This sermon teaches that the early church's radical unity and generosity were a direct result of the Holy Spirit's power and their gratitude for Christ's sacrifice, which led to a powerful testimony and a community without need. It holds up Barnabas as a model of this selfless spirit and calls believers to emulate Jesus, the ultimate "son of encouragement" who gave everything for us.

This sermon explains that the "shield of faith" is essential for defending against the enemy's fiery darts of lies. It defines faith as a complete trust in what God has already done and promised in Christ, particularly our adoption and forgiveness, which protects a believer from head to toe.

This sermon celebrates baptism as an act of discipleship and a public testimony of Christ's finished work, not a means of earning salvation. It explains that baptism beautifully illustrates the gospel—Jesus's death and resurrection—and that our obedience to this command is not about adding to our own "good list," but is a joyful response to the perfect righteousness that Jesus has already fulfilled and credited to us.

This sermon uses Isaiah's vision of God's holiness to illustrate that true awareness of our own sinfulness comes from a vertical look at God's perfection. It then pivots to the good news that God's holiness is not just a source of our disintegration but also our development, as the sacrifice of Jesus atones for our sin and imputes His own holiness to us, making us new.

This sermon explains that the gospel is the only solution for overcoming hostility and division, as Jesus, through his death on the cross, has broken down the "dividing wall" that separates people. It emphasizes that believers, now reconciled to both God and each other, are being rebuilt by the Holy Spirit into one new, unified humanity that reflects God's grace and love to the world.

This sermon explains that humanity, as image-bearers of God, is meant to reflect His greatness and love, but our inherent self-centeredness prevents us from doing so. The message highlights Jesus as the ultimate model of humility, who, despite being God, willingly emptied himself by becoming a servant and dying on the cross, providing the path to true transformation and the ability to reflect God's image.

This sermon challenges a transactional view of God by proposing that greater need reveals God's greater sufficiency, a truth demonstrated by Moses's encounter with the holy and compassionate God at the burning bush. The message highlights that the ultimate proof of God's grace is found in Jesus's suffering on the cross, where He was abandoned so that believers would never be, making our own suffering a pathway to a deeper experience of Him.

This sermon asserts that the church, as the body of Christ, is a unified organism designed by God to combat cultural individualism and consumerism by fostering a greater sense of diversity, belonging, humility, and joy among its members. It emphasizes that this biblical model of the church is made possible by Jesus's sacrificial work on the cross, which enables believers to move beyond self-interest and become interdependent agents of His grace.