From the Blog
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The Relentless Yes
What if we’ve taken the step to put our yes on the table but then life got difficult and we took it back off? What if we had our yes on the table and were waiting on God to move but He never did, so we took our yes back off? What if our yes is still on the table this morning but we’re exhausted, burning out, and we’re very close to taking our yes back off the table? Today we will learn how to give God our “Relentless Yes,” whereby we keep our yes on the table, no matter what life throws at us; no matter how long we have to wait; no matter how tired we get.
In the book of Joshua, the writer recorded how Joshua trusted God with his relentless yes in defeating the city of Jericho. We can trust God with our relentless yes to whatever He asks us to do. -
The Reluctant Yes
What if we’re warming up to the idea of trusting God Himself—not just His plan—with our lives, but then He calls us to do something that we feel unequipped for? Something we don’t feel worthy to do? Something we outright don’t want to do? Many of us hear that calling and get stopped in our tracks, thinking of a million reasons why we can’t do something, so time passes and we don’t give God our yes; we reluctantly say no with our actions. In the book of Exodus, Moses wrote how he reluctantly gave God his yes when God called him to free the people of Egypt. We can give God our yes even when we feel reluctant.
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The Repentant Yes
What do we do if we’ve said no to God? Many of us find ourselves in this difficult place. We have said no to Jesus by putting off saying yes to salvation in Christ. Perhaps we fear what God might do in our lives if we receive Him. In the book of Jonah, Jonah wrote…
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Quality Time
Without routinely giving God our Quality Time or “Undivided Attention,” we will struggle to know and be known by God. We will find ourselves feeling distant from Him, despite how much we might do for Him. We will struggle to perceive His will for our life and will be shaken by the questions that come with each day. We will find ourselves feeling tired, no matter how much rest we get.
In Mark 6, Jesus dismissed his disciples and the crowd and intentionally went off alone to give God His undivided attention. As we learn from Jesus’s actions in this story, we too can worship God with our undivided attention. -
Words of Affirmation
God didn’t incidentally love us; He wasn’t emotionally moved by our actions towards Him and therefore loved us in return. He made a choice to express His love, even when we didn’t deserve it. His expression of love at the cross was intentional and well thought out. He laid down His life for us and…
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Set Free by Adoption
The apostle Paul wanted to teach the Galatians how to be set free from that same bondage. He wanted them to know how to be set free by adoption. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul told believers that they were set free by spiritual adoption through faith in Christ Jesus. It is through faith…
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Matters of…Parenting
In this conclusion to our Family Matters series, we look at how God has called us to raise our children with the target of Christ-like maturity. There are a lot of different targets we can have, but Paul taught the church at Ephesus how to bring up children in Christ-like maturity that reflected the relationship…
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Matters of…Marriage
Marriage: a wonderful union designed and declared by our Creator God for the our good. But it doesn’t always feel so good does it? Not always a “dream within a dream.” Two people, uniquely different, trying to be one unified family for life facing all the internal challenges of dealing with differing opinions, goals, and dreams and all the while facing the challenges of work, bills, sickness, and sometimes kids.
God’s plan goes far beyond the divorce statistics. God designed marriage and has a wonderful plan for couples according to His Word. A plan that will show off the glory of God to the world. In the book of Ephesians, Paul taught wives and husbands how to have a Christ-like marriage that reflected Christ’s relationship with His church. -
Matters of…Reconciliation
We heard last week about having oneness and unity in our families, but sometimes things divide that oneness and we can’t see how to reconcile. In this message, we learn how to reconcile the division that has come between us and become unified once more.
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The Word of Despair
In this sermon, we will be looking at the fourth of His last sayings, the word of despair. We will consider Christ’s questioning cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Have you ever cried out to God like Jesus did? Have you ever felt forsaken and alone? Have you ever felt distant from God? Have you cried, “God, where are you?” We all feel lonely at times. We all want acceptance. We want to be accepted and approved. But instead, we often feel rejected and alone. The truth is, if we would rightly understand how our sins have separated us from our Creator, we would cry out with a deeper feeling of despair than we’ve ever felt. It was for this, that Christ took on our despair, that we might receive in exchange, His oneness with God.
In the gospel of Mark, Jesus cried out in despair to God as He experienced the extravagant exchange that it cost Him for our reconciliation. We can understand the cost of this extravagant exchange.