Advertise on podcast: Oviedo City Church Sermons

A runaway prophet. A great fish. And the relentless grace of a God who refuses to let go. In Jonah 2, what looks like the end of Jonah’s story becomes the very means of his rescue. From the depths of the sea, Jonah cries out to God and makes a remarkable discovery: “Salvation belongs to the LORD!” And perhaps we’re more like Jonah than we realize. As we continue our series, Jonah: A Call to Go, we discover that God’s grace doesn’t simply rescue us. It reaches into the depths of our hearts, exposes the idols we cling to, draws us back to himself, and propels us into the world with the very grace we’ve received.

Have you ever sensed God wanting you to do something you did not want to do? The fact is, God has a way of calling us out of our comfort zones. We don’t usually like it, but in hindsight, it often becomes something that changes our lives for the better in ways we never would have anticipated. If your God never challenges your thinking, never calls you out of your comfort zone, and never asks you to do anything hard, then maybe you have created a god in your own image whose job is to keep you from ever growing beyond who you are currently. This week, we begin our study of the reluctant prophet Jonah and how God called him to step way outside his comfort zone.

Have you ever started out with a great plan that just didn’t translate into real life? Often, following Jesus gets messier than we expected.  We have integrity until someone else cheats to get ahead. We are faithful until our trust is broken. It’s easy to be good, until we are confronted with evil. Like a strong rip current, we can quickly get dragged back into the same familiar cycles. Maybe that’s why Paul gives us the final brushstroke in this portrait of grace: Goodness That Overcomes Evil. Jesus didn’t win by playing the world’s game, but by remaining relentlessly good.

Why do our relationships unravel so easily? One loose thread of pride. One unmet expectation. One bitter word. And what took years to weave comes apart. So how do we begin putting things back together? By pursuing peace. But biblical peace is more than the absence of conflict. It’s the wholeness Jesus came to restore. Through his cross, he mends our unraveling hearts and frees us to lay down our pride, own our part, and pursue peace with others, as far as it depends on us. Pursued Peace is another brushstroke in ordinary lives changed by his extraordinary grace.

Have you ever been so drawn into a story you were reading or watching that you found yourself laughing, cheering, even crying with the characters? Good stories pull us in. Paul says love does something similar in real life: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.” This next brushstroke of grace is Compassionate Presence. It means entering the joy and sorrow of another, following the One who stepped into ours. Listen to how we continued our Extraordinarily Ordinary series and learned what it meant to step into the stories of the people around us.

When has someone said or done something so painful that everything in you wanted to retaliate and, frankly…curse? And then Scripture dares to say the exact opposite: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). Jesus takes us even further, calling us to love our enemies and bless those who curse us. This is costly mercy. It does not minimize the wound or call evil good, and yet the ordinary way of his kingdom is to reverse the cycle. How can we ever become people like that? Only when the extraordinary mercy of Jesus becomes more powerful in us than the wound itself.

What comes to mind when you think about hospitality? A perfect meal? A clean house? The exhaustion of knocking yourself out to make everything just right? Romans 12:13 gives us the next brushstroke in this portrait of an extraordinarily ordinary life of grace: “seek to show hospitality.” Biblical hospitality reaches beyond an open house. It is an open heart, a willingness to see people, make room, and extend the welcome of Jesus. In Luke 7, a meal with Jesus becomes a revealing picture of what true hospitality looks like. Join us as we discover how this kind of welcome grows from a place deeper than effort or exhaustion. It ultimately comes from the power of the gospel.

Waiting for your plane to finally take off hours late, or the doctor to show up at your appointment, or even the web page to load can be frustrating and annoying. But in the grand scheme of things, none of those are life-shattering. Waiting for God to respond to your heartfelt cries for justice, or healing, or relief from pain can break the most hearty of spirits. How do you deal with a situation in which you desperately want God to act, and nothing seems to happen? It is perhaps one of the more common experiences we share with others, and one Jesus addressed honestly and openly with the kind of wisdom that only he has and that we need.

We love competition. Or at least some of us do. We compete to win, to get ahead, and sometimes simply to prove that we matter. But Romans 12 gives us a surprising, even strange kind of competition: “Outdo one another in showing honor.” What if, instead of competing to be noticed, we became people who noticed, valued, and lifted up others? In this sermon, we’ll explore the next brushstroke in this portrait of God’s extraordinary grace: Humble Honor. We’ll see how Jesus, who humbled himself to lift us up, frees us from the need to prove ourselves so that we can freely honor others.

Have you ever noticed how addicted we are to the spectacular, the impressive, and the perfectly curated life? That pressure can make ordinary faithfulness feel small. But Romans 12 gives us a better imagination for the Christian life: ordinary people transformed by extraordinary grace. In the next nine sermons, we will explore the brushstrokes of this gospel-shaped life found in Romans 12:9–21 and then turn to the Gospels to see them embodied in Jesus. Instead of chasing the spectacular, we offer God the ordinary life we actually have, trusting that under the hand of the Master, faithful obedience becomes a portrait of his grace. Might we dare to become extraordinarily ordinary  as we follow Jesus in real life.

Do you hear it?  Every day, creation is proclaiming the glory of God. The heavens preach without words, and the whole world points beyond itself to its Creator. But creation can only take us so far. In Psalm 19, David leads us from the wordless speech of creation to the life-giving words of Scripture, words that revive the soul, make wise the simple, and are “more precious than gold” and “sweeter than honey.” Listen in to how we discovered Scripture leading us further still, to the God who has not merely spoken to us. He has come to us.

What do you really want when you pray? Relief? Answers? A change in circumstances? Psalm 63 takes us into the wilderness with David, where his deepest longing is not simply for rescue, but for God himself. As we continue our Rhythms of Grace series, we will discover that prayer is more than bringing God a list of needs. It is the rhythm by which thirsty people seek the only One who can truly satisfy the deepest longings of the heart.  Join us as Psalm 63 teaches us to seek God not merely for what he gives, but for who he is!

As we continue our Rhythms of Grace series through the Psalms, we’re delighted to welcome our guest preacher, Dr. Steve Brown, who will be preaching from Psalm 62 on finding our rest and trust in God. Along with being considered part of the OCC family, Steve is a broadcaster, author, and founder of Key Life Network. He previously served as a pastor and seminary professor for more than 25 years and now devotes much of his time to the radio programs Key Life and Steve Brown, Etc. Steve is the author of numerous books, including Talk the Walk, Three Free Sins, and When Being Good Isn’t Good Enough. His newest book, God’s Not Mad at You: Confronting the Lies of Guilt, Shame, Fear, and Regret, will be released on September 14, 2026. Born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, Steve earned a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion from High Point College and an S.T.B. from Boston University School of Theology. We’re grateful to have had Steve with us this Sunday and enjoyed hearing how God uses him to encourage our church through His Word.

We were made to worship. The question isn't whether we worship, but what we worship. In Psalm 96, we'll discover that worship is more than singing on Sunday. It is a grace filled rhythm that forms our hearts, reminds us of God's presence, and teaches us to delight in the beauty of God's character.