Renovation Church: Recent Episodes
Pastor Léonce B. Crump Jr.
Renovation Church is a Spirit-Led, Expectant, Jesus-Centered, Authentic, Socially Conscious, Generous, Transcultural, and Intentional community in Atlanta, GA.
Today we begin a new series entitled, Reimagine the Church. The Church is a historically complicated entity.
It is both Organism and Organisation . People and Institution. Visible and Invisible. Local and Global. Spiritual and Physical. Eternal and Temporal. Gathered and Scattered. Perpetual and Intermittent. Being perfected and imperfect.
It is a community capable of initiating and sustaining great healing, as well inflicting great pain. It is filled with and led by broken people, who are at the same time on a journey toward glory. It is complicated.
But it is above all else Gods’.
In recent years, perhaps more than any before, the Church is faced with untold complexity, as the era of Chritendom—a period defined by an almost ubiquitous cultural acceptance of Jesus and His Church—has summarily ended… and this was before COVID-19 forced us all to reevaluate how we even defined “Church.”
So what do we do, those of us who have an earnest love for this overtly complex entity? How do we engage her? How do we faithfully live as God would have His people to live? How do we faithfully exist as an expression of God’s beloved community?
Frankly, I have few answers, but many hopes. Exploring those hopes, through the lens of what God has to say about His church and her activity in this era, is what I hope we can do through this six week series.
I want to invite us to Reimagine the Church. I want to journey with you as we try, by God’s leading, to release the images and ideas we have of “Church” to Him, and attempt rather to reimagine His Church as He intended and intends her to be.
Today we begin a new series entitled, Reimagine the Church. The Church is a historically complicated entity.
It is both Organism and Organisation . People and Institution. Visible and Invisible. Local and Global. Spiritual and Physical. Eternal and Temporal. Gathered and Scattered. Perpetual and Intermittent. Being perfected and imperfect.
It is a community capable of initiating and sustaining great healing, as well inflicting great pain. It is filled with and led by broken people, who are at the same time on a journey toward glory. It is complicated.
But it is above all else Gods’.
In recent years, perhaps more than any before, the Church is faced with untold complexity, as the era of Chritendom—a period defined by an almost ubiquitous cultural acceptance of Jesus and His Church—has summarily ended… and this was before COVID-19 forced us all to reevaluate how we even defined “Church.”
So what do we do, those of us who have an earnest love for this overtly complex entity? How do we engage her? How do we faithfully live as God would have His people to live? How do we faithfully exist as an expression of God’s beloved community?
Frankly, I have few answers, but many hopes. Exploring those hopes, through the lens of what God has to say about His church and her activity in this era, is what I hope we can do through this six week series.
I want to invite us to Reimagine the Church. I want to journey with you as we try, by God’s leading, to release the images and ideas we have of “Church” to Him, and attempt rather to reimagine His Church as He intended and intends her to be.
Today we begin a new series entitled, Reimagine the Church. The Church is a historically complicated entity.
It is both Organism and Organisation . People and Institution. Visible and Invisible. Local and Global. Spiritual and Physical. Eternal and Temporal. Gathered and Scattered. Perpetual and Intermittent. Being perfected and imperfect.
It is a community capable of initiating and sustaining great healing, as well inflicting great pain. It is filled with and led by broken people, who are at the same time on a journey toward glory. It is complicated.
But it is above all else Gods’.
In recent years, perhaps more than any before, the Church is faced with untold complexity, as the era of Chritendom—a period defined by an almost ubiquitous cultural acceptance of Jesus and His Church—has summarily ended… and this was before COVID-19 forced us all to reevaluate how we even defined “Church.”
So what do we do, those of us who have an earnest love for this overtly complex entity? How do we engage her? How do we faithfully live as God would have His people to live? How do we faithfully exist as an expression of God’s beloved community?
Frankly, I have few answers, but many hopes. Exploring those hopes, through the lens of what God has to say about His church and her activity in this era, is what I hope we can do through this six week series.
I want to invite us to Reimagine the Church. I want to journey with you as we try, by God’s leading, to release the images and ideas we have of “Church” to Him, and attempt rather to reimagine His Church as He intended and intends her to be.
Today we begin a new series entitled, Reimagine the Church. The Church is a historically complicated entity.
It is both Organism and Organisation . People and Institution. Visible and Invisible. Local and Global. Spiritual and Physical. Eternal and Temporal. Gathered and Scattered. Perpetual and Intermittent. Being perfected and imperfect.
It is a community capable of initiating and sustaining great healing, as well inflicting great pain. It is filled with and led by broken people, who are at the same time on a journey toward glory. It is complicated.
But it is above all else Gods’.
In recent years, perhaps more than any before, the Church is faced with untold complexity, as the era of Chritendom—a period defined by an almost ubiquitous cultural acceptance of Jesus and His Church—has summarily ended… and this was before COVID-19 forced us all to reevaluate how we even defined “Church.”
So what do we do, those of us who have an earnest love for this overtly complex entity? How do we engage her? How do we faithfully live as God would have His people to live? How do we faithfully exist as an expression of God’s beloved community?
Frankly, I have few answers, but many hopes. Exploring those hopes, through the lens of what God has to say about His church and her activity in this era, is what I hope we can do through this six week series.
I want to invite us to Reimagine the Church. I want to journey with you as we try, by God’s leading, to release the images and ideas we have of “Church” to Him, and attempt rather to reimagine His Church as He intended and intends her to be.
Today we begin a new series entitled, Reimagine the Church. The Church is a historically complicated entity.
It is both Organism and Organisation . People and Institution. Visible and Invisible. Local and Global. Spiritual and Physical. Eternal and Temporal. Gathered and Scattered. Perpetual and Intermittent. Being perfected and imperfect.
It is a community capable of initiating and sustaining great healing, as well inflicting great pain. It is filled with and led by broken people, who are at the same time on a journey toward glory. It is complicated.
But it is above all else Gods’.
In recent years, perhaps more than any before, the Church is faced with untold complexity, as the era of Chritendom—a period defined by an almost ubiquitous cultural acceptance of Jesus and His Church—has summarily ended… and this was before COVID-19 forced us all to reevaluate how we even defined “Church.”
So what do we do, those of us who have an earnest love for this overtly complex entity? How do we engage her? How do we faithfully live as God would have His people to live? How do we faithfully exist as an expression of God’s beloved community?
Frankly, I have few answers, but many hopes. Exploring those hopes, through the lens of what God has to say about His church and her activity in this era, is what I hope we can do through this six week series.
I want to invite us to Reimagine the Church. I want to journey with you as we try, by God’s leading, to release the images and ideas we have of “Church” to Him, and attempt rather to reimagine His Church as He intended and intends her to be.
Today we begin a new, short series called Revive Us. This series, on Revival, started in both prayer and counsel, and I believe God will do great things in us through this time. For those of us who may not be familiar with the term Revival, or perhaps you are not yet Jesus’ follower, in it’s Webster form the word means simply, an improvement in the condition or strength of something.
But in its Christian contextual form, Revival is God suddenly and dramatically revealing His presence so powerfully that society—its people and structures—is fundamentally altered.
As I was taking my morning prayer walk, a few weeks ago now, I felt prompted to pray for Revival, so I did. Just a few days later one of our dear church mothers sent me a text message and said something akin to our need to pray for Revival.
Then one morning just a few days after that, I was doing my daily meditation with the Abide App., and the theme was Revival. In fact, the entire week of meditations that week were about Revival. A series, I believe, of not so coincidental connections.
Today we begin a new, short series called Revive Us. This series, on Revival, started in both prayer and counsel, and I believe God will do great things in us through this time. For those of us who may not be familiar with the term Revival, or perhaps you are not yet Jesus’ follower, in it’s Webster form the word means simply, an improvement in the condition or strength of something.
But in its Christian contextual form, Revival is God suddenly and dramatically revealing His presence so powerfully that society—its people and structures—is fundamentally altered.
As I was taking my morning prayer walk, a few weeks ago now, I felt prompted to pray for Revival, so I did. Just a few days later one of our dear church mothers sent me a text message and said something akin to our need to pray for Revival.
Then one morning just a few days after that, I was doing my daily meditation with the Abide App., and the theme was Revival. In fact, the entire week of meditations that week were about Revival. A series, I believe, of not so coincidental connections.
Today we begin a new, short series called Revive Us. This series, on Revival, started in both prayer and counsel, and I believe God will do great things in us through this time. For those of us who may not be familiar with the term Revival, or perhaps you are not yet Jesus’ follower, in it’s Webster form the word means simply, an improvement in the condition or strength of something.
But in its Christian contextual form, Revival is God suddenly and dramatically revealing His presence so powerfully that society—its people and structures—is fundamentally altered.
As I was taking my morning prayer walk, a few weeks ago now, I felt prompted to pray for Revival, so I did. Just a few days later one of our dear church mothers sent me a text message and said something akin to our need to pray for Revival.
Then one morning just a few days after that, I was doing my daily meditation with the Abide App., and the theme was Revival. In fact, the entire week of meditations that week were about Revival. A series, I believe, of not so coincidental connections.
Today we begin a new, short series called Revive Us. This series, on Revival, started in both prayer and counsel, and I believe God will do great things in us through this time. For those of us who may not be familiar with the term Revival, or perhaps you are not yet Jesus’ follower, in it’s Webster form the word means simply, an improvement in the condition or strength of something.
But in its Christian contextual form, Revival is God suddenly and dramatically revealing His presence so powerfully that society—its people and structures—is fundamentally altered.
As I was taking my morning prayer walk, a few weeks ago now, I felt prompted to pray for Revival, so I did. Just a few days later one of our dear church mothers sent me a text message and said something akin to our need to pray for Revival.
Then one morning just a few days after that, I was doing my daily meditation with the Abide App., and the theme was Revival. In fact, the entire week of meditations that week were about Revival. A series, I believe, of not so coincidental connections.
In light of current events surrounding George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, Pastor Léonce and Pastor Ryan Kwon, Pastor of Resonate Church and one of our Overseers, sat down to discuss the events that have led up to this season of protests and unrest, and what are some steps that the Church can take towards racial reconciliation.
In light of current events surrounding George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, Pastor Léonce and Pastor Ryan Kwon, Pastor of Resonate Church and one of our Overseers, sat down to discuss the events that have led up to this season of protests and unrest, and what are some steps that the Church can take towards racial reconciliation.
In light of current events surrounding George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, Pastor Léonce and Pastor Ryan Kwon, Pastor of Resonate Church and one of our Overseers, sat down to discuss the events that have led up to this season of protests and unrest, and what are some steps that the Church can take towards racial reconciliation.
