4th Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh

This is our mission.  We are beginning a renewed effort to engage the neighborhood, establish relationship, and simply love folks the way Jesus loved us.

Sam is the pastor of Grace and Peace Presbyterian (PCA).  They meet on Sunday night in Fourth's building.  It's been a great joy to get to know Sam over the last few months.  And it's was a joy to have him bring the message.

Jim Krummenacher was a great lover of the church, music, people and God.  It was a joy to celebrate his life.  Many shared their memories and hearts about Jim in this time.  We'll miss you, Jim.

The second purpose of our church is to love each other.  It sounds simple and easy, but it's not.  The best thing we can do in our witness to the world is simply be the community Christ desires us to be.  That's something everyone would want to be a part of.

We start a short series on the purpose of our church.  Our first purpose is to love God.  We can do everything else perfectly and have a huge ministry.  If we are not loving God, it means nothing.

Chapter 2 of Matthew is about humanity's response to Jesus.  The right response is represented by the Wise Men.  God reveals himself to them first through nature, then through scripture, and finally in the presence of Jesus himself.  And when they see him, they worship him.  It's a picture of right faith.

Jesus is the culmination of every hope.  He's the promised one.  He's our savior, and he's here.

We're going to spend some time in Matthew over a long haul.  We'll allow ourselves to get distracted for short periods of time here and there, but we'll come back to this until we get through.  In this sermon, we see the themes and message of the book in the midst of a genealogy. The meaning of it all is that Jesus is the Messiah and God of all.

We were born to be in relationship.  Christ has paved the way for it to happen.

The last in the series on being a peacemaker.  This is the end toward which we work in the brokenness of our relationships.  This is a day of remembering brokenness and devastation.  It's a day to remember the reconciling work of Jesus.  Click here to go to audio sermon

This is the key passage in dealing with conflict.  Conflict is an opportunity to come together in a deeper way.  It's exactly what Christ has done for us.

The second in the Peacemakers series.  Before we deal with others, we deal with ourselves.

Relationships are the basic, primary stuff of life - and they're hard.  They don't always go well - not ever since Cain and Abel.  This is the beginning of a four part series on how to do relationship, especially in conflict that inevitably challenges every relationship. The first thing we do - always do - is Glorify God. In invite you to stream or download the sermon and start to do some good work on relationships.

The final message in the series of our dance with the Spirit that is the Christian life.  It's not just that we discern God's leading and are empowered to obediently follow, it's also that we're sensitive to the timing of God.  Always and everywhere, we are sensitive to the moments of opportunity to respond to the Spirit.

Spiritual gifts are a controversial topic in the church.  Yet, if they are truly given by God and available to the believer, then how can we operate in the Christian life to our fullest without them?  This is an overview of the gifts as they are presented in scripture and operative today.

The dance with the Spirit includes discerning when the voice is His - or when its the world, the enemy or just ourselves.  This is some good stuff on making that discernment.

God provides us with direction.  He leads us should we have the discerning ears and eyes to follow.  What a wonderful grace.

Acts 16 tells the story of Paul following the Spirit's lead.  Obedience is a fundamental element of hearing and responding to the Spirit.

We serve a God of the impossible situation.  It's a good thing, too, because we're in an impossible situation.  As individuals, we can do nothing to overcome for ourselves sin and death.  God stepped in.  He is the God of the resurrection.  As a body, our little church is in an impossible situation.  How are we going to grow.  If we don't grow, we will die.  But the motivation cannot be survival.  It can only be love - love for God and for our neighborhood.  We'll get together during the week this summer to talk with God and each other and ask for a mission to our neighbors.

Pentecost (a week late).  This is the introduction to a series on living life in step with the Spirit.  We are witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and empowered with the words to tell.

The second in a series on living life in the Spirit - as individuals and as a church.  The first, foundational thing is to know God's love, be transformed by it, in awe of it, and so filled with it that it reflects back with God and our neighbor.  At the end of Acts 2, the disciples are filled with awe at all God has done.  We still are.  It's the beginning of everything.

The day before our country celebrated the anniversary of our independence, our elder Ross Kronenbitter preached about freedom.  "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free" (Gal. 5:1).

Jesus is alive!  He is risen from the dead.  Death and Sin are defeated.  He has risen from the dead.  This morning we looked at Mary Magdalene's experience at the tomb.  Twice she was asked, "Why are you crying?"  John 20:1-18.

John 20:19-31Rumors are swirling about the tomb being empty and Jesus having been seen.  Some of the disciples have probably already seen him.  Still, they go hide in a locked room from angry people who killed Jesus.  Later, evan after they've all seen him, Thomas doubts.  Jesus comes through every barrier of fear and doubt and shows himself to them, breaths on them and sends them out.  And they worship him.