Text: Luke 19:1-10 | Listen to Message Who Sought Whom? The story of Zacchaeus is so familiar it even has its own children’s song! Most of us have heard about the wee little man who climbed up in a sycamore tree to see Jesus. But do we really know the point of the story? In this story about Zacchaeus, Luke wants us to see two things: what happens when we really meet Jesus and how it is that anyone meets him in the first place. On the surface – and initially – it looks like Zacchaeus sought out Jesus. Though he...
Text: Romans 1:16-17 | Listen to Message Why The Reformation [Still] Matters 500 years ago, a 33 year-old German monk left his monastery, walked across the town of Wittenberg, and nailed a poster to the door of Castle Church. Martin Luther’s “95 Theses” – as they came to be known – were an invitation to public theological debate, primarily with one Johann Tetzel. Luther was challenging Tetzel over the Catholic Church’s practice of selling indulgences to raise funds to renovate St. Peter’s Basilica back in Rome. That was October 31, 1517. The Protestant Reformation was born. And the rest, as they...
Text: Luke 18:35-43 | Listen to Message Eyes of Faith “God, if you show me __________________, then I will …” Do you ever find yourself thinking this way – as if you need to see in order to believe? Do you ever put conditions or prerequisites on your faith? This is the way people were in Jesus’ day: “Lord, show us a sign and then we’ll believe that you’re the Messiah.” One of his own disciples, Thomas, went so far as to say he would never believe in the Resurrection unless or until he saw the risen Jesus with his own...
Text: Various | Listen to Message How Do We Get There? In Part I: Where Are We Going? we shared 4 pillars of our vision for advancing the Gospel in our city. This isn’t something a few leaders can do for you; this is something we must all do together. In fact, the success of this vision lies with ordinary people doing extraordinary things, in faith, day after day after day. No strategy can change the heart of a city; only God can do that – and God works through people! #1: Worship Christ with all your heart, soul, mind, and...
Texts: Various | Listen to Message Where Are We Going? It’s a great time to be a part of Grace City Denver! God has blessed us with a season of extraordinary unity, lives are being transformed, volunteers are living out what it means to be the church, and we see new people coming every week. So the vision that follows is not intended to replace all the good things that are happening, but rather to celebrate, amplify, and build upon them. There’s a lot we don’t know about how exactly all this will be fleshed out in the days ahead, but...
Text: Luke 18:15-34 | Listen to Message Entering The Kingdom Jesus, who is in the midst of teaching on the imminent coming of the kingdom of God and prayer, has a brief encounter with two groups of people. The first is a group of infants and children whose parents are bringing them to Jesus, who is in the midst of teaching. Instead of dismissing the children, Jesus uses this encounter to illustrate how he wants his followers to enter the Kingdom of God: with childlike faith. Jesus wants his followers to be totally dependent on Him for their faith — just...
Text: Luke 18:1-14 | Listen to Message The Paradox of Christian Prayer Everyone knows what it feels like when your prayers never seem to make any difference at all and you just want to quit. What’s the point of praying when the answer is always “no”? Maybe God hears other people when they cry out to him, but he doesn’t hear you. He doesn’t care about your problems. At least that’s the way it feels. In seasons of unanswered prayer, “disappointed” or “discouraged” is woefully inadequate to describe the agony you feel. You’re heartbroken. Exhausted. Crushed. Devastated. Luke seems to mock...
Text: Luke 17:20-37 | Listen to Message If That…Then What? Jesus claimed that he would return one day – suddenly and unmistakably – to judge the whole earth. On that day, a separation will be made: the faithless will go into everlasting punishment and the faithful (those who trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior) will go into eternal life in the kingdom of God. About 2,000 years have passed since Jesus made these promises, and obviously he still hasn’t returned. So people tend to have one of two reactions: 1) A microscopic percentage of people engage in endless speculation over...
Text: Luke 17:11-19 | Listen to Message Is Jesus Your Sugar Daddy? It’s a familiar enough children’s Bible story: Ten lepers were healed but only one bothered to return and actually thank Jesus. The standard lesson is something like, “Don’t be like the nine; be like the one and live with a heart of gratitude.” Sure, that. But do you really think the other nine weren’t grateful? Lepers were “the walking dead.” Physically, they were gruesomely disfigured by an infectious disease that also made them ceremonially unclean – and thus unable to participate in the worshiping community. They were ostracized and...
Text: Luke 17:1-10 | Listen to Message Helping Others with Their Sin In stark contrast to the religious culture of his day, Jesus envisioned a culture in which everyone made it easier on everyone else not to sin – and easier to find true forgiveness when they did. This isn’t wishful thinking or pie-in-the-sky theology. Jesus wasn’t saying sin wouldn’t happen. He said it would – but that we could help one another before, during, and after it happens. He said we could work together doing these four things to break the power of sin over us. 1. You break sin’s...