Encounter Church DC: Recent Episodes
Encounter Church
Sunday talks from Encounter Church in Washington, DC. We are a community of followers of Jesus with one main goal, to create the environment where anybody, regardless of their background would be able to encounter God. For more information visit encounterdc.com
How do we make sense of the fact that Jesus comes as an all out war against the devil? A big part of the work of Jesus in the New Testament is to work against the power of the devil.
We are finally getting around to see Jesus in action. And this is the first story we see of Jesus’ adulthood, right before he starts his ministry, he goes into the desert for this 40 day time of prayer and fasting.
If you think about it for a second, that sounds like an insane statement; we just saw Jesus be baptized and the presence of the Holy Spirit come to dwell with him. And normally you would think the next thing Jesus would do is something super pious right? Which is true, he goes into the desert to pray and fast for 40 days; but this happens in the context of temptation. The Spirit leads Jesus into the desert with the goal of being tempted.
But wait, God is ok with tempting people What is going on? In this sermon, we look at the role temptation & trials plays in our lives.
Last week we looked at how John starts doing this new thing and saying The Kingdom of Heaven has come near and that God is doing something different now. The first question anybody would have is, well. those are the prophecies about the Messiah, are you the Messiah? And his answer is no. We see two examples this in Luke 3:15-18 and in John 1:19-28.
In this sermon, we explore the idea of what He can possibly mean by saying that the one coming after Him would baptize people with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
So... who is the Holy Spirit?
Repent means to turn around. Why was the idea of repenting so revolutionary? Because up until that point, it wasn’t part of the deal. Not that the idea of repentance didn’t exist, but the basis in which the people of Israel were in good standing with God wasn’t like that.
It was through the law of Moses and the system of sacrifices at the Temple.
Baptism is sort of an innovation of John the Baptist- at the time, the concept of a ritual cleansing existed. When a gentile became Jewish, they had to undergo a ritual cleansing, and that was the closest thing to baptism.
Jewish people didn’t have to do that. So why is John all of a sudden telling people they have to repent and they have to get baptized?
What’s changed? The key is in his message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”
Matthew 3:1-2
1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Mark 1:4-5
4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
Luke 3:7-14
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 “What should we do then?” the crowd asked.
11 John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
Most of the time, the interactions someone has with the Church, through friendship, visiting a church service, a small group, whatever… is what God uses to lead people further and further in the journey of faith until they have a life-transforming personal encounter with Jesus.
Which means that part of what the church does; part of what we are called to do, is the same thing John the Baptist did, we prepare the way for Jesus.
What does that look like today?
Passage:
Mark 1:1-8
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way” —
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’ ”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
What role does doubt play in our spiritual development and in our interactions with God?
Passage: Luke 1:5-25
We live in a time where doubt is seen as a good thing, or at least not a bad thing. And there are a number of reasons why:
- We’ve seen so many scandals that we can’t help but be skeptical
- In a post-enlightenment world, the natural tendency is to always want a naturalistic explanation to everything; so all of a sudden, all the supernatural stuff from the Bible becomes suspect. The default of the world is skepticism.
- But also in the church we’ve seen “faith” abused… "you just have to believe"… but the thing doesn’t happen
So our natural tendency is to cater to skepticism and doubt. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, we want people to feel welcome. If you have questions, you’re welcome, if you’re not sure about the whole Jesus thing, you’re welcome.
However, in the passage we are looking at, doubt is chastised.
What’s more, other passages in the Bible seem to allude to the same thing, belief and faith, seem to be key to having a proper relationship with God.
Hebrews 11:6John 20:27-29
Mark 9:21-27
So again, what role does doubt play in our spiritual development and on our interactions with God?
Only when you see God as Father then does the Christian life makes sense. This is the only motivation that will allow you to endure; why be a part of a local congregation, why serve, why commit to spiritual disciplines?
It has to be because this is my Father’s business, which in a way it makes it my business, your business.
On our journey through the life of Jesus, we are arriving at the story of the visit of the Magi. If you grew up attending a church that is more liturgical you probably know that there is a specific day when the church celebrates this, January 6. In certain parts of Latin America, this is called 3 Kings Day or Día de los Reyes.
Because we are taking our time trying to look at the events of Jesus’ life in some sort of chronological order, we are a little behind, but this sermon explores that story.
Passage: Matthew 2:1-23
We are in a series looking at all the aspects we can of the life of Jesus. And before we get to Jesus’ ministry, there’s a couple of stories that take place between Jesus’ birth and the beginning of his ministry.
In this sermon, we take a look at the story of when Jesus is presented at the temple and the impact that event had on two people.
If you missed the online service yesterday, you can watch the sermon here. Pastor Joel spoke on Luke 1:76-79 and discussed how the birth of Jesus has already made a difference in the world for the better, and thus, in our lives.
Matthew 1:18-23
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, t because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
The word messiah means "anointed one".
In Hebrew culture 2 types of leaders: priests and kids.
Last week we talked about how Jesus was a different type of king, this week, we dive deeper into how he is a different type of priest.
If you hear the word Jesus, what’s the next word that comes to your mind? Probably either the word cross or the word Christ. In some pop culture references, people use Christ like it’s Jesus’ last name, but it’s actually not.
Christ is actually a title and it’s probably the most famous title that Jesus has. But have you ever wondered where that title comes from?
Passage: Isaiah 53:1-11
1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
"This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David…" - Matthew 1:1.
"... the son of David..." = One of Jesus’ most famous titles
We don’t know what to make of the Bible, so we either read some passages and are horrified and walk away from the book, or we use it to abuse and hurt and oppress others, or we try to use it as a fortune cookie...
But Jesus says the whole point of the book is that it should point you to Him.
You get to meet Him in the book, the whole point of the Bible is a way of meeting Jesus, of getting to know him, that’s evident in the Gospels, but it’s also true in the Old Testament.
The scriptures help us make sense of Jesus, of why he had to come, and why he is doing what he is doing, and the more you do that, the more you fall in love with him.
And that makes all the difference.
One of the key truths about Jesus is that He is God. He is part of the community of self-giving self-sacrificial love, what we call the Trinity, and as God, he has always been present and active in the World, even if we don’t notice it.
Who is Jesus to you? A friend, an acquaintance, a far off God, a Savior? All of the above? Have you at one point or another thought of him as each one of those things and even more?
What if we told you that at some level, you are right? He is some of those things... he is the Savior, he is a friend, he is the Son of God, he is a religious teacher and a historical figure, he is more… but what does that mean for us?
Join us for the launch of a special sermon series as we dive into a months long exploration of who our Savior was and is.
All hallows eve...⠀
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All hallows day or all saints day...⠀
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Historically this is the day the church remembers the saints and martyrs; it’s a day where we think and talk about death as well as those who’ve gone before us. These last couple of years have been marked by death, we’ve seen it all around us with the COVID-19 pandemic especially. In this message, pastor Joel looks at it from a biblical perspective.
