Sunfield Baptist Church Sermons

Being fugitives means that we are running away into self-destruction, but because of God’s amazing grace, even though we are deliberately challenging his authority and running away from him in our sin, he runs after us with a cosmic intervention, often in the form of a mighty tempest, tempestuous and raging, but all for our good. Stephen Saucier The post Selected Scriptures, An Introduction to Jonah appeared first on Sunfield.

Jesus wants us see Himself in the Sermon on the Mount and cry out to Him in humble repentance and cling to Him with desperate faith. When you look at the Sermon on the Mount and you see your failures know this, that Jesus died for all your failures. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:28-29, Not Your Average Epilogue appeared first on Sunfield.

What makes a good work good is that you don’t trust it to save you. As soon as you put hope in that good work, it’s no longer good. As soon as you see it as your ticket to heaven, it’s no longer good. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:24-27, Wise & Foolish Building appeared first on Sunfield.

It’s scary to know that genuine and counterfeit believers are nearly identical, scary to think that this is the fate of many professing Christians, and scary to consider that the consequences are eternally grave. Scary. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:21-23, Who Will Enter the Kingdom of Heaven? appeared first on Sunfield.

The challenge of the gospel is that there needs to be an equal emphasis on both the demand of the gospel and the comfort of the gospel; otherwise, you lose the gospel. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:15-20, False Prophets appeared first on Sunfield.

Now all this is to say that Christianity IS narrow. But its narrowness is no narrower than claims to the contrary. The narrowness of Christianity is NOT arrogance. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:13-14, The Narrowness of Christianity appeared first on Sunfield.

If you really think about it, there needs to be a change in the ‘you’ in order for you to do to them what ought to be done with you. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:12, The Golden Rule appeared first on Sunfield.

When God brought you into his family he brought you into his family “as is,” just as you are — as bratty and filthy and cranky and petty and self-willed and disrespectful and disobedient as you are — he, while you were in the throes of a temper-tantrum said, “I’ll take that one. And not only will I take you, but I’ll take you and give you every privilege and joy and all the spiritual riches I can lavish on […] The post Matthew 7:7-11, The Generosity of God appeared first on Sunfield.

Being judgmental lands us in hot water with God because it usurps his role as the sole lawgiver and judge. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 7:1-6, Two Kinds of Judgment appeared first on Sunfield.

Perhaps the thing that makes worry so sinister is that it is a kind of maternal sin — it gives birth to a thousand others. You know what a number worry does on you. You know it when you see it. You know it when you experience it. And you know it’s wrong. You know that worry is bad for you. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:25-34, Worry, Fear, Anxiety, and the Gospel of Grace appeared first on Sunfield.

To treasure anything other than Jesus is to live completely contrary to your design. And you know that when you force something, like a tool, to do something contrary to its design, you end up ruining both that appliance and the object you were trying to fix. Jesus doesn’t want this for us. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:19-24, Heavenly Treasure appeared first on Sunfield.

A person who believes the gospel is not surprised at the difficulties of life, and is not outraged that these things happen to him because he knows that he deserves far worse. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:13, Do Not Lead Us Into Temptation appeared first on Sunfield.

If you hope to maintain even the semblance of a relationship with other people, weak and sinful as they are, you’ve got to figure out how to forgive them. More than that, because you are one of those weak and sinful people yourself, you are (even without realizing it) counting on other people to forgive you. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:12, Forgive Us Our Debts appeared first on Sunfield.

When we realize that the person we’re praying to is a heavenly father, we must also remember that we are his earthly kids and like any kid, don’t always ask for what’s best for us. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:11, Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread appeared first on Sunfield.

What makes obedience a challenge is that God is not looking for slow, coerced obedience — he’s looking for quick, joyous, spontaneous obedience that flows from our hearts. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:10, Thy Will Be Done appeared first on Sunfield.

The post Matthew 7:7-11, Ask. Seek. Knock. appeared first on Sunfield.

We want to run our own lives. Until we see ourselves as pretenders to the throne of our hearts, God's reign will not hold sway. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:10, Thy Kingdom Come appeared first on Sunfield.

