Text: John 17:20-26 | Listen to Message His Love In Us A recent tweet summarized the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy as “nine hours of men fighting over jewelry.” That’s a crude (and inaccurate) oversimplication. But it’s not tragic. It’s tragic when we oversimplify irreducibly complex matters of eternal significance. Take the Cross as an example. A myopic view of the Cross reduces the most significant act of love, grace, and justice in history to the palatable, personal blessings that we enjoy in its wake – blessings like happiness, forgiveness, and heaven. But the Cross speaks to much...
Text: Luke 1:39-56 | Listen to Message Grace For The Humble And The Hungry If Jesus were like other kings, he’d favor people with connections, positions, and money – and who knew how to leverage their assets to get stuff done. If Jesus were like other kings, he’d feed the grand delusion that the proud, the powerful, and the prosperous are actually in control of their lives – and that any problem can be fixed by simply manipulating the right resources. If Jesus were like other kings, he’d side with the “haves” against the “have nots” and perpetuate the lie...
Text: Luke 1:26-38 | Listen to Message Nothing? Really? Nothing? Buried in the story of the annunciation of Jesus’ birth to Mary is this little phrase, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). And here’s where our minds go with that: “Nothing is impossible? Seriously? NOTHING? So God can make a square circle? And God can help me win the Powerball Lottery? And mom’s cancer is going to go into remission? And I’m going to get that promotion? And our little Christian school is going to pull the biggest upset in state history, all because we claimed this promise...
Text: Luke 1:5-25 | Listen to Message Biology vs. Theology It was the highlight of his life, the apex of his personal history! Zechariah had been chosen by lot to enter the Holy Place and burn incense on behalf of his entire nation. He must’ve been quivering with nervous excitement as he entered into that sanctuary where he’d never set foot before. Suddenly, exhilaration turned to dread terror: someone else was in the room with him! It was an angel named Gabriel who’d come with a message from the Lord: “Your wife Elizabeth is going to bear you a son!” “How...
Text: Luke 1:1-4 | Listen to Message Is The Bible Reliable? Skeptics often claim that the Christian Gospels are little more than myths, legends, and fairy tales concocted by charlatans to get their new religion off the ground. But there are many lines of reasoning that argue convincingly against this claim. Type of Literature: The Gospels are far too detailed and descriptive – including numerous specific people, places, and time indicators – to be myths. The Gospels are written as eyewitness accounts of actual events. They are written as a history of things that were actually said and done. Source: Most...
Text: Mark 14:36; Galatians 4:4-7 | Listen to Message The Wonder of Adoption It almost goes without saying that we humans are not God’s blood relatives. We are not His literal offspring. And yet, the Bible makes this stunning claim that we can become children of God through faith in Jesus. For example, John 1:12 says, “But to all who did receive him [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” The right to become children. We have a word for that: adoption. Adoption lies at the heart of Galatians 4:4-7: “But when...
Text: Matthew 1:21 | Listen to Message 6 Ways Jesus Saves JESUS SAVES. We hear it all the time. We see those two words scrawled on street corners and plastered on posterboards everywhere. The message is practically ubiquitous. It’s ever-present. It’s overly familiar. But what does it even mean? Here are six simple illustrations or metaphors of salvation: Sin is a separation, and Jesus reconciles. Sin obstructs and wrecks our relationship with God. It alienates and estranges. It creates hostility. But Colossians 1:20 says Jesus made peace between God and sinners by the blood of his cross. This is no temporary truce or...
Reorganizing To Serve You As Grace City Denver continues to grow, God has given us the vision and opportunity to transition to a new pastoral leadership structure that’ll allow us to better meet the needs of our growing congregation and city. A little background. A couple years ago, Jeremy Conrad was hired as our full-time executive pastor. His role included the usual financial and organizational responsibilities that go along with being an X-pastor, but he also had some oversight of outreach, hospitality, gospel communities, and a hodgepodge of other ministries. Over these two years, Jeremy has proven to be a...
About Our New Location Beginning Sunday, June 26th, we’ll be meeting at Isabella Bird Community School (2701 N Lima Street, Denver, CO 80238) for our main worship services. A lot of conversation and prayer went into this decision to leave Westerly Creek after 10+ years. And here’s some of the vision that ultimately made this new opportunity an easy decision: IBCS has greater visibility and access. Westerly Creek is buried in the middle of a residential area with no direct access to the south. It’s isolated from and invisible to most of our neighbors. IBCS is out at the edge...
Text: Exodus 33; Matthew 1:23 | Listen to Message God With Us We often hear the name Immanuel (Emmanuel) around Christmastime in connection with the birth of Jesus. And that’s perfectly fitting because Jesus is Immanuel – “God with us.” But God began revealing the character of Immanuel long before Matthew chapter 1; He began in Genesis 1, in fact. See, you were made for life with God. God created you to know Him, love Him, enjoy Him, and find your satisfaction in Him. That’s Genesis 1-2. But then Genesis 3 happens and sin ruins everything. Sin obstructs and wrecks our relationship with God....