Have you asked yourself that question as we’ve been going through our Renaissance series? What would the future look like, for the Church, for Encounter, for yourself even if we were open to change? If we were open to confronting the hurt, the ugly, the sin and allow God to work through it to reveal His glory through what His intention for the Church was in the first place?
At the start of this sermon series we talked about how the main metaphor the writers of the New Testament use to describe the Church is that of a body.
This means that Church is not something you do, or something you attend, it is something you belong to. That the proper way of engaging in the Church is not as an external entity or as an event, but as a collective that you become a part of.
A lot of the unhealthy or dysfunctional ways we engage with church are a result of making church into something other than what it is supposed to be. In this sermon, we look at 3 of those ways:
- The Spectator
- The Consumer
- The Consumed
The Writing on the WallGuest Speaker, Austin Hedge, from our sister church, The Foundry Church in Baltimore speaks on Daniel Chapter 5 and the mysterious "writing on the wall."
If the church is ultimately the body of Christ, what should the church do? The Ecclesial minimum is the irreducible minimum of the church, but what is it?
There are four aspects to it:
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Worship
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Formation
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Community
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Mission
What is church?
A concert and a TED talk…? For the most part, it is something you attend, and if you’re special you get to perform at it or if you are a volunteer, you get to be involved.
It's meant to do something for me… made me learn something or feel something. Or it's a means to meet and connect with people.
Somehow, church helps my walk with God; it gets God off my back, or is meant to make following God in my personal life easier.
Believe it or not, a lot of these things are true, in part.. But at the same time, they are not that compelling.
A concert and a TED talk can be delivered online, there’s a ton better preachers and singers/musicians out there…
The church is known for its abuses or its hypocrites or its entanglement with politics or the culture wars. To be honest, who wants to be a part of that?
In this message, Pastor Joel attempts to help you expand your vision for what this thing called church is and consider why it matters and why we shouldn’t give up on it.
There is something that happens in the moments of profound crisis that reshape so many things; from how we see the world to how certain things work to our priorities, it exposes what is not working which creates the ground in which the next thing can flourish.
This is a principle that you see all over the Scriptures, particularly in the stories of the people of Israel in exile.
Have you noticed that almost everyone feels exhausted and weary these days? Even if we were able to get a vacation of some sort? What if the reason for that is that maybe we need a deeper kind of rest that we cannot manufacture ourselves?
What if the reason we feel so exhausted and worn out is because we need a type of rest and refreshment that comes from outside ourselves. In this sermon, we take a look at a Bible story that is precisely about that. A prophet on the run for his life who is absolutely exhausted and doesn’t think he can go on… that is until he meets someone who gives him the strength to continue.
In the last sermon of the Summer Fruit series, guest speaker, Sean Cronin from Passion for Planting speaks on Self Control.
Gentleness is one of those words that because of how we use it currently, we can either dismiss its importance, think it only applies to certain people, assume it’s not for us, or even worse, see gentleness as a bad thing. But what exactly is gentleness in the Bible?
Throughout all of the Scriptures, one of the things the writers of the Bible seem to be in full agreement is that God is a faithful God. But what does that mean exactly?
In week 7 of our Summer Fruit series, guest speaker Kati Hubbard speaks on Goodness.
Kati Hubbard is the Worship Director at The Foundry Church - Baltimore. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she now resides just outside of Baltimore with her husband Jake, two preschoolers, two cats, one dog, and 37 houseplants. Kati's life goal is to be an interpreter of sorts, helping translate the language of faith to those wrestling with doubt. She is convinced that honest questions lead to honest worship, and that when it comes to winning our trust, no one is more patient than Jesus.
What happens when we realize we are the recipients of God’s kindness? How does God's truth of being fundamentally a kind God, enable us to show kindness to others? In a world full of harshness and cruelty, Jesus shows us that kindness is the best antidote to the ugly we find in the world.
How we can see the same patience that God has, bear fruit in our lives, thus helping us become patient people?
Have you ever considered what it actually looks like to live like Jesus would have? We talk about this all the time but... the life of Jesus is vastly different from our life. We've never seen Jesus have to deal with the pressures of a job on the Hill, or juggling a professional career while also trying to raise children. Or navigating the dating scene in DC. So if the call for Christians is to live like Jesus. What in the world does that look like?
The answer, according to the Scriptures, is being guided and changed by the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit who leads us into a Christlike life. And the result of that work, is what the Apostle Paul called the fruit of the Spirit, 9 virtues that the Children of God display in their life and that we can see present in the life of Jesus.
This sermon kicks off a 10-week series where we are going to look at what it looks like to live by the Spirit, how we can see each fruit of the Spirit present in the life of Jesus, and how different that is from how the world today lives.
If we are a new creation in Christ, what are we to make about the fact that we still sin? The Apostle Paul explains this in terms of what he calls our sinful nature, that a part of us, by nature of being human in a fallen world still has a tendency toward sin. But this should no longer be the defining element of who we are, and it does not mean we are powerless against sin. Being a new creation in Christ means we are now empowered by the Holy Spirit to have victory over sin. This means that the Christian life is a life of living into our identity. We are declared righteous in Christ, but God’s desire is for this to match up with how we live our lives. The journey of following Jesus on Earth is a journey of being transformed into the type of people who live like Jesus.
For Christians, the defining element of our identity is who we are in Christ. Our sin has been forgiven and we have been given a new nature. While we still struggle with sin, we are a new creation, adopted into the family of God. We are who God says we are, His children, and this should be how we see ourselves.
Part of understanding who we are is understanding our sinful nature. We tend to either overvalue sin, making it the defining characteristic of our identity (and not the fact that we are made in God’s image), or undervalue it (seeing sin just as character flaws and not as rebellion against God). The Scriptures show us sin for what it is, how insidious and serious it is, while at the same time showing us that it is not the defining element of our identity, and giving us hope for redemption in Christ.
What’s the starting point for our identity? Is it our abilities? Our flaws? Our sin? A big part of the problem is that we start conversations about human identity, particularly in the church, in the wrong place. We either start from our sinful state… which makes it seem like we were meant to be broken from the start, or we start from the place of our character and virtues, without actually ever addressing our brokenness. But the vision of humanity that we see in the Scriptures is different: Humans were created in the image and likeness of God, out of love and for love. Before anything else, this is the starting point of human identity. We are who God meant us to be. Understanding this distinction helps us frame our brokenness and sin properly, but it also illuminates the potential of humanity and God’s vision for what He desires us to become.
We all to a certain degree struggle with our identity. Both in how we perceive ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world. We either ignore our brokenness and dysfunction, or we are crushed by the weight of it and don’t realize the beauty and wonder of being humans made in the image of God and loved by Him. This crisis of identity not only affects our inner mental state, but it spills over into our relationships, both with other people and even with God. It is then crucial for us to get a real grasp on our identity because it is only when we are honest about who we are that God can begin the work of redeeming and healing what’s broken in us, but also where we can live out of our identity as children of God and live into the life God has for us, as C.S. Lewis would say: “How can [God] meet us face to face till we have faces?”
