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MARANATHA CHURCH

Sermons from Maranatha Gatherings.

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Thursday · length unknown
Walking the Path of Jesus | 1 John 2:1-11
John writes so that we won't sin, but he doesn't leave us without hope when we do. Jesus is our Advocate before the Father, and He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. In this passage, John shows us what it actually looks like to know Him: obedience to His commands and love for the people around us. The command to love isn't new, but it takes on new weight in the light of Christ. Anyone who claims to walk in the light while hating a brother or sister is still in the dark. Walking the Path of Jesus | 1 John 2:1-11 Alton Schultz
August 24 · length unknown
Who Is the Greatest? | Matthew 18:1-14
The disciples asked Jesus who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Instead of ranking them, Jesus placed a child among them and told them that unless they became like that child, they would not enter the kingdom at all. This week we walk through Matthew 18:1–14 and press on what Jesus actually asks of us. Cut off the sin you have been calling private, because it is not just yours. It is forming the little ones around you. And stop assuming that maturity is measured by how long you have been in the pew. Christian maturity is Christlikeness, and the mature Christian is the one who knows he is still a little one who comes when Jesus calls. Who Is the Greatest? | Matthew 18:1-14 Pastor Brennan Johnson
August 17 · length unknown
The Great Ransom | Matthew 17:22-27
Most Bibles put a subheading between Matthew 17:23 and Matthew 17:24, as if the death Jesus predicts and the temple tax conversation are two different stories. They are not. Matthew placed them together on purpose. The cross interprets the tax. And when we read the passage as Matthew wrote it, we see something remarkable. Jesus, having just told His disciples that He is about to die, quietly pays a ransom into a temple sacrificial system He is about to fulfill and end. He was free from every obligation. He owed nothing. And He chose to pay it anyway, because a greater ransom was coming, one that would set us free forever. This week we walk through the two payments Christ makes, and the "so now, I" response that flows from a life bought at a price. The Great Ransom | Matthew 17:22-27 Pastor Brennan Johnson
August 10 · length unknown
Faith That Moves | Matthew 17:14-20
The disciples had authority, experience, and years of watching Jesus heal, cast out demons, and feed thousands. And yet when a father brought his suffering son, they could not do what they had been given authority to do. Jesus diagnosed their problem: little faith. Most Christians hear that and immediately conclude they need to build more of it, but Jesus is not telling His disciples to grow bigger faith. He is telling them that even the smallest faith, if it is placed on Him, moves mountains. This week we walk through Matthew 17:14-20 and discover the freedom of stopping the effort to hold ourselves up and leaning our whole weight on the One who holds. Faith That Moves | Matthew 17:14-20 Pastor Brennan Johnson
July 27 · length unknown
The Desires of Your Heart | Psalm 37:1–11
As we close the Recovering Context series, we walk into what Psalm 37 actually promises. Not the delivery of what you already want. The reshaping of what you want in the first place. God is working on the desires themselves, and the sign He is at work is not the arrival of the outcome. It is the slow, deep discovery that He is what you were always made to want. The Desires of Your Heart | Psalm 37:1–11 Pastor Brennan Johnson
July 20 · length unknown
More Than You Can Handle | 1 Corinthians 10:1-14
We have all heard someone say, "God will not give you more than you can handle." That sentence has done real damage in the church, and it is not what 1 Corinthians 10:13 actually says. Paul is not writing about suffering. He is writing about temptation. And the promise he actually makes is one of the most freeing in the New Testament. This week we recover the context of the verse that has crushed people who were already crushed, and discover a God whose sufficiency reaches into the very places our capacity ends. More Than You Can Handle | 1 Corinthians 10:1-14 Pastor Brennan Johnson
July 13 · length unknown
Faithful to the Unfaithful | Jeremiah 29-4-14
