Text: Luke 12:13-34 | Listen to Message You Can’t Take It With You The American Dream is little more than the glorification and worship of profit, consumerism, and leisure. Pursuing this “dream” is about like saying, “My ultimate goal in life is to maximize my own personal comfort, satisfaction, and wealth – often at the expense of others.” So, of course, no one says that. We try to be a little subtler about our covetous, materialistic sense of entitlement. “I’m just being a good steward and putting aside a little nest egg for the uncertain times ahead.” Uh huh, right. If...
Text: Luke 12:4-12 | Listen to Message Standing For Christ In A Culture That Doesn’t Many American Christians will live and die without ever leading a single person to faith in Christ. Many will never even try. They are content to go to heaven … alone. Evangelism, soul-winning, sharing the Gospel, even simple invitations to church – these are best left to the experts and the extroverts, right? Wrong. The Christian who doesn’t share Christ needs to hear Jesus’ sobering warning in Luke 12: If you don’t acknowledge me before men, neither will I acknowledge you in heaven. In other words,...
Show me a thriving church, and I’ll show you a number of volunteers whose faithful service goes virtually unnoticed. Without these unsung heroes, much of the church’s ministry – and maybe the church itself – would fall flat. These servant-hearted individuals are not motivated by recognition; they’re driven by their love for God and others. These service spotlights are designed to affirm and encourage all of our volunteers – especially those who work behind the scenes – and to express gratitude for your selfless ministry. We see you, we honor you, and we thank God for you! This month’s service...
Text: Luke 11:37-12:3 | Listen to Message Let’s Stop Pretending It’s easy to spot the tiniest speck of hypocrisy in others but we’re reluctant to see even the most blatant duplicity in ourselves. No one wants to admit there’s a disconnect between my stated beliefs and my actual behaviors – that there’s dissonance between my reputation (who I portray myself to be) and my character (who I really am when no one’s looking). And because recognition is the first step to repentance, this is often the reason we spiral further into hypocrisy: we’re not willing to confess to ourselves and to...
Text: Luke 11:14-28 | Listen to Message Presence, Not Performance Imagine your city is being invaded by a murderous foreign army hell-bent on your destruction. Each passing day, the enemy lines inch closer and the sounds of war grow louder. The air is filled with the stench of gunpowder, smoke, and death. Soon, you can see the conflict from your front porch. Knowing you need to take decisive action, you rally your family together: “All right, everybody, here’s what we’re going to do: we need to clean the house like we’ve never cleaned before!” Whaaaat?! That’s absurd! Everyone knows a clean...
Text: Luke 11:1-13 | Listen to Message Gospel-Driven Prayer The attached sermon unpacks 6 “P’s” of Christian prayer from this text of Scripture: The Priority, The Privilege, The Pattern, The Persistence, The Promise, and The Presence of it. While these are all important for a comprehensive understanding of the whats, hows, and whys of prayer, let’s just focus on just the last two here. The Promise of Christian Prayer In verses 9-10, Jesus tells his disciples, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks...
