the conversation with God which is called worship.