How does Christianity remain compelling and inviting in a world that rejects more and more the tenants of the Christian faith? By a radical commitment to hospitality, to inviting and welcoming people regardless of who they are, what they’ve done and what they believe because this is how Jesus has invited and welcomed us. This does not mean a capitulation to the Christian tenants, but entering into the tension of continuing to be inviting and welcoming even when we disagree with those we are inviting and welcoming and even when they reject us.
One of the worst consequences of individualism is the loss of community. This is something we’ve seen in particular in the last year, as the lockdowns made us more and more isolated. Christianity offers an alternative, a group of people committed to radical community where we can truly belong, be seen, and loved.
Faithfulness to Jesus is not just a matter of adherence to His teachings, but of obedience. Jesus’ goal is for us to “put into practice” his teachings. One of the core ways in which we do this is by engaging in spiritual practices, establishing rhythms were we practice our faith and are formed by the Spirit of God. This obedience to the teachings of Jesus will orient our heart and our affection towards Him so that our character is formed in such a way that withstands any sort of ideological pressures.
In the first episode of the Self/Less series, we talked about how there are 4 postures; four ways of orienting our lives that can allow us to love God and love our neighbors.
They are, faithfulness, obedience, community and hospitality. The first two postures are about our relationship with God and the last two postures are about our relationship with others.
This sermon takes a look at the first posture, faithfulness.
We live in a tumultuous world. Marked by extreme polarization between ideologies, increasing secularism and a tainted reputation of the church in the aftermath of a tumultuous year where Christianity has been associated with some of the darker moments in the life of our country and where the Christian faith is being co-opted by different political ideologies.
How can we live as Christians in a world like this?
What we see in the Scriptures is the call of Jesus to live lives that are characterized by love, love of God and love of others. In other words, in a world that is defined by extreme individualism, Jesus calls us to live a life beyond ourselves, a selfless life that focuses on God
The questions for us Christians after the incredibly difficult year we have all been through is, what does the story of Holy Week, of the death of Jesus that we remember on Good Friday and the resurrection of Jesus that we celebrate today on Easter Sunday, what do these two events have to say to the time we’ve been through but also to the season we have ahead of us?
In difficult moments of profound and almost inexplicable suffering and pain, like the ones we have gone through in 2020 and then this year as well, we start looking for some sort of answer and explanation for what’s happening.
These are the moments when we ask, if there is a God how could He allow this to happen?
Those of us who are Christians wonder the same thing… God why is this happening? Where are you?
And today, when we remember Good Friday, the day of the crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of the Roman Empire, those questions become particularly poignant.
Because we believe that the Good Friday story has something to say to us… something to say to our suffering and our pain.
One of the reasons we are doing this series is because we want to become a praying church. We want to be a church where everything we do is fueled by prayer.
And that is something that we can’t do individually, that is something we do together. There is a type of prayer that is about private intimacy between us and God individually. But there is also a corporate dimension to prayer. There are prayers God answers individually and there are prayers that God answers when His people come together.
How long should we pray for? Not meaning how long in a day, bur for how long should we be praying for something?
Sometimes we pray and it seems that our prayer gets answered immediately, some times it feels like it takes, weeks, months, years.
What’s the average delivery time on prayer?
Because there are people that have been praying for the same thing for years and still haven’t seen an answer.
An illness to be cured of, a relationship to be restored, a partner.
And if this is you, at some point you’re gonna ask yourself, "should we just give up? Why keep praying? Maybe God is never going to answer this prayer"
Why do our prayers matter? And how do we process the fact that sometimes our prayers don’t get answered?
The thing that we keep coming back to over and over and where the name of this series comes from is that we need to be taught how to pray. The disciples ask Jesus to teach them how to pray and he goes on to teach them The Lord's Prayer.
We don't believe Jesus meant that we should recite it every time we "pray" but there’s gotta be a reason why He taught it.
In this message, Pastor Joel discusses the Lord’s prayer is the archetypal prayer. How the elements of this prayer teach us the basics that we need to know about a prayer time.
He goes through it line by line.
What is prayer? Prayer is communication with God.
That’s a very open concept, because we can communicate in a myriad ways.
Through song, some of us in silence. We can just whisper a word, a thought, reciting a Psalm or a prayer that is already written…
We can say something in our own words, for a few seconds or for a long time.
In public or in private.
And honestly, throughout a life of following Jesus, we’ll use all of those, we’ll pray in a thousand different ways. Which is a good thing. Because we will face so many different situations and be in so many different circumstances that we will need to avail ourselves of all of those modes of communication.
We are starting in-person services again… but, should we just go back to business as usual? Or is God trying to do a new thing? What we feel is that over the past few months, we’ve learned some things, and God has shown us some things… and now we have a new vision for what God wants to do:
A church fueled by prayer
A church committed to the teachings of Jesus
A church devoted to practicing the way of Jesus
A church that extends beyond our geographic boundaries
A church of welcoming community
How does God speak to us? When it comes to seeking God’s guidance for our lives, how can we listen for God’s voice, but also how do we know it is Him speaking and not last night’s pizza? In the third episode of the Into the Unknown series, pastor Joel talks about 4 ways in which God guides us and why we should not be anxious of making decisions about our future.
We’re currently in this series that talks about following God “Into the Unknown." The main idea is that, we are following after God’s presence, that God is the one who guides us, and when we talk about that aren’t we really asking the question: What would Jesus do? And wouldn’t it be great to always know the answer?
But we’re not in the times of Exodus...there’s no actual cloud to follow.
In the first episode of the series, we talked about organizing our lives around God’s presence; which is all all fine and great but… how does God actually guide us? Are we going to hear a voice? Are we going to open the Bible at the right page and our eyes are going to come on the right verse, is an angel going to show up?
Now we do believe that some people at some moments have heard from God like this. But for the most of us, for the most part, this sort of stuff does not happen does it?
And what happens is that we end up either upset at God because we feel like He is being silent when He could speak to us. Or we end up upset at ourselves for not being good enough to get God to tell us what to do. If only we were holier then maybe God would speak to us.
So which is it? Is God just being fickle? Are we doing something wrong?
Or are just thinking about this whole idea of hearing from God and listening to God’s guidance the wrong way?
How do we follow God when we don't know what's ahead, when we have just gone through a year like 2020?
Pastor Joel responds to the events that transpired in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, January 6th.
Visit https://www.encounterdc.com/blog/tendaysofprayer to follow along our Ten Days of Prayer Campaign in response to the attack on the Capitol.
How do we face 2021, in the aftermath of 2020? Now that we are aware of the fact that so many of the things we took for granted were not as solid as we thought and that life is so much more unpredictable and sometimes dangerous than we assume, should we embrace the optimism that says “this is going to be your year” and the illusion that if we set plans and resolutions that we are going to achieve our goals not matter what? Or the fatalism that looks at the future as grim and painful and difficult. Or is there a different way to face 2021?
