Sermons by Jeff Cottone (Page 35)

Many Christians live their lives believing that their salvation is all up to them – and, that they can lose it. Instead of having security and confidence, we can live life like a tightrope walker in the circus, taking each step ever so slightly, thinking that if we take one wrong step, we are lost and gone and perish irredeemably. As a result, we can live out our relationship with God in tremendous insecurity and fear. The Bible affirms both that a person can fall away from a…

There is a natural drive in us to want to mature – we want to grow up. But, it is possible to become content with immaturity. It is possible to become content with where we are, until we are confronted with our immaturity and awakened to our need of change. Unfortunately, in our culture today, immaturity is often met with embrace and acceptance, and even celebration. The greater tragedy is when spiritual immaturity is embraced in the church.  The book of Hebrews encourages the believer…

Jesus knows what it means to suffer.  If you have suffered in this life, if you know what it’s like to cry, to shed tears, to experience pain and grief, and if you know what it means to obey God even when it is costly, then you can take comfort in knowing that Jesus, your great High Priest, knows, even more than we do, what it means to suffer.  He knows what it means to experience grief, to cry, to…

There’s a common, but false, idea out there which thinks that “Normal” in the Christian life is a life of ease – that it is a life of uninterrupted smooth sailing, such that if trials and difficulties comes, if failure or struggle comes, if hardship comes, then something’s wrong … “Normal” has been interrupted, and so we assume that we are defective and something is wrong.  But the Bible paints a far different picture of the Christian life: it is a battle, where…

When someone is important to you, their words will be important to you.  How you listen to somebody reveals in some degree how important that person is to you.  The Bible is God’s Word.  It is God speaking to you.  How you respond to His Word, the Bible, is how you respond to God Himself.

Rebecca Pippert recounts the story of one individual coming to faith in Christ, where it required the individual to become homeless, to flee the environment she was currently in.  To Pippert’s surprise, the next day she observed the woman, suitcase in hand, a smile on her face, and tears in her eyes. This is a picture of the Christian life: Christians have no home in this world, but are wilderness wanderers in this life. As they walk through a life of suffering,…

Chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews are written to Christians who are experiencing the lows of life, who are profoundly experiencing what it is like to live in a fallen, broken, sin-filled world.  These chapters teach us to not despair, even in the lows, because our ultimate hope is not in this life.  It is also written to Christians experiencing the highs of life. It teaches us not to be ultimately satisfied with these highs because they are fleeting and…

In the 19th century, a Catholic priest, Father Damien, was known as the apostle to the lepers.  Leprosy was a problem in Hawaii at the time, and in order to prevent it’s spread, lepers were quarantined in a remote place, with little assistance from the outside world.   Realizing it was a death sentence, the Catholic Church did not require priests to go minister to these people in need, but instead looked for volunteers, and Father Damien was the first to…

We’re all worshipers, and we’re all looking for something worth giving our worship to – “something amazing”. But often what we allow to captivate our hearts leaves us longing. Jesus is presented as the Supreme being – even greater than angels. Though angels in our culture tend to bring to mind cute but unimpressive cartoon-figures, in the context of the Bible they were impressive, fearful creatures, which if you saw, you would be tempted to worship. Jesus is far supreme…

The story of Jesus’ transfiguration gives a good picture of the main point of the book of Hebrews. Though Peter puts Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah, God singles out and exalts Jesus, temporarily lifting the veil of his humanity to display his glory, while the others disappear. One writer summarizes it this way: “The glory associated with Moses and Elijah was so eclipsed by the infinitely greater glory connected with Christ, that they faded from view.” This…