Jeremiah 29:11 is probably the most misused verse in modern Christianity. We have made it a personal promise about a pleasant future, even though Jeremiah wrote it as a rebuke of false prophets who were promising personal pleasant futures. The real verse is not smaller than the coffee mug version. It is far larger. It reveals a God whose covenant faithfulness endures even when His people break faith, and who does formative work in the exile that could not occur anywhere else. This week we recover the context of Jeremiah 29 and discover that the exile is not a season to survive on the way to somewhere better. It is where God is forming us into the people we could not have become anywhere else. Faithful to the Unfaithful | Jeremiah 29:4-14 Pastor Brennan Johnson
July 6 · length unknown
Content In Anything | Philippians 4:13 | Recover Context
Many people have used Philippians 4:13 to summon the strength to accomplish what they wanted. Paul wrote it from a prison cell about learning contentment in plenty and in hunger. The actual promise is not that Christ will help you win. It is that Christ will strengthen you to be at peace no matter what life throws at you. Content In Anything | Philippians 4:13 | Recovering Context Pastor Brennan Johnson
June 29 · length unknown
None But Jesus | Matthew 17:1-13
Most of us are not refusing Jesus. We are filtering Him. We hear the parts that confirm what we already believed and quietly set aside the parts that would cost us something. We have made Him one voice among many in a life that is already crowded with louder voices. Matthew 17 is the day The Father settled who Jesus is and how He is to be heard. On the mountain, the Father did not say listen to them all and figure out the consensus. He said listen to Him. This sermon walks through the Transfiguration, the voice from the cloud, and the road down the mountain toward the cross, and asks the question every Christian eventually has to answer. Which voice wins when Jesus contradicts another? None But Jesus | Matthew 17:1-13 Pastor Brennan Johnson
June 22 · length unknown
The Cross That Wounds You | Matthew 16:24-28
Most of us have softened the call of Jesus until it fits inside the life we had already designed. Most of us have softened the call of Jesus until it fits inside the life we had already designed. We reference the cross, we sing about it, we wear it, but we have not actually taken it up. Matthew 16:24-28 confronts the comfortable middle ground and asks what we are really telling Jesus about His worth when we refuse to carry what He has asked us to. The cross you carry should wound you, and the One who carried His first is worth everything it costs. The Cross That Wounds you | Matthew 16:24-28 Pastor Brennan Johnson
June 15 · length unknown
Get Behind Me | Matthew 16:21-23
When Jesus announces His coming suffering, death, and resurrection, Peter pulls Him aside and rebukes Him, only to receive a startling rebuke in return. This sermon examines Jesus' confession of what lies ahead, the nature of Peter's correction, Jesus' counter-rebuke, and the diagnosis and remedy Peter needed to set his mind back on the things of God. Get Behind Me | Matthew 16:21-23 Alton Schultz
June 8 · length unknown
Who Do You Say That I Am? | Matthew 16:13-20
Everyone has an opinion about Jesus. The crowds in His day had their answers, and the world today has no shortage of its own. But Jesus doesn't ask what everyone else thinks. He turns and asks you directly: “Who do you say that I am? ” That question has never been more loaded, and it has never mattered more to get right. What you believe about Jesus shapes everything about how you live, what you surrender, and what you're no longer ashamed of. Peter's answer changed the trajectory of history. Yours might change yours. Who Do You Say That I Am? | Matthew 16:13-20 Alton Schultz
June 1 · length unknown
The Danger of Forgetfulness | Matthew 16:1-12
Most of us are living with a quiet dissatisfaction, the sense that what God has given us is somehow not enough. We pray for new signs, new clarity, new proof, as we walk past the cross, the empty tomb, and the long history of His faithfulness in our lives. Matthew 16:1-12 confronts two ways the human heart drifts away from Jesus and shows us that the cure for both is the same. Remember Him. He is sufficient. The Danger of Forgetfulness | Matthew 16:1-12 Pastor Brennan Johnson
May 24 · length unknown
From Sinai to the Upperroom | Exodus 19/32 & Acts 2