50 years ago, Tom Skinner, of whom many of you may have never even heard, preached at Urbana a message entitled, “The U.S. Racial Crisis and World Evangelism.” I highly recommend you google it, and give it a listen. Mr. Skinner began this message with these hauntingly relevant words: “Any understanding of world evangelism and racism in our country must begin with an understanding of the history of racism. To understand why we are in the middle of a revolution in our time, to come to grips with what the black revolution is all about and to understand what the nature of racism in our society is, I must take you back approximately 350 years, to when the early ships landed in this country, in approximately 1619.” Of course I would contend, respectfully with Mr. Skinner, that a date of 1526 more accurately captures the genesis of slavery in this nation, but that would be irrelevant to the precise point he is making in this message. 50 years ago the same questions and counter-arguments that are swirling now, were swirling then:
Why has the Church been so strangely silent, and often complicit, through so much racial and social upheaval? What, exactly, is the Gospel? Does the Gospel have social implications? Is the Social Gospel endangering the mission of the Church?
Join us for the message entitled Barren Temple. Withered Tree. Pt. 2.
50 years ago, Tom Skinner, of whom many of you may have never even heard, preached at Urbana a message entitled, “The U.S. Racial Crisis and World Evangelism.” I highly recommend you google it, and give it a listen. Mr. Skinner began this message with these hauntingly relevant words: “Any understanding of world evangelism and racism in our country must begin with an understanding of the history of racism. To understand why we are in the middle of a revolution in our time, to come to grips with what the black revolution is all about and to understand what the nature of racism in our society is, I must take you back approximately 350 years, to when the early ships landed in this country, in approximately 1619.” Of course I would contend, respectfully with Mr. Skinner, that a date of 1526 more accurately captures the genesis of slavery in this nation, but that would be irrelevant to the precise point he is making in this message. 50 years ago the same questions and counter-arguments that are swirling now, were swirling then:
Why has the Church been so strangely silent, and often complicit, through so much racial and social upheaval? What, exactly, is the Gospel? Does the Gospel have social implications? Is the Social Gospel endangering the mission of the Church?
Join us for a two part message entitled Barren Temple. Withered Tree.
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Pain and isolation often blind us from knowing what to do next.
This is true no matter where you are on your spiritual journey. In fact, because of the pain and isolation of the time we are living in, every human system, alliance, government, company, church and family are asking this same question, what do we do next? For some of us, this might even be a daily or perhaps hourly question.
For the people in the Bible, it is no different. The narrative, history, poetry, and letters contained within it are from and about people under varying levels of distress. The text we have before us today gives one of the clearest answers to that question.
During distance and distress, God’s desire is for you to abound in holiness and love.
God promises to make the world new again. In a time of incredible struggle. He promises to meet our problems and our pain. Even in our darkest hour, the light of the Living God shines through, and we will get through because He has a glorious future in store for us.
God promises to make the world new again. In a time of incredible struggle. He promises to meet our problems and our pain. Even in our darkest hour, the light of the Living God shines through, and we will get through because He has a glorious future in store for us.
God promises to make the world new again. In a time of incredible struggle, He promises to meet our problems and our pain. Even in our darkest hour, the light of the Living God shines through, and we will get through because He has a glorious future in store for us.
God promises to make the world new again. In a time of incredible struggle, He promises to meet our problems and our pain. Even in our darkest hour, the light of the Living God shines through, and we will get through because He has a glorious future in store for us.
God promises to make the world new again. In a time of incredible struggle, He promises to meet our problems and our pain. Even in our darkest hour, the light of the Living God shines through, and we will get through because He has a glorious future in store for us.
Fearless is a sermon series preached at Renovation Church on how to build our faith when the world feels chaotic.
Fearless is a sermon series preached at Renovation Church on how to build our faith when the world feels chaotic.
Where is the intersection between our sexuality and spirituality? How do we embrace being single, and express it healthily, in an era where there seem to be only two poles—get married to be whole or you only live once, so take as much pleasure as you can? What does it mean to be beautiful, or to have worth? Is love a feeling or a focus? What does the bible have to say about any of these things? This is the journey Renovation Church will be on, to answer these questions and more, in Single, Sexual, Spiritual Vol. 2.
Where is the intersection between our sexuality and spirituality? How do we embrace being single, and express it healthily, in an era where there seem to be only two poles—get married to be whole or you only live once, so take as much pleasure as you can? What does it mean to be beautiful, or to have worth? Is love a feeling or a focus? What does the bible have to say about any of these things? This is the journey Renovation Church will be on, to answer these questions and more, in Single, Sexual, Spiritual Vol. 2.
Where is the intersection between our sexuality and spirituality? How do we embrace being single, and express it healthily, in an era where there seem to be only two poles—get married to be whole or you only live once, so take as much pleasure as you can? What does it mean to be beautiful, or to have worth? Is love a feeling or a focus? What does the bible have to say about any of these things? This is the journey Renovation Church will be on, to answer these questions and more, in Single, Sexual, Spiritual Vol. 2.
Where is the intersection between our sexuality and spirituality? How do we embrace being single, and express it healthily, in an era where there seem to be only two poles—get married to be whole or you only live once, so take as much pleasure as you can? What does it mean to be beautiful, or to have worth? Is love a feeling or a focus? What does the bible have to say about any of these things? This is the journey Renovation Church will be on, to answer these questions and more, in Single, Sexual, Spiritual Vol. 2.
Who are we? The question seems simple, but as the years pass, and seasons change, it is easy to forget who we are, and who we want to become. "We." is a series exploring both the present and aspirational desires of who Renovation Church is, as a community. We must know who we are, and long to be, in order to do what We are called to do in Atlanta and beyond.
Who are we? The question seems simple, but as the years pass, and seasons change, it is easy to forget who we are, and who we want to become. "We." is a series exploring both the present and aspirational desires of who Renovation Church is, as a community. We must know who we are, and long to be, in order to do what We are called to do in Atlanta and beyond.
Who are we? The question seems simple, but as the years pass, and seasons change, it is easy to forget who we are, and who we want to become. "We." is a series exploring both the present and aspirational desires of who Renovation Church is, as a community. We must know who we are, and long to be, in order to do what We are called to do in Atlanta and beyond.
Who are we? The question seems simple, but as the years pass, and seasons change, it is easy to forget who we are, and who we want to become. "We." is a series exploring both the present and aspirational desires of who Renovation Church is, as a community. We must know who we are, and long to be, in order to do what We are called to do in Atlanta and beyond.
Who are we? The question seems simple, but as the years pass, and seasons change, it is easy to forget who we are, and who we want to become. "We." is a series exploring both the present and aspirational desires of who Renovation Church is, as a community. We must know who we are, and long to be, in order to do what We are called to do in Atlanta and beyond.
Your Pain, God's Peace is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church. For more information visit renovationchurch.com
Measuring Success is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church. For more information visit renovationchurch.com
Foundations is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church. For more information visit renovationchurch.com
The Discipline of Guidance is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church. For more information visit renovationchurch.com
The Discipline of Guidance is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church. For more information visit renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Greatness is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church. For more information please visit renovationchurch.com.
MOVE is a sermon series from Renovation Church about following God through uncertainty. For more information about Renovation Church, please visit renovationchurch.com
MOVE is a sermon series from Renovation Church about following God through uncertainty. For more information about Renovation Church, please visit renovationchurch.com
MOVE is a sermon series from Renovation Church about following God through uncertainty. For more information about Renovation Church, please visit renovationchurch.com
MOVE is a sermon series from Renovation Church about following God through uncertainty. For more information about Renovation Church, please visit renovationchurch.com.
This is a stand-alone sermon from Renovation Church. For more information about Renovation Church, please visit renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
This is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church.
If you would like more information, please visit renovationchurch.com
This is a stand-alone sermon preaching at Renovation Church.
If you would like more information, please visit renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
Church In The Wild is a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians preached at Renovation Church.
For more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
This is a stand-alone sermon preached at Renovation Church.
If you would like more information please visit www.renovationchurch.com
We often believe that God's calling on our lives is contingent on our version of success. What if instead of judging our calling by what we believe is a success; we judge it by what God deems as a success.
We often resist the new work of God because of fear and familiarity.
God has something He wants to do in me, in you, in us… at all times… but because we are afraid of what it might cost, or what we might lose, or how it might feel, or what someone will think, we shrink back.
The hope for today is that we will be set free from fear and not be captive to familiarity, so that whatever new work He is doing in each of us, and through each of us, we might welcome it with gladness and freedom.
Why? Because as Jesus is going to show us—by way of what He taught others—is that The new season of God is unfit for the old.
We often do not believe that people can change… and here is the most painful part… because of that, we do not believe that we can truly change.
We may say we do aloud, but our thoughts run counter to our words…
We trap ourselves, and others, in defined categories, past actions, and concretized ideas, and leave little to no room for them… or us, to get out.
But according to the Scriptures, Rocky was right. Everyone can change. No one has to remain the same.
God says that we can rise to a New Way… no matter the history we have behind us.
We believe death impossible to overcome.
We may not say it. We may even say the opposite, but if we are honest, we know this to be true.
And yet before us, in what is arguably one of the most fascinating series of events recorded in the Scriptures, John, who became as a little brother to Jesus, gives us proof, perhaps difficult proof for those who have not come to trust Jesus, but proof nonetheless, that death is not impossible to overcome.
If we had time we could look at the various historical and documented items that support the historicity of the Bible, and the unlikeliness of it even presently existing if not Divine in origin, but today we will all have to have faith for a moment—or at least enough doubt in our suspicions—to accept that these words are history and not fiction.
And according to these words… Jesus defeated death and promises the defeat of death for any who trusts in Him.
We want to know the mind of God without hearing and heeding the Spirit of God.
Now, maybe you are here and you would not consider yourself a follower of Jesus, and you would say, “I do not know, or even believe that there is a God.”
Fair enough, but can you be honest enough and admit that if there is a God, most of us want to know Him on our own terms... not on His.
God should be able to be known, we think, in a way that does not require a deep and abiding affection; a rich and obedient relationship; a rooted and communal faith; or the persistent and pervasive presence of the Holy Spirit.
But as Paul transitions the thrust of his communicated hope for the Corinthians from the Cross to true wisdom, he instructs them and us: The mind of God can only be known through the Spirit of God.
If you want to know what, why or when, with respect to God’s thoughts, then you must be tapped in completely to God’s Spirit.
Church In The Wild | Hidden Wisdom | 1 Corinthians 2:6-13
We desperately long to know the meaning of life, which can only be discovered in the mystery of God.
And the problem with staking our interests and dollars, it seems, in an industry that promises to do so through books like The Secret and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, is that they all are seeking to show the meaning of life by circumventing the mystery of God.
Yet God has shown us the depths of His mystery, in what we naturally see as a most foolish act.
The mystery of God is revealed in the madness of the Cross. Jesus, His being revealed to the world and His being crucified on the cross, unveiled for humanity God’s past, present, and future.
