Ada Presbyterian Church Pulpit Podcast

Love - The Lost Art of Virtue

As we wrap up our series on virtue today, we come to the final virtue--love.  Love is the last, but certainly not the least.  It is the greatest of all the virtues.  Join us today as we sketch out a solid definition of love, namely a love that starts to see people around us, whether friends or enemies, as persons rather than objects.  

Hope - The Lost Art of Virtue

For Easter Sunday, we examined the virtue of hope.  For Christians, hope is more than wishful thinking.  It's more than a "cross your fingers" kind of hope.  It's grounded in the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  We are born into a "living hope," a hope that yearns for the day when the work of God, begun on Easter, will be completed in us.  Join us for this week's message.

Faith - The Lost Art of Virtue

In our virtue series, we shift into some new territory today by exploring the "theological virtues:" faith, hope, and love.  Today's message is on the topic of faith.  Many people talk about having faith, but it stays at a very vague level:  "I have faith that everything will be OK."  But Christian faith is more concrete and specific.  Join us for today's message as we explore the virtue of faith.

Justice - The Lost Art of Virtue

Justice is a word that has fallen on hard times and is difficult to pin down.  Historically, the church has understood this virtue to mean living a life that embraces the obligations we have towards others.  We are not in it just for ourselves; but we are in this thing for others.  We show respect, honesty, decency, fidelity, and fairness to people around us.  Join us as we learn more in this week's ongoing virtue series.

Temperance - The Lost Art of Virtue

One of the paradoxes of life is that the more we focus on a particular pleasure, the less pleasure we derive from it.  Temperance is a virtue that helps us moderate our pleasures and desires; it brings balance to our lives and leads us to a place of greater contentment and happiness.  Join us for today's message as we continue to explore the lost art of virtue.

Fortitude - The Lost Art of Virtue

We tend to think of courage as one of those virtues for especially brave people--soldiers marching into battle or firefighters rushing into a burning home.  But courage is needed for living life each day.  Fear often holds us back from the actions we know we should do, and fortitude is the virtue that leads us into action and helps us stay the course. Join us as we continue our series on virtue for Lent.

Prudence - Lost Art of Virtue Series

Prudence might sound like the name of a quiet girl drinking tea in a parlor in Victorian England, but prudence is just an older word for something we all desperately need: wisdom.  We need wisdom to see the best course of action to take in life.  Wisdom doesn't just drop from the sky, but it's something we work towards over the course of a lifetime.  Join us today as we continue our series on virtue.

Intro - Lost Art of Virtue Series

Join us for a series on the virtues of the Christian life during the season of Lent.  Our passage today is 2 Peter 1:3-11, where Peter tells us to "make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue" (ESV) Virtue may not be a word you hear every day, but one way to think of virtue is that virtues are good moral habits that directs us to a life that is well-pleasing to God, to others, and to ourselves.  Join us each of the Sundays of Lent as we explore the classic virtues:  prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope, and love.

Acts 18 - The Christians at Antioch

Churches occasionally get some bad press, but the early church received good press in the city of Antioch, the place where they were first given the name "Christians."  Join us today as we look at the reasons why this church got noticed for all the right reasons.

Acts 17 - Peter and Cornelius

It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that only "rough" people need a savior, only people like Saul when he goes on the attack in Acts 9.  But turning into chapter 10, we learn that Cornelius, an all around "good guy," also needs a savior.  Join us today as we look at how God graciously hears Cornelius' prayer and sends a savior to him by way of Peter's preaching the gospel.  Along the way, Peter too undergoes a conversion to a new point of view, understanding now that the gospel isn't limited to one people group, but includes people from all nations.