The Gospel House: Recent Episodes
The Gospel House
Biblical teachings to help us see Jesus more clearly. Visit www.thegospel.house for more on who we are.
The blessing that Jesus pronounces to start it all. What does it mean to be poor in spirit? And how do we do it God's way?
Jesus' blessing over our mourning can be an incredible comfort, but we must be willing to embrace mourning AND comforting HIS way or we will never receive it. This means immediately surrendering our mourning and always asking the Holy Spirit how to pray, for ourselves and for others.
It sure doesn't seem like mourning could be a blessing, but that's most likely because we only look at mourning from a worldly perspective. If we can learn to mourn Jesus' way...God's way...then we will find that there is indeed blessing in our mourning - for us AND for those with whom we disciple in our mourning.
Meekness isn't a word we commonly use anymore. But Meekness is at the core of the attitude of Jesus Christ, the same attitude Paul tells us that we should have in Philippians 2:5-11. So if we are going to be Jesus' disciples, we better learn to walk in meekness.
For what do you hunger and thirst? What in your life, outside of God, do you look to for satisfaction? It is at the core of human existence...this search for satisfaction. But until we find that satisfaction in our God - the One who created us with this longing - our search will continue in vain. But when our souls rest in Him...when we hunger and thirst for His righteousness...then we find the reason for our existence.
Jesus taught, on multiple occasions, that if we do not give mercy to others, God will not give mercy to us. So it's no surprise that the merciful are blessed in these beatitudes and will receive mercy. But how do we get there? How do we become merciful and walk in forgiveness exactly as Jesus did?
The Bible is consistent...without holiness...without a pure heart, we cannot see God. So if we want to see God, we should probably figure out what it means to have and how to get one of these blessed pure hearts.
The world is desperate for peace. But there is no such thing as peace outside of peace with God, and we can never reach peace with God through man's ways. This is why Jesus has called all of His disciples to be "blessed peaceMAKERS".
Persecution...not the first thing we think of when we count our blessings. But if we're paying attention to the teachings of Jesus, and the entire Bible, it would be a good idea to start seeing the trials we face as a blessing and stop trying to hard to avoid them; we just might find God's kingdom in the midst of them.
If we are paying attention, the Beatitudes that Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 to open His sermon on the mount, is a really weird blessing. But from this weird blessing, and more telling, our response to it, we can see where our true allegiance lies.
No matter how far we've wandered, God is really good at getting our attention. His voice is loud enough to cut through absolutely everything, and yet, when He draws us in, He chooses to speak to us through silence of all things.
If we are going to walk with God, we have to be prepared to be confused. If God is truly greater than we are; if His thoughts are greater and His ways greater, then it stand to reason that He will often move in ways we don't understand. If we aren't prepared to be confused, our walk will suffer.
In Genesis 5 and 6 we read of two people, Enoch and Noah, who didn't just live life, but who walked with God. If we want to hear God's voice, we would do well to start by examining our proximity to Him. Are we walking with Him, and if so, how close is our walk?
God's deepest desire is to communicate with His creation. This means He WANTS TO SPEAK TO YOU! But do we want to listen?
Concluding our Sovereign sermon series, we have to ask, what is the big deal with God being sovereign? What's the point? What's the purpose of it all? And we find the answer in the most unlikely of places in the story of Joseph.
It is inevitable...in this life, you will feel forgotten, rejected, forsaken, by those closest to you. How do we keep from allowing this forgotten-ness to change how we walk with God though? We find we must trust His timing, USE His timing, and ultimately remember that we are never truly forgotten by the One who matters most.
The truth of God's Sovereignty is that He is indeed sovereign. He is always with us, even when the world...including some within the church...might tell us that He has abandoned us. The Gospel proves that God will never turn away from those in Christ.
Christians don't apply the implications of God's sovereignty nearly enough in their day to day lives. If we're being honest, many of us don't even really know what it means and why only God can claim perfect sovereignty. By looking at the story of Joseph, we can see God's sovereignty at work and learn the true depths of hope and peace that serving a perfectly sovereign God can bring.
