City Awakening Church

Romans 8:1-17Louis TamburroYou need to walk with the Holy Spirit to enjoy the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to enjoy the fruit of the Holy Spirit for your life? Do you want a new mind, new power, new life, new desires, new relationship, new destiny for your life? It starts with repenting of your sins and believing Jesus died for your sins. It starts with receiving the good news that there’s now...right here, right now...no condemnation for you personally if you put your faith in Jesus. If you’re a Christian don’t yawn at that as if it’s old news, because the reality is we need to hear it again! The reality is we still sometimes listen to the condemning voices coming from ourselves, others, and Satan. So we need to be reminded that there’s now no condemnation in Christ, and get back into the fight again. Get back into walking with the Holy Spirit and enjoying the fruit of the Holy Spirit’s guidance again.

Romans 7:14-25Louis TamburroThe Christian life isn’t a perfect life, it’s a stumbling but still growing life. So you can expect good days and bad days, wins and losses, victories and defeats. The battle of the flesh is a part of the Christian experience, but it isn’t the end of the Christian experience. Jesus will make sure it ends with you being fully healed, fully restored, fully sanctified, fully perfected, no longer having to deal with the battle of the flesh anymore. If you’re a skeptic, you’re fighting a hopeless battle you can’t win without him. Jesus loves you and is willing to fight the battle of the flesh, the battle of sin with you. If you put your faith in him, if you believe he died for your sins on the cross, then he’ll give you a new life with him today, and the victory of eternal life with him in the end.

Romans 7:1-13Alex RobinsonSanctification comes from a loving union with Jesus not a frustrating cycle of obedience and disobedience.

Romans 6:1-23Louis TamburroIf you put your faith in Jesus, then you’re no longer a slave to sin. Jesus is now your greater master who did what you and I can’t do. He never sinned, he was never controlled by sin, and died on the cross for our sins. He’s the greater master who conquered sin and death, which means he’s the only one who has the power to break the chains of sin in your life. He’s the only one who can set you free from sin, give you a new life today, a sanctifying life tomorrow, and eternal life in heaven. It isn’t a perfect life, but it is a progressing life. It isn’t a perfect life, but it is greater life with a greater loving master than our sin.

Romans 5:12-21Louis TamburroOriginal sin was the worst tragedy in history, but Jesus came to offer a better future for humanity. We can’t evolve into having a better life with a better future, but we can rely on Jesus to give us a better life with a better future.

Romans 5:1-11Louis TamburroYou can have peace, hope, and love in life, through faith in Christ.

Romans 4:1-25Louis TamburroThe Christian faith isn’t about living a flawless life. It’s about trusting your flawed life, in the hands of a forgiving God. It’s about trusting your flawed life in the forgiving hands of Jesus. What Paul’s saying in these first 4 chapters of Romans is there’s one problem, it’s our sinful depravity. There’s one savior; it’s Jesus Christ. There’s one solution, it’s salvation and justification through faith in Jesus. If you trust him with your life, he’ll give you eternal life. He’ll give you an eternal relationship with him where you can pray to him, share your burdens with him, receive daily guidance from him, walk in daily friendship with him. If you’re a skeptic, are you willing to put your faith in him and take his hand of friendship? If you give him your faith and trust today, he’ll immediately give you his salvation, justification, righteousness, a hand of eternal friendship. If you’re a believer, are you trusting him with whatever you’re going through in life? Are you putting your faith in him, taking his hand daily, walking in friendship with him?

Romans 3:23-31Zack CaseyThe cross allowed God to be both just and the justifier, punishing your sin and counting you as righteous.

Romans 3:1-22Louis TamburroYou need a greater power to help you, fix the sin problem within you, and Jesus is that greater savior with the greater power than your willpower. In these first 3 chapters Paul is challenging the many excuses we have for sinning against God’s moral laws. “Well I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong?” Yeah you did, because you aren’t ignorant to breaking the moral laws in your conscience. “Well I’m religious, I go to church, I read my bible.” That’s a great, but it doesn’t make you better than the person who hasn’t since you break moral laws too. Paul’s point is we all sin, we all deserve God’s judgement, we all need Jesus to save and change us.

