Listen with Care | Acts 8:26-40 (BLESS)
Listening is evangelism; join what God is already doing; prepare to be interrupted

Listening is evangelism; join what God is already doing; prepare to be interrupted
Conflicts are born out of fear and offer an invitation to step out of the ‘fear dance’ draw near to God for our legitimate needs.
God loves the wrong people. Will we allow God’s merciful and just character to grow compassion in our own hearts?
The destination of our journey being God Himself, and how our witness as holy priests will allow the whole earth to know his glory.
Jonah preaches a half hearted gospel, but reveals the deep mystery of God’s purpose to partner with humans in the course of history. No matter what the people do, God never goes back on his covenant purpose to use this family to bless the nations.
Caring for the orphan
Jonah’s time in the fish is portrayed as a kind of death. But will this passage through death into new life change him? That’s the big question explored in the last chapter of Jonah.
Jonah rebelliously flees the call of God, but saves the sailors. Even our evil can become an instrument of God’s purposes.
After the resurrection, Jesus sends us out as his witnesses
Put your minds on things above
Jesus is The King We Didn’t Expect, But The King We Need
Obedience brings us into the heart of God’s love
Responding to the times with intentionality and discernment, active not passive, and in discernment, following what God is stirring and doing.
Kingdom living from abundance rather than scarcity
Journey inward (into interior castle) with Christ, confronting imperfections, recognizing God’s presence within
Because of the suffering of Christ, we are empowered to live a life of surrender and through that, we can experience an abundant life.
As we serve those on the margins, God also changes us
We can personally experience God guiding us through his Spirit
Baptism + Testimonies
The real presence of God filling/dwelling within us.
Our union w/Christ means that all that is Christ’s becomes ours
God gave us a gift of his son that cannot repaid, and as an outflow, we give others that cannot repay.
God wants to be in union with us, and reached out to us
God gives us the most unbreakable, precious gift: His love. And we know the depth of his love because of the depth of his sacrifice: He gave us his one and only Son, even when we did not love him. We don’t deserve his love, nor can we earn his love; God gives us his love simply out of his grace. All we have to do is receive his love.
Just as Israel was full of worry and anxiety under the oppression of Rome, we experience the oppression of worry and anxiety in our world today. It’s no wonder that one of the greatest gifts God has given us is peace. Jesus is not just the Prince of Peace, nor does He keep peace to Himself as a possession. Rather, in His grace, Jesus has given us HIS PEACE by the power of the Holy Spirit. We can have His peace as a gift right now by just receiving it.
Practical steps to make room for Jesus in Advent
In trials, we can choose hope because of God
God calls us to a politics of love rather than fear.
What is Jesus' definition of leadership vs. the World's definition?
Christians sadly, embody the same partisan and political divisions of the world. But we have something the world doesn’t: God. What if God is in our political disagreements? What if there is something he is trying to teach us, form us, sanctify us in our conflicts? What if he is can make something new if we discern his presence in our radically opposing passions and beliefs? This draws heavily on Tim Otto’s “Oriented to Faith” and David Fitch’s “Church of Us v Them”