Jesus, Saviour of the world, is the clue to all the secrets of God. Indeed, He, in His death and resurrection, is the key that unlocks the secret to life itself.
Church In The Wild | Mystery Of Secrets | 1 Corinthians 2:1-5
We believe the key to life is to be elevated in this world.
You see, our world is full of those who have been designated as either ‘somebodies’ and ‘nobodies.’ Our world—and sadly our churches—is filled with those who themselves and society have deemed either worthy or not, famous or not, desirable or not, high or low, and these classifications injure all involved.
But this is not how God intended it to be, no. God intended that every human being bear His image, and display His dignity, whether anyone has ever heard of them or not; whether anyone considers them worthy or not; whether anyone thinks them special or not.
And God goes even one step further… He seeks to show how the world will work when His rule is fully manifest in it—God chooses those low in the world to be elevated in His Kingdom.
Church In The Wild | Status | 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
We think we can hold tight to the wisdom of this world, and the scandal of the Cross.
But that is just not possible. In order to truly live a life shaped by the Word’s of God and the good news of the Gospel, everything has to take a backseat. We can only have one primary lens through which we live and evaluate life… through which learn and determine what right and good and true.
This goes without saying, but this is not a campaign against intellectualism or a campaign against a thoughtful approach to faith, it is a call to have God and the Gospel be our plumbline in every way, even as we mine the depths of our intellectual capacity. Why?
Because to believe the gospel [truly believe it] is to have a total transformation of how we see all things. It is a conversion of outlook and imagination, and all of our beliefs, thoughts, views, and values must be transformed by the foolish, scandalous, weak death of Jesus on a Roman Cross.
Church In The Wild | Scandal | 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The behaviour of Christians often empties the Cross of its power. The behaviour of Christians often empties the cross of its power. What do I mean by this? I mean that so very often it is not Jesus with whom my friends who do not follow Him, have a problem... it is with us… His people… the Church.
It is our behaviour, our infighting, our hypocrisy, our conflating faith with politics, our individualism, our lack of follow through, our prejudicial actions, our bigotry, our racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and social mobility segregation that make people outside of the Covenant Community suspect of those inside… suspect of the God that they say they serve, and suspect of the Cross and the power it possesses.
And yet, there is one behaviour that may, above all, be the source of the great majority of that suspicion—how totally divided Jesus’ supposedly one Body appears to be.
Just last year I was speaking with a new pastor friend of mine. He called me to tell me that he had decided it was time for him to retire. He is older, but not old. The church he was leading has incredible potential and already does some incredible work.
When I asked him “why now,” “why so suddenly,” his comment was sullen but firm, “I just never really recovered from the split we had years ago. I am tired.”
For a number of reasons I will not go into detail, but suffice it to say that the church had divided along lines of allegiance to certain leaders, and because they could not reconcile, there was a significant split that cost the church not only the momentum in their ministry, but their witness of the power of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Division in the church diminishes the power of the Cross.
Church In The Wild | One Family, Indivisible | 1 Corinthians 1:10-17
We really believe that God does not have enough Grace for us. We really believe that Grace will fall short of something in our lives, past, present, or future.
In fact, if we can just have one honest moment here, We are often held captive by our past, confused about our present, and fearful of the future. We have done too much. We are too bad... too weak... too inconsistent. We will never be enough.
Hear me, each of those sentiments is wrong. Those are lies. There is no such thing as too much for Grace to cover. There is no such thing as too weak… confused… inconsistent for Grace to cover. There is no such thing as being enough or a future version of yourself that is somehow more worthy. God’s Grace is abundant for it all… for us all.
God gives grace to cover our past, strengthen our present, and secure our future.
Church In the Wild | Grace & Peace | 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
What type of church would Renovation be, if each one of us lived with a posture of becoming “All Things To All People” so that we might save some? How would our homes and our communities be different? Our text for today keeps us in Corinth, but in Paul’s 2nd address to the Corinthian church, we get a chance to see how they were reminded of their call and the importance of their COMMUNITY.
We seem to have an issue with evangelism. The question we need to ask ourselves, why? Why is it, that one of the central disciplines for the Christian life has become utterly distasteful? Why is it, that the thought of us going into our places of work, school, or social interaction and specifically finding an opportunity to do evangelism causes us great discomfort or anxiety.
I think if we are honest with ourselves we all know the answer,
We are overly concerned with our present and wholly unconcerned with peoples eternity.
When was the last time we thought about our co-workers eternity? When was the last time we thought about our neighbors eternity? I’ll be the first one to bleed, as a pastor the gravitational pull of this gig is towards Christians. And to my shame, I have gone months without thinking about my neighbors eternity.
But the scriptures paint a very different picture for us. For the disciple of Jesus, our lives should be one of perpetual evangelism. That
For the sake of saving some, we fight for common ground with all.
We do not like to talk about money, even if it means we get more of what God has for us. Of course, that is a very Christian application to a very human condition. No one really wants to talk about money, unless they are bragging about how much of it they have… and those are usually very “special” people.
But, we have to talk about it. We have to talk about money in order to have the right view of it, and we have to talk about it rightly. We have to talk about it biblically. But, God does want His people to be generous and expectant. God longs for His people to be generous and expectant.
Future Church | Generous & Expectant | Malachi 3:6-12
Authenticity is what the world wants most, with intentionality to match it.
With so much shallowness, emptiness, and falseness in our current culture, there is little more attractive than authenticity—even when it is messy!
Once again it is Paul who shows us that this is not a new principle, but a very old idea. The most attractive church we can be is an authentic and intentional church, willing to give to people not only our message but our very lives. Authentic and Intentional people form the church that changes the world.
Future Church | Authentic & Intentional | 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12
We need the leading of the Spirit to live lives of risk for Jesus. We need the power of the Spirit while being centered on Jesus!
We need the presence of the Spirit while dwelling on the loving sacrifice of Jesus. We need the gifts of the Spirit, while we live out of the righteousness of Jesus. It is not Jesus or the Spirit, it is Jesus and the Spirit, or our faith… indeed our church is incomplete.
James, Peter, Paul, and Barnabas certainly knew this to be true. They proclaimed the completed work of Jesus through the active work of the Spirit… One grounding, the Other leading, so that the church might be what God intended her to be. The true church is Jesus-centred and Spirit-led.
Future Church | Jesus-Centered & Spirit-Led | Acts 15:22-35
We have a tendency to neglect some and embrace others, ignoring that all are image bearers of God. [or, “ignoring that all are made in the image of God”]
But the Church, those who say they are representative of God and His interests, must be different and distinct in this matter.
We must be those who seek to see people as image bearers, embracing all into the family of God with no prerequisite other than their belief in and commitment to Jesus. We must be those who seek the good of the suffering, marginal, forgotten and discarded. The Future Church is one free of ethnic boundaries and social apathy.
Future Church | Socially Conscious & Transcultural | Acts 6:1-7; Acts 15:1-21
we would rather divide over preference than unite over priority. Human beings, Christian or not, this is our proclivity. We would rather divide over preference than unite over priority—even if it means ignoring the prayer of our shared Saviour.
This must not be. This cannot be, for if it is not only do we ignore Jesus’ prayer, but we forfeit the hope of His prayer that through our being one, the rest of the world might know that He indeed was sent by the Father and indeed is their Saviour.
Thanks be to God that by virtue of this same Saviour we have a chance, an opportunity to seek out that for which He prayed. And we have a promise in Isaiah that at some point Jesus’ people will get through their heads that we were always meant to be one people, in one metaphysical house, with one Father.
What the prophet tells us is that though God’s people are presently splintered into many streams, one day those many will become one again. Many streams will flow into the future house of God. The divisions will cease. The splits and splinters will be no more. Priority of His presence will overrule personal preference.
Future Church | Convergence Of Streams | Isaiah 2:1-4
We don’t talk to God like He is a loving father.
I know that seems like a strong accusation to open with. I think with a little reflection we will all agree this is true about us to one degree or another. The reasons for this will vary wildly.
For some us, it will be that we have a strong religious background. If you grew up in another religion, God as a father is most likely completely foreign. Your perception of Him is one of distance and otherness. A god that is separate and far off.
Or perhaps you grew up in the church, but the scriptures that describe God in his cosmicness where overemphasized. The stories your parents or pastors emphasized where about God being surrounded in unapproachable light or when Moses ask God to see Him, and God responds that you can not see me and live. For those that grew up in those traditions often feel as though we are offensive worms and God is a judge simply holding back his anger because of Jesus. As a result, we tend to pray to God in a manner that is aware of His holiness but absent His affections.
The second group of us actually talk to God like He is a father, it’s just as a reflection of the sins of our earthly father. We talk to God out of our daddy issues. Our communication with God was formed in how we communicated with our earthly fathers. For those people, myself included this manifest itself most commonly in a few ways.
We talk to God from a place of shame. We pray to Him as though He constantly disapproves of who we are. Almost as though we feel like He believes He made a mistake in creating us.
Or
Walk talk to God from a place of fear. We pray to Him as though He is at any moment we could push him over the edge. It sometimes feels like at any moment He will abandon us. So we pray from a place of trying to keep punishment at bay.
So the idea of talking to God as a loving father seems foreign.
While these categories by no way cover everyone, I think we can all agree that we don’t talk to God like a loving father.
For most of human history the ideas of distance, shame, and fear were normal for humanity’s understanding of its relationship with God.
But in the story we are going to read this morning, we are going to see a very different relationship that. In fact, scriptures position is that our heavenly Father wants to hear the heart of His children.
How To Pray | Stand Alone Sermon | Matthew 6
If we are honest today, Hope seems hidden in the waiting. Whether we are waiting for God’s promise, or a person's, hope seems hidden in the waiting. In other words, it is hard to wait with hope for the revelation of something. It is difficult to hope in what your eyes cannot presently see. It is a battle to hold out hope until what has been promised is revealed.
The good news for us today though is that God’s Spirit reveals God’s promise in God’s time.
Conspiracy of Hope | Luke 2:22-35 | Hope Revealed
We all long for a sure hope.
We long for a security in the things for which we hope. We long to see possibilities and promises come to fruition. No rational person wants a false promise, that will build false hope, that will lead to failure to trust. No. We want a sure and steady hope, and a clear fulfillable promise.
Unfortunately history—both personal and corporate—has taught us that people make promises they simply cannot or will not fulfill. People instigate hope in us that they cannot or will not bring to fruition. People fail to bring possibilities to reality. So to whom do we turn?
To God, and God only as an unfailing surety. God’s promise is our only sure and steady hope. Only in Him can we be guaranteed that our hope will not be put to shame. Only in Him can we be sure that a promise is both yes and amen!