Spiritual warfare is REAL. But if we are going to fight it, we cannot fight it man's way. We must embrace the Gospel and fight the way Jesus fought: fighting the RIGHT fight, knowing HOW to fight, and ultimately, knowing how to WIN!
Big calling always comes with big adversity. The bigger the call on your life, the more adversity you can expect. So how do we embrace the adversity of the called and glorify God through it? Listen to find out!
What can the story of Daniel and the Lions' Den teach us about how we can face the adversity that comes our way in the eternal lions' den?
The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego has become a very popular go-to story for Christians lately. But are we learning the RIGHT lessons from this story of adversity that God gives us?
We Christians love the promises of God. We love standing on them, claiming them, and praying them. And we should! But we also can't ignore the fact that there are promises God gives us that require something of us. One of those promises is that in this world, we will face adversity. And instead of always seeking deliverance FROM it, more often than not, God's will is that we walk with Him THROUGH it and let it shape us into His image.
There is no point in even asking God for revival if we have no intention on doing what He says. It's that simple. And do be completely confident that we will do what He says, we have to get public enemy number one out of the way...our selves!
While the United States of America is built on independence, independence is absolutely deadly when we apply it too freely to our spiritual walk. Instead, the Bible teaches that we need to be fully dependent and reliant upon the Holy Spirit if we are to do anything that pleases Him and bring Him the glory He desires.
If we want true biblical revival to sweep our churches and nation, we MUST be broken over the sin in our lives. We see this so clearly in the life of King Josiah and the revival God sends through him during his reign.
Western Christian culture has taken the word revival and given it a life of its own. Unfortunately, this new definition isn't remotely biblical. So before we can ask God for revival, we have to understand what it really entails and what the first step is that we need to take to get there.
As we at the Gospel House celebrate child dedications, we remember that the greatest gift God has given us as we move onward in through this life is that we don't have to do it alone!
Current Western culture is the worst equipped to handle suffering and loss than any other culture in human history. And unfortunately, the church has jumped right in with culture and become just as bad at suffering well, and even worse at walking with others through loss. So once again we turn to King David to learn how we can move onward after loss by positioning ourselves in prayer, allowing ourselves to grieve, and focusing that grief on our true Anchor outside this world.
Last week we looked at how David moved onward after God's victory over Goliath. This week we turn the tables and look at how David moves onward from the worst moment of his life...his sin with Bathsheba. How do we move onward after sin? We must embrace the FULL Gospel.
Often times the most dangerous battle that Christians face is how to move onward after victory, not loss or defeat. But by looking at the familiar story of David versus Goliath, we can learn how to move onward from victory God's way.
We conclude our series on God's gifts to us in a familiar, but oft misapplied passage of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13. Love is God's final word...always...and when we view it in the right context, 1 Corinthians 13 wraps up everything we've talked about through this whole sermon series.
We have finally arrived to the moment we've all been waiting for: Paul's list of spiritual gifts! But we must tread carefully and not step away from our foundation of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit being THE gift. Pastor Jeremy covers how we do that by looking at the gifts, the body, and the purpose of it all.
Paul's command in Galatians 5 to "walk by the Spirit" is an all or nothing call. Walking BY the Holy Spirit requires a daily dependence upon Him and His leading. And if we refuse that and decide to go our own way, even if only in a few areas, we will find ourselves walking by the flesh (man's way) and yielding the fruit of the flesh. But if we walk God's way in all of life, we will find the singular fruit of the Spirit flourishing and growing in our lives and the lives around us. Which way will you walk?
There are a lot of opinions about what is commonly called the five fold ministry. But what if we've focused on the wrong part? What if we focus instead on the Person driving the ministry...the Holy Spirit...and walk in the gifts HE has provided for the Church?