The wonder of Jesus being "God with us" is not only that God steps into the human experience, but that through Jesus, God is inviting us to participate in His life and love. And this is the one thing that can never get taken away from us, the fact that God loves us and is with us.
In the Book, Honest Advent, we see that the gospel writer, John, uses the imagery of Light to describe Jesus' entrance into the world. The way we respond to the presence of the Light of Life makes all the difference in the depth of impact the Advent season will have on us and those around us this year.
Advent is the season when we celebrate the coming of Jesus. It is when we remember and at the same time look forward to God demonstrating his love for us by moving into our neighborhood. It is a time when we contemplate the love of God by reflecting on the mystery and hope of the embodiment of his love. And while that all sounds great… what does it actually mean for us today? How does remembering the coming of love some 2000 years ago inform how we feel, think, and live today?
"The place where we connect with Jesus is through our vulnerability. We can see all throughout the Gospels people connecting with Jesus through their vulnerabilities. The teacher Nicodemus saying “I don’t get it”. The Roman centurion who has no power to heal his servant. The sick woman who has now power to heal her body. The traitorous Zaccheus who doesn’t know how to get back into the family. Our starting point is our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, the places where we aren’t enough or not doing it right." - Honest Advent, Scott Erickson
In the seventh episode of our Rebuilding series, Pastor Joel speaks on Nehemiah 13 and how, after all the rebuilding, and repentance and consecration, as soon as Nehemiah leaves, things devolve back into sin. The focus here is that sanctification is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process. This means that rebuilding is never really finished, it is something that happens day by day as we walk with Jesus and are sanctified by the Holy Spirit and continually repent and seek God
Have you ever felt this pain? You’ve gotten through a terrible circumstance, and you’re starting to rebuild and things are looking better, but as humans sometimes we have this instinct of wanting to look back and imagine what could have been…
If that thing hadn’t happened, if I hadn’t trusted that person, if I hadn’t made that terrible mistake.. if he or she hadn’t gone out and ruined everything, if I hadn’t lost my job, if I hadn’t gotten sick, if COVID hadn’t hit…
Because we look around and things are definitely better than what they were when we were in crisis mode, but they’re not what they could have been if the crisis hadn’t hit in the first place.
So Ezra and Nehemia’s response in Nehemiah chapter 8 is don’t mourn, rejoice. And the people of Israel actually take them up on it.
In the fourth episode of our unpartisan series, pastor Joel closes out the series not by telling you who you should have voted for, but by making an attempt to think through some of the things we should consider as Christians when we think about who to vote for.
In the third episode of our Unpartisan, Engaging in Politics for the Sake of our Neighbors, pastor Joel takes a look at perhaps the thing that is most concerning in this time. And that is not policy, but how we treat people that have a different opinion than us, both within the church and outside the church.
What are some of the underlying errors that have led to some of the toxic ways in which Christianity and politics are relating right now? What are the pitfalls that we can fall into or maybe we’ve already fallen into? More importantly, how do we avoid them?
A lot of times when we rebuild something things can go wrong. There can be design flaws or the old way of doing things does not work because things have changed.
We’ve been in the middle of this series about rebuilding, where we are looking at the story of the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem in the book of Nehemiah, because we think in a way it parallels the current moment we are living where so many of us find ourselves “rebuilding” in the aftermath of the lockdown. We feel like we are rebuilding the life of our church, but also our family life, for many of you it is a new job, a new living situation, a new relationship. And we think that there are some lessons that we can draw from Nehemiah’s story that we can apply to our current circumstances.
In this message, we take a look at the idea of what happens when rebuilding starts going wrong?
What happens when you hit roadblocks? When you have a vision to rebuild and things don’t go according to plan? Or you face opposition? You have this vision for your life or for something you feel that God wants you to accomplish and just when you are trying to make that thing happen, it looks like things start falling apart before you even begin. This is what’s going on in Nehemiah, chapter 4.
Nehemiah and the people of Israel are trying to rebuild this wall and just as they are starting, people begin making fun of what it looks like. And not happy with the wall, the neighboring cities actually plot to attack and kill them.
And, hopefully, you are not facing that kind of opposition, where your neighbors are trying to form an angry mob to kill you but anybody that has ever tried to do something worth doing has faced this moment, or multiple moments where it starts to seem impossible to keep going.
In this sermon, we take a look at what Nehemiah did when he faced opposition and see what we can learn from that.
Last week we started our new series titled REBuilding based on the concept of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. We ended as Nehemiah comes before the king and gets approval to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the city. And God gives Nehemiah huge favor and finances the whole expedition and gives him permission to take years off to carry this out. This week we pick up the story as Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem to begin the rebuilding process. Pastor Joel speaks on how rebuilding takes unity, it takes starting, it takes others and it takes work.
Scripture: Nehemiah 2:11-3:32
In the fourth episode of our The Church We Can Be series, pastor Kenny Camacho of Revolution Church in Annapolis discusses our identity as one church, flourishing beyond ourselves, to the glory and purpose of God and how we should have a church-planting connection; looking beyond our own well-being as a congregation and individuals.
In the third episode of our series, The Church We Can Be, pastor Joel speaks on Matthew 11:1-19 and discusses the need for us to collaborate for the Kingdom with a vision beyond our personal benefit.
In the second episode of the our The Church We Can Be sermon series, pastor Michael Bartlett from Collective Church in Frederick, MD speaks on 1 Corinthians 3 and discusses Paul's call for harmony among believers.
In the first episode of our new series, "The Church We Can Be," pastor Scott Ancarrow from The Foundry Church in Baltimore explains how The Church (the global church) can be a connected church by connecting to the Hope of Jesus, connecting to one another and connecting to our cities.
We collaborated with multiple churches in our network to create this series. We are excited and hope you join us on the journey as we work and learn about the church we can be together.
What does it look like for a local church to work towards racial justice and peace? In this sermon, Scott Ancarrow from The Foundry Church in Baltimore shares some of the lessons he has learned from doing this work for several years in the city of Baltimore.
What made Dr. King's vision for racial justice in America so special is not only his commitment to non-violence but also the fact that he wanted something more than just retributive justice, he wanted reconciliation. Dr. King did not only want desegregation to be tolerated, he wanted integration. He wanted Black Americans to be welcomed and accepted into every aspect of American life. This is what he called "The Beloved Community." In this sermon, pastor Joel talks about this vision and God's final goal for there to be reconciliation and peace, not only between races, but also between humanity and God.
The vision for justice that the Scriptures show us goes beyond punishment for a crime, but the reparation of wrongs so that relationships can be reconciled.
How can God’s love, manifested in Jesus Christ, help us both to do justice and find peace in our current moment?” What does it look like to repent, and what does it look like to forgive, and how can we be reconciled? In this sermon, our friend Brian Wade from Centerpoint Church Kent Island is speaking on the idea of this love and how it is Christ’s love what sets the compass for the way forward.