Conspiracy of Hope | Genesis 3:14-15 | Hope Promised
We rarely consider the good in our lives, so we aren’t moved to serve anyone.
We as a society rarely consider the good things we have experienced. We live in an epidemic of “what have you done for me lately.” Which means that we have a hard time being a people of sacrifice. We have all experienced directly when we send out an invitation to help us move. There is no greater way to discover who your true friends are than moving homes.
Even greater than the relational strain of moving furniture is how this reality manifests itself with our relationship with God.
We rarely consider the great things that God has done for us, and so we aren’t moved to serve him I’ll speak for myself, my desire to serve becomes smaller the longer I go without considering God’s goodness towards me. Spiritual disciplines, my willingness to give monetarily, my willingness to give of my time, my ability to simply be faithful to that which I have been called, is directly connected to my frequency in remembering God’s faithfulness and goodness towards me.
None of this is news to our Heavenly Father. In fact, the Bible is plain in its revelation of how our hearts work. Throughout it, you will find a constant refrain to consider the goodness and faithfulness of God. The position of the scriptures is
God’s faithfulness moves us to faithful service.
Stand Alone Sermons | Faithfulness | 1 Samuel 12:24
“The more I learn about the universe, the less convinced I am that there's any sort of benevolent force that has anything to do with it, at all.” ― Neil deGrasse Tyson
You and I may not all be able to place such eloquent words on the underlying sense of incidental-ness that plagues most men and women, but the feeling is proven potent, for many life is a series of disconnected and randomized events, of which we must make the most.
I remember quite vividly a heated argument I had with one of my dearest friends, years ago at Augustine’s, on Memorial. He spent the better part of an hour trying to convince me that everything in life was a randomised series of events.
There was no rhyme or reason to life. We are born, and the people who are most successful, he said, are those who learn to react the best to the randomness of this world. As he closed his bar speech. He turned to me with incredible confidence, raised his glass and declared, “life, in the end, is incidental… a game of chance, and I will win precisely because I see no purpose in it!” He slammed down his empty beer mug, and looked at me with incredible smugness.
Without batting an eye, I leaned in close and asked him a question, “If life is incidental, and without purpose, why do you invest so heavily, both politically and financially in trying to make the world a better place?”
He sat in stunned silence… and we said little else that evening.
Again, you, especially if you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, would be unlikely to ever say something so void of belief as Neil DeGrasse Tyson or so depressing as my friend Johnathan—but you would think it. You would wrestle with it. You might even start to believe it.
In fact the second biggest lie we ever believe in this world is that we are incidental in it. We believe that our lives are incidental.
The first is connected, that IF there is a God, He is hiding something from us that could help us better navigate this twisted and torn series of unconnected events.
But the Scriptures teach us something far more dignified about God's greatest creation. Our lives are ripe with redemptive potential.
Great Expectations | Intentional Over Incidental | Genesis 37 - 50
It is easy to become cynical amid difficult situations. And though the progression towards cynicism is likely unique for each of us, it is the ultimate destination for all of us, if we do not get a handle on how we handle the difficulties of this world.
We go from discouragement to detachment. We turn off the news because we want no more bad news. We stop weeping over injustice because we just feel overwhelmed. We forget our commitment to our Compassion kids, because we start to think we are not really making a difference. We ignore the fact that in much of the world our brothers and sisters in the faith are persecuted and suffering. And before long we can only look at the world through cynical lenses.
But, and hear this carefully, we do not have to be cynics. In fact, we can even have joy in the midst of the difficulties. We can have immovable joy in this cynical and difficult world.
Great Expectations | Joy Over Cynicism | 1 Peter 1:3-9
The main trouble is that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?
“Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of your past. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now David’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself.”
Great Expectations | Faith Over Fear | Psalm 27:1-14
“It is what it is.” Every one of us, at some point or another, has probably said or heard this phrase. It is a modern repackaging of the older saying “Qué será será, whatever will be will be.” Or, if you grew up in the church, “God’s going to do what He’s going to do.” This is fatalism, the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.
These phrases are often used by us to describe a future that is already written. It is a way of resigning our past, present, and future to fate, luck, chance, or destiny. “These are just the cards I’ve been dealt,” we say, giving in to cynicism, and embracing the belief that God is either not involved in our story, or there is nothing we can do to change it.
More often than not though, Fatalism is the way we mitigate fragile faith, it is the lens through which we interpret our circumstances.
Great Expectations | Sovereignty Over Fatalism | Amos 7:1-6
We believe if we don’t fulfill our purpose to change the world someone else will!
Someone will take on their purpose with passion. Someone will secure themselves in their identity as a masterpiece. Someone will walk in the works God prepared for them before time began. Someone will get activated as the gift that they are. Someone will help the church fill the world, to change the world.
Someone. Someone. Someone. Someone… but... not… “me.”
I am here to tell you today that you are someone! And the great work before us will never be worked without you!
You—through the Church—are God’s means for transforming the world. You—through the Church—are God’s PLAN A! There is no plan b!
You—through this church—are God’s means for reaching the world!
Made For More | Made To REACH MORE | Ephesians 4:17-5:20; 6:10-17
We do not believe we have anything of worth to contribute… we are satisfied to simply show up.
We convince ourselves that there is no place for us. Those people are far too talented. Their strengths far outweigh mine. I have no experience through which God can work. I have no gift that I can give.
Wrong!
Not only has God made you a masterpiece with a unique masterpiece mission, but He has also wired you in a unique way to BE at least one of five catalytic gifts He has given to the church. The church is mobilized and catalyzed by the gifts God gives it.
Made For More | Made To DO More | Ephesians 4:11-16
We—as God’s Church—are Made For More. We—as God’s people—are Made to Be More.
Though these are revelatory, powerful, reorienting truths, there is something that must undergird them if they are to ever be fully activated in our lives—love.
But not love in the way that we have come to understand the word in modern western culture. No, this is love in the deep, abiding, transformative sense that can only come from love’s Source.
You see in order for the Church to be the fullness of Jesus in the world, and in order for us to understand the unique masterpiece we are, and in order to walk in the masterpiece mission that has been set aside for us, we must first become acquainted with and regularly dwell on how it is that we have been loved, and from that love, love.
This is Paul’s primary purpose in this prayer—to plead with God that God would ground the Church in His love. The Church must be grounded and founded in God’s love.
If this were easy or automatic, Paul would not have been praying for it to be the reality in the Church at Ephesus. Why is Paul praying this prayer? The answer is quite simple if we can be honest for just a moment—We ground ourselves in so many things besides love.
Made For More | Made To LOVE MORE | Ephesians 3:14-21
What we were made for is written across the story of our lives.
Our lives often tell the story of that for which we are made. It is usually in winding roads, crooked lines, and misdirected efforts or behaviour—but there is a pattern and a purpose being revealed if we can connect the dots.
Even though it was in no way redemptive, it is very clear to me that I was made to communicate. God gave me the gift of gab, and though I used it for many years in many ways to serve myself, He redirected it to serve His ends.
We all have something like this: an inherent love and connection with music; a keen sense of beauty in nature; an early artistic bent that may have at first been used for graffiti, but can now be used to display the wonder of God’s creative genius; a keen and critical mind, made for problem solving; a deep and abiding compassion and patience; an unstoppable curiosity; a love for hearing people’s story…the list could literally go on forever. Our lives often tell the story of that for which we are made.
But what does that have to do with God... with this scripture we just read together... with being Made for More? Everything!
You see, though we may not have taken the time to connect the dots on how we were made or how our lives tell that story, God has, with great intentionality, Made us to Be unique in this world.
Perhaps for some of us, Made us to BE More than we presently believe we are.
In fact, after another well laid out list of powerful promises, Paul tells us that Every person is a masterpiece, made by a Master Craftsman, for a unique purpose.
Made For More | Made To BE MORE | Ephesians 2:8-10
We settle for so little in our lives. Just getting by… Momentary highs… Edited versions of who we truly are—even of our most redemptive qualities.
We settle for substitutes for the dreams God has given us, big dreams that seem to us so outlandish that they cannot ever truly come to fruition.
We take that settled mentality into every realm, including our view of what God intends for our lives; what God intends for this world; including our view of His intentions for the Church. It affects how we see everything, and how we engage God and the Church and the world around us.
But what if we refused to settle? What if we decided to see with hyper clarity God’s glorious intentions for us… for everything?
You see though we often lose sight of it—myself included—Paul tells us that God has made His people fro more. Specifically, He has made His church for more. The church is meant to be the fullness of Christ everywhere.
Made For More | Made For More | Ephesians 1:22-23
We live as though mercy has no obligations.
For those of us who have been fortunate enough to be let off with a warning after being caught speeding, how long did it take before you were speeding again? 5 minutes?
For the students who have terrible study habits and didn’t finish a project on time, and your professor allowed for a late submittal. How long before you started procrastinating again?
Time and time again, we are continually shown mercy and live as though we have no obligations on the mercy we have received. Nowhere is our inconsistencies more apparent that our relationship with God. As followers of Jesus we believe we have been rescued from a life of misery and an eternity of separation, and yet we can’t seem to read our Bible on a regular basis. We can’t seem to make decisions without asking His guidance first.
The text we will dive into is a reminder that experiencing God’s mercy makes sacrifice the only logical response.
Stand Alone Sermon | Logical Sacrifice | Romans 12:1-2
We believe the world will be fine without us.
Even as we feel, on any given day, some lingering sense that someone should be doing something to make these things right, we often comfort ourselves with the thought that ultimately, this place will be fine. It was here before me. It will be here after me. It will be OK. Not only is this a fatalistic approach to the world and the unfolding of history, but this thinking also robs us our noble role in world events and in the unfolding of history, and specifically for the Christian, in the unfolding of Redemptive History.
In other words, we have a part to play in things being made right, and it goes far beyond what we might be willing to even think or believe… but it is no less true. In fact, the church father, Paul, wrote in his letter to the ancient church in Rome that creation itself waits in eager expectation for God’s children to be revealed so that it can be brought into freedom and glory.
God will renew what is broken in this world. God is renewing even as we speak, but the fullness of that cannot come without our faithfulness to participate in His plan. And our participation—in both word and deed— is proliferating the good news of what God has done, and is doing, and will do.
This is what we will see today as we look to Jesus’ words, in Matthew the Tax collectors gospel record— Renewal will come when God’s good news covers the globe.
Every Square Inch | God Of The Globe | Matthew 24:14
We rarely know and often poorly love our neighbors. We rarely know and often poorly love the people around us.
In fact, a recent study shows that as Americans, we are likely to distrust our neighbors, live in gated communities and sort ourselves into like-minded groups on issues of politics.
In addition to this distrust, there is a general withdrawal from socializing and communicating. The biggest portion of our leisure time today is spent watching television, which is up to 19 hours per week today compared to about 10 hours in the 1960s.
