Posts by Ben Sadler (Page 2)
Victory News – August 19, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, The other night after dinner I read Psalm 23 as a part of our family devotion. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul… When I told my kids we would be reading this Psalm, they rolled their eyes. (Which is something that seems to happen more frequently now that we have two teenagers.) They had heard this Psalm so often…
Victory News – July 22, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, This might be the most challenging sermon I have ever preached. This weekend we conclude our Glad You Asked sermon series. You asked that we address how Christians should support those who have differing views on sexuality. So we will be discussing what the Bible says about LGBTQ issues. There are a number of reasons this sermon will be so challenging: There is a wide variety of perspectives on this topic. Our current culture doesn’t seem…
Victory News – July 8, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, This week I will be answering the question: What does God say about divorce? In preparation for this message, I reached out to several people inside and outside our congregation who have gone through a divorce. And there was one common thread in all the responses: shame. It didn’t matter who was primarily at fault in the divorce, both parties felt shame and a sense of failure. Because of your responses, I want to change my…
Victory News – June 24, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, This week we are going to respond to your question: “Why does God let bad things happen?” Out of all the questions we have covered, I believe, this week’s question is the reason most people leave the Christian faith. Someone might say that they are no longer a Christian because “Science has disproved God” or “The Bible is not historically accurate.” In my experience, if you keep asking, they will tell you the real reason they…
Victory News – June 10, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, This week we continue our Glad You Asked sermon series. In this series we are attempting to use God’s Word to answer the questions that you submitted. One of the most common questions submitted was around the topic of baptism. That makes sense. For at least the last 500 years, Christians have debated who should be allowed to baptize, and what age someone should be baptized, and how the baptism should be performed, whether through immersion…
Victory News – May 27, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, As the news of the mass shooting in Uvalde, TX went viral, we experienced a collective despair. A fog of hopelessness hung in the air. We have so many questions: How could this happen? Where is God? What can we do about this? (We will address these questions in our upcoming podcasts, available on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Spotify.) For now we grieve, but as the Apostle Paul writes, We don’t grieve as the rest…
Victory News – May 13, 2022
Pastor’s MESSAGE Hi Friends, I would like to give you some homework before Sunday’s worship service: Watch the movie Inside Out. If you have seen it already, consider watching it again. What I love about this movie is that it teaches that all our emotions have a purpose. From a Christian perspective, we would say that all our emotions are gifts from God. Our emotions help us respond to and process our experiences. If we are emotionally healthy, each emotion helps us…
Victory News – April 8, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, Happy Holy Week! This week, we are celebrating the most important events in the history of the world. This is the week that Jesus marched into Jerusalem, broke bread with his disciples, broke down the divide between heaven and earth, and broke free of mortality. This week is the climax of all human history. It is the undoing of all that has gone wrong. It is the defeat of death. You wouldn’t know all this just…
Victory News – March 25, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, The American work ethic is a unique value that has not been shared by most civilizations. Neither the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, nor the Romans believed in the value of hard work. So how did they get things done? Slaves. It was slaves who built the Egyptian pyramids. Slaves taught their children in Greek schools. And slaves worked the land for the Romans. It was the Christians who were the first to see that all work, even…
Victory News – March 11, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, This week, we will be looking at the Fifth Commandment: You shall not murder. At first glance, this commandment seems self-explanatory. But is it really? Why do we give special rights and protections to humans? What makes humans so special? There is only one place where we can find an answer to that question: the Word of God. Only the Word of God gives an accurate appraisal of our worth. When God created humans, He said…
Victory News – February 25, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, I remember when the first energy drink hit the market: Red Bull. Red Bull promised to give you all the energy you needed to get through your day. But Red Bull has been eclipsed by the multitude of higher octane options. Now you can buy KickStart, Monster, Bang, Relentless, Full Throttle, Celcius, Rockstar, and many more. All of them promise to give even more energy than the next. In fact, they promise to push our bodies so…
Victory News – February 11, 2022
PASTOR’S MESSAGE Hi Friends, The Christian hope is most clearly seen at a Christian funeral. At first glance, both secular and Christian funerals have a lot in common. Either type of funeral will have flowers, music, readings, and eulogies. At both, you will hear people say things like, “He is in a better place” or “At least she isn’t suffering anymore.” But there is still a difference between the two. And it is most clearly seen at the graveside committal…