Christ Church Dunn: Recent Episodes
Christ Church Dunn
The book of 1 John ends with John mentioning a word that he hasn't used for the entire letter: "idols." How does this relate to the rest of what he has said? What is idolatry, why is it dangerous, and how do we root it out?
What are the markers of a child of God? How can we know the truth about Jesus? And what does it mean to obey God's commands without trying to earn anything?
John implores us to know and rely on God's love for us. What kind of fruit comes from this knowing and relying? How does that serve as a springboard into the rest of our lives?
"God is love" is one of the most direct and basic statements about who God is, and it has huge implications for us. What does mean that before love is a feeling or action that it is a Person? What does God's love do to us and in us when it finds us?
What is the measure of a 'good life?' How do we evaluate the things we do, as individuals and as a community?
The resurrection of Jesus is the most significant moment in human history. But what does it mean to be a community and individuals defined by it? How do we live on mission with the resurrected and victorious Jesus?
Emotions are a good thing: something created by God for his glory and our good. But our emotions are warped and broken, and sometimes lead us wrong. How does God answer this for us?
Love is a wonderful thing: but what is love? How does God embody and prove his love for us in Christ...and how do we respond to that love?
In 1 John 3.1-10, John pulls back the curtain to show the spiritual "behind the scenes" of our lives in a way that clarifies, challenges, and calls us to faith in Jesus and mission with him.
What Jesus has accomplished transforms our present and our future. What does that mean for our desires and the way we live our lives?
Much of Christian talk about "the antichrist" and "the end times" has been a distraction from what it means to actually following Jesus in the here-and-now. How does 1 John lead us to think about our place in this world in light of the victory of Jesus that is secure, but not yet fully applied?
In the face of an unknown future, where do we find our motivations to walk forward? What are the dangers along the way? And what is the horizon that we're aiming for?
One of the distinguishing marks of followers of Jesus across all cultures and eras is baptism with water. But what does it mean to be baptized? As a sign, what does it point to? As a seal, what does it confirm?
What does the gospel of Jesus have to say to us in a world full of hatred, where we are sinned against and sin against others?
When we face a new situation that we never expected, how do we know the pathway of wisdom?
What is the marker of spiritual maturity for someone following Jesus in this world? And how does the Gospel gives us the humility and boldness we need to live our lives?
1 John tells us that "God is light," then implores us to "walk in the light." What does this mean? And how can the pathway of Jesus free us from performing or pretending?
God is not looking for fans, he is building a community where he gives us himself, so that we can give ourselves to him and others in love.
What fills your mind when you hear the word "church?" For most of us, that answer is complicated and will depend on our experiences. But what does Jesus think of the church? What is this community supposed to be?
What does it mean to follow the apostle Paul in living "Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners and I am the worst?"
We live our lives trying to come to terms with the verdicts of other people and the verdicts of our own hearts. What does it mean for us to leave this behind and live under the verdict of God?
In the midst of success, failure, and everything in between Jesus gives us insight into an unending source of joy.
As our church is on the cusp of exciting growth, we stop to remember what God has done and add our "amen" to his grace: while we look forward to a future of continued internal, eternal, multiplication, and bridging growth.
The final line of the Lord's Prayer prepares us to move our prayers into our lives, by teaching us the place (his kingdom), the motivation (his power), and the goal (his glory) of our lives as God's children.
What does it mean to pray for God to both 1) lead us away from temptation and 2) deliver us from evil?
"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" is maybe the most difficult thing Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord's Prayer. What kind of power does forgiveness have?
Jesus does not teach us to pray for extravagant wealth, but for "our daily bread." What's the difference? And how can learning to pray this change our perspective on our ordinary lives?
When Jesus teaches us to pray "your kingdom come, your will be done," it's an invitation to find our all in God's plan of redemption: the kingdom of God.
"Hallowed" is a word we don't use often in our day-to-day lives. So what does it mean for us to pray that God's name be hallowed? What is God's name?
Jesus teaches us to pray "Our Father in Heaven?" But what does it mean to pray this? What is heaven?
The first words Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord's Prayer is "Our Father." What is the significance of calling upon God as Father?
Prayer is our family talk as God's children with our Father. In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches us to pray in a way that isn't just words, but is meant to form us and propel us into mission.
Prayer is not performance: before others, before ourselves, or before God. Prayer is family talk.
We can drop the religious costumes and bring our worst to God, finding true transformation that leads us to love what He loves and value what He values.