The sinful depravity of humanity makes God’s judgment necessary. Paul’s point is you can’t turn your sinful depravity around, without turning to Jesus. You can keep trying to be your own god, keep trying to save and transform your heart, but you can’t turn your sin natured heart around, without turning to Jesus for the salvation and transformation of your heart. Jesus is our God who came to save us from the darkness of the sinful depravity we’re in. He loves us so much he couldn’t just sit back and watch our sins take us into eternal hell, but he also couldn’t just ignore our sins. So he came to bring his love and righteous judgement together on the cross, by dying the death we deserved to die for our sins. 1st John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Romans 1:18-25Louis TamburroThe fingerprints of God are all around us, and the good news of the gospel is we don’t just have a chance to seek the truth of God’s existence. We have a chance to have a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus. Jesus came into the world to show us he’s our God who created us, who breathed life into us, who put eternity in our hearts. He died on the cross for our sins because he loves us and still desires to have a loving relationship with us. You can know the power, creativity, intelligence of Jesus, by looking at his creation. You can know his purpose for your life, his plans for your life, even hear him speaking personally to help guide your life, by reading the bible. But the only way you can know he truly loves you, is by looking at the love he poured out for you on the cross.

Romans 1:1-17Louis TamburroThe Gospel has and is the power to save and transform your life. If you’re a skeptic who doesn’t believe in all this, you need to remember Paul was a skeptic and didn’t believe in all this either. But after seeing the resurrected Jesus and experiencing his life transforming power, this highly respected, highly educated man couldn’t deny Jesus anymore. He became a follower of Jesus, a servant and apostle of Jesus, faced persecution and death to eagerly and unashamedly spread this very gospel message of Jesus. It’s that Jesus is our loving God who died for our sins on the cross to save and transform our lives. Do you want to reset your life in 2023? Both skeptics and believers, do you want to reset your life in 2023? Do you want to reset your life, have a new life, have salvation and transformation in 2023? If that’s what you truly want, then rely on the power of Jesus to save your life, and rely on the transforming power of Jesus in your everyday life.

Revelation 21:1-7Louis TamburroThe hands that wiped away our sins, will wipe away our tears. The Christmas season is a time where we celebrate Jesus as our Emmanuel, our God who came into this world to die for our sins on the cross, and turn our tears into dancing again.

Revelation 21:1-8Louis TamburroHistory ends with separation and salvation. The bad news is Jesus warns us that history ends with separation, but the good news is he offers his hand for salvation so hell won’t be our final destination. If you’re a skeptic will you receive his hand for salvation? Will you put your faith in him today, believe he died for your sins on the cross, and make him the center of your salvation for eternal life? If you’re a believer will you make him not just the center of your salvation, but also the center of your everyday life? Will you still make him the center of your life, even as you’re dealing with afflictions in life?

Revelation 1:8-18Louis TamburroA day will come when Jesus will prove he’s greater than your greatest afflictions, but it’s a promise only for those who put their faith in Jesus.

Hebrews 12:1-13Alex RobinsonWe have what is necessary to endure in our faith.

Philippians 4:4-7Emmanuel BellonThe Joy of the Lord is our strength in all circumstances. 1.Joyful faith rejoices in the Lord2.Joyful faith forbears with others3.Joyful faith in Jesus overcomes anxiety4.Joyful faith rests in the peace of God

Luke 16:1-13Louis TamburroGenerosity entails using your wealth beyond yourself. The primary message of the bible is that Jesus is a generous giver of grace, a generous giver of salvation. He’s the eternal friend who not only gave up his wealth, he gave up his entire life to die for our sins on the cross. He did this so we could have eternal friendship in heaven with him. His death on the cross proves he valued friends over finances, people over personal profit, and his resurrection proves his empire won’t ever fail like every other empire in history. But the question is will you invest in building his eternal kingdom, or invest in building your temporary sandcastle kingdom?

Luke 19:1-10Louis TamburroGenerosity includes using your power and influence to help others. Our generosity should flow from knowing our sinful souls were in a position of eternal poverty, but Jesus generously offers us salvation from his position of eternal power. Our hearts have way more reason to be filled with joy than Zacchaeus knowing Jesus didn’t just sacrifice his reputation for us, he sacrificed his entire life for us!

Luke 9:57-10:2Louis TamburroGenerosity entails serving, instead of being the one served. The greatest example we have of this is Jesus and the generosity he displayed on the cross. In Matthew 20:28 Jesus said “I came not to be served, but to serve and give my life up as a ransom for many.” He came to serve us even to the point of dying for our sins on the cross. He gave his entire life up for you, are you willing to give your entire life up for him?