Providence Church

Greed is a disordered desire for more money and things that money can buy. The love of money deteriorates our love for God and others. We combat greed by cultivating the virtue of generosity. Jesus is our example: He gave himself completely for our good.

The original understanding of sloth is much deeper than laziness. Sloth is a spiritual resistance to spiritual progress. It’s a loss of care about the things we should care about most and an avoidance of the very things we’re made for (loving God and loving others). That’s why it’s so dangerous.

Gluttony is a disordered desire for food or drink that drives us to excess and self-indulgence. The problem is not that we have appetites, but that we are controlled by them. When we remember that our citizenship is in heaven, we are able to enjoy food as a gift and experience it as a foretaste of the great feast to come.

Wrath is anger gone wrong. It’s anger expressed in the wrong ways and it’s anger about the wrong things. When we hold onto this kind of anger, it is incredibly harmful. It’s harmful to us personally, harmful to others, and harmful to our relationship with God. How can we overcome this kind of anger and loosen its grip on our lives?

Lust is sexual desire that can only be satisfied outside of God’s good design. Instead of honoring others, lust objectifies and uses them. The gospel sets us free from this enslaving vice and empowers us to pursue God’s vision of life and love.

Envy is rivalry and comparison gone off the rails. Envy produces sorrow over your neighbor’s success and joy over their misfortune. It’s so common it can be described as the oldest and most consistent source of relational strife in the Bible. The first sin out of are the garden is fueled by it. So, in this sermon we look at Cain’s story. What is envy? Why is it so deadly? How does Jesus free us from it?

Vainglory is the excessive and disordered desire for recognition and approval from others. It’s such a common sin, even among the people of God, that Jesus confronts it directly in the Sermon on the Mount. Why is vainglory so deadly? And how does the gospel address it?

God wants the whole world to find life through faith in Jesus, and the way he gets the message out is through his people. How do we do it? Praying, walking, and talking.

The gospel doesn’t just reconcile us to God — it forms us into a new kind of community, one marked by the love of Christ, governed by the peace of Christ, and shaped by the word of Christ.

The gospel has the power to change us personally. It is the basis for our conversion and the means by which we continue in the Christian life.

We are a gospel-centered church because of our conviction and experience that wherever the gospel goes, it has the power to change everything.

Psalm 63 is David praying in the wilderness. And the amazing thing is how he prays. He doesn’t ask God to get him out of the wilderness, but he simply seeks God himself. And David ends up finding satisfaction and security right there in the wilderness. What if we made this our prayer for the new year? What if it was our prayer for all of life?

Psalm 62 calls us to trust in God alone—resting in his character and relying on him at all times. Though we often place our trust in ourselves, others, or wealth, Jesus perfectly trusted the Father and delivers us from self-reliance.

In this Advent sermon from John 18:33–38, Jesus declares the purpose of his birth: to bear witness to it. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises and the truth that stands over every moment of our lives.

What happened on that very first Christmas gave us more than a heartwarming story. What happened on that first Christmas changed the world. Because Jesus came to accomplish the very will of God for the world.

Jesus came as light because the world is in darkness. Humanity is in hiding in rebellion against God, but the light has come. Darkness is not inevitable. Cynicism is not final. Anyone who believes in Jesus is rescued from darkness.

Advent is season celebrating the coming of Jesus and longing for him to come again. And we learn a lot about why Jesus came from what he reveals about himself. In this passage, he tells us who he is, what he came to do, and how he did it.

We are all capable of drifting from God and community, so we must watch out for one another. We are all responsible to bring back the wanderer. When we do this, we join the work of the good Shepherd who leaves the 99 to go after the one.

As James closes his letter, the number one thing on his mind is prayer. Which makes sense, because prayer might be the main application of everything he’s been writing. True faith expresses itself through prayer.

James calls us to be long-suffering—to endure injustice, pain, and grief without losing hope. That kind of patience doesn’t come from calm apps or techniques; it comes from knowing how the story ends. When you know the end of the story—that Jesus will return to make all things new, to bring justice and flourishing—you can live differently in the midst of sorrow. You can endure. The gospel story tells us that every injustice will be dealt with, every tear will be wiped away, and every wound will be healed. Our patience today is an act of defiance against despair. It’s not passive—it’s the daily practice of trusting that God’s mercy and compassion are still at work.

Money is persuasive. It can be used for tremendous good, but it can also misused. This warning about hoarding, withholding, and indulging points us to the joy of giving.

James confronts a sin that is so common that we don’t even notice it in our lives. It’s the sin of presumptuousness: Living life and making plans without any reference to God.

When we say something that negatively shades how people see someone, that is in the realm of slander. The problem is more common and more egregious than we think, but the gospel can change us. Mercy triumphs over judgement.

We tend to focus on the surface reality of conflicts. But the answer to why we fight (and the solution to our fights) can’t be found on the surface. We have to look deeper.

Would you call yourself wise? According to James, wisdom is less about what you know, and more about your life and what you love. Ultimately, true wisdom is a gift from God: It comes down from above, producing peace and good fruit.

A sermon from James 3:1-12 in our True Faith is Lived series, given by Will Walker.

On the surface, James seems to contradict Paul regarding the role of faith in salvation. But he’s really answering the question, “What is true, saving faith?"

To favor people because of appearances is so common that it feels normal. But James tells us that partiality is incompatible with faith in Jesus. God gives us the capacity to see people as he sees them, and to love them as he loves them.

Just as we were given new life by the word of God (James 1:18), so we grow in that new life by living according to the word of God. And that involves two things: Hearing the word and doing the word. James holds those two things together, not to be separated.