Most of us are quietly hungry for more of God than we are currently experiencing, tired of trying harder and failing, and suspecting there has to be something more than this. At Sinai, God descended in fire on a mountain, and the people stood at a distance, terrified. Centuries later, in an upper room in Jerusalem, the same God descended in fire on ordinary people and made His home inside them. In this sermon, we are walking from Sinai to the upper room and into the kind of life with God we were actually made for. From Sinai to the Upperroom | Exodus 19/32 & Acts 2 Pastor Brennan Johnson
May 18 · length unknown
Even The Crumbs | Matthew 15:21-39
The world tells us to stand tall, assert our worth, and never kneel. The world tells us to stand tall, assert our worth, and never kneel. Matthew 15:21-39 shows us a Canaanite woman who did the opposite and discovered that the lowly posture the world treats as weakness is actually the only posture that has ever been able to receive what God freely gives. This sermon walks through the King who crossed every line to reach the outsider, the bread He broke for the four thousand, the same way He would break it on the cross, and the invitation to behold Him the way she did. Even The Crumbs | Matthew 15:21-39 Pastor Brennan Johnson
May 11 · length unknown
What Have You Made Common? | Matthew 14:34-15:20
Two groups of people meet Jesus in this passage. One reaches for the corner of His garment with the trembling dependence of people who know they are broken, and He is holy. The other travels nearly a hundred miles to ask Him about handwashing. Matthew 14:34-15:20 puts them side by side and asks us which one we actually are. Have we made Jesus common? Have we built traditions and preferences that we hold ourselves and others to, which are quietly keeping us from seeing Him the way He truly is? And what does it look like to come back to the posture that has always been the only thing that works. What Have You Made Common? | Matthew 14:34-15:20 Pastor Brennan Johnson
May 4 · length unknown
Lord, Save Me | Matthew 14:22-33
This passage is not about Peter sinking. It is about the Creator walking on His own creation, speaking the name that belongs to God alone, and what happens to us when we take our eyes off Him and start taking inventory of the chaos around us. When we stop beholding the King, the wind gets louder. Matthew 14:22-33 ends, as it possibly can, with a boat full of men who have run out of every other category and are left with only one category that fits what they have seen: Jesus is God. Lord, Save Me | Matthew 14:22-33 Pastor Brennan Johnson
April 27 · length unknown
For the Sake of His Guests | Matthew 14:1–21
Most people don't think of themselves as people pleasers. But most people are making decisions every day based on an audience they may not even be able to name. Matthew 14 puts two kings side by side and asks you to see the difference between a king who rules for himself and a King who gives Himself away, and then asks the harder question: which one are you actually following? For the Sake of His Guests | Matthew 14:1–21 Pastor Brennan Johnson
April 20 · length unknown
Too Small a Town | Matthew 13:53–58
Jesus returns to his hometown, and the people who watched him grow up can't get past what they already know about him. The wisdom is real. The works are real. But familiarity has already made up its mind. Matthew 13:53–58 is not just a story about Nazareth. It's a mirror for the towns we build inside ourselves, the places we've settled that are too small for what God wants to do. This sermon walks through four of them and how to leave. Too Small a Town | Matthew 13:53–58 Alton Schultz
April 13 · length unknown
Trained for the Kingdom | Matthew 13:51–52
At the end of seven parables, Jesus asks one question: "Have you understood all these things? They say yes. And he gives them one final image that reframes what understanding even means. The scribes of Jesus' day knew the Law, memorized vast portions of it, and taught it faithfully. But the word had passed through them without pressing into them or changing them. Jesus is after something different. Every scribe trained for the kingdom brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old, not someone who has studied the kingdom from a distance, but someone who has been discipled into it. The question this sermon puts to you is not whether you have understood the parables. It is whether the parables have formed you. Trained for the Kingdom | Matthew 13:51–52 Pastor Brennan Johnson

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