We are Family, Part 7: The Family Worships Together
We are Family, Part 7: The Family Worships Together The greatest thing about a family of faith coming to worship together is that we are literally a witness to the rest of the world of what Christ can do. And when we come into a relationship with him, worship is a witness of the gospel story, of a dead heart becoming new again. Download the PDF above to follow along with notes.
We are Family, Part 6: Single and Seeking
We are Family, Part 6: Single and Seeking Why is the gospel good news for those of us who are single—especially when we don’t necessarily really want to be? The gospel is good news because Jesus is pursuing you. … God sent Jesus to the cross to pursue a relationship with you, and He continues to pursue you. Jesus was obedient to that plan because He wants that relationship with you, too.
We are Family, Part 5: The Gospel of Dad
We are Family, Part 5: The Gospel of Dad Here’s how you need to dress for the job [of godly fatherhood]: you dress with humility. It’s like you walk out the door in the morning-time and instead of putting on a suit, to make sure everybody knows that I’m the boss, you put on a cloak of humility. … Your greatest need is to be the most humble man on the planet. Ephesians puts it this way: ‘Love your wife…
We are Family, Part 4: The Youths
We are Family, Part 4: The Youths To the students in the room: my hope and my prayer is that you will faithfully and boldy follow after Jesus and go to the world with [the] good news that He is Lord, because Jesus is better than anything the world has to offer. Family: the gospel is good news to the youth because it’s ultimately not about them; it’s about Jesus. Download the PDF above to follow along with notes.
We are Family, Part 3: Seniors
We are Family, Part 3: Seniors This is a temporary residence. If I’m going to grow in maturity as an older person—not just growing with grace, but growing with pure gospel presence in my life—I will live as a stranger, not as a permanent resident. … How pathetically sad [to think], “I’m a permanent resident on this earth and a stranger in eternity,” when in reality, as a disciple of Christ, it’s the exact opposite: I’m a stranger on this…
We are Family, Part 2: The Body of Christ
Christ’s body is made up of believers of every race, tribe, nation and ethnicity—all in communion with the Holy Spirit. … On a cellular level, we have an individual purpose, and we’re called to do something in our specific time, and God is working through us where we are—but if we looked at the whole picture and stepped back out of time and space, we’d see how all these individual cells of human beings all combine into the body of Christ that is moving across time and space to seek and save the lost. And when we understand this perspective of what Paul is describing, of being different parts yet part of the same body, we understand there’s this much deeper connection between us, that may be right on the surface. As believers, there’s a deep connection between you and me, and it’s that we’re all individually a part of Jesus working to save those around us. And honestly, how can there be a deeper connection than that?
We are Family, Part 1: Motherhood—It’s Complicated!
I want to make sure that all the moms sitting here today know that you are present in the Bible. The Bible was written for you just as much as for everyone else. And just like everyone else, it applies to your personal, complicated situation. Again, it may not be in the way that we expect, but the Bible speaks to the complicated lives of mothers. And the most important way it does that is through the gospel. The gospel brings freedom to the complicated lives of mothers. … The message of the gospel means that you can lay down your burdens, your failures, your expectations, and live out each day in the freedom and dependence of Jesus.
Buliisa: Experience Community (Celebration Service)
Buliisa: Experience Community Celebration Service We can’t do everything. We’re not going to go everywhere. We can’t be everywhere. But we can be managers of [God’s] field, of that spot He’s given us. Download the PDF above to follow along with notes.
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 4
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 4: God Invites Us to Join Him Jesus invites us to join Him now, taking this gospel, this Good News, so that it can be passed on to others. … We are [God’s] image bearers; we are also the bearers of Good News. It is really our responsibility to carry the Good News. Download the PDF above to follow along with notes.
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 3
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 3: God Won God is truly all in, in order to bring us back to life. … This was God’s plan from the very beginning. It’s not a back-up plan! … God created it holy. Man quickly messed it up, but literally the day that mankind said, ‘I’m rebelling and falling away from You,’ God said, ‘MY plan is to rescue you personally.’ He won at the resurrection. And now we get…
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 2
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 2: God Engaged The principle of the Good News that I arrive at is this: God engages us at our point of brokenness. The Good News is, God says, ‘I want to work with you. I want [you] to find wholeness and help and healing’ — and He can, and does, make broken lives whole again. … God says, this world is disrupted and I am the only One who can make…
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 1
What’s So Good About the Good News? Part 1: God Noticed Humility. Trust. Faith. That’s what makes the Good News good news. God notices. Be humble before God, trust Him, and let your faith supplant your fear and panic. Download the PDF above to follow along with notes.