All of these factors, and several others which you can examine for yourself in the linked study, found in the Series Guide, reveal that overall Americans spend significantly less time with their neighbors, and in their communities. In the 1970s, nearly 30 percent of Americans frequently spent time with neighbors, and only 20 percent had no interactions with them. Today, those numbers are reversed.
All of this should lead us to two questions, if we consider ourselves Christians: is this what God intended for human relationships? Is this how God intended for us to behave toward our neighbors and communities? The answer of course in a resounding “no!”
Even if you are not a Christian, you have to agree that in order for humanity to flourish, there must be a certain level of healthy communal connectivity; there must be a certain degree to which we have a genuine concern for people, simply because they are people.
Yet there is a higher view: Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 are central to God’s understanding of how we must live with and love one another as human beings. So central in fact, that Jesus in Matthew 22:40 states that “all the law and the prophets depend on these.”
In other words, everything that God ever said about how He would have humans be, rests on these two sentences. His heart is very clear: God desires that we know and love our neighbor, particularly because we have been known and loved by Him.
Every Square Inch | God Of My City |
Because purposefully or inadvertently, we will choose something to rule the rhythms of our families.
For some, work rules the rhythms of our families. For others, being busy rules the rhythms of our families. Still others, kids’ activities rule the rhythms of our families.
Convenience Leisure Television Success Good schools A great home Meeting others’ expectations of us
There is a literal unending list of things from which we can draw, in our lives and in our culture, that when looked at closely, we can clearly see govern and rule the rhythms of our families.
Since we can all admit this is true of each of us on some level, can we then ask the honest question: Is there a higher purpose for our families? Yes. The answer that the scriptures offer us this today is that...
God’s rule should establish the rhythm for your family.
Every Square Inch | God Of My Family | Joshia 24:15
Generally, our interests are our only interests.
Now, you think to yourself, “not me!” “Prove it!” Let’s start here then, if you are one of the blessed who may have a little bit of extra money left over at the end of the month, what is your first thought for that money?
For me, the first thought is often about something I want for me, and because we invest well in Renovation financially, and sponsor compassion children, and do a number of other things, I can justify it…. easily!
Here is another example to consider—when you get face time with your supervisor, do you promote other people and the great work they have done, hoping they will have advancement opportunities in the organisation or, if we can be honest, is your first thought about how you can display your own value. Of course, it is the latter for most of us, we have been enculturated to think this way, and it is innate to our wiring!
Even when we do good and charitable things, there is often a self-interested motivation, even if it is deep in our subconscious, or not absolutely core to our efforts.
So how do we overcome both wiring and culture, so that we might be people who consider others before and maybe even above ourselves? How do we become truly and identifiably selfless?
Being united with Christ releases us to selflessly regard others as better than ourselves.
Compassion Sunday | Regard | Philippians 2:1-4
We do not believe in the power of prayer.
If we are versed in church speak or have spent our time in church spaces, of course, we will pay due to homage to prayers place in the life of a Christian, but if we believed in it’s power to our core, then why do we not pray more? Why do we not put prayer in its place as the greatest instrument at our disposal? Listen, because we do not believe that it is as effective and effectual as we say that we believe—myself included.
Yet it is prayer, throughout the scriptures and in countless accounts throughout history, that has produced the impossible through its power.
The prayer of a righteous person is powerful.
James | Stop The Rain | James 5:13-20
We have no patience for anything...especially in the midst of difficulty. Everything must be now, and most often on our terms. In categories as far reaching as food service to relational expectations, now is the only answer we know. And for Christians, it shows most clearly when we show not patience for God to step in and sort out our circumstances or solve our problems.
We would rather take the reigns, feign control, and power through, rather than wait for God to do what He will, working always on our behalf.
The call from James, though, cuts through our tendencies, and points us to a better way—Be patient through your difficulty; the Lord is coming—the Lord is near. Wait on him with patient confidence, He will never fail to keep His word.
James | Wait On Him | James 5:7-12
The El Escorial is the historical residence of the King of Spain. It was commissioned to be built by King Philip II of Spain, and the architect was Juan Bautista de Toledo. Together they oversaw its construction as a monument to Spain’s role as the center of the Christian World
It was almost entirely paid for by Spanish conquest. While many of the colonizers' search for gold came up empty, Spain’s did not. It is estimated that during the Spanish colonization of the Americas over 180 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver was stolen. While there is no way to get an actual number, it is estimated that between 10-25 million indigenous people lived in the land we now call Mexico at the beginning of the Spanish conquest. By it’s close only 2 million people remained.
Last year 1.57 billion of them were sold last year. They are one of the key methods by a substantial portion of the world to engage one another and essentially the most socially acceptable addiction. The production of these devices, regardless of maker, lends itself to some horrifying circumstances. Every smartphone has a measure of the mineral coltan in it. Coltan is mined in places like the Congo and the jungles of Brazil and has funded the genocidal warlords of the Congo to the tune of at least $25 million dollars. In many places, it is essentially slave labor that mines this mineral. It has been compared to the blood diamond trade. In the assembly of these devices, the injustice of child labor. In a CNN article, none of the major manufacturers of cell phones could say with certainty that child labor had not been used in the production process.
While rightful fire and fury towards the colonizer rise up within us when we hear of their economic pillaging, that same anger ought to illuminate the same sin within our own hearts.
Our self-interest and convenience outweigh our desire for justice and equity.
But as we will see in this text, the Bishop has a great many things to say about the oppression that can come from the economically advantaged. That the accumulation and consumption of wealth carry with it a great responsibility and judgment from the Lord.
God judges sinful self-indulgence and its accompanying injustice.
James | Money Can't Save You | James 5:1-6
We want the pleasures of this world irrespective of God.
Or, for the Christian— we want the pleasures of this world and the blessings of God. We want to do what we want, and still have God be pleased. We want to enjoy life by our own rules, and still have God approve. We want God in our lives, insofar as He does not impede on our personal pleasure or demand too much control of our cravings. There is a war within us at all times, and when we feed our base cravings, chaos personally and corporately is the only possible outcome. If you take just a few moments to consider, I am sure you will agree.
What will we do, because James is quite clear: Our cravings for the pleasures of this life—if unchecked—will cultivate hostility toward God and conflict with others.
James | Hate It or Love It | James 4:1-12
Your tongue will control the course of your life—but you, alone, cannot control it. Perhaps you find that to be an overstatement, and yet if we were to do the digging, through every failure or success; thriving relationship or floundering one; moment of incredible joy or moment of incredible sadness, there is a high probability that your tongue, or someone else's, was either front and centre, or at the very least periphery but proximate to causing or catalysing those moments.
With its ability to shift a mood and a moment by saying the right thing at the right time or the wrong thing at the wrong time, the tongue can change the outcome of a situation, disintegrate the cohesion of a community, ruin the good name of an innocent person, or give a good name to one who does not deserve it.
Slander or Celebration. Gossip or Good News. Grace or Aggression. The tongue has the power to produce either in a moment, and the power we cede to it will control the course of our lives.
It is vital we wrestle with this truth today for many reasons, but most certainly and importantly because of our own negligence and blindness. We think we are in control of what we say most times, so We rarely consider the weight of our words, or the power of our tongue.
James | Fire Starter | James 3:1-12
“Just Believe” “Pray the Sinner’s Prayer.” “Nominal Christian.”
These are phrases and ideas borne out of the further misinterpretation of a tortured priest who just wanted people to be free from paying for their salvation and trying to pray their loved ones—already dead—into heaven. These encapsulate well the world of Easy Believism, and Creedal Intellectualism that have come to characterise “faith” in the U.S. I remember quite well the first time I heard good, guilt laden, “just believe and pray this prayer” preaching. I was participating in aRevival. There is nothing inherently wrong withRevivals; I have been a part of some amazing Revivals. But on this night, as one of the speakers finished up his message, his voice crescendo in force and urgency, as he charted the course of hypothetical situation after hypothetical situation, all leading to the imminent death—within the span even of that very night—of every student in the room. They were then posed this question—where would your soul go, if you died tonight?
Sufficiently afraid of hell and death, the solution seemed incredibly promising at the moment, “just say these words after me, and you will be saved.” The issues with this approach are many, not the least of which is that a fear of Hell cannot transform a heart. More salient though, is this display is endemic of an American Faith in which Professions are high, but the inconsistencies we see, particularly in Evangelicalism, are higher.
This display is endemic of the inactive intellectualism of other streams of faith, which says it “believes” but behaves in ways that do not coincide with Jesus’s own teaching. How is that of 245 MillionAdults in the U.S.,173 Million identify as Christian, while much of what it means to be Christian is largely ignored? How is it that Christians, on the whole, are seen by those who arenot as duplicitous, fake, and no different in many ways than themselves? How? Why? Simple. We believe it is enough to just believe.
James | Faithless Faith | James 2:14-26
If you have been with us so far then you know that James has covered a great deal; encouraging this young church that God had something extraordinary for them on the other side of their trial—blessing and life. He encouraged them that God only gives good gifts, and that they were in danger of letting their trial transform into temptation, which could be ruinous to their lives.
James reminded them that faithfully following Jesus meant that they could not simply hear the word and nod in agreement to what it said, but that they must do what the word says—and this is best expressed in being completely unstained by the irredeemable aspects of the culture around them and displaying active compassion for the dispossessed of society.
Religion, James writes, that the Father loves is marked by justice and holiness; equity and piety.
James, pushing them toward a lived word, expressed in active compassion and personal piety was a precursor it seems to his addressing an even greater issue.
It seems that many in this early church community, much like in the Colonial community of European Servants and African Slaves, decided that for a little bit of status; for a bit of favour, or potentially some upward mobility or acceptance; or perhaps because of some of their own self-loathing, are willing to dishonour other impoverished people; willing to discriminate against their own, to show favouritism to their oppressors.
James is appalled. They are being completely hypocritical. They were ready to rise against their oppressors in anger, and lose sight of True Religion, but then they turn around and speak and act without mercy toward one who is like them, while trying to impress their oppressors.
This of course should go without saying, but Discrimination of any kind is inconsistent with faith in Jesus.
James | Discrimination | James 2:1-13
The instruction and encouragement that Pastor James had shared so far has been simultaneously powerful, convicting and uplifting. He has been clear to his people and us as readers. We will endure trials, even oppression, but if we ask God for wisdom and endure them with joy, then we are promised blessing for our fidelity and a crown of life that cannot be taken away.
Pastor James has also shown that though our attitude can turn a trial into temptation, that God is faithful. He is good and He does good. God is only and always good. But this young Messianic Community still has much to work through. Much like any oppressed community of people, who have suffered prolonged, severe oppression, violence was beginning to become an acceptable option in some of their minds.
