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Special Recordings


LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

Jesus makes it clear that the way to God is the same as the way to a new childhood. The innocence that is reached through conscious choices. The Beatitudes offer me the simplest route for the journey home, back into the house of my Father. And along this route I will discover the joys of the second childhood: comfort, mercy, and an ever clearer vision of God. It's a place where I can live in freedom without obsessions and compulsions.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

This month, we are beginning a new sermon series titled "Life in the Kingdom" focusing on the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:3-12. The Beatitudes are eight wisdom sayings that open Jesus’ famed Sermon on the Mount. Rather than viewing them as moral teachings or a self-help plan, the Beatitudes can be approached as soulful riddles that invite us into a new way of being in the world -- in deeper harmony with God and the world as God intended it. The Beatitudes call us toward a life that is less like this broken world as we know it and more like the Kingdom that is to come.


WALKING WITH GOD

"Our great tendency in this age is to increase our speed, to run faster, even in the Christian life. In the process our walk with God stays shallow, and our tank runs low on fumes. Intimacy offers a full tank of fuel that can only be found by pulling up closer to God, which requires taking necessary time and going to the effort to make that happen." – Charles R. Swindoll

At the start of a new year, many of us seek out resolutions that we hope will bring about the best version of ourselves. However, what Scripture shows us through the ages is that God seeks out hearts that display, not perfection, but persistence and availability. In Hebrews 11, we find a list of people who are commended for their faith because they choose to walk with God regardless of their circumstances. Our devotion, trust, and intimacy with God are what ultimately shape our faith. 

Through this series on “Walking with God,” we seek to remember that the life of faith is not merely about working harder or doing more, about striving or checking everything off our to-do list. Rather, through all the joys and challenges of life, God invites us to walk with Him and receive the peace that comes with knowing He is with us. Over the next 4 weeks, we will explore the lives of several men and women in the Bible who walked with God and reflect on what that looks like for us today.


who do you say i am?

When God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt, the question Moses had for God was “what is Your name?” In other words, “Who are You?” God tells Moses: “Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). That was all Moses needed to know to begin his journey with God.

Fast-forward to the New Testament book of John. In John’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes his divine identity over and over again by using that same phrase, the very name of God: “I AM.” Over the next two months, as we explore Jesus’ seven “I AM” statements, our hope as a church is to deepen our understanding of who Jesus is and our faith that in Jesus we have everything we need.


Psalms of ascent

“The Christian life is a climb—a journey of constant growth, sacrifice, and trusting God for what we cannot see. As Eugene Peterson said, we are pilgrims, but we are also disciples—always moving and always learning” (She Reads Truth blog). “To ascend” means to step up or come out. The Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134) were sung by worshipers making their annual pilgrimage up to Jerusalem to celebrate three important Jewish festivals. These psalms envision the day when Israel will come out of their foreign exile, when the Messiah will finally bring deliverance and restore Jerusalem to glory and peace.

As Christians, the Psalms of Ascent remind us that our worship is not shaped by the current realities of our world but by the hope of the kingdom that is to come. Our hope for this series is that our church would become a people whose lives demonstrate an unrelenting commitment to living in the way of Jesus regardless of the trial or season we find ourselves in.


advancing god’s mission

Pentecost is the church’s birthday, a day that the Holy Spirit descended on the followers of Jesus and disrupted their everyday lives and the world around them. Throughout the book of Acts we see the mission of God at work through the church and the followers of Jesus for: Salvation, Healing, Hospitality, Reconciliation, through a new multiethnic movement, empowered by the Spirit. We will spend the next year in this great book gleaning how the church was started and what it might look like for us to be a church that advances God’s mission in the world.


We Are Priests

When we think of what a priest is, we often think of a small, select group of people, who probably wear a collar and work exclusively for God or a church. However, we find in the New Testament, that after Jesus was crucified the veil to the Temple was torn and access to God was made available to all who put their faith in Jesus. The book of First Peter says that we all are now a ‘royal priesthood’. Over the next 6 weeks we will look at this passage in 1 Peter 2 and see what it means to be a priest and what God’s vision is for us as we go into the world.


I MUST DECREASE

We all want more, in the economy of the Kingdom death brings life. The Resurrection is made possible through the cross. Our way forward as citizens of the Kingdom is to die to self and carry our cross. We will spend the next 6 weeks [40 days] on a path of descent in a way of formation and preparation of the life God wants to bring to us and to our world.


SEEK FIRST

Jesus told his disciples that there are plenty of things to get worried and anxious about in this life, but instead of letting those things consume us, we ought to channel our desires for satisfaction to a full on pursuit of God and his priorities. It’s from that place of pursuit that God meets us, satisfies our longings, and brings us more than enough of what we need. 


Advent Together 2020

Advent is a spiritual journey that Christians take through the truths of Scripture that point to the birth of Messiah-- it’s a reaffirmation that he has come, is present in the world today, and will come again in glory. It mirrors the journey of faith that Christians make after that moment of realization and acceptance of who Jesus is, in that we take that first step of faith in commitment, continue hopefully to walk the road of faith and increasing understanding, and look forward to our destination, which is to be in his presence forever! 

“The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.”

- Henri Nouwen


The Life of Joshua

For much of human history we have lived in an in-between, a place of tension. We are glad that we’re not where we were at one point; yet we still

find ourselves short of the destination where we long to be. We have a vision of where we are supposed to be that is so much better than the present, but we have not arrived. 

In the story of Joshua we find a bigger story. The story of God and His people who He has already freed from Egypt. God promised them a better Land with blessing, protection, and prosperity. And although they are on the cusp, they find themselves not fully experiencing it’s fullness yet. 

Over the next 10 weeks we will look at the person of Joshua and how God aligned a people to walk in sync with Him through an in-between time into His preferred future for them.