Today we take a look at another movement in John’s reassurance. Once again John starts out his next encouragement for confident living by reassuring those gathered in the church regarding the blessings and resources they now enjoy as believers.
Christianity is not just knowing about God or knowing certain doctrines or following certain moral precepts. It is essentially to know God. Jesus said in John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Christianity at its heart is, knowing God personally through Jesus Christ, who revealed God to us
Now, the reality is many Christians who know Jesus struggle with living confidently. The early believers John was writing had a confidence problem. They were unsure of their standing with God and their new lives as Christians because some among them refused to embrace the truth they had been taught. They tweaked the truth and convoluted it and then apparently began to cultivate insecurity in the minds and hearts of the others. They made claims about God and what it meant to be saved and what it ...
Today we are going to discover that the foundation for confident living is your relationship with Jesus.
As I have been preparing for our annual celebration today…here’s the theme God has placed on my heart: Celebrate God in you, and through you!
Today in our wrap up of the Jesus Life series, I want you to join me in Acts chapter 12. The story I want you to see today gives us some incredibly refreshing news to counter the threatening sense that evil seems to always have the upper hand.
Today we are actually going to explore together a little deeper into your spiritual heritage. If you are non-Jewish and a Jesus follower, today we can trace your spiritual ancestry, your spiritual roots all the way back to our story in Acts 10, and you don’t need to give me a blood sample. Today in our Jesus Life series, we come to hugely crucial turning point in the Holy Spirit-driven drama of the early Church. In our story today the Holy Spirit blasts through one of the biggest barriers for th...
Friends, deceit, denial, and pretending are so poisonous. They are poisonous to our relationships with God, to our relationships with each other, and in our relationship with our selves. Deceitfulness always poisons the blessings God has brought to our lives. Today in our story in Acts, God makes a dramatic point about how much truth and honesty matter to him and to the health of all our relationships.
Today we are going to get a glimpse of what life looks like when one walks through the 5 steps discussed last week and lives a life that is empowered by the Spirit.
In our time together today I want to bring some understanding to this very unusual scene. Then, once we have some understanding about what happened, I want to get very practical with you and review with you some additional teaching regarding how you are I can learn to cooperate with the Spirit’s presence and leading in our lives. The Bible calls us to live The Jesus Life BY the Spirit and STAY IN STEP WITH the Spirit. I want to get very practical with what that looks like in our lives.
Have you ever wondered what these early Post-Easter Christians thought and felt as they began to get their arms around the reality that Jesus was, in fact, alive? Now they had the challenge of being the first ones to live out the Jesus Life, just as he taught them. What should they do? What did they do? The kids in the Easter video we played asked at the end, “Now what?” The book of Acts gives us the answers to these types of questions. It helps us to see what some of the first Christians did an...
The text we are resting in today takes us back to the very day the stone was rolled away from the tomb. The very day Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Jesus’ mother went to the tomb and instead of encountering Jesus’ body they encountered angels who informed them that Jesus was not dead but actually he was alive. All that morning the news quickly spread amongst the disciples that Jesus’ body was missing. The text this morning shifts from the events that took place that morning to the afternoon lets rea...
Happy Easter to all of you! It’s great to have you join us today. We love to celebrate Easter. We love to sing out our gratitude and praise to God for the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. The resurrection is a huge game changer.
Welcome to Palm Sunday. Today is traditionally the kick off of the Passion Week when we prepare our hearts and minds for the upcoming celebration of Easter. This morning we will be continuing our series titled the Jesus Life: Learning, Loving, Living. We are taking a fresh look at how Jesus lived and loved others and we are seeking to learn how to practice those patterns in our lives.
Today, we take a look at what Jesus has to say about how we manage our money. I’m calling this message the stewardship of the Jesus life. If we desire to live the Jesus Life…we need to know what Jesus has to say about how we mange our money.
The people Jesus addresses today are making this fatal mistake. And Jesus calls them out because it is a completely fatal error to obsess about outward appearances in one’s life, while ignoring the inner condition of the heart. Look at Luke 11:37-38 with me.
For those of you who have a relationship with Jesus today we will be looking at a practice that helps us nurture that relationship and stay connected with Jesus. It’s a life that Allows the Holy Spirit to instill in you a desire to want what Jesus wants more than what you want.
So far in our series, we’ve seen him exercise absolute authority over evil, over all manner of sickness and disease, and over nature itself. He’s even raised the dead. But, today he talks to his disciples about something he has not said shared with them.
If you’re new with us today or maybe you have missed a couple of weeks we are continuing on in a series all the way through Easter titled the “Jesus Life.” In this series we are walking through the book of Luke and learning from Jesus’ life. We are witnessing how he lived life so that our life might reflect his. We are learning from what He taught, so that our lives can be fruitful and we are receiving His love so that it can fuel ours.
Today, we’re going to look at some words from Jesus that simultaneously make me uncomfortable and give me a real hope about how to embrace the Jesus life. Jesus describes is two kinds of people or lives: the well-built life and what I’m calling the ‘other’ life. Notice that Jesus only describes two kinds… not a spectrum, not several, equally good lives. Just two—one is well-built and the ‘other’ is not.
Having made declarations about his identity and his purpose, he proceeds to demonstrate over and over again that he is fact, who he says he is, and he has the full power of God to bring the full favor of God into our lives. Today he’s going to demonstrate his unparalleled power over the forces of nature.
I want us to visit a few scenes in Luke’s account of the Jesus Life and observe Jesus’ undisputed power over all sickness. Luke includes a number of specific examples of Jesus exercising the power of God to heal all disease—spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Today let’s talk about Jesus’ power over the demonic world since the very first story after Jesus formerly launches his ministry deals with this topic.
If you’re newer to faith in Jesus, I pray this series will orient you well to who Jesus really was, and to what he really taught. If you’re older in faith, I pray this series will refresh and revive your understanding and perspective of the One who has loved you first and best. And for all of us, may we learn some new insights on Jesus, inspiring deeper love for him, and a greater desire to live out the Jesus life!
Meaning is not found in your vocation, your title, your money, your trials. Meaning to life is found in your relationship with God. This relationship protects you from what is meaningless and begins to instill meaning into every facet of your life—your vocation, your family, your school, your pleasure, your finances.
Head scratchers are the injustices of life. Head scratchers are random tragedies of life. Solomon discovered them in his massive “under the sun” research project and he willing admits that life is full of things that make you scratch your head in dismay.
When you have a relationship with Jesus you bring meaning into every facet of who you are. This meaning is something that is eternal not contingent on your emotional, financial or social state but on the Character of God. This meaning is something that should be enjoyed and savored.
Today Solomon touches on the topic of money that we all have in our life. Some of us know it... others of us are ignorant of it... others choose to not believe it, but when push comes to shove in many of our lives Money is what we place our identity in; we place our meaning in, its what we live for. If we lose our money we will lose our identity, our security, our happiness etc. In Ecclesiastes 5:10- 6:12 Solomon helps us find meaning within money. He helps us understand its purpose and it is pr...
think we ask the wrong question when we encounter wickedness in our world? We often ask the question “Why doesn’t God punish evil?” “But the right question is why doesn’t God punish evil now?” We wonder privately why doesn’t God take action when we want him too? Why can’t I be God? If I were God we would see instant justice right?
How do we make sense of the craziness of life? How do we make sense of the past and move on from the past? How do we cope with the uncertainties of the future? Is it possible to find any peace or satisfaction in this thing called “Life?” Today, King Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes shares the key to finding true, lasting satisfaction in life.