In Jonah 3 we see what happened when Jonah preached the worst sermon in history, what it means to define "repent" apart from shame, and how God sovereignly works to bring his grace to our graceless world.
How can we know that God loves us? Is it that we can remember coming to faith in Jesus? Is it because a religious authority told us so? Can we know at all?
In Jonah 1, we find Jonah fleeing from grace and confronted with a series of questions that cut to the core of who he is. How does this impact us in the 21st century and point us to Jesus?
The story of Jonah is one of the most famous stories in the entire Bible. It's also one of the most misunderstood. Listen to hear what Jonah shows us about God, ourselves, and our life in this world.
Sexual abuse is a tragic reality for many in our world. How does the gospel address those who have been abused and invite them into freedom and courage?
Jesus sees past our schemes and our disguises. We don't have to dress ourselves up and make ourselves lovely for him to love us. He loves us, and his love makes us lovely.
When we meet Rahab in Joshua 2, she is the ultimate outsider. What can her story of finding home teach us about Jesus?
How did Jesus relate to the Old Testament? What does that mean for how we relate to the Old Testament?
We live in a world where words are often seen as tools of manipulation to get what we want. But in Jesus, God frees us to use our words as gifts to glorify Him and love others well. How does the ninth commandment lead us in that?
What does the Gospel of Jesus have to do with our possessions? What does it mean to 'not steal?'
Our bodies matter, and what we do with our bodies matters—and the grace of Jesus leads us in how to live out this truth.
What does it mean to be 'pro-life,' not as a political position on abortion but as a whole way-of-life? How does the teaching and example of Jesus lead us to understand the kind of life God is leading us into?
What does it mean to "honor our fathers and mothers" when everyone involved is complicated? How does this fifth commandment guide us in living as God's freed people?
"You shall have no other gods before me." What does the first commandment teach us about living as God's freed people?
The redemption that Jesus brings extends as far as the curse of sin is found. What does this mean for our lives in the here-and-now?
Isn't the gospel too good to be true? How can we know it to be more than wishful thinking?
What is our greatest need after we've placed our faith in Jesus and believed the gospel?
"What should I do with my life?" It's a question we've all asked. How does God lead us in answering this question?
Sometimes anger can be a good thing. How does God lead us into, within, and through righteous anger?
We all have prejudices. Is there any hope for reconciliation? Is that just an unrealistic idea—something that’s easy to talk about but at the end of the day impossible?
The question isn't whether we've sinned: we have. The question isn't whether we're affected by sin: we are. The question is what we're going to do with our sin.
So much of our life is waiting: in big things and small. Is our waiting meaningless? Does God have anything to say to us in our waiting?
Fear of death leads us to either avoid the topic as much as we can or try to redefine it as a 'natural' part of life. But what does Jesus do to answer this fear?
God does not disdain our "ordinary" lives and neither should we. Hear from John 21.1-14 about how Jesus seeks us, guides us, and nourishes us in our ordinary lives.
In John 12, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem as King: but a very different kind of King than the people wanted or expected.
John 17 is us overhearing a conversation between God the Father and God the Son. Jesus has worked in actions. He’s taught with words. And now the evening of his arrest and betrayal, he’s speaking to God the Father about the thing that is most central to his heart.
What is hope? A feeling of optimism about the future? A steadfast refusal to give up? For the Christian, hope is first and foremost a person.
At the doorstep of a new year, how can we chart a different way into whatever the next twelve months hold?
Christmas shows us who God is and what He is about, which means it also shows us who we are in him.
"You better watch out/you better not cry" are the first lines of "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," a song warning us that Christmas is about getting what's coming to us. But what does the arrival of Jesus into our world teach about God's intentions for us?
Jesus said that the only way to enter his kingdom was like a little child. What does this mean for the process of discipleship; being remade by God to be like Jesus?
Is the promise that God is at work to make all things new more than a hopeless dream that leads us to passivity in the here and now?
Living in our world is like walking in and out of different courtrooms that are constantly judging us. What does it mean to turn from the fickle and unreliable verdicts of others and our own hearts to live under the verdict of Jesus?
What makes Jesus Christ more than just another religious guru with advice about how to be a good person?
What do we do when we really mess things up? Psalms 130 & 131 give us guidance on how to move forward when we find ourselves at the rock bottoms that we've created.
'Blessed' is a word we use a lot. But what does it mean to be 'blessed?' Is it more than just being happy about having good things?