This though was not and is not an option for God’s people. James needs them to understand exactly what it means to live as an alternative society within the one in which they exist. If the default disposition of society is to react with violence and revenge to oppression, then James wants the community of Jesus to live in a posture that is reflective of the Kingdom of God, not the society around them.
James gives them clear ethics and practice for how to live justly in the midst of injustice, as he surfaces and draws attention to the beauty and potency of the Kingdom Community.
James | Finding My Religion | James 1:19-27
We really don’t believe God is good… at least, not all the time. If we believed God good all the time , then much of our decision making, and choices; the very direction of our lives would be different —even for those of us who know we love Jesus.
But our trust in Him vacillates, and trial only exacerbates that struggle to trust. If we allow a trial to consume us , because we look to it, rather than through it , then we will allow ourselves to slowly drift into the temptation to fight for control, or cope with the pain through sinful self-indulgence —and then lay the blame squarely at God’s “feet,” so to speak.
You see greatest challenge to faith in God is not unbelief in God , rather it is unbelief in God being good. Rarely is the question, “ is there a Creator? ” More often the question is, “can the Creator be known; can the Creator be trusted? ” This is not a new set of questions, family. James’ first church community was struggling with the same.
We learned last time that as we inevitably face trials in this life , and difficulties of every kind, that God will generously and single mindedly give to us the gift of wisdom in order to navigate it well; and though we learned through James’ writing that by leveraging this wisdom and enduring our difficulties with joy, we will grow in endurance that produces a perfecting work, that ultimately leads to a second gift of a crown of life and blessings from our very good God...
It seems that many in the oppressed first century messianic community , to whom James was writing, are tempted to believe that God does not single mindedly give wisdom to those who trust Him. There, in their scattered state, far from the land of their forefathers , under economic oppression , they are tempted to believe that He is not only the cause of their difficulty, but the source of their sin. They are tempted to believe that God cannot be trusted, because He is constantly changing. They are tempted to believe that God is not good .
James counters— God only gives good gifts.
James | Generous God | James 1:13-18
“If the letter of James were sent to the Christian communities of certain countries [today] that suffer from violence and exploitation, it would very possibly be intercepted by government security agencies. The document would be branded as subversive.” - Elsa Tamez
Today we begin a rather lengthy, but I anticipate enjoyable, journey through the letter, James. What we have before us in this letter is a group of people going through it, suffering economic hardships at the hands of the wealthy and the temptation to either lose hope or sinfully regain control, and their Pastor is writing to them deeply concerned that as they go through it, they do so in a way that reflects who they truly are and what they say they believe.
This quote fairly accurately captures the nature of James’ ancient words. His letter is powerful, unsettling and comforting all at the same time.
I imagine this will speak to many of us, particularly those of us from cultures that have historically endured oppression. And yet, as those who have been drawn into a conciliated community through Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s generosity, even if we are not from a people who have been historically oppressed, we can enter into the narrative of our sisters and brothers because of our common communion with Jesus.
As we explore James words, and the context in which they were written, we will find ourselves together wrestling with our perspective on wealth and poverty; the depths of Justice; public policy; how to endure difficulty well, and reward for doing so; wisdom in what we say and how we say it; preferential treatment and the nature of Justification, which is, for those of you who may not yet be Christians, what it means to be square with God.
I hope that as we spend the summer wrestling with these words together, we will grow not just as individuals, but as a community, because this was James’ intent in writing the letter, and God’s intent in preserving it for us.
James | Going Through | James 1:1-12
we live through a filter of nostalgia, falsely idealizing the past; unable to enjoy the present; unwilling to believe in a better future.
This is why older artist just keep touring, because they are chasing the high of former glory, and do not believe they have a future.
This is why many athletes continue to play well past their prime and why many leaders have no succession plan of any kind, because every day for them is another chance to chase what has already past
It is as if life is frozen in that era and they can neither be here in this era with family, in new life, nor can they see the possibility of a better future.
You see when we live this way, we cannot be present in who God has made us, and we cannot look forward to who He is making us and what He has for us, because we believe in our hearts that our best days have already been lived. We are literally stuck.
But what if we believed something different? What if you knew… BELIEVED, that God has crafted you for a unique plan, specific place, and a divine purpose!
NoFilter | Gingham | Jeremiah 29:11; Acts 17:26-27; Ephesians 2:10
In our minds, new means different. In our understanding new means unused. But what are new shoes, really? Old cow repurposed. What is a new car, really? Something old, repurposed. Old ore, now metal, made into a “new” car. We could run the list through 100 examples from homes to paper but each, no matter how “new” to us, is not actually something NEW.
But when God says that we are new, He has something totally other in mind. Listen, it is an almost completely unimaginable NEW REALITY… a NEW AGE that is both COMING and already HERE; and we are caught in the middle of it, and essential to the goal of it!
Again, if we could begin to allow our minds to see to depths of what NEW means to God, we would never think that we are any less than God made us and shaped us to be. IF we could open ourselves to see what NEW means to God, we would never question our worth in this world. If we could, by God’s grace, conceptualise what NEW means to Him, there would be absolutely no fear in ever being authentically and completely who He made us to be; no filter necessary. The truth that we must allow to sink into our hearts, regardless of how we left feeling after the wondrous news that we are REMARKABLY and WONDERFULLY made, is this—In Christ you are completely and uniquely new; the old you is completely and uniquely annihilated!
nofilter | Juno | 2 Corinthians 5:17
We believe there is something inherently wrong with us, and so we pass ourselves off as something we are not.
For some of us it is a significant and lingering feeling, and everyday is a new endeavor to hide those things we think wrong with us, and try and accentuate those we feel are best.
For others it is fleeting moments, or certain spaces, or certain people that make us feel inadequate and inherently misaligned with the world around us, and in those moments we try and hide those things we think make us inherently out of place with those people or those spaces.
The point family—if we can be honest with ourselves and each other for just a moment—is that we all live our lives through filters that allow us to accentuate what we want people to see, and minimise what we do not want them to see, all so that we can be accepted as the person we think they want us to be. Broyard was just an extreme, and particularly ruthless version of our collective human condition.
How do we shake free from this? We do so by hearing and believing the truth—God intimately formed you and knows you fully.
nofilter | Clarendon | Psalm 139:1-16
Often we have no vision for ourselves or our possessions beyond our personal satisfaction.
Even those of us who strive to see the world beyond the blinders we so often wear can still use a tune-up from time to time that will make us ask and re-ask the question “am I looking beyond me and beyond now with respect to how I live and what I have?”
In the end, that is what is at stake here. This cannot be reduced to biblical obligation about the use of our resources and giving, it must be more, because what we do with our resources ultimately comes down to the breadth of our vision.
A vision of what could be and should be, and the stewardship of all that we are and have to move us toward that end and wisdom is key in every way.
The word for us today is both simple and complex—A Wise Steward Honours God by Giving, Budgeting and Investing Wisely.
Wise | Wise Money | Proverbs 3:9-10; 11:24-25; 13:22; 27:23-24
“I’m just trying to get through the day.” Everyone of us have felt this way at some time or another with respect to our marriages and children. I know I have. You see, although marriage and family have been postured by the Church as the ultimate goal of life, once we actually enter the complexity of these relationships and the difficulty of actually turning a house into home, we quickly realise that what we romanticised is quite a bit more complex than what we perhaps anticipated.
We must remember, it is really apathy that is is most dangerous to our marriages.
We must remember, who our children become is directly related to how we shape them, raise them, train them and intentionally invest in them.
Therein is the connection. Like an artist sculpting a masterpiece, we take incredible care and invest significant hours in the most valuable work we will ever produce.
The message for us today is this: A wise family is established by mutual honour and purposeful investment in one another.
Wise | Wise Family | Proverbs 6:20-23; 22:6; 24:3-4; 31:10-31
Every one of us has allowed people we cannot count on to get close to us. Every one of us has put our trust in people who have abused that trust. Every single one of us has given more to a person than they were willing to give back— and we have done it multiple times, why? Because, Generally, we lack intentionality in choosing our relationships.
We “fall” into love. We “end up” being friends. We “happen” to connect with someone, but very often are not intentional in how we enter a relationship, cultivate a relationship, or in some cases, exit a relationship when it becomes toxic or unhealthy.
Perhaps our parents or mentors or grand parents or guidance counselors simply did not prepare us with the right skills we need to graciously assess whether someone should actually be in our lives. Perhaps because we live an a culture that is in love with the idea of love, fears conflict, and longs to be liked, we do not know how to enter, or if need be, exit relationships well.
Though all of the aforementioned is true to one degree or another I believe, greater than anything affecting us in this regard, is that we lack wisdom in choosing relationships. If we were wise in choosing our relationships, we could avoid a world of hurt in intimate relationships, and a world of trouble in others.
Wise relationships are intentional, tested, and true.
Wise | Wise Relationships | Proverbs 5:15-19;13:20;17:17; 27:6;18:24
We live in an age of inexhaustible information, but very little wisdom. As a people, we can "know" nearly anything we want to, but the wisdom to apply that knowledge is scarce. The question that our context presents us with is, if information abounds, how do we go about seeking wisdom?
For the disciple of Jesus our pursuit should never be knowledge for knowldge sake, but wisdom in all things. Because wisdom is more precious than anything we could want.
Wise | Wisdom | Proverbs 3:13-20
The breadth of differences between God's image bearers is a beautiful testament to his creative genius. Ethnic, cultural, gender, and so much more show God's love for a diverse people. In the midst of these differences though, the manner in which we relate to God is strangely similar.Particularly the way in which we view God's love. For most of us, We want to redefine God’s love so that there are no requirements But we all instantly know the problem with that desire in us, don’t we? There is no loving relationship we can have that doesn’t have some measure of requirement on us.
And for the Christian, we should do all that God requires because of His great love for us. The question we have to ask then is, What does God require?
Stand Alone Sermon | Love Requires | Deuteronomy 10:12-17
When we have truly seen Jesus, all we have is gain, never loss. And yet by all accounts of Christian Generosity in this country, We think giving is losing. At least it seems we live that way, even if we would say we believe otherwise.
It is for this reason that even talking about the “M” word is a touchy subject in church, but that reveals as much as anything else that our material wealth carries a weight in our lives that it should not. If we believed that we gained through giving, then everything we have at all times would be seen with open hands, and we would trust God to maximize it for our good, His glory, and the furthering of His gospel. We would live confidently, knowing we would never lack anything approaching life and wealth this way.
In fact here is the promise of scripture—God will make you fully satisfied through your generosity.
Generous | Fully Satisfied | Philippians 4:10-20
We think love is less than the total giving over of ourselves.
How can I say that? Because I know me, therefore I know most of you, and for most of us our love has limits and our sentiments about love, our words, often if not always, outperform our actions.