So Jesus again does what we could never do; he hallows God’s name for us. But this doesn’t mean that we are off the hook. We pray that in our lives and in the world, God’s great name would be the most sacred thing in the universe, that he would be what all people value most supremely. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:9, Hallowed Be Thy Name appeared first on Sunfield.

Jesus was forsaken so that you and I will never have to be. The one time Jesus did not pray “my Father” is the very moment that he made it possible for you to come to God saying “Abba.” Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:8-9, Our Father appeared first on Sunfield.

Christianity is about the heart. That even if we were to take away every single command, every single spiritual discipline off the list, our hearts would still find a way to live for the eyes of people rather than the eyes of God. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:16-18, Fasting From the Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

You can’t pray this prayer unless you forgive the people who have wronged you because you cannot look at a person who’s wronged you and refuse to forgive them unless you feel superior to them. So until you repent of your superiority (and thus become enabled to forgive those who have hurt you), God will not forgive you. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:5-15, Prayer From the Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Christianity is not a system of self-improvement. It is not a list of rules and regulations to live by. It cannot be reduced to a program of morals and ethics. It is the story of God’s great work of salvation in Jesus. And by faith, you get to be a character in that grand story. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:2-4, Giving From the Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Unless you are convinced that the love of Christ has nothing to do with your good behavior, you’ll turn the reward into a wage and see your sincerity as a stepping stone to acceptance with God. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 6:1, The Perils of Hypocrisy appeared first on Sunfield.

It seems like this God is willing to love anybody. Doesn’t he have any taste? Doesn’t he have any standards? I know why he would love the righteous and the good, but not bad people and unrighteous. BUT THIS IS WHAT GRACE IS! AND IT’S AMAZING! Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:43-48, Love Your Enemies appeared first on Sunfield.

Because Jesus turned the other cheek for us, God’s vengeance was satisfied on the cross — for vengeful, evil people like you and me. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:38-42, Two Kinds of Retaliation appeared first on Sunfield.

If Christianity is about anything, it’s about change. So if there is no change, Jesus is saying there is no Christianity. And if there is no Christianity, there is only judgment. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:33-37, Oaths, Honesty, & the Devil appeared first on Sunfield.

We need to see that a preoccupation with the grounds for divorce gets our eyes off the real issue: the importance of reconciliation, of living in light of the ideal…Instead of being all about the grounds of divorce, we should be all about preserving our marriages. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:31-32, Divorce, Adultery, & Remarriage appeared first on Sunfield.

God offers us the gift of his son to so fulfill and satisfy the deepest longings of our heart and we choose instead to spurn his greatest gift and settle for second-best. Rather than glutting ourselves on our relationship with Jesus, a kind of intimacy that you can’t desire enough, we look to satisfy our cravings on things that never ultimately satisfy…things like sex. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:27-30, Hell, Lust, & a Change of Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Jesus calls us to remember how we offended other people, not how they offended us. Why? Because remembering how we have offended other people can make us slower to be offended by other people. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 15:21-26, Anger, Murder, & Reconciliation appeared first on Sunfield.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets in the sense that he is the one to whom they pointed, he is the person these Scriptures anticipate, he is the one they are all about. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:17-20, Fulfilling the Law & Entering the Kingdom appeared first on Sunfield.

What you have to understand is that Jesus is alive right now and knowing what he had to do in order to overcome your regrets, he has NO regret. He does not regret what he’s done for you. He welcomes you with open arms. Stephen Saucier The post 1 Peter 1:3-9, Raised From Regret appeared first on Sunfield.

The gospel is not good news without the Triumphal Entry because the conquest of the powers that really matter comes only through Jesus’ humility. He had to get the people’s hopes up for a king they expected so he could dash their hopes with the king they desperately needed — the king who would die on the cross for their sins. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 21:1-11, The Prophet Jesus From Nazareth of Galilee appeared first on Sunfield.

God’s acceptance is based on sheer grace — grace and nothing else. Grace means that God welcomes you into a place you don’t have a right to be. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:10-12, Blessed Are the Persecuted appeared first on Sunfield.

