Sermons – Somerset Church of Christ

March 31, 2026

Easter: The gift of new life

human standing beside crucifix statue on mountain

As Christians celebrate the resurrection of our Savior around the world, we reflect on God’s grace and mercy, and the gift of new life that we have through Jesus. 1 Peter 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. . . ” Our living hope comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The resurrection is essential to our faith. Paul said, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:13-14). Paul continued, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are stil in your sins” (vs. 16-17).

Paul links the resurrection directly to baptism. In Romans 6:4 he says, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” When we are baptized, we are baptized into both his death and resurrection and upon emerging from the water we are given the gift of a new life.

March 24, 2026March 25, 2026

The peaceful king

brown and white donkey standing on snow covered ground

Jesus fulfilled Zechariah 9:9 when he rode on a donkey during the triumphal entry: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” The king did, in fact, come. And he rode on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Luke 19 records the triumphal entry in detail. Jesus told two of his disciples to go ahead of him when they were on the Mount of Olives. He said, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here” (Luke 19:30). They did so. They threw their cloaks on the donkey and set Jesus on it. As he rode along, the crowds threw their cloaks on the road.

“As he was drawing near–already on the way down the Mount of Olives–the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!'” (vs. 37-38). As Jesus entered Jerusalem the week before he died, there was great rejoicing over him as the peaceful king. Zechariah was fulfilled before their very eyes.

March 17, 2026

The measuring stick (how we judge vs love)

Measuring sticks are very important and they need to be meticulously calibrated. In Matthew 7:1-2 Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured you.” In other words, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it yourself. There are lots of examples of measuring sticks gone wrong. The Mars Climate Orbiter, for example, was a $125 million loss when it burned up in the Martian atmosphere. One engineering team used imperial units while another used metric units.

Jesus continued by asking how you see the speck in your brother’s eye when you have a log in your own. He concluded, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (vs. 5). Luke adds a component: “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:37-38).

The point is not that we can never judge. It’s that we better be extremely careful how we view other people. Do we nitpick (use a false measurement) or do we first treat people with kindness, mercy, and forgiveness? If we miscalculate, we could end up becoming like the “too big French trains”–Railway engineers famously ordered over 2,000 new regional trains that were too wide for the platforms at 1,300 stations because they failed to measure the infrastructure.

March 11, 2026

The truth will set you free

man wearing grey shirt standing on elevated surface

In the gospel of John, Jesus is constantly confronted by antagonizers who are trying their hardest to catch him blaspheming. Jesus spent a long time telling groups of people that he is the light of the world and anyone who follows him will no longer walk in darkness. Then he told them, “If you abide in my word, you truly are my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

They argued with Jesus, saying that they’re offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (vs. 34). He said that the slave doesn’t remain in the house forever, but the son does. Therefore, if he sets them free (from their sins), they are free indeed.

Jesus acknowledged that they were offspring of Abraham, “yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you” (vs. 37). They refused to abide in Jesus’ word, which is the truth. If fact, they couldn’t because his word finds no place in them. Until they accept the word of Jesus, there can be no truth. As long as there is no truth, they listen to the lies of Satan. But thank God that we have access to the word of Jesus. As long as we abide in it, we are his disciples and the truth sets us free from our sins!

March 3, 2026

Surrendering to God

Jesus said to his disciples very plainly, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). He continued, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (vs. 25-26).

Obviously Jesus is asking rhetorical questions so that his disciples really understand that we can’t sell out our souls. Put another way, “why sell your soul to the devil?” Your soul is worth so much more than earthly riches. If anyone really wants to be a disciple of Jesus, he must deny himself, take up his cross (be willing to suffer) and follow Christ. This is the true definition of surrender.

Yet millions of people struggle with surrendering to God. People usually don’t admit it, but they surrender every day to lots of other worldly things. They surrender their time to vanity, chasing after nicer things, and workaholism to pay for those things. Jesus gives us a better way. In fact, he is the way, the truth and the life. There is no other path to salvation. There are no other doors. If we miss the Jesus boat, we miss it altogether. There are no second chances once we die. We must surrender to God.

February 25, 2026

Broken cisterns

Jeremiah, known as “the weeping prophet,” witnessed some of the greatest atrocities the Israelites had ever committed. They were doomed, on a clear path of self-destruction that was very plain to see. Despite his best efforts of warning them, the Israelites were dedicated to their path, even mocking Jeremiah along the way. At one point, Jeremiah warned them directly from God: “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

First, they rejected God as the fountain of living waters. Remember when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well? He offered her living water and, not understanding what he said, she questioned him. Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4: 13-14). Of course, she came to believe that Jesus was the Savior and pretty soon nearly the whole village did as well.

Ironically, the Israelites who rejected God later on threw Jeremiah into a cistern that belonged to the king’s son. It was empty, proving Jeremiah’s point. Jeremiah was literally thrown into the metaphor that he was preaching about. They rejected God, the fountain of living waters, and they built their own broken cisterns. They were spiritually bankrupt. God is, and always has been, the source of living water. Jesus is our source of living water. The question is, are we tapping into Jesus as our source or are we building broken cisterns?

February 11, 2026

The gift of identity

A lot of Christians struggle with their identity in Christ. When they don’t know who they are, they don’t know what to do. When they don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to behave. So we have a world that is quite a mixed bag. But Peter gives both our identity and our purpose: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Peter says this definitively. There is zero question who the Christians are. They are a chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. A people for his own possession. That identity is written in stone. Because of that, Christians’ purpose is to proclaim the excellencies of him who called them from darkness into his marvelous light. We all were sinners, lost and driven by our dark ways. But now we entered the saving light of Jesus our Savior.

This guides our actions and determines how we treat others. Paul said, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:22). Our identity now is in Christ, and in him alone. We belong to him. We’ve entered his light and now proclaim the excellencies of him who called us from darkness into that light!