Still building the biblical foundation for God's gift to us, today we look at the purpose for which He gave us this gift from Ephesians 3. By looking at the purpose, the power, and the source, we can finally start stepping into the gift that God gave us - Himself - the Holy Spirit.
Last week we talked about God's greatest gift to us being Himself. This week we talk about the second part of that, that WHO God is, is intricately tied to WHAT God DOES. And what God does is etched into eternity through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus taught on the Holy Spirit, His focus was never on the THINGS the Spirit could and would do through us...it was ALWAYS on the PERSON of the Holy Spirit. So that's where we have to start too when looking at how God has gifted us.
One of the biggest problems we face as a church today is attempting to gain access to God's power by operating in our strengths when that's simply not what God teaches in His Word. His power is perfected in WEAKNESS. So we must learn to become weak so He can make us strong. And we can only do that through the Gospel.
There are two ways to give...man's way and God's way. And it all has to do with the motivation behind our giving. What motivates your generosity?
One enormous implication of the Gospel is the call out of the things of this world and into the things of the Kingdom of God. But how do we do that? This week, Kurt Motsinger, one of our Elders at the Gospel House, breaks down this call to separate and cling to Jesus in 2 Corinthians 6.
Only the Gospel can give us the confidence to stand before emperors and kings while still keeping us humble enough to associate with those on the outskirts of society and "sinners". How do we get there? We must apply the implications of the Gospel Paul give us in 2 Corinthians 3, 4, and 5.
Paul launches into 2 Corinthians on a strange note...suffering. Then in the second chapter immediately moves into correcting the Corinthian church. Could the two be connected?
According to Pastor Timothy Keller, a disciple is "one who applies the implications of the Gospel to ever facet of his or her life." But before we can apply these implications, we have to learn what the Gospel is, what it requires, and what it promises.
The incredible reality of the Easter story is that we can behold our LIVING Savior for ourselves! By looking at the truth of the resurrection, the truth of His revelation, we can see that the only logical response we can give this living Savior is a life surrendered to Him.
It's commonly taught that Good Friday is good for us because it was so awful for Jesus, but is this true? To answer this question, we look at the events of Good Friday through the motivation of Jesus' ultimate aiming point, and then look at whether our aiming point is the same.
Pilate's infamous question to Jesus, "What is truth?" echos throughout the ages. And the truth of Jesus confronts him, and everyone else at this "trial", head on. Through Pilate, and those observing, we learn a great deal about the truth about truth, the truth about God's Kingdom, and the truth about our response when we "Behold, the Man!"
The Roman Soldiers come to the Garden of Gethsemane to capture Jesus. How many of us Christians approach Him the same way? Trying to manipulate Him into doing or being who WE want Him to be. But Jesus will have none of it. You may come to the Garden that way, but He will alway reveal Himself as the GREAT I AM and watch as EVERYTHING bows before Him.
We can learn some great truths about who Jesus really is if we look at the relationship between Judas and Jesus. More than any other person, Judas shows us the importance of the balance of truth and relationship in our walk with Jesus.
Through the eyes of Peter, specifically through John's account where Jesus washes His disciples feet, we learn the truth of who Jesus is, the truth of how Jesus loves, and the truth of how we are called to love.
Pastor Jaryd Motsinger joins our Gospel House family this week to give us four practical steps to follow so we can obey Jesus and live our lives on mission as His disciples. By hearing God's voice, being obedient to His voice, engaging with those around us, and holding each other accountable, we can partner with the Holy Spirit and make disciples of ALL nations!
The story of Gideon, just like the story of every other human hero in the Bible, ends in tragedy; for him and for the nation following him. It teaches us that if our trust and hope isn't exclusively in Jesus, we will be crushed. The key is in remembering the faithfulness of God, especially when the world makes it so easy to forget.
To be God's warrior, we have to fight God's battles according to God's battle plan - not our own. And once we start, we have to be faithful and FINISH the battle God has called us to, believing HE will give us the strength to complete what He has called us to.
