I recently saw a drawing of a guy giving money to a homeless couple – all the while using a selfie stick to photograph the moment! I think Jesus would’ve had a lot of fun – and maybe a few parables to offer if He’d lived in our world now – the world of selfie-dom! His comments about the outward expressions of our faith through giving, prayer and fasting are really talking about people doing culture’s version of photo-ops – in something that was intended to be very private. In a selfie, #makeadifference world like ours, it’s definitely a wake-up call! It’s actually a form of spiritual instant self-gratification!The real tragedy is that it is possible to look very religious – and be truly evil, loveless and lost.

*Go to LAUNCH SERMON PLAYER for Vimeo Podcast and PDF

Jesus tells us that love should never run out of gas, lose energy, or drop out of the race – even when people use you, hurt you, slap you, take what you have, and insist on being your enemy. First, retaliation – no matter how glamorous and satisfying it seems in a movie plot – is always a dead end street. There’s no end to it! It’s like grabbing a poisonous snake – it will always reach around and bite you. And the poison in your system will kill you. The most powerful anti-venom out there – is love! But to love – we will have to grow up!

*Go to LAUNCH SERMON PLAYER for Vimeo Podcast and PDF

We are expert consumers. To be an expert consumer, you need to always be shopping for the best deal – and have the guts to demand your rights as a consumer. What do you do when a promise becomes uncomfortable; when keeping a promise gets more expensive than you ever planned? Are the promises you make to your employer, to the CRA, to the bank, to the credit card companies, to your parents, your spouse, your children, or your neighbours only valid when they work in your favour? Or if you can hire someone to get you out of them, should you? There is something that shopping for the best deal will never get you; CREDIBILITY with God and others!

*Go to LAUNCH SERMON PLAYER for Vimeo Podcast and PDF

A divorce starts long before any lawyers are hired! Malachi the prophet says, apparently speaking for God, God hates divorce. To qualify that, the people who get divorced hate it every bit as much as He does! God doesn’t hate people who’ve gotten a divorce; He hates divorce because of what it does to people He deeply, deeply loves! And that’s why when people do it, thinking they’re signing up for a better life with a better person, it’s deception at it’s deepest level. Lust, unforgiveness, abuse, broken promises and unfaithfulness have the potential to do irreparable damage to any relationship – whether it’s parent-child, employer-employee, or husband-wife. Marriage is not a path to an easy life with free sex, good meals and endless support; it’s a crucible where we learn how to love. To have the strength, resilience and character the crucible builds, you have to stay in it.

*Go to LAUNCH SERMON PLAYER for Vimeo Podcast and PDF

Love is an incredible, beautiful thing. Love heals. Love is behind the most beautiful acts of kindness and goodness that have ever happened. Love is patient, kind, and forgiving – always believes, always trusts and never gives up.  Love is selfless. It’s cheap counterfeit, lust, is selfish, self-serving and self-destructive. To entice lust – is an invitation to be used, broken and thrown away.  To entertain lust as a houseguest in the most sensitive part of your life – your heart, is to invite a selfish, careless pig who will wreck what you want most. Love is difficult – lust is addictive. Lust is a big hairy ugly root system that will consume and tear down all that matters.

*Go to LAUNCH SERMON PLAYER for Vimeo Podcast and PDF

In our culture, people tend to think that if a rule, a guideline, a law doesn’t seem to make sense, we can just ignore it – that is, if no one is looking. That is, we see ourselves as the final editor, court-of-appeals in most of the issues of life. And for many people, that includes what Jesus has to say about honesty, sexuality, anger, relational difficulty, retaliation, and love. Actually? Not believing in a rule – and the consequences for defying it doesn’t change a thing. We don’t have the final say in life.

*Go to LAUNCH SERMON PLAYER for Vimeo Podcast and PDF