In today's message, we look at how the Bible talks about systemic injustice and what it has to say about systemic racism today.
On a surface level, the claim that racism is wrong might seem uncontroversial (although the current state of race relations in our country states the contrary). But why exactly is racism wrong? What is the theological understanding of race relations and human dignity? In the Scriptures, it all comes back to the Imago Dei, the claim that all humans are made in the image and likeness of God, all given life by the same breath of God, and all made out of one blood. What infuses equal worth and dignity in a person is not their accomplishments, education, intelligence, skin color or ethnic origin, but the imprint of the creator. Racism is a scandal and an outrage and a theological impossibility because it is not only an attack on the dignity of a fellow human, but by proxy is an attack on God Himself. This fundamental theological truth should lead Christians both to categorically reject and decry and repent of anything that has to do with white supremacy and racism. But in order for that to happen we must first feel the pain that white supremacy and racism cause not only on Black people in America, but also in the heart of God, and only when our hearts break for this issue like God’s does will be able to begin any work God might have for us to do in regards to race relations.
How do we live during this time when we are not in the strict lockdown anymore, but we are also not back to how life was before that. How do we orient ourselves during this time and live a life of flourishing?
What are we supposed to do when we are sheltering in God, if we are ultimately trusting Him for our protection and provision? What we see in the Bible is that people who trust in God have nothing left to do but sing! When we have nothing left, we worship, that is the response of a heart that has put all of its trust in the Lord.
How can we acknowledge God as a place of shelter and our perfect provider during difficult times and when we need Him.
What does change look like in the Scriptures and how can we live in the tension of working of change and justice while also continuing to long for the coming Kingdom of God where true justice will finally reign?
As a small church, we have been pre-recording our services earlier in the week during the COVID-19 pandemic. This past week's service was recorded after George Floyd's death but before all of the events of the last couple of days. While we prayed for justice for George Floyd, in light of all that happened, the leadership felt that we needed to address the events of this week in more depth, this sermon is the result of that. If you need a place to process everything, we invite you to join us in praying, crying and seeking God.
Shelter only work if we are in it. If we are going to see God as our shelter, we are called to dwell in Him. But how do we do that?
During this time where most of the country has been under "shelter-in-place" orders, the Bible invites us into a different kind of shelter.
Jesus repeatedly makes a connection between God’s forgiveness of our sins, and our forgiveness of others offenses against us. If we have really experienced God’s forgiveness, the natural result of that is that we then forgive others.
Forgiveness is important, but sometimes it is really difficult. Sometimes the people that we need to forgive have hurt us in profound ways, how can we forgive that? In this talk we look at what forgiveness is... and what it isn’t, and how a lot of times our difficulty forgiving someone is born out of a misconception of what forgiveness actually is.
Forgiveness from God opens up the door for us to being the journey of reconciliation with one another. The process however does not start in us forgiving, but with us asking for forgiveness. If we are able to recognize the ways in which we have contributed to the breaking of shalom in the world, we are also then able to see how we have hurt others. It is only when we have the humility to see this, and ask for forgiveness, that we are ready to forgive others.
In order for us to be able to forgive others we must fully understand what forgiveness means, and that not only means accepting God’s forgiveness, but learning to forgive ourselves as well. Often times even though we’ve accepted God’s forgiveness intellectually, we have not internalized that forgiveness because we have not fully understood grace, which means that even though God does not hold our sins against us, we still do. This keeps us trapped in shame and regret. But if we are going to accept God’s forgiveness that means that God’s declaration of forgiveness holds a higher authority over our lives than whatever internal accusations we proclaim against ourselves, and we must learn to let those go and fully see our identity as forgiven children of God so that we can give forgiveness to others.
The easter story is about Christ's victory over death not only for Himself, but for all who believe in Him. And because of this victory, we can have hope not only for the future, but for today.
On Palm Sunday Jesus confronts the crisis of what's about to happen and yet decides to press into His mission. In the same way, as the people of God we are invited to lean into God's mission at this time.
In a time where we cannot be physically close with others, there is a danger of retreating into ourselves and slipping into loneliness and isolation. However, this time also presents us with an opportunity to reach out to others and grow deeper into community, even if we are physically apart.
This past Sunday we started a new series about how to seize the opportunities that this moment of crisis presents us by leaning in to the things that matter most. Although disorienting, this unprecedented time offers us with an opportunity to draw closer to God by leaning in to spiritual practices and organizing our schedules with margin to seek God.
We are living in unprecedented times due to the COVID-19 pandemic that are causing a lot of anxiety and fear. It is precisely in times like these when we can look to the story of Jesus in order to find hope, so that we can face this season with hope and love.
The same reason why we hurt and offend one another and need to forgive and to be forgiven is the reason why we need forgiveness from God: sin. However, God has provided a way for us to be forgiven of our sins through the sacrifice of Jesus. And the same dynamic that makes it so that God can forgive us in Christ, allows us to forgive others, but in order to do that we need to fully understand how God forgives us in Christ.
When we don't forgive the offenses that others commit against us, the anger against those offenses eventually turns into bitterness that slowly poisons us from the inside. However, Jesus invites us to give up that bitterness and embrace the way of forgiveness by looking at the example He presents us of his sacrifice on the cross. This is the first sermon of our Lent series for this year focusing on the topic of forgiveness.
When we believe that we live in a world of abundance, and we engage in the spiritual practices of gratitude and simplicity, generosity will just come naturally. A life of simplicity will give us the margin to give, and a worldview of abundance and gratitude will empower us to give back to God through our tithes and offerings, and to give to others, believing that there is indeed enough to go around for everybody, which will allow us to take care of the poor and of our brothers and sisters in need.
The result of a grateful heart is contentedness. It is the realization that all that we actually need is satisfied in God. What this allows for is the capacity to live a life of simplicity, where we are not attached to earthly possessions as sources of meaning and fulfillment. This does not mean living a life of asceticism, but it does mean that our decision making when it comes to money is not driven by greed, materialism, or consumerism. This is how we are able to live within our means and not spend money we don’t have. It is also what allows us to choose generosity over accumulating riches.
One of the conditions of living in a fallen world that is beset by sin is that, even though we live in a world of abundance, the way so much of the world functions, including our economic system, assumes scarcity. This makes it really hard, even for Christians, to live lives of generosity. One of the keys to change our mindset of scarcity into a mindset of abundance is to practice gratitude. When we shift from complaining about what we don’t have or coveting what others have, to thanking God for what He has given us, our perspective about the world starts to change, and it becomes easier to believe that we indeed live in a world of abundance and that we can be generous.
One of the most fundamental assumptions in economics is that we live in a world of scarcity, where the needs and desires of people are higher than the available resources. However, in the Scriptures we are presented with a world that is characterized by abundance. A world where God wants to provide for everybody's needs.
When Jesus says "seek first the Kingdom of God" is not an invitation just to put God at the top of a list of competing priorities, or to assign God a section of the pie of our compartmentalized lives, but it is an invitation to put God at the center of our lives. We are called to seek the Kingdom of God first in every aspect of our lives, from our family, to our career, to our bodies.
