St Marcus Mke Sermons

Our WLS senior pastoral assistant, Sam Jeske, preaches under the theme “Life In the Face of Death” – the story of Jesus raising his friend Lazarus back to life, from John 11:32-45.

The concept of the Seven Deadly Sins is not so much that we love bad things, but that we hyper-love and over desire good things. It’s an excessiveness and misguided prioritization of the heart. According to the Bible, the simplest thing to over love in the world is wealth. Why is giving ourselves (and our wealth) away an essential component to a Christian’s life? What does generosity accomplish? For that matter, why is the spread of the gospel an important thing to be generous about? This week we’ll be looking at a case study on GREED in the person of THE RICH YOUNG RULER from Matthew 19:16-26. 

For the rest of 2018, we’ll be working through a worship series on The Seven Deadly Sins.  SUMMARY: My first exposure to the Seven Deadly Sins came in 1996, when I sat mesmerized, watching a film based on the premise, starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. I came to find that even more fascinating than the movie itself was the concept of behavioural vices. Humans have a horrific capacity to excessively pursue their natural passions. We don’t just want what is bad – we hyperlove that which is good, distorting it in an ungodly fashion. Great writers throughout history, like Chaucer and Dante, have also understood this perversity, which is why the Seven Deadly Sins became a major theme of their most famous works. In 590AD, Pope Gregory revised the work of several earlier church fathers and, in his Summa Theologica listed “capital sins” that all others flow from, which is what gave us our modern list of 7. Many preachers throughout history have preached their way through the list. This is my first attempt.   This

2 Timothy 3:10-17 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of thingsv happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NIV)

Psalm 150 1 Praise the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens. 2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness. 3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, 4 praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, 5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. 6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. (NIV)

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power. (NIV)

This is the final week in our St. Marcus CORE VALUES worship series. We’re looking at our 4th Core Value: Radical Expectations. And this week we’ll be noting how a lack of courage, a lack of expectation, is actually an offense to God as we study Joshua 1:6-11,16.

In our St. Marcus CORE VALUES worship series, we’re looking at our 4th Core Value: Radical Expectations. Many hard workers and organizations possess high expectations for themselves, but in what ways should a Christian Church’s expectation for itself differ from worldly expectations. This week we’ll take a look at Colossians 3:18-25 as we start the study of our final core value.

Jesus is probably the only religious leader you will ever find who actively and intentionally shrinks his congregation. Jesus is constantly pushing followers to calculate the cost of discipleship prior to entering the journey. We’ll take a look at what he says the qualifications are and how they apply to us when we study Luke 9:22-26.  

In our St. Marcus CORE VALUES worship series, we’re looking at our 3rd Core Value: Biblical Discipleship. As we study Paul’s letter to a man he helped disciple, Titus, he offers to us 3 essential components to Biblical Discipleship. Find out what they are as we examine Titus 2:1-11.

This week we continue our theme of St. Marcus CORE VALUES. Last week we began our study of our 2nd Core Value: Sacrificial Love. This week we’re going to study Romans 5:1-8 to see those to whom we are naturally inclined to show sacrificial love and to those to whom God is calling us to show sacrificial love.

This week, we recount the time in Jesus' ministry where he exorcised a man possessed by countless demons. We tackle a few difficult questions that come up within this portion of the Gospel and relate it to some of the demons that every sinner faces every day.

This week we continue our theme of St. Marcus CORE VALUES. We’re moving on now to our 2nd Core Value: Sacrificial Love. We’ll take a look at the world’s definition of love, how that impacts us, and how a biblical definition of love has and will change us. We’ll be studying 1 John 3:11-20.

This week we continue our theme of St. Marcus CORE VALUES. Core Values are the durable identity that you take with you wherever you go. The first of our 4 Core Values is Christ First. Last week, we saw that if “seek first His kingdom and righteousness”, we find the solution to our worldly fears. This week, we want to take a deeper look at what it means to embody of this trait, living by Jesus’ Spirit. We’ll examine Romans 8:1-6.

For the next 8 weeks we’re finally doing a series I’ve been hoping to do for almost 2 years now – St. Marcus Core Values. Core Values function somewhat like your organizational identity – the durable, fundamental center that you carry with you everywhere you go. The first of our 4 Core Values is Christ First. This week we’ll be studying what it means to “seek first His kingdom and righteousness” as we study Matt. 6:25-34.

As many of us prepare for a day off on Labor Day, we take a look at what the Bible says about what our attitudes towards our daily labors should look like. Slavery was abundant in human history and is mentioned in the Old and New Testament numerous times. In Colossians, Paul has a message for slaves and masters (if written today, it would be more akin to addressing employees and bosses), in which he urges workers to obey the masters in authority and to work with sincerity and reverence for our God.  Colossians 3:22-4:1 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you willreceive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism. Masters, provide your slav

Originally preached on March 17th, 2018 and part of the series: The Gospel of Mark, From Throne to Cross and Back. Based on Mark 12:35-44. We look at what it means to be a friend of Jesus, how one becomes an enemy of Jesus, and what Jesus has already done FOR his enemies. 

Our series is called SATAN’S SLEIGHT OF HAND: The mostly untrue things we really need to stop believing.   This week’s lie is “GOD JUST WANTS ME TO BE HAPPY.” Well…..yes, God certainly desires our long-term wellness. But the question remains as to what exactly that means for this life. This week we’ll learn lots from a remarkable description of Moses, from Hebrews 11:23-28, who voluntarily gave up everything Pharoah’s palace had to offer in order to suffer with his people in order to get them to the Promised Land.

Membership in social clubs have declined over recent years. More and more people are stepping away from these types of membership clubs and clinging to their own personal networks, online or otherwise. Hebrews 10:19-35 teaches us perseverance in a different kind of membership - that of our own congregation in the Church of Christ. Our membership into God's "club" was paid for by the sacrifice of his Holy Son, Jesus Christ. We are able to witness and encourage one another through the Sacraments and can be confident with our unlimited access to God.     

Today, we dig into what it means to truly love our God. We turn to the end of the Paul's letter to the Ephesians, where we are taught how to live our lives as Christians to the fullest, and to base all our love in Him, and give our lives back to Him. Ephesians 6:23-24 Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.