Obligation or Opportunity: Sermons From the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 25:30 min

What is our attitude about giving? Do we see it as an obligation or an opportunity? A priority or a problem? Have you noticed in life that there is always some problem that presents itself and then when you get over that one, there is another one. If you wait until everything is perfect, if you wait until everything is settled, if you wait until all your financial issues or time issues are resolved, you'll never give anything to anyone. If we don't take it upon ourselves to manage our finances, to manage our talents, to manage our time, and make giving of ourselves and our resources a priority, then we will ultimately miss out on a fulfilled life.

Does fulfillment in life come from acquiring or from giving? How do I receive ultimate fulfillment in life? Do I do it by getting more or by giving more?

Five key issues that will help us achieve fulfillment in life:

1. Settle the issue of giving according to priority or problems.
2. Settle the issue of giving according to opportunity or obligation.
3. Settle the issue of who is in control of my life.
4. Settle the issue of leadership.
5. Settle the issue of love.

When you want to know for a fact what it is that you love, follow the money trail. Not only do we need to know where our money is in order to budget effectively, you and I need to know where our money is, so we will know where our heart is.


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Making Choices: Sermons From the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 33:26 min

Our lives are comprised of a series of choices made over time and affected by time. The future is, in many ways, determined by the choices that we make in the present. All of our choices are routed or grounded in some faith stance.

You look at your bills, you look at the things that you'd like to buy, and then you look at your checkbook and you think, this is a drop in the bucket for everything I need to pay for. Finances and the stewardship of them is a subject that Jesus talks more about except for the kingdom of God. It is the number one reason given by couples as the reason for getting a divorce. It is the souce of countless heartaches, deprivation, and poverty on a global scale.

In this sermon, Gordon offers encouragement to those of you who are attempting to be a good steward and challenges those of you who have never taken the time to look at the choices you make and the effect that it has on your future. You can't achieve lasting fulfullment without being a giver. You can aquire but you can't receive fulfillment.

There is no living without giving.


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“You don't get more because you have less, you get more because you handle more in a faithful way.” -Gordon Venturella

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Before & After: Sermons From the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 18:28 min

Life is fragile. With the ring of a doorbell, life can change forever. You get up thinking about your schedule for the day and in a heartbeat it’s changed. It doesn’t matter how important your agenda was for the day; it all gets rearranged.

You can take your vitamins, exercise every day, never drink and drive, wear your seatbelt, eat right, and not smoke, and the Grim Reaper is still there. The great interrupter stills roams around. If this life is all there is, then at best there is uncertainty, and then, the Grim Reaper.

Death is almost always inconvenient. It’s almost always an interruption. It’s not something that fits easily in to our palm piloted life. Death is starting out in to the light of the day and being enveloped in darkness.

Easter is about recapturing the light.

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"I remember the year I lost my three friends. Above all else I want Easter to be true because of its promise that someday I will get my friends back. I want to abolish that word irreversible forever. I suppose you could say I want to believe in fairy tales." - Phil Yancey

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Life in the Trenches: Sermons From the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 20:31 min

Palm Sunday is all about enduring the harsher realities of life. It’s what happens after the honeymoon is over. It’s the first irate phone call after you’ve moved in to the new office. It’s what happens after the sale has been made - and you call the service department. It’s the distraction you must endure to get where you need to go, the detours you must go around to get to your destination. It’s what it takes to cross the finish line victorious.

It's about life in the trenches.

In this sermon we're going to take a look at some of the highlights of the passionate week that Jesus had ahead of Him, any one of which could have been a distraction to accomplishing His mission.

Maybe you have a Passion Week ahead of you. And maybe you will encounter some of the same distrations that Jesus did. If so, you’ll need to make some resolutions, in order to make it to the end of the week.

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"I have no rights of my own to be offended. I voluntarily gave them up when I became a Christian. I don’t have time to take offense – I only have a mission to accomplish. Everything else is a distraction." -Gordon Venturella

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Are You Feeling Lucky? - Sermons From the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 23:26 min

Most people who emigrate from one country to another are doing so in search of a better life. Whether we're talking about the first pilgrims to this country hundreds of years ago, or today when Chinese immigrants stow away in a ship in unsanitary conditions, I have to think most do so in hopes of a better life.

What would be a better life?

Deep down, if we were honest, we'd admit that we're making decisions about that question every day. Would it be better for me to respond ethically on the job, or just make a run for the money? Would it be better for me to invest my time and money in the church? Or in other pursuits? Would it be better for me to work here – or there? Should I live in this kind of house or that kind of house? Where should my children go to school? How much education do I need?

In this series about the real teaching of the real Jesus we will see what He has to say about a better life. Crowds are gathering about Jesus, and I have to believe they're concerned with what we're concerned with:

Will this man mean a better life?

Instead of playing to the crowd, Jesus skipped the parables and granted his audience a full-blown philosophy of life: We call it the Sermon on the Mount. In it Jesus talks about immigration we all need to make. It's immigration from the Kingdom of this world – To the Kingdom of God. In this passage He challenges us to take the risk and live like citizens of a different Kingdom.

You decide for yourself whether or not it's a better life.

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"To be a Christian, to immigrate to a New Kingdom, one must take up his cross, with all its difficulties and agonizing and tension and carry it until that very cross leaves its mark upon us. Ultimately it's the mark of a better life." -Gordon Venturella

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Celebrate the Plain Truth: Sermons from the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 25:39 min

In this sermon we take a look at another aspect of Jesus' life that we can celebrate - His use of plain speech.

Jesus may have spoken in parables at times, but they were relevant parables, accessible to those who really wanted to know. When Jesus spoke with people He spoke in terms everyone in his day could understand. His language was the language of everyday commerce – not King James English. He talked about sheep to shepherds, about fruit trees and planting seeds to farmers, about home construction to laborers and fishing to fishermen. He used common everyday objects to which his listeners could relate: A key, a door, a gate, bottles of wine, a wedding party. He used vivid illustrations; a big log in a person’s eye, a camel going through the eye of the needle. How is it that we’ve managed to complicate and confuse the gospel message?

Turns out that communicating the Gospel in plain language is sometimes complicated work. Those of us who have already trusted the gospel message need to use language people understand to tell the story of Christ. Too often we develop our own religious jargon, which is gibberish to seekers. Even though we may mean well, when we try to communicate with anyone outside our Christian subculture using God-talk, christianeeze, a spiritualized jargon that makes us sound otherworldly, we become less like Jesus not more like him. The fact of the matter is that God-talk can become a form of idolatry; a way of making God small and manageable, and like all forms of idolatry, easier to control.

So, how do we get outside of our own culture and begin to relate to other people around us? Listen to this sermon and find out.

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Celebrate With Humility: Sermons From the Edge

Audio sermon by: Gordon D. Venturella | 24:14 min

Almost always when we start to feel a little too good about ourselves, something or someone comes along to bring us down a notch. This inspirational piece is that something which puts us back in our place:

If you can start the day without a cigarette,
If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pills,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches, and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct them,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend, If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics,

Then - my friend you are almost as good as your dog.

In this sermon we will learn through the example of Jesus what humility looks like and what some of the characteristics are of truly humble people.

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