When Jesus tells us to seek first the Kingdom of God over things like clothes and food, he does not do it because he does not want us to be fed or clothed. But because he knows that we chase after these things in the search of security, meaning and fulfillment, but we'll only ever find that in God, and a life spent chasing after anything else is just a life spent chasing smoke.
As we start the new year we often set goals and plans for what we want to accomplish, whether that be financial, relational, or career-oriented. But for Jesus, the things that we chase after are indicators of what is in our heart, and his invitation is for us to seek first God and His Kingdom, to center our lives around God and then let Him take care of our needs. This is the first sermon of a new series called Seek First.
As we start the new year, some of us have a lot of excitement and big plans for the future, but some of us have a sense of anxiety and even dread about the unknown. But when we look at the Scriptures, what we find is that God invites us to engage life primarily from a posture of hope. Believing in God's power and character allows us to look at the new year and hope for better days, regardless of what we have faced or what we are about to face.
On the final sermon from this series (and our Christmas celebration!), we take a look at how the birth of Jesus is good news for the rest of us. Some of us might feel like we are too far gone for it to be good news for us, and some of us may feel like we don't need Jesus and His birth makes no difference in our lives. But to all of us, there are good news wrapped up in the Christmas story.
When Mary meets her cousin Elizabeth she sings a song we've come to call the Magnificat. It is a song of justice for the poor and humble. The birth of Jesus is particularly good news for those who often find themselves on the edges of society and most vulnerable to the evils of the world, like the widows and the orphans. How can we as a church also be good news to those who are most vulnerable?
The birth of Jesus is not only good news for us, or people that are like us, but for everybody, even the people that we disagree with or don’t like.
When Jesus is born, angels appear and announce to a group of shepherds that this birth is “good news of great joy for all the people.” The birth of Jesus is fundamentally a good thing for the world, it is a gift from God. How then can we also in turn bring good gifts to the people around us?
We live in a world where finding a good paying job and a stable career is becoming increasingly difficult, where some people have to work two and three jobs just to make ends meet. How can we talk about vocation and finding our calling when choosing a job is a luxury that most don’t have, isn’t that a privileged conversation?
What do we do when it feels like our calling is changing? How do we discern if God is calling us into something new? This week we have a special interview with Josh Burnett, the founder of Flourish, a new company working on connecting people with local volunteering opportunities. Josh recently stepped down as the lead pastor of Revolution Church, a church he started, in order to pursue this new calling.
If our vocation is a part of our calling, then a key element to discerning that calling is to listening to the voice of the Spirit. This talk has some practical steps and tools we can use to tune our ears to God’s voice, and understand what it means to follow God when we don’t know the full picture of what God is calling us to.
A big part of discerning our calling is listening to the voice of God, and one way in which God speaks to us is through our own lives. Our story, and the gifts and passions that God has placed in us are clues to our calling.
Why do we choose the careers we go into, the neighborhoods we move to, the cars we drive? Does it matter at all? Does the purpose of our life extend to those life decisions? What would it look like if every aspect of our life was harnessed towards God’s purpose for us?
While Christian calling is more than discipleship, it is certainly not less than that. The call to make disciples is a call to all Christians regardless of what we do for a living, and a part of the journey of following Jesus is integrating this dimension of our calling into the rest of our lives.
So God created humans out of love. But what did He create them for? Is there a reason why we have the passions and abilities we have? And how do those things align with God’s mission in the world?
At the core of the purpose of humanity is love. God made people so that He could love them, and they could enjoy Him and love Him back. It is important that we understand this truth first and foremost, so that our talk about purpose does not become a means to earn God’s approval, where we see our value and identity tied to how well we perform our function. We were made so that God could love us and we could love Him back. When this is at the base of our understanding of our purpose, then we are able to pursue whatever other secondary calling or purpose there might be with freedom and joy, as an expression of God’s grace.
Last week we learned that learning from Jesus is not only about acquiring information, but about training to become like Him. This week we are taking a look at all that entails, how do we become like Jesus? Can we even do it in the first place? And what does that mean for how we live our lives?
At the core of being a disciple, a follower of Jesus, is the discipline of learning from Him. But what exactly are we learning? And what for? Is it just to acquire information or to understand doctrines? When we look at what it meant to be a disciple in the first century Jewish tradition, we discover that learning from a Master means so much more than than.
How do we gain strength and confidence to start a new season in life when we feel tired and burnt out? In 1 Kings 19 the prophet Elijah finds himself in a similar situation. We look at how God restored Elijah’s strength so that he could continue on his journey.
What does it mean to Follow Jesus? As we start a new series on this very concept we are looking at three different dynamics of following Jesus: Being with Jesus, Learning from Jesus, Becoming like Jesus. This week Austin Hedge kicks off the series by talking about Being with Jesus.
One of the repeating metaphors that Jesus uses to explain what the Kingdom of God is that of a party, a great feast that we are all invited to.
The Kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like a man finding treasure hidden in a field, or like a merchant finding an expensive pearl. They both gladly sell everything they have to purchase the treasure they've found. This parable teaches something about the incomparable worth of the Kingdom of God, even amidst seemingly ordinary circumstances, and how finding God’s Kingdom is meant to produce the greatest joy.
According to Jesus, the Kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms of men. While most Kingdoms advance through violence and fanfare. The Kingdom of God starts small and hidden, but over time it grows until it touches every part of creation.
Psalm 23 ends with the idea that, at the end of the day, it is not the dark times, or our enemies who follow us, but God's goodness and mercy.
Psalm 23:5 says “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…” This is one of the most encouraging lines in the Psalm. Even in the midst of persecution, even when surrounded by enemies, the Psalmist believes that God will set a table for him. There is something incredible comforting about that imagery. Tables are naturally a place of peace, and joy, they symbolize provision. And the Psalmist believes that even when surrounded by enemies, God can set a table for him there.
Life is not all green pastures and quiet waters. Psalm 23 acknowledges the difficult times of life. The Psalmist believes that even when he is walking under the shadow of death, he doesn't have to be afraid, because God is with him.
Psalm 23:3 is a promise of restoration and guidance. However, this can only happen when we trust the Shepherd, when we allow Him to reveal the areas in our life that need to be restored. What would it look like for us to open of our lives to Jesus? To allow Him to show our wounds not so He can judge us, but so He can heal us.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.” (Psalm 23:2). At first read, this verse infuses us with a sense of calm and rest, which is absolutely true. However, there is an even deeper meaning to this verse, that shows how God will always provide just what we need and invites us to trust in Him every day.
Psalm 23:1 begins with the Psalmist saying that God is his shepherd, and because of that he does not lack anything. The Psalmist has an understanding of God and an understanding of the world God has created that led him to believe that he would always be taken care of. This is the view of the world that Psalm 23 invites us into.
