Doxa Church: Sermons

In 1 Samuel 7, God preaches a sermon to His people through a stone of remembrance. The Ebenezer teaches them to confess the truth that the LORD has helped them, to reinterpret their past through God’s mercy, and to face the future with settled confidence in His faithfulness. By learning to remember rightly, God’s people are trained to live with gratitude, dependence, and persevering hope.

In Isaiah 11:1–10, we behold the promise of the long-expected King who rises from David’s fallen line—Spirit-anointed, righteous in His rule, and gentle in His reign. Though He comes as a shoot from a stump, His kingdom renews creation, restores justice, gathers the nations, and awakens joy in God’s people. This King is Jesus Christ, whose righteous reign alone brings true peace and enduring hope.

In Micah 5:1–5a, Micah directs our hope to the unlikely birthplace of Bethlehem, where God would raise up a ruler whose origins are from of old. This promised King shepherds God’s people with divine strength and tender care, standing firm against every threat. Through His reign, God grants true and abiding peace to His people in the person of Jesus Christ.

In Numbers 24:15–19, Balaam’s final oracle reveals the Long-Expected Deliverer—a King who will arise from Jacob to conquer His enemies and exercise everlasting dominion. Though God’s people may feel surrounded and threatened, this prophecy assures them that no enemy can overturn God’s promises. Because God has already fulfilled His word by sending the King once, we can be confident He will come again to complete His victory and establish His reign.

When Jesus speaks in Mark 1:16–20, things happen—just like the fishermen who immediately dropped their nets to follow Him. Jesus calls us, gives us a mission, and promises to help us follow Him. To obey Jesus means letting go of our old way of living and trusting Him with our whole heart.

Luke 18:1–8 teaches that the Season of Delay is not a sign of God’s absence, but the place where He calls His people to persistent, faith-filled prayer. Through the contrast of the unjust judge and the persistent widow, Jesus shows that delay exposes the danger of losing heart and reveals the faith that keeps coming. God’s character and God’s timing assure us that He will bring justice, and until Christ returns, the kept heart is the heart that does not lose heart.

Job 23 teaches us to keep the heart with all vigilance in the seasons of darkness, when God’s frowning providence casts a shadow over our lives. Job models a heart that keeps seeking God when He seems hidden, believes God is still working when He cannot be seen, and yields in humble trust to God’s sovereign hand. In the darkness, faith clings to the God who refines His people — and remembers that the cross was God’s greatest work when He seemed most hidden.

In The Season of Screens from Psalm 115, we learn that while technology is part of God’s smiling providence—a gift meant to serve us—it can easily become a master that steals our worship. The psalm draws a line between lifeless idols and the living God, calling us to guard our hearts from the glow that lures our desires and to give glory to the God who reigns above every glow. True worship keeps the heart alive, for those who trust in idols become like them, but those who behold the living Go...

In Philippians 4:10–13, the apostle Paul reassured the Philippians while imprisoned and explained how it was possible. As part of The Seasons of Keeping the Heart, this passage shows that adversity is one of God’s appointed means to keep and shape the heart — a classroom where the heart learns contentment, a gym where faith and obedience are trained, and holy ground where the believer depends on Christ who strengthens. Even in God’s frowning providences, He is at work — forming hearts to trus...

In Deuteronomy 8, Moses warns that prosperity can quietly lead the heart away from God. The believer keeps the heart in seasons of abundance through remembrance, obedience, and worship—remembering the Lord’s faithfulness, obeying His Word, and blessing Him as the true Giver of every good gift. The rarest treasure in life is a heart kept humble and steadfast when the hands are full.

This reflection invites the church to engage in holy habits of heart-keeping by storing and musing upon God’s Word together throughout The Seasons of Keeping the Heart. Rooted in Proverbs 4:23 and Colossians 3:16–17, it encourages believers to let the Word of Christ dwell richly within them—writing, praying, and sharing it with one another—so that personal soul formation leads to corporate unity in love and holiness.

In this opening sermon from The Seasons of Keeping the Heart, Proverbs 4:23 records a wise father, Solomon, impressing upon his son the sacred, lifelong responsibility of guarding the heart. This great work, commanded by God, is to be pursued with active and ongoing vigilance, for from the heart flows all of life. The sermon calls believers to take up this essential labor of the inner life, for the purity of the heart shapes every season of the Christian journey.

In 1 Peter 3:15b–17, Peter shows that in unrighteous times, a good witness rests secure—always ready with reason and virtue, keeping a good conscience as both a divine device and gift, and submitting to God’s will with one perspective, one truth, and one choice. The believer’s confidence, conduct, and calm resolve all flow from honoring Christ the Lord as holy in the heart.

In 1 Peter 3:13–15a, the apostle Peter instructs believers living in unrighteous times to remain steadfast when righteousness provokes opposition. Even if they suffer for doing good, they must not be ruled by fear but by faith—honoring Christ the Lord as holy in their hearts. A good witness rests secure, suffering for good, fearing no man, and exalting Christ above all.

In 1 Peter 3:8–12, the apostle Peter lays out the essential virtues within for the church to live righteously in unrighteous times. He calls us to embody unity, sympathy, brotherly love, tenderheartedness, and humility within the community; to bless rather than retaliate in our witness; and to walk consciously before God’s face by guarding our words, turning from evil, pursuing peace, and trusting His watchful care. Together, these virtues form the Spirit’s portrait of a people set apart, bea...

The author of Hebrews encourages suffering Christians with the confidence of having Jesus as our great high priest who sympathizes with us in our pain and has opened God’s throne of grace for us to find help in our deepest struggles.

The psalmist closes Psalm 119 not with triumphalism, but with dependence — showing that a soul sustained is one that clings to the Word of God’s grace and to the God of grace Himself. His prayers are shaped by the Word, his praises rooted in the Word, his help found in God’s nearness, and his hope anchored in God’s pursuit. For the blessed saint, and for us, true life is dependence on the Shepherd who seeks His sheep, sustains His people, and turns even death into gain.

In Psalm 119:161–168 we see a soul fixed — marked by white-hot affection for the Word and cool, steady loyalty to the Word, even in the face of pressure and persecution. The psalmist shows us that true love for God’s Word is reverent, joyous, pure, and continuous, and that real loyalty to God’s Word is unshaken, hopeful, wholehearted, and sincere. Like Ambrose standing before Theodosius, the blessed saint lives under God’s gaze with courage and integrity, and by the Spirit we too are called t...

This passage shows us what happens when you come to the Lord. The leper came in faith, Jesus responded with kindness and power, and his life was forever changed. Expectation gives way to surprise, and the surprise supplies something better — when we come to Jesus in our need, we find He cares, He can, and He changes us so that we obey Him and tell others of His mercy.

In the Resh stanza [119:153-160], the blessed saint is still walking through affliction — the same affliction that surfaced earlier in verses 50, 67, 71, and 75. Yet even as enemies press in, his suffering does not silence the song of praise on his lips or the prayers that rise from his heart. Strangely enough, these very trials serve as his help, not his harm. So what do we see in Resh? We look through the window and behold it clearly — a soul, not dead, but alive.