Text: Romans 12:1-2 In his book Step By Step, author James Petty asserts, “until the industrialized age, most Christian writings on guidance emphasized guidance to God, not guidance from God.” Our attention has shifted from relationship with our Creator to navigation within His Creation. We’ve lost our path, but Romans 12:1-2 can help us regain our bearings. In this passage, Paul clarifies the means by which we which we discern God’s path – the renewed mind. The renewed mind serves as the touchstone by which we test the options presented us. We don’t look to a wet fleece or a […]

Text: Acts 13:13-52 | Listen to Message The Heart of the Christian Gospel   Ask a dozen people on the street what they think the essential message of Christianity is, and you’ll probably get a dozen different answers. Some think Christianity is little more than advice for living a religious life. Others think Christianity teaches that God is mad at everyone or, conversely, that God loves everyone and just wants everyone to be happy, regardless of who/what they believe. Still others think you’re just supposed to ask Jesus into your heart – whatever that means – and then good things […]

Text: Acts 13:1-12 | Listen to Message Making a straight, sensible path to Jesus   The first Christian missionaries impacted the world by taking the gospel to influential cities. Salamis was the cultural and commercial center of Cyprus, and Paphos was the capital. Together, these two cities shaped the religion, culture, politics, and economics of the entire island. In order to impact our generation for Christ, we, too, must make a gospel impact on the cities. We must go to the people and places that are forging culture, and we must make a Jesus-shaped impression there. When Christians avoid these […]

Text: Acts 12:1-25 | Listen to Message Faith in deliverance or in death   The story of Peter’s miraculous 11th-hour rescue from a Roman prison cell is a familiar one. Christian children all over the world have heard how the church prayed and the angel came, how chains fell off and doors opened automatically as guards slept. And subtly, if not intentionally, the moral of the story that’s been reinforced is something like, “If you pray and trust God, He’ll deliver you.” Not so fast. In the verses immediately preceding Peter’s dramatic rescue, we learn that another apostle, James, has […]

Text: Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3 | Listen to Message What does it mean to be a Christian?   Christians are people who believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Therefore, those who call themselves “Christians” should probably think and act and talk a lot like Jesus. So here are a couple questions worth pondering: 1. If others based their understanding of Jesus Christ entirely on your actions and attitudes, what would they think Jesus was like? 2. If someone took you to court and charged you with being a Christian, what factual evidence would they be able to present to convict you? […]

Text: Acts 10:1—11:18 | Listen to Message The death of racism in the life of Jesus   The Early Church was troubled by deep racial divides between Jews and Gentiles. The Jews were “God’s chosen people,” who had received many privileges that the Gentiles had not (including the Law, the covenant promises of God, the Temple, and even the bloodline of the Messiah). Many Jews felt elitist about these privileges and became full-blown racists. They looked down on the Gentiles and would have nothing to do with the “unclean dogs.” So the Early (Jewish) Church wrongly concluded that a Gentile could […]

Text: Acts 9:32-43 | Listen to Message Jesus demands the impossible   The two miracles in this text are linked by several astonishing similarities that illustrate the amazing, life-changing power of the Gospel. First, note that the characters in both stories were trapped in hopeless, incurable conditions: Aeneas was paralyzed and Tabitha was dead. But each story takes a sudden and dramatic turn when something absurd happens: Peter tells both of them to rise. You might as well tell a blind person to look at you; paralyzed and dead people don’t stand to their feet. This is an impossible command…except for […]