One of the keys to living as a Creative Minority is understanding that wherever it is we find ourselves in exile, is not our permanent home. Daniel’s longing and hope for Jerusalem is one of the keys that allowed him to stay faithful to Yahweh during the exile.
While Daniel and his friends did not seek out power, they became powerful and influential people in the Babylonian court. What should we do as the people of God when we find ourselves in a position of power and influence? Jesus taught His disciples not to seek and use power like the rulers of the world, instead He showed them a better way, a way based on service and love.
In this special service we sent out our first church planting residents to start a new church in Rockville, Maryland. Listen to what’s our rationale behind being a part of the start of new churches, why we think it is important, and why you should be a part of it.
Sometimes, living as a creative minority means that our principles and beliefs will come in direct opposition to the way of life of the age. We see this happen in the book of Daniel in several occasions, where Daniel and his friends are condemned to death because of their faithfulness to God. How do we respond in those situations? And what does it look like to trust God with our very lives?
One of the main elements of being a creative minority is that we are called to engage the culture around us through redemptive participation. On Daniel Chapter 2, we see an example of Daniel using his gifts to serve the king of Babylon. This act lead to many lives being saved, and to the King of Babylon to glorify God and place Daniel and his friends in positions of influence.
Imagine a foreign empire destroying your city and then taking you and your friends away into exile to serve the emperor who just conquered you. How do you react? How do you learn to live in this new reality and at the same time stay true to your faith and your convictions?
What does it mean to leave like a Christian in today’s world? As our society becomes more and more secularized, it seems increasingly difficult to engage the culture around us. However, this is not the first time this has happened. When the people of Israel were in exile in Babylon, God gave them a blueprint of how to live there.
Have you ever experienced something that changed your life? What about something that changed everything? For the first followers of Jesus, this is what the first Easter was, a moment in time that changed everything for them, and it has the power to change everything for us as well.
When Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray, the first thing He tells them ask for is not for forgiveness, or provision, but for God’s Kingdom to come. It was that important to Him. What does it mean for us today to pray for God’s Kingdom to come? What would it look like if God’s will would be done in DC as it is in Heaven?
As we’ve been learning, prayer is a multifaceted discipline. There are different ways in which we can engage prayer. We put a lot of emphasis on the ways in which we can pray individually, but one of the most important and least talked about ways in which we should pray is Corporate Prayer. There is something special that happens when the people of God come together to pray.
This week during our prayer series we focused on the “how” of prayer. Through the use of ancient tools and Biblical principals we experienced how to engage the presence of the Lord in the practice of prayer to gain an everlasting peace that comes through a deep, meaningful connection with him.
I don’t know why God answers some prayers, and doesn’t answer others. I don’t know why certain things happen. I can’t even guarantee you that God will answer your prayer. What I can tell you, is that God loves you. The Apostle Paul believed that ultimately that was the most important thing, was that God loved him. And if God loved him, no matter what else was happening, he was going to be ok.
Ultimately the thing we need is not more technique or more competence but rather, more God.
This sermon is about telling our story as part of discipleship, and God writing our story. Brian & Amy share their story and encourage everyone to share their story in order to put others at ease, sharpen their story, and share the experiences with God in their life.
This is our vision for renewal at Encounter. That when people encounter Jesus in our midst they would be renewed holistically. That just like the Scriptures say they would be made new spiritually. But that that renewal would have a tangible effect in their life and in the lives of the people around them.
Most people don’t wake up on a Sunday morning wanting to go to church if they are not Christians. But if you are present in the life of those people, they can encounter Jesus through their interactions with you.
The ultimate witness of Jesus is God’s presence in the midst of the church. And the mission of the church is to facilitate the environment where the encounter between people and God can happen.
As we get ready to enter into 2019… we have plans, and hopes, and dreams. But the reality is, we don't know what's going to happen…. 2019 is a year full of unknowns, and that's a good thing, because that means that it is also a year full of possibilities for God to do awesome things that we do not expect. What if we took whatever step of obedience and faith the Holy Spirit calls us into, without fear? Because we may get to see God move in our life in ways that we can't even imagine.
Zechariah embraces praise over cynicism. Why do we sing on Sunday mornings? Because we want to show you how to praise regardless of what’s going on in your life when you walk through that door. Regardless of the heartbreak, regardless of the doubts, regardless of the fear, regardless of the disappointment, we give you this space and we open our mouths and sing about the God who doesn’t change, about the God who has done it in the past and will do it again. This is what I think the song of Zechariah teaches us. The song of Zechariah teaches us that God is on the move.
Advent is about waiting. Is about the time between the giving of the promise and its fulfillment. For Christmas to have the meaning and hope it has we need to be aware and open our eyes to the reality that while Jesus has already come, and all of the blessings and promises of God have come with him. We are also, still waiting, for His return. And we need to learn how to wait well. Because if we don’t, we are going to give in to despair.
The disciplines of study and meditation are not just necessary for knowing the Lord better. More importantly, they are essential for diving deep into a relationship with Him. When we slow down in our study we gain a sweeter than honey blessing to our dry and weary souls.
Most of us see prayer either as some obligation or as a transaction. We pray either because that’s what a good Christian is supposed to do, or to keep God off our backs, or to get stuff. But in the Scriptures, the primary reason to pray is to encounter God. The issue is not how long we should pray or what we should say. The issue is: Do we want to have a relationship with God?
One of the centerpieces of Jesus’ message is the idea of rest…but it is a different kind of rest. Jesus calls it “rest for your souls.” When we make work our idol, we look to work to provide ultimate fulfillment and acceptance, and what Jesus is saying is that if we are living like that, it’s not only our body and our mind that is tired, but our soul, and no amount of days off will give us rest. We need a better, deeper Sabbath. So Jesus invites us and says “come to me" and I will give you the rest that you really need, rest for your soul.
Living out the kingdom life means that everything must remain before the throne and under the authority of the ruler. Everything must be held loosely. What tangibles are you holding onto? What are you gripping tightly? Have they become your security? Are you a slave to some image? Some name you're trying to live up to? Some job? Some possession? Some person? If you cannot let it go, it's a priority to you. It is impossible to be a slave to things or people and at the same time be a faithful servant of God.
The Gospel gives us the imagination to not only see our culture in a different way, but also be co-creators of our culture with Christ. Through it we can visualize our work with love and opportunity and use it to transform lives and bring the kingdom of God to earth.
Work in a fallen world can be hard and frustrating and seemingly fruitless. But that doesn’t mean we should give up on the whole enterprise. Perhaps the best example of this is the relationship between God and humanity. God makes people and they disappoint, disobey and fight against Him, but He doesn’t give up on them. Even after the Flood and even after Israel’s rebellion. The story of the Scriptures is in part, the story of God not becoming hopelessly frustrated with His work, but keeping tending to His garden.
If you are made in the image of God, and if you are a child of God, and if God made you and He prepared good works ahead of you, if you don’t see the implications of that in what you are doing right now, then you are going to waste a lot of opportunities… maybe there are things that you were meant to do you that you are not doing because you are not living in your vocation, in your calling, in the thing that God wants to do through you.
