From the Blog
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Growing Up Together
Would you say you are living a fulfilled life? What does that even look like? Is maturity just growing old? Or is there a target to our growing up? What is the aim of your life? If you spent the rest of your life doing what you are doing on a weekly basis, will you look back and say you were fulfilled?
Paul taught the church in Ephesus that Jesus equipped his church with all of the gifts they would need to grow together to spiritual maturity. We can grow together to spiritual maturity. -
A Letter Against Tolerance
Is tolerance automatically a bad thing? Should we tolerate some things and stand firm on others? How do we come to a biblical understanding of tolerance?
In his letter to the church in Thyatira, Jesus commanded them to hold fast to His truth in the face of excessive tolerance. We can hold fast to God’s truth in the face of excessive tolerance. -
The Parable of the Lost Son
Fables teach us work hard, to work for what we want, and that our hard work will be rewarded. Or they teach us to keep working until the end, or not to lie.
Parables, though, are stories Jesus told to help us understand what the kingdom of Heaven is about. In the Parable of the Lost Son, Jesus taught the Pharisees and other religious leaders that God’s forgiveness was freely given because of how generous God the Father is, not because we earn his love by how good we are. -
A Psalm for the Doubtful
The question is not if, but when you experience doubts about God, what should we do? Should we bottle them up and pretend they aren’t there? Should we give in to them and turn them into unbelief? In Psalm 77, Asaph found encouragement in midst of his doubts of God’s character when he reflected on…
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Resolved. (2018)
Rather than making New Years Resolutions that we try (usually unsuccessfully) to keep, this year, let’s look at 3 requests we can make of God in prayer for 2018. Based on a what Paul prayed for the Philippian church, we can pray that God would grow us in love, wisdom and spiritual fruit.
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An Orphan’s Hope – 2017
In today’s media-soaked world, we have access to so much information, in near real-time about what is going on. We see every tragedy, every crisis, all the hurt, all the pain going on world-wide. How do we engage with the hurting and vulnerable children in our world without becoming overwhelmed?
In Romans 8, Paul taught the Romans about the 3 movements of spiritual adoption they experienced when they became children of God. These movements can help us understand how to share in Christ's sacrifice on behalf of orphaned and vulnerable children. -
Contribute to God’s Kingdom
Most of us want to feel like we have accomplished something, like the work we do is actually reaching some objective. We all want to be great at something and be thought of as influential. We want to look back on our lives and believe that we truly contributed to something of value.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus taught His disciples that being influential in His kingdom meant being a servant like Him. We too can be influential in God’s Kingdom by being a Christlike servant. -
Confessing Our Mess
As we kick off the sermon series, “So You Think You’re a Christian?”, we look at the first movement of the Gospel, confessing our mess. When we fail to confess our mess, we limit God’s mercy and grace and we hinder fellowship with Him and our fellow believers. In 1 John, the apostle John taught…