Gideon is most well known for the fleeces that he put out to confirm that God was really going to save Israel through him. But do God's Warriors really need fleeces? Through the scripture passage for today, Pastor Jeremy shows that God's warriors are Spirit filled, look to the cross as the only fleece they need, and glorify God in their weakness - the weaker, the better!
The story of Gideon in Judges 6, 7, and 8 is one of the most popular in the Bible. And digging deep into the story - beyond just the surface implications and applying the Gospel implication - we can find out how we, too, can become God's warrior.
The world today seems to be all about yelling louder than your opponent. The louder you yell, the more likely you are to win the argument. But Jesus taught AND SHOWED His disciples the exact opposite. The loudest sermon we are to preach stems from preaching the Gospel to ourselves, LIVING the gospel every day, and actively BEING disciples of Jesus Christ.
From Jesus' commission in the book of Mark we learn three key elements in which every disciple is to be obedient: to GO everywhere, to PREACH the Gospel, and to preach it to ALL OF CREATION.
Every disciple of Jesus Christ has been called, equipped, and empowered to be HIS witness. But we MUST do it His way! The call is to step out of doing it in our power and into being His witness with His power. It's a hard ask, but it's also the most exciting adventure we will ever step into!
All four of the Gospel writers give us a different commission, or sending out, from our resurrected Savior. We kick off this series by looking at Jesus' sending from the Gospel of John in John 20:21 by looking at how being sent means we have to go, being sent with the expectation of going EXACTLY like Jesus, and that we are not alone as we go in obedience to the Holy Spirit.
To look forward into how we, as a church, are going to attack 2022, we go back to the first sermon ever preached at the Gospel House back before any of our plant team even knew we were planting a church. Taking the lessons from Jonathan and his armor bearer found in 1 Samuel 14, our plan in 2022 is to fight to fight, to wait for the tremble, and to inspire the hiding.
Merry Christmas from the Gospel House family to yours! Heaven is HERE! The Moment is HERE! JESUS is HERE!
Christmas marks the moment that Jesus was born...born to be the King of the Jews and for all who believe in Him, the King of our heart. But this isn't an invitation into your life as a guest. King Herod understood this, so he tried to kill Jesus. Will we do the same? Or will we respond by offering this King our lives, our bodies, our hearts, to make His home within us?
Part of the magic of Christmas is the anticipation that came when Jesus finally fulfilled the long awaited promises God had made to the Jewish people. But that's not the only thing that Jesus fulfilled! And because He fulfilled the ENTIRE Word of God, we still cling with anticipation to the promises He has made to us!
The Christmas season is MIRACULOUS as it marks the miracle of Heaven coming down to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. By looking at the miracle of Christmas, the miracle of Redemption, and the REAL miracle of Christmas, we can see the line
The process of discipling with other believers is very similar to the process of discipling with God: we listen first - to God and then to others, then we speak, and then we do. The entire process requires a radical sharing with one another of our whole lives. This is what characterized the New Testament Church and it is where the power of God continues to be most prominent in churches today.
Our first step in the discipling process may seem obvious, but it cannot be overstated: we must ACTIVELY be discipling with God. To do this, we need to follow three interwoven steps for aa POWER-FILLED PRAYER LIFE: We need to LISTEN, then we need to TALK, then we need to DO!
God's faithful moves in three major ways: in spite of us, through us, and to us. Looking back on God's faithfulness to the Gospel House, we can clearly see Him moving among us and be encouraged to allow the faithfulness of His Gospel to shine through us and we continue running the race He sets before us.
Being a REAL disciple of Jesus Christ is HARD. Jesus didn't pretend it was easy, and neither should we. Pastor Jeremy, teaching from Luke 14, shows how JESUS teaches us to count the cost BEFORE we follow Him and NOT to simply follow Him blindly. Once we're ready to commit, there are three proofs that will show us we are truly His disciples.