Your work, your art, your organizing, your customer service, your answering the phones, and your accounting; when you are giving yourself over to God, those efforts, they carry the creation project forward to bring heaven into Earth.
Central to following Jesus, is the idea that there is an endless amount of new beginnings in God. In spite of who we are and what we’ve done, in spite of the mistakes we’ve made. There is a new beginning for us, for our dreams and our hopes. We can walk into the future knowing that there is always the possibility for more, because we believe in the God of hope who is making all things new, even when we fail.
Remembering God’s faithfulness is the antidote to fear. When we face a difficult situation, a crisis, we are not going to necessarily remember God’s prior faithfulness, unless we’ve made it a habit to remember it before the difficult situation hits.
"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. 2 Timothy 4:6 (NIV)" This past Sunday we looked at how Paul "poured out his life" by investing and spending time with others like Timothy. Who are you pouring your life into?
Sometimes we don’t hear from God because He is quiet. But sometimes we don’t hear from God because we are not quiet.
Fasting is this reminder that ultimately your sustenance doesn't come from you, it comes from God.
The Sabbath is a reminder that our value does not come from how much we produce, but from our identity in Christ and our relationship with God.
REDEEM the time you already have. You already eat dinner, eat that same meal with a neighbor. Your kids need to get energy out, let them play with neighbor kids while you sit on porch with their parents.
God wants to share with us. Our stuff has replaced pieces of our soul and we trust in our own generosity to make us whole. Instead, God reminds us that He has all we need and more.
Jesus is changing the disciples' idea of prayer from being transactional to being relational. Prayer is about God and you and the fact that He is your Father and He is near and He is Holy and incredible and beautiful, and when you get that, prayer changes.
Time is the biggest obstacle we need to overcome to be effective neighbors. We live in a city that runs at a pace that makes is incredibly hard to make time to meet new people and develop true relationships with our neighbors. In this sermon we take a look at how Jesus shows us a different way to live, a countercultural way where we can have the margin to develop relationships with our neighbors.
Throughout the Scriptures, one of the main dimensions of love of neighbor was to care for the foreigner, or what we would call today, the refugee and the immigrant. Join us this Sunday as we take a look at what the Bible has to say about this issue, and what God's heart is for the immigrant and the refugee.
After God tells Moses His name and describes His character, He makes a covenant with Moses, and finishes the covenant by saying something else about His name, that His name is jealous. Why does He close with that? What does it mean that God is jealous? Is God insecure? For the final week on our series about the name and character of God, we look at what it means that God’s name is jealous. And what it means for us as the people of God, to carry His name today.
John the Baptist called Jesus “the lamb of God.” Because Jesus is how God solves the tension between His forgiving nature and His justice. This God takes the consequences and the pain of our sin upon Himself. This God takes all of our suffering and all of our punishment into His son who lifts up, and takes away the sin of the world. That’s what God being forgiving means.
In God’s economy, things are not about what we deserve. Why? Because God is compassionate and gracious… The universe runs on grace, even for the people we don’t like, even for the people that have hurt us, even for the people that have broken our hearts, the universe runs on grace. And when you understand that, your life can change. This is the message of the cross: that Jesus came into the world to give Himself, not based on anything that we have ever done to deserve it, salvation is not about deserving.
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6–7
We are constantly bombarded by bad news, and sometimes it would seem things are hopeless. But what if God is actively working in renewing the world, and we can see evidence of that in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection?
The people of Jerusalem turned on Jesus because He disappointed them. They wanted a warrior Messiah that would liberate them from the Romans, instead they got a Messiah that confronted their own brokenness and sin and who preached peace. That is exactly what the people of Jerusalem needed though, and that is what we need. Jesus is more interested in changing us than in changing our circumstances. And if we stick with Jesus through his provocation and don’t resist Him but rather hear his voice, we will have the peace we so desperately need.
Jesus makes a direct correlation between loving Him and being disciples of Him, and loving people. In other words, you cannot be a disciple of Jesus without loving people, because love is at the core of who God is. Following Jesus is learning to love. Not only God, but other people as well, and learning to love takes practice. So there is no way of learning how to love without interacting with people. Which means that you cannot fully follow Jesus without living in community.
Lent is meant to prepare our hearts for Easter. It is a season where through different practices we become aware of our own mortality, of our brokenness, pain and utter need for grace. When we engage this season, Good Friday, and Easter take on a much deeper meaning. We realize the need for and the pain of the crucifixion, and the joy and hope of the resurrection.
This is the promise of Jesus: If you listen to my words and put them into practice, your life is going to become the type of life that can withstand anything. That no matter what happens, no matter what the future brings, good or bad, at the end of the day, at the end of the tunnel, at the end of the storm, when everything else has fallen down, you are gonna be standing with me.
In the Christian faith, identity precedes behavior. God wants to change who you are before He changes what you do... One of the reasons the Church exists is to week after week remind you of your identity. When you are beaten down, when you feel defeated, when you feel tired, when you feel hopeless, when you feel like you can’t go forward anymore, the church says: “No, no, no. You are God’s son, you are God’s daughter, and God is your father who loves you, and you are coming home with Him.”
What does it mean to be a Christian? The invitation of the Gospel is not an invitation to recite a prayer once, but an invitation to follow Jesus with all of our lives. Many of us have a misconception of what this looks like and spend our lives not as followers of Jesus, but as fans, sympathizing with Jesus’ teachings but never letting His life take a hold of our lives. To be a true disciple, this is, a follower means to orient all of our lives around the life of Jesus.
“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:20-21Paul expects courage. He expects to have and need courage so that he doesn’t mislive. The question for us this new year is: What do we expect? What would our lives look like if we lived in such a way that we had to expect to have courage. Because we have embarked on such journeys that we need it.
The Christmas story is about God writing himself into the human story... as a member of our family. By becoming a part of the family of man, Jesus opened up the way for humanity to become a part of God’s family. Jesus comes as our brother so that we can come to God as our Father. This is God's dream for the world and Jesus' invitation to us. Through Jesus, we can become a part of the family of God. This is the ultimate hope for a broken world. Jesus becomes our brother, God becomes our Father. And the world around us, becomes our family.
The encounter of the Magi with Jesus show how God's rule is different that the rule of any other kings. The magi encounter Herod, a king that wants to hold onto power by force, even being willing to kill newborn babies in Bethlehem. Jesus is a different type of king. He is born humbly and vulnerable and yet, this is how God ushers in His kingdom into the world.
The encounter of the shepherds with Jesus shows God's goodness. While the Magnificat shows God's justice to an oppressed people, the message of the angels is that the coming of Jesus is a show of God's good will towards humanity. The shepherds encounter God's goodness when they encounter Jesus.
Christmas is not only a season of getting along and being happy. It is also a declaration, a warning to the powers of evil in the world that their time is coming to an end, that the clock is ticking because a child has been given and baby has been born. And He brings with Him justice..