There is a direct, organic connection between how humans live in love and the well-being of creation. The calamity experienced at the hands of the environment is a natural result of human failure to care for it as God intended.
God called all people to care for his land and animals as his stewards. This is a basic mandate that was part of the creation narrative.
What does it mean to trust God as the ultimate judge? This is an important question if we are going to live in love and forego judgment of others.
In this sermon, Greg provides a big picture overview of the series on God’s final judgment and why it is so crucial, especially during this time in history.
We long for justice, and we hope that God will deliver his justice at the end of times. This sermon introduces a series on the coming justice of God and what this means for us today.
John’s first letter tells us that we are God’s children and that the world is controlled by the evil one. But even more, it tells us how to know Jesus in the midst of this evil so that we might have resurrection life.
We get off the “high horse” by not judging others or seeing ourselves as superior to them. We also get off the high horse by living relationship with others and having the humility to receive feedback from them.
The story of Genesis 3 identifies the lies at the root of all that is wrong with the world. These lies are fake news about the nature of God, ourselves, others and the purpose of the planet. When we buy into these lies, the resulting actions cause destruction.
The story of the fall of Adam and Eve tells us what it means to lose the true center of life, and how when we orbit around a false center we are trapped in the perpetual judgement of others.
In this sermon, Dan Kent examines how we respond when others judge us. He first looks at how the world teaches us to respond, and then he offers a different response that is shaped by God’s perspective.
In this sermon, Cedrick Baker brings clarity to what it means to be civically engaged in our world in a Kingdom way. He offers insight into ways that we can be God's love and light without falling into the traps of polarization.
This sermon explores the four primary passages from the Bible that explain why judgment is forbidden.
This panel conversation addresses the practical implications of the teaching on what it means to live in love and forego judgment of others.
There were two trees in the Garden of Eden, one representing where we get true life from and one representing a prohibition from what steals from life. This sermon explores the significance of these two trees.
We live in a system in which everyone judges themselves and each other and creates a hierarchy of those above and below them. Jesus came to confront and blow this system apart.
We become what we practice. We practice what we imagine is the goal of where we are going. As Christ followers, we are to set the goal of living in love so that we can practice love to become more loving.
God calls us to replicate the love of the cross instead of passing judgment upon others. We do this as we live into the reality of our inclusion in God’s love and our identity in Christ, as part of the Triune, cruciform love that God is.
In this introductory sermon to the “Cross Examination” series, Greg lays out the all-important challenge to live in love in the way that is defined by Christ on the cross. This sermon also details how this mandate to love goes against the grain of our culture which is dominated by divisiveness and judgment.
How do we become the kind of person who heeds Jesus’ words on not worrying about our life? Dan Kent answers this question with three basic truths that can change how we face worrisome situations.
Jesus tells us not to worry, but what does this mean in a world full of worry-causing circumstances? How can we not be anxious when there are so many troubling issues that we face? This teaching addresses what it means to trust God in anxious times to the point that we know that Jesus is with us as we face our worries.
The world around us is wrought with pain and suffering. Amidst this reality it can often be difficult to find a sense of hope. To fully appreciate the incomprehensible glory that is going to be revealed to us, we first need to appreciate the full magnitude of the sufferings of this present age. As we engage with the painful news of our world, we turn our eyes to the coming hope that is grounded in the resurrected Christ. *Please note that due to Greg being sick on Easter, we re-used his message ...
On Good Friday, Jesus experienced the darkness and pain of God -forsakenness, as he entered the depths of the reality of a sin-drenched world. How can this inform our experience of living in a Good Friday World?
Scarcity drives common daily experiences in our world, yet God invites us to trust his ability to abundantly provide. In this sermon, Osheta Moore offers us a liturgy of abundance so that we can embrace God’s abundance in the midst of scarcity.
How do we find freedom from the allure of mammon? In this sermon, Greg offers three practical steps for discovering contentment in God so that we are free from the discontentment that drives the Mammon Game.
At the end of time, we will come before God in judgment, where God’s love will refine and purge. Jesus taught us to live today with this future in mind by investing in treasures that will endure the fire instead of investing in that which will burn because they are not compatible with God’s love.
Jesus taught us to be aware of the trap of money and greed. In this sermon, Greg applies Jesus’ words to today’s situation so that we might escape this mammon game and entrust our money to God.
Jesus taught us that what we see is shaped by how our eyes are trained to see the world. If our eye is bad, our sight will be corrupted. We need good eyes to see the world rightly.
In this sermon, Greg teaches on Matthew 6:16-21, where we’re told to fast in secret, unlike the "hypocrites" who put fasting on display for public applause. Our reward for secrecy is the beauty of the character that we develop when we learn how to be singularly motived by God’s will rather than social applause. This leads to two questions: How is this secret relationship with our Father going, and what really motivates us?
In this sermon Tara Beth Leach shares about the importance of corporate prayer and how it impacts our lives in a culture that is shaped by individualism.
What does it mean to pray that God won’t bring us to times of trial and to be rescued from the evil one? Greg explores the answers to this question and how it applies to our daily lives.