On this fifth Sunday of the month, we had our family service at the Gospel House. Since we've been talking about discipling, we put into practice what we've been learning with an exercise called "speed discipling" - simply talking to others about what God has been teaching us for one minute. Through this simple exercise, we hoped to show everyone how simple discipling really is and that anyone
Over and over again, the Gospel emphasized BEING over DOING, but is this where we are putting our emphasis in our modern church cultural movement of "making disciples"? By looking at the history of discipleship, discipling as a VERB, and what it means to BE a disciple, Pastor Jeremy shows how Jesus gives us a better way than disciple making.
The three pillars of the Gospel House, worship, discipling, and proclaiming the Gospel, end up being much more related than we think. One of the greatest errors Christians tend to make is trying to separate these categories as we go through our life. Pastor Jeremy explains how these three are intricately related (with some fine artistic drawings) and how they all tie back into the greatest commandment.
What can we learn about worship from one of the greatest Jewish prayers in the Bible, the greatest command according to Jesus, Deuteronomy 6:4-5? As we study this passage, it is vitally important that we ask ourselves what the JEWISH understanding would have been of this passage within the context it was written, NOT how this passage would be interpreted from a modern Western cultural understanding.
God has a specific way in which He desires to be worshiped. So worshiping Him outside of, in OUR own way, is actually disobedience. Looking at worship as obedience, we can learn the proper way to worship God by looking at what disobedient worship looks like, and what obedient worship looks like - worshiping in Spirit and in Truth.
The two things God lays out in Genesis 22 that MUST be present in our worship for it to be considered biblical are obedience and sacrifice. If we look at our cultural definition of worship today, can we honestly say we are offering God a costly sacrifice of worship, or are we offering him a sacrifice that costs us nothing? Looking at costless worship, the Worthy Object, and the worthy sacrifice, Pastor Jeremy shows how we, like King David, can refuse to offer God an offering that costs us nothing.
When studying the Bible, the principle of first mention tells us that the first time a word is used in the Bible, we can learn a great deal about how God is going to define that word moving forward. The first time we see the word worship is in Genesis 22, the passage in which we find the story where Abraham is called to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loves (this is also the first time love is used in the Bible). By looking at the three worshipers on the mountain in this story, Abraham, Isaac, and the mysterious third worshiper, we learn how God wants us to define worship according to His Word.
The Fear of the Lord is such a tricky concept for Christians to wrestle with. Are we actually supposed to be afraid of God? The answer might surprise you. Pastor Jeremy teaches that through the fear of God's Presence, the fear of God's absence, and a bridge to span the gap between those two things, we can foster a healthy fear of the Lord in our worship and in our lives.
"Worship given when idolatry exists in the heart will negate the worship."
The first step of worship is making sure that our worship isn't being given to any of the subtle idols that exist all around us. Katelyn leads us through how these idols can tangle us up, and gives us three postures we can take to tear them down: the fear of the Lord, surrender, and a true heart of worship.
This week, Pastor Jeremy takes a look at how glory and obedience join in to help make up the attitude of Christ and how the two act together to bring everything together in the life of a true Christian.
Culture tends to push us to define our selves one of two ways, either what others think of us, or what we declare about ourselves. But what if God has given us a BETTER way? What if we can step off the map of culture's value assessment, and anchor ourselves in something so much deeper, more fulfilling, and far more secure. Good new...we can! Pastor Jeremy teaches us how by looking at the biblical definition of humility, selflessness, and how Jesus invites us into both.
In Philippians 2, Paul gives us THE core value for all disciples of Christ to attain - the attitude of Christ. This week Pastor Jeremy shows us how we run after that attitude through setting the atmosphere for the attitude, knowing the attitude, and how to attain the attitude.
The mind is a powerful thing. But what if God has given us a gift more powerful than our minds? What if He has given us access to HIS!?! Well He as, and in this introductory message, Pastor Jeremy lays out the importance of seeing the darkness in our thoughts, learning His thoughts, and then surrendering our thoughts to make them His.