I do not believe we need to waste mental space with a list or litany of ways this is true of us, or our lives, or our relationships with people and God. Just a little bit of self examination will go a long way in showing us the various ways in which we verbally express the depths of our love, but fall short in giving our whole selves into the effort of displaying it.
The questions that linger then are not whether it is true of us that we think love is less than the total giving over of ourselves, but rather to what degree it is true? And secondly, in light of this, what should be true of us if we say that we are those who have joyfully began the journey of following Jesus, and therefore accepted Jesus’ command as irrevocable that we “love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] strength and with all [our] mind…”
The “All” language in Jesus’ words is in no way obscure—it is a call for our whole selves to be given over to God in love. And why would we not? In love and generosity God gave over Himself, if we are His, we respond with nothing less
If you have life; if you have breath; your sheer existence is and only because of God’s generosity toward you. It is His grace on us all, and yet We do not feel we experience God’s generosity. We explain away His hand at work in our lives as either chance, foresight on our part, or the benevolence of other people, but it is all his Generosity, His charity toward us at work in this world.
You see, From beginning to end God gives graciously, He always initiates sacrificial generosity. And when we are able to see it, no longer out of tune or out of touch with respect to the many ways He has been generous, and the absolute fact that He lacks nothing and gives everything, everything in our world changes; nothing can remain the same.
Generous | God Initiates | Genesis 3:20-21, John 3:16:17, Revelation 21:1-5
We determine our direction with God as an afterthought. We weigh the costs. We decide a course. We make a move in a particular direction, whether vocationally, or relationally, or with respect to homes, community etc. We decide which way we should go, and then maybe, just maybe, consider what God might think about our direction. There are innumerable issues with approaching life like this, particularly for those of us who follow Jesus. But the primary problem is that we deprive ourselves of the wisdom of the One who makes the world turn… who tells the Sun to rise… who puts breath in our lungs… who set the boundaries between earth and sea… surely He who lives outside time will know which way we are to go…
Of this we can be sure, God gives direction through prayer and fasting. If we seek Him with earnest devotion, He will show us which way we should go.
Need | I Need Direction | Acts 13:1-5
What do you do when your back is against the wall? What do you do when there is no easy way out? What do you do when you find yourself in a situation in which is not easily identifiable? What do you do when you find yourself in a situation from which you cannot “save” yourself? What do you do?
If we are honest, our first response probably isn't asking God for help. What is it about even the committed follower of Jesus that makes us treat God as a last resort in desperate times? And for the follower of Jesus, this is the absolute worst thing we can possibly do.
Why would we try to think our way out BEFORE going to God, rather than thinking our way through WHILE submitting all things to Him and His mighty hand? If we are in tune with our minds as it relates to our relationship with Him, we know that is usually when the light bulb goes off, and the solutions come quickly—AFTER we have spent time asking God to deliver us in our desperation.
Here is a truism you must never forget—God desires to be our Deliverer, He wants us to come to Him FIRST.
Need | I Need Deliverance | 2 Chronicles 20:1-21
For many of us, fasting is an outdated practise for super-spiritual people—if we even believe it has any relevance at all. Let us just be honest about it.
We know that some of us are thinking to ourselves, “I believe Fasting is important…” OK, but do you believe it is essential? And if you do believe it is important, when is the last time you did it?
We say all of this because, with the sheer number of distractions in our lives, mounted on top of a regularly vacillating Faith, we need to regularly Fast for our own benefit, but also to recentre and remind us where our help comes from and who ultimately has the answers we need. God is not silent, in fact He is almost always speaking to us in some way, great or small.
And God always answers, but we must be diligent to seek Him, and be patient in our waiting as we pursue an answer through Fasting and prayer. This we see today in this very brief glimpse into the life and faith of a simple man who has a very complex experience as he seeks an answer from the God he loves. Let’s look together.
Need | I Need Answers | Daniel 10:1-21
What does the genealogy of Jesus have to teach us about our place in this world? On this Christmas Eve weekend, Pastor Léonce unpacks the beauty of the "raggedy" lineage of Jesus. In doing so, we discover that we matter because we matter to the only one that matters.
Ruth | God Of The Lowly | Matthew 1:1-17
As the final scene of Ruth comes to a close, we are left with an overwhelming feeling of the goodness of our God. How nearly complete devastation in someone's life can be restored to the full. The question we must ask ourselves is while we perhaps believe this for others, do we believe it for ourselves? Or is there some areas of our lives that we believe to be unredeemable?
Join us this week for the conclusion of Ruth as Pastor Léonce unpacks the restoring power of our God in the book of Ruth.
Ruth | Restored | Ruth 4:1-22
Naomi was intent on overcoming Boaz’s inertia, so she hatches a plan. But before we get to this very dangerous, and very daring plan, we have to ask the question… Why? There are a number of reasons.
She feels responsible for Ruth, we know, not just because she is her daughter-in-law, but because she loves her and she wants a good life for her. She wants to display to Ruth the same kindness that Ruth has displayed to her. She wants a husband and a home for Ruth.
But, standing out among these many reasons is one—she is anxious. She wants to ensure provision and protection for her sweet daughter-in-law. She is concerned about her future and the vulnerability in which they exist—and we, many of us, can identify.
We all know what it is like to feel vulnerable and anxious about the present and the future, and we often find ourselves afraid not only of the outcomes, but even the feelings themselves. Is it unfair to say that We are afraid of being vulnerable in any way?
Ruth | Resolved | Ruth 3:1-18
At the centre of this story is a woman, formerly known as Naomi, Pleasant and plump with life, but now known, at her own instruction, as Mara, Bitter, broken, gaunt, and hollow.
She has suffered greatly, and that suffering has revealed a fischer in her faith. It is not as strong, perhaps, as she’d presumed, and she blames God for all her losses. “Full I went,” Mara says, “but empty YHWH brought me back.” Some pain seems unrecoverable.
This is where we left off in Naomi’s story. Her suffering showing what is beneath the surface of her person. Her life seemingly void of Hope.
And I believe we can identify, which is why I asked the question. When faced with mounting difficulties we so easily lose hope, ceasing even to be able to dream beyond the point of our pain. Our vision becomes myopic. We lose sight of any sense of a future.
Yet, if we are attuned to what is happening around us, even through the ordinary means of God’s hand at work, we will see the little glimmers of hope He hands us, even in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations.
Ruth | Hopeful | Ruth 2:1-23
If we are honest, I think we can admit We have a tendency to respond to suffering from bitterness. Now, I know you are thinking, well no… I get sad… angry… frustrated… confused… hurt… yes, and there are a myriad of other emotions that can be captured with other words, but all roads lead to bitterness if we are not careful to immediately address how a hurt has impacted us.
If we believe God to be on our side, then difficulties will only drive us deeper into His arms, and make us more secure in His care. But... Suffering embitters us when we believe God is against us. This we will see proven true today in Naomi’s story, perhaps by exploring her story, we can avoid it in ours.
For the most part, particularly in the West, when we need food we go out and we buy it. In fact, these days, rarely do we even prepare it, as the average number of nights people eat out in our country has been increasingly on the rise for decades. Four to five times a week people in the U.S. eat commercially prepared meals. That is about one every other day over the course of a month.
Because of this, the idea that God must make it rain for the ground to produce a crop, and for that crop to be harvested, in order for a meal to hit the table is a foreign concept to most; foolish to some. God’s providence in providing for us is often lost in the midst of our modern amenities.
Ruth | Hollow | Ruth 1:6-22
Ruth was written for several reasons, and careful reading will produce several sub-themes, but the author has a central aim, though it is the most subtle, to affirm God’s absolute control over the affairs of this world and his providential involvement in the lives of people. God is not absent, even when He seems far from us. His plans will go forth, even when we cannot interpret the nature of their unfolding. In the midst of it, He is kind to take His own from emptiness to fullness, often in surprising and unpredictable ways.
Closely related to this central theme is the idea of Hesed. Ḥesed is one of those Hebrew words whose meaning cannot be captured in one English word. It is a strong relational term that wraps up in itself an entire cluster of concepts, all the positive attributes of God—love, mercy, grace, kindness, goodness, benevolence, loyalty, covenant faithfulness. So, when you see terms like 'loyalty,' 'faithfulness,' or 'kindness,' it's probably this term.
Ruth, in the end, is an edifying short story, taking shape as a brilliant Play would. It is a human story that reveals its characters in every layer of their humanness. The author presents Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz as models of covenant devotion for his readers to emulate, amid varying trials, pain, grief, and wavering faith and faithfulness. It is a testimony to the blessing that comes to those who live in faithful covenant relationship with God and one another.
Ruth | Unanticipated Crises | Ruth 1:1-5
What should our lives be like knowing God's disposition to the unseen of society? Most of us self-identify as the unseen person in our story, but just as often as we are the unseen; we do not see others. We are guilty of the same sin that we so hate in ourselves.
Jesus' people are different though. We are a people that are bent on not allowing the image of God to be diminished in anyone. Spirit-Led people see the unseen, and move and their behalf.
Visible | God's People See The Unseen | Acts 3:1-10
We often feel as though we are all alone in this world. Whether we are an immigrant, a traditionally marginalized people, or a caught in the trap of corporate ladder climbing. We often feel as though we are not truly seen for who we are.
In the book of Luke, we have a scene the God intentionally put in scripture so that we would know the lengths he has gone through to let us know, he sees the unseen.
Visible | God Sees The Unseen | Luke 7:11-17
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This quotation by the John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, has been made famous in speeches, literature, conversation, and film. But, after much consideration, I’d like to challenge its truthfulness.
It is quite fair to say, I believe, that We primarily only understand power in either negative or individual sense. Negative in that it must be avoided, tamped down, or controlled. Individual in that it cannot be leveraged beyond its usefulness for us alone. Afterall, as we saw last week, power when seen as God, seduces, corrupts, blinds and destroys. So we see it, as lord Acton described, as primarily a means of corruption. Hands off. Walk away.
Power does not have to be cast in negative terms, nor does it have to be feared always as something that might get out of control. No, Power, leveraged as God’s Gift, dignifies, liberates, restores and rescues. It reverses the corruption caused by the worship of power. It can be far more than an opportunity for individual means. Power, when seen as God’s gift, opens a world of possibilities for those who would be its beneficiaries.
Sex Money Power | Power As God's Gift | Esther
Our desire for the ability to be master of our own fate and in control of our destiny is on full display, even when we are children. We tend to believe that the more power we have, the more secure and in control we will be. And it is derived from the innate sense of powerlessness and dependence that we all feel at most all times.
Reinhold Niebuhr, with whom you will most likely be unfamiliar, was a well-known theologian in the twentieth century. He proposed that all human beings wrestle with a sense of being dependent and powerless, birthed long ago in the Garden of God, with God’s first children.