Shattered, Part 5
SHATTERED, Part 5: Society Shattered The theme of this story is about not finding our eternal security and ultimate meaning of life based upon a life that is built to honor ourselves. … This message points out that we strive often to be God ourselves, instead of learning to be image-bearers of God. The Tower of Babel attempts to reach God by ‘my own standards’—we try, in a sense, to fashion a life that exalts myself, my society, my way,…
Shattered, Part 4
SHATTERED, Part 4: Good Shattered God is making a point here that God’s favor falls on those who rest in His grace. Ultimately these verses show us humanity’s sin, and that that sin breaks the heart of the Lord. It breaks the heart of Yahweh to the point [at which] his wrath must purify the earth. And yet, in the midst of that just wrath for our corruption, God’s grace is still made available for those who rest in Him.…
Shattered, Part 3
SHATTERED, PART 3: Family Shattered We’re all infected by sin. Our souls are stained with it. Only Jesus’s blood can wash us clean. If we are to be a whole people—individuals [who are] fully who God created us to be, undivided, without constant regret or remorse, not hiding—then we need to seriously look at our own sin and wrap our heads around our true state. Not continuing to believe that our will is somehow inherently good, that our desires are…
Shattered, Part 2
Shattered, Part 2: Freedom Shattered Sin is not just an activity. … In reality, sin is you. Sin is me. Because the only thing that’s perfect is the Holy God, and if I walk away from a relationship with the Holy God, I am very quickly unholy—which is what the story of Genesis 3 really initiates. … We live a life that tries to say, even as Christians, “Yeah, Jesus is the answer, but let’s just deal with behavior modification.”…
Shattered, Part 1
SHATTERED, Part 1: Perfection Shattered You are hopeless and helpless in sin! It’s bad, guys. … Except this is also where the redemption story starts. This is why when we teach scripture, it’s attached to the gospel. The gospel is the GOOD NEWS. Left to yourself, there’s not a behavior you can live — there’s not a lifestyle you can have, there’s not an amount of money you can offer to the poor, there’s not an amount of time you…
Origins, Part 4
Origins, Part 4: He Rested, Therefore I Find My Rest “Worship is not just a physical protocol of a checked-off list of things to follow and things to do; but it instead is a heart of reflection, a heart of observance, of reverence, of recognition. It’s a heart of total dependence upon the Creator God of the universe. … It’s much easier for [God] to give me a checklist and for me to check it off than it is for…
Origins, Part 3
Even though physically we don’t look like God, internally, deeply spiritually, the RUAH of God sets us apart and says my identity is defined by my relationship to the almighty Creator Elohim, God of the universe.
Origins, Part 2
Every one of us has walked into this place this morning with something that concerns us. … We’ve got something lingering over our heads, somehow, small or big. The beauty of Genesis is [that] when we learn to live in awe of the Creator, we no longer have to live in awe of the circumstances of our lives. … The story of Genesis is not “a cosmic accident.” It’s a story of life! It’s a story of God instilling life and direction.
Origins, Part 1
What you believe about the origins of all things will affect everything about the way you live. … Genesis 1 really is the very strong foundation to understanding of the entirety of the whole story of God, from the beginning of scripture all the way to the end.
20/20 Vision for LifeWay
The world’s falling apart, but God’s Word has always been true in this: if you will rely on the strength of God through the moments that you feel the most down, this is the time when you strengthen your tent curtains. You widen them. You don’t hold back; you strengthen the cords. You lengthen the stakes. Because God will then use you to inhabit the desolate cities — the broken lives of the world around us — and we will not stop doing that.
I Resolve To…
The only way we can actually grow and succeed in our lives is to fully depend on God’s strength in us. We can only work hard and disciplined out of the Holy Spirit’s strength inside of us. It’s a strength he gives us. And as followers of Jesus, we are supposed to work hard and disciplined for the sake of the gospel. … January is a time for hard work — a time to restart in our daily devotionals, or…
Fulfilled, Part 5: The Book of Immanuel — God With Us
“They were panicking. They were in fear and insecurity. They were looking for help and a rescuer. … God says, ‘I’m going to fulfill my promises, much as I did with Abraham, with Moses, and in the time of King David. We’re not done yet. Stand with God!’ And how is it going to happen? When will this rescue take place? Look for the sign. The sign is a virgin … that young woman will bear a child, and that…
Fulfilled, Part 4: Cornerstone
Three times [in 1 Peter chapter 2] Peter uses the word “precious” to describe Jesus. But to many, in that world and in ours, Jesus is not precious at all. Ultimately, you can’t tell the value of something just by checking popular opinion. The world was wrong about Jesus 2,000 years ago, and much of the world is still wrong about him today. You cannot be neutral about Jesus. He is either your living cornerstone, or he is your stumbling…