As we wrap up our series in 1 John, God shows us in His love letter to us HOW we bring about lasting change to make all these things happen. Through REAL Transformation, REAL Faith, and the REAL Way, Truth, and Life, we can find the REAL LIFE that God desires for every one of us by learning to pray "not my will, but Yours be done."
One of the major themes in the book of 1 John is God's definition of REAL versus the world's. This week, Pastor Jeremy teaches on God's definition of REAL love. In God's definition, REAL love DOES, REAL love BELIEVES, and REAL love has an Anchor.
Pastor Jeremy continues teaching from 1 John, God's Love Letter to us, as God defines who the REAL Antichrist is, what His REAL promise is to us, who the REAL you is, and who our REAL family should be.
The entire Bible could be viewed as God's love letter to us, His children, but 1 John is especially rich when viewed through this lens. Today, Pastor Jeremy begins a four week look through the book of 1 John as we look at what God tells us what is REAL...REAL Life, REAL Fellowship, REAL Motivation, and a REAL promise!
The promise in Ephesians 3:20 tells us that God "is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think", but that promise stems from something much bigger...God Himself! Pastor Jeremy breaks down this promise by looking at Who God is, What He does, and How He does it; helping us to go beyond a simple promise to name and claim and get to the Promise Keeper who is abundantly beyond all we could ask or imagine.
Wrapping up our core series and closing out our Gospel statement, this week Pastor Jeremy teaches on how the Holy Spirit working in us causes us to "overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us." Walking through Romans 8, we see how the Holy Spirit in us conquers condemnation, sin and death, our present struggles, and we do it all through perfect obedience just like Jesus. But we MUST keep in step with the Spirit.
Last week we look at the Gospel principal that we can't, in our own strength, walk out the Gospel. So the logical next step is to ask, what did Jesus do that we can't? Looking at Hebrews 5:1-10, Pastor Jeremy lays out exactly how Jesus' perfect obedience played out in the way He came, saw, and conquered...or in the words of Julius Caesar, veni, vidi, vici.
The Gospel MUST start here. If we are building our Gospel foundation on anything else, it is sure to be shallow and easily shaken. Pastor Jeremy teaches how the Gospel starts when we reach the end of ourselves by looking at the Root, the Fruit, and the Beauty of our inability to walk out the Gospel in our own strength.
Last week Pastor Jeremy taught on who the person of the Holy Spirit is, so this week we turn to the acts and power of the Holy Spirit and how that relates to the person of the Holy Spirit. By looking at the promise of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the power, and the position of the Spirit and our position to receive that power, we learn how we can be "clothed with power from on high" as we walk in the Spirit.
Conversations and sermons on the Holy Spirit usually pertain to supernatural gifts, speaking in strange languages, and other things the Holy Spirit does. But before we can truly understand any of the gifts, fruit, or power the Holy Spirit offers to us, we have to be based on a foundation of who He is. Pastor Jeremy lays this foundation by looking at the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's purpose, and the accessibility of the Holy Spirit.
Teaching from the life of Leah found in Genesis 29:31-35, Pastor Jeremy lays out three identity traps Leah falls into - the trap of defining our identity ourselves, by our reputation, or from someone or something else - and also the way to break out of these traps and find True Rest.
The Tree of Life is only mentioned three times in the Bible. Genesis, when Adam and Eve are banned from eating from it, Revelation when the New Heavens and New Earth appear, and in Proverbs. So how can we access the Tree of Life NOW? It has everything to do with your dreams and desires.
We can learn a lot about Jesus from the Gospels, but what about from the messianic prophecies in the Old Testament? These tell us not only how Jesus acted, but who Jesus was born to be, who Jesus HAD to be in order to fulfill Scripture.
The Bible is the Word of God. It's how we learn about Him, it's how we meet and see Him clearly. The question is, do we approach the Bible as authoritative in our lives, or do we critique the Bible with our standards and values?
This is the question that started The Gospel House. Hear the heartbeat behind why we exist here at the Gospel House and the reason we do what we do.