Hypocrisy is the sin of lying to God, yourself, and other people about who you really are on the inside. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:8, Blessed Are the Pure in Heart appeared first on Sunfield.

Without the Gospel as the source for our mercy, all of our forgiveness and all of our generosity will deteriorate into something self-righteous and condescending, and ultimately not all that helpful to other people. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:7, Blessed Are the Merciful appeared first on Sunfield.

To be truly meek means we no longer protect ourselves, because we see there is nothing worth defending. Martyn Lloyd-Jones The post Matthew 5:5, Blessed Are the Meek appeared first on Sunfield.

If we understood grace we would weep for our sins and the sins of others! In fact, I would argue that until you’re miserable for killing Jesus by your sin, you have not had real misery — you’ve never really mourned. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:4, Blessed Are Those Who Mourn appeared first on Sunfield.

What marks us as kingdom people and genuine Christians is that we keep coming back to this one thing: the inexhaustible grace of God, knowing that it’s all we have…and all we need. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:3, Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit appeared first on Sunfield.

When you understand the grace of God, what you value, that is what you live for and long for, gets completely turned upside down. Because of grace, you become a person who no longer feels superior to other people and instead sees them as objects of the very mercy that you’ve received. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5:1-12, The Beatitudes appeared first on Sunfield.

Until you see that the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus. It’ll never be about you. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5-7, A Sermon on the Sermon on the Mount appeared first on Sunfield.

The Sermon on the Mount is the logical extension of a super-illogical counterintuitive message of grace, mercy, and love that’s found in and through the Lord, Jesus Christ. It’s the fleshing out of outrageous grace, grace that pays people who work one hour the same wage as if they work 12, grace that forgives debt that ought to be but can never be repaid. Stephen Saucier The post Matthew 5-7, The Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount appeared first on Sunfield.

Our fruit doesn’t save us. It’s clear through Scripture that Jesus is the only thing that saves us, the only thing that makes us right, the only thing that gives us a firm foundation. I produce this fruit because He lives in me. Brock Vandever The post Matthew 7:15-29, Built Your House On the Rock appeared first on Sunfield.

Sin pushes me to the center of my world, the one place where I must never be. Sin makes it all about me. Sin loads me down with self-interest, with pride, with jealousy — jealousy is about “I deserve and you don’t” — and all of those things argue that we need rescuing grace. Stephen Saucier The post Mark 10:32-45, Your Kingdom Come and Your Will Be Done appeared first on Sunfield.

It’s those who come with nothing and confess that they are nothing, who seriously seek and receive the grace that can only be found in Christ and Christ alone. Those are the ones who receive His honor and His blessing. Stephen Saucier The post Mark 10:17-31, Utter Impossibility appeared first on Sunfield.

No one gives grace better than a person who is convinced he needs it himself. Stephen Saucier The post Mark 10:13-16, Little Children appeared first on Sunfield.

Marriage is part of something bigger than your happiness. Marriage is part of a bigger plan; and if you don’t see marriage as connected to that plan, you will never live in marriage the way God intended you to live in it. Stephen Saucier The post Mark 10:1-12, God Honoring Marriage appeared first on Sunfield.

You have a moral responsibility to the surrounding world; you have been placed here to be the salt of the earth. Your life doesn’t belong to you anymore. Stephen Saucier The post Mark 9:38-50, Not Too Serious appeared first on Sunfield.

The cross and the empty tomb define who you are and define who God is. You are guilty and unable. God is holy and graciously willing. There’s hope! Stephen Saucier The post Mark 9:30-37, True Greatness appeared first on Sunfield.

You are as desperately needy for the grace of Christ right now as you were the first moment you believed. Stephen Saucier The post Mark 9:14-29, Prayer appeared first on Sunfield.

The post Ezekiel 33, The Good Watchman appeared first on Sunfield.

He who loves the Lord above all is a healthy and whole person; for your life is determined by what you love. Stephen Saucier The post Hosea 14:9, The Wisdom of the Gospel of Hosea appeared first on Sunfield.