Psalm 127 was written by David to his son and heir, Solomon. David knew Solomon would reign with great power and needed to reminder to value what God values. How can this piece of ancient wisdom help us understand our calling to live in the grace of Jesus?
"Service" is a word with a lot of baggage, and rightly so. Too many people in history have been abused and disregarded as "servants."
So what does it mean for us to serve God? How does Jesus transform our understanding of service?
*Due to technical issues, the last few minutes of this sermon were not recorded.
What can we do when the way ahead seems too rocky? When it feels like the pressures we face will overcome us? Psalm 121 helps point us in the right direction.
In the middle of the Bible there's a playlist for those who are weary and need rhythm to find their way home. Psalm 120 is the first of these "songs of ascent."
After God's dramatic salvation of the Israelites from the armies of Egypt, they stopped to compose the first recorded song in Scripture. What does this song tell us about God?
What can we do when the complicated evil of our hearts and the darkness of our world cloud our vision?
As the Israelites are leaving Egyptian slavery, Moses takes the bones of an ancestor named Joseph with them. What can this strange action tell us about what it means to be in God's family?
As they are leaving slavery and their hearts are looking forward to what's next, God gives the Israelites a ritual in Exodus 13 to help train their imaginations on their worth and treasure. What can this strange ritual teach us about Jesus?
God wins the battle and gives his people the victory. This was true in the Exodus and its true in Jesus for us.
The Passover celebrates how God brings newness. How can the Passover celebration help us understand the work of Jesus for us?
The plagues of Egypt show God's judgment upon the oppression that defined that society. But how do they also demonstrate his mercy? And how can this give us confidence even when considering our own sin?
The resurrection of Jesus is the defining moment of human history: when the tomb of his death became the womb of a new creation.
What do the circumstances of Jesus' arrival to Jerusalem as King tell us about who he is?
We live in a world that forms us and impacts us. A world that that is always tugging at our deepest desires. And unless we’re conscious of it, our hearts will grow more and more disordered, putting too much weight on this thing or that.
What do we do? If it’s even happening in ways we don’t control or don’t realize, then how can we combat it? How can we change?
The good news in all of this? God is at work.
We all have our weakness, disabilities, and limitations. Most of the time we try to hide them, ashamed to let others truly see us. But what if Jesus is intent not only to forgive us of our sins, but also to change our relationship to our weaknesses?
We live in a world that measures us primarily by what we accomplish. The call is to work, hustle, and toil to prove ourselves. But in the midst of this never-ending busyness, Jesus calls us to rest in Him.
God is entirely uninterested in propping up leaders that will use people, with hearts hardened to his call and the suffering of others. In this strange passage, we learn this through the experience of Moses. But what does this teach us about the kingship of Jesus?
The gospel of Jesus is more than just good news of an individual salvation: it's announcement that Jesus is making all things new.
Our world is a broken courtroom that passes out broken verdicts. In the Gospel, God invites us to live under the verdict of Jesus; but what does that mean? And how can it shape how we live our lives?
There's a tension that runs through the entirety of the Old Testament between 1) the mercy of God for his people and 2) the justice of God against the sin that has marred his creation. How does Jesus step into this tension to become the place/person where it is resolved?
Reflecting at the twilight of one year and the dawn of another, we look to 1 Corinthians 13 to help find our center.
This Psalm was written by the sons of Korah, a group of priests in Jerusalem with a notorious ancestor. What can their experience of God's grace teach us about the kind of home God is building for us?
The truth is, our world is full of shame. And we can’t wish it away. So the question: what are we going to do with all of this shame?
When the circumstances of worship are less than ideal, is our worship less than? Can we still worship God fully when gathered together in a place like a front yard or streaming online?
We live in a world where a hundred things are demanding our time, and it can feel hopeless to find a balance between all those competing allegiances.
In the midst of this, Jesus invites us to give up the endless hamster-wheel of trying to prove ourselves and rest in him.
We come to Jesus like children or we don’t come to him at all. Without pretense, without ideas of earning a place, without our respectable ‘adult’ reputations. We come like children who are delighted to receive his grace for what it is: a gift, all the way through.
Psalm 121 is a traveling song for the fearful and weary, one that points us to the sufficiency of Jesus on the way ahead.
What if your internal monologue about who you are matched the things that are true about you in the gospel of Jesus Christ? This can humble us when we’re prideful and encourage us when we’re awash in shame.
The love of Jesus is so disruptively wonderful that we can take off the resumes we hide behind & experience the freedom that can only come from his grace.