The original sin wasn’t pride, primarily, but a full-on resentment of human limitations. When presented with the opportunity to “be like God,” (Genesis 3:5) meaning to have God-like power and might and knowledge, they leapt at it.
There is great danger in this, because the more we long to maintain control over our lives, and the more we push to possess the power, the more that power is elevated to that which we depend on, and the more readily it replaces God. Power, elevated to the place of God, seduces, corrupts, blinds, and destroys.
Sex Money Power | Power As God | Exodus 1, Samuel 11
If we’re honest, as a whole we believe generosity is optional, or circumstantial, or what we do with what’s left over, or has nothing to do with our standing with God.
And yet from the Old Testament declaration of God getting a tithe, 10%, from all that He’d given His people (Leviticus 27:30-32); to Jesus’ words about the inseparable connection between heart and resources; to Paul’s admonition to the ancient church at Corinth that they should prove their love by excelling in generosity as they did in faith, speech and knowledge (2 Corinthians 8:7-8); and that God has a special place in His heart for the radically generous (2 Corinthians 9:7), it seems genuine faith and faithful generosity are indivisible.
True salvation and radical generosity cannot be uncoupled.
Sex Money Power | Money As God's Gift | Luke 19:1-10
If there is any more complicated relationship human beings have with something other than sex, it's money. We are weird about money. Some of us don’t want to talk about it, as though saying the very word will conjure a spirit of some kind. In fact it is a subject often avoided in church altogether. Granted, some churches abuse the talk of money, but they are neither the norm nor the majority.
We believe money provides safety, and security, and freedom, and the potential for a better future, right? But a love for money? No; that’s someone else's problem, not mine.
Here’s the question… are you sure? Would your credit card statements, job choices, generosity, schooling choices and bank account support that position? Maybe. But perhaps not. It’s important to know for sure.
Because there is grave danger in having a love of money. When we elevate money to the place of God, we are lured away; entrapped; plunged into ruin.
Sex Money Power | Money As God | 1 Timothy 6:6-10
We must see sex as a gift from God, or lose the beauty of what we’ve been given. Why is this important? Because if we don't treat sex as the gift God intended it to be, we may find ourselves viewing it through one of the several broken lenses.
God created sex as a valuable gift, imbued with dignity. If we can begin to see sex this way, as a valuable gift, then no matter how we presently see or experience it, we can be unshackled from the varying bondages that come along with seeing it as any less than that.
Sex Money Power | Sex As God's Gift | Genesis 1:24:25
it is undeniable that something is wrong with humanity's view of and appetite for sex, perhaps now more than ever before.
The pornography industry is now a trillion dollar one, grossing enough money to feed 4.8 billion people a day, putting it ahead of the GDP of at least 63 nations. The porn industry releases more films and grosses more money annually than Hollywood. It grosses more money that the MLB, NBA and NFL combined.
But this warped appetite doesn’t rear its head in pornography alone. It governs the plot lines of major motion pictures, favorite television shows, app. Creations, Instagram traffic, and dating habits. Even music is revealing in this regard. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, 92% of Top Ten Billboard Songs, across multiple genres, including country, are about sex.
Even as we hear all of this, We actually believe ourselves immune to the debasing effects of our culture's worship of sex. That somehow we go unscathed, whether vigilant to guard our hearts and our bodies, or not. Human beings and society are degraded and destroyed when sex is elevated to the place of God.
Sex Money Power | Sex As God | Romans 1:24-25
Every year, we as a community take 21 days to focus our prayer on specific needs of our community, city, and nation. If you are interested in joining us, download our app to access the daily prayer journal.
21 Days of Prayer | Matthew 6:5-16
The Greek Philosopher Seneca, in discussing how humanity should see one another, said this: “Nature bids me do good to all mankind... Wherever there is a human being there is an opportunity for kindness.”
Seneca, of course, was not a follower of God in any respect, but he still felt a common call toward the flourishing of all people. He still felt the need to display compassion whenever possible. If Seneca sees every human interaction as an opportunity for kindness, surely we must go further? Surely we must take Jesus’ words to heart, and His ethics seriously?
In Jesus’ ethics, Love has no limit and compassion no boundary in showing mercy. There is no sense of an obligation to be fulfilled or a mark to be met. There is no measuring out the ends of our compassion or the boundaries of our mercy. Love does not terminate at those we deem loveable, and being a Christian is not just a matter of being, but a matter of doing. These inescapable truths Jesus sets before us today in the form of a powerful story, but first, we have to see how He gets there.
Compassion Sunday | Mercy | Luke 10:25-37
For most of us, at one time or another, the troubles of life have caused in us a sense of abandonment and being overwhelmed. Feeling all alone and completely in over your head. The question we have to ask ourselves is. what do we do when we feel completely abandoned and overwhelmed by the circumstances and tragedies of life? What do we do when the troubles of a broken world begin to unravel our life and we feel overwhelmed and abandoned?
For the Christian, we turn to the scriptures to remember and lean on the promises of God. Today Pastor Doug will unpack a song in the Bible that has given hope to the people of God for thousands of years.
Stand Alone Sermons | God Is Near | Psalm 46
We want lives filled with meaning. No one wants to live a life of regret, in light of our inevitable end. No one wants to look back and wonder if they truly lived; if they reached their potential; if they fulfilled their destiny; if they had all of life, without reserve.
Every one of us wants to cherish as much of our days as we can; we want to be fully present in each and every beautiful moment. We want to taste the sweetness of the simple, and mine the depths of the complex. We want to find strands of deep connectivity, and know that our time on this rock was everything we hoped it could be.
Here, after much searching and endless hours on his part, we find that the Teacher is sure: there is a path to meaning. A singular way to have all that we truly desire, all that we need, to know why we are alive and why it matters and how to make the most of every moment—Remember your Creator and keep His commandments
Vanity | Remember Your Creator | Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:14
Only a fool would risk their safety and comfort. Wisdom tells us to play it safe. Wisdom tells us to make sure it’s all within our control. Or at least this is what we have been trained to believe. We associate wisdom with safety and comfort, and we equate foolishness with risk.
Nothing invested, nothing lost! If you don’t risk being known you’ll never get hurt in relationships. If you don’t risk being generous, you’ll never be taken advantage of. If you don’t risk your life, you’ll never have to lose it. At times the saying, “nothing invested, nothing lost” is more compelling to us than “Nothing risked, nothing gained”. But the Teacher in Ecclesiastes has a different belief about our lives. He believes that wise living drives us to wise risks in a world beyond our control.
Vanity | Risky Business | Ecclesiastes 9:11-11:6
“Get busy livin, or get busy dying.” These were the words Andy Dufrane spoke to his friend, Red, in the classic novel turned film, Shawshank Redemption. Though this story is fiction, its plot line offers a powerful lesson for the living—enjoy the life you have, even if the life you have is not the life you think you want.
Yet, if we are honest for just a moment, We don’t believe the life we have is enough of a life to be enjoyed. Not always. Not often enough. Often we zero in on what's not enjoyable about our lives. We spend a great deal of time focused on what we wish we could change, or what we wish was different.
But this is wasted time and energy. And the more time we spend not enjoying our lives, the less enjoyable they become. The more time we treat each day as though we are guaranteed another, the faster they seem to fly by; and the more empty, repetitive and routine they feel.
So, the Teacher tells us, much like Andy Dufrane told his friend Red, get busy living, because life is unpredictable. Death is certain. And enjoyment is a gift from God. Life is better than death, but nothing is better than enjoying your life. So get to it, ‘cause it's the only one you've got, and what a shame it would be for it to be wasted.
Vanity | Live! | Ecclesiastes 9:1-12
What if we didn’t have to have it all figured out? What if we didn’t have to control every outcome? What if we could actually relax into the reality that God might actually get it done better, even if we don’t fully understand His means or methods?
What if we could actually relax into the reality that God might actually get it done better, even if we don’t fully understand His means or methods? This is exactly what von Moltke understood, as he wrote to his wife in his final letter, “the agony of parting, the terror of death, the fear of hell have no power over me. I know that I am living only in His grace.”
This is what the Teacher would have us understand as well, as he commends to us that All will go well for those who fear God and wisdom enable them to trust in His work. Though we may feel as though we are not in control, and though we may fear that the chaos of life will overwhelm us, the mystery of God is a greater gift than the illusion of control. And when we lean into it, everything else will be sorted accordingly.
Vanity | Limited | Ecclesiastes 8:1-17
Why do bad things happen to good people? I do not know a single human being who has not at some point in their lives asked this question. This may be the great paradox of existing in this world. People, having suffered under the many variables that make up this paradoxical, illogical world, decide that every wrong rests with God and therefore He is not to be trusted.
We may not be ready to “leave the faith” today, but I’m willing to wager every one of us has felt that the world is unfair, unbalanced, not right. I’m willing to wager that everyone one of us has wondered why bad things happen to good people and why wicked people seem to keep gaining ground. We all have a problem with this puzzling world.
Even if it is not a present struggle, it has been. Even if it is not at the fore of our mind right this minute, it will be. Many days we simply can’t make sense of how this world works. What then do we do? The Teacher gives what can at first seem a trite, typical “Bible answer.” Entrust yourself to God in the midst of the paradox.
Vanity | Paradox | Ecclesiastes 7:15-29
Human tendency has always been to maximise prosperity and minimise adversity. In fact for most of us—if we’re honest—adversity is avoided at all costs. In a less significant scenario, it is why we are tempted to quit in the middle of a run or workout.
In a more significant sense, it is why, on our best days, we fail to see God at work in our difficulties. And on our worst days, we place the blame squarely on Him.
But the Teacher challenges us to higher thinking. He calls us to operate in wisdom and see that, as opposed to ignoring God or blaming God in adverse circumstances, The wise consider God in adversity and prosperity—because He’s in control in the midst of both. If we can get our hearts around this message today, then how we approach every moment of our lives will be filled with redemptive potential.
Vanity | Death At A Funeral | Ecclesiastes 6:10-7:14
So many of us have been lured into believing that enjoyment is found in money and products and the pursuit of them. We think we can enjoy what we attain, because what we gain is enjoyable in itself.
In fact in both the pursuit and the acquisition we think we have the power to produce joy for ourselves. But if we are honest, endless hours have never actually satisfied. And no product we’ve been able to purchase has ever produced a lasting happiness, let alone joy.
We are willing to bet that every one of us has saved for something we believed would alter our emotions, or reposition our status, or become a symbol of our accomplishment, and when we finally got it, the let down was more than we could have possibly imagined.
So, yes, I LOVE his story, because it gives me hope and should give you hope as well. We too can choose the counterintuitive path.
We can choose to organise our lives around living rather than around working for things. We can choose to not pursue the American dream and instead enjoy God’s vision for us.
This is at the heart of what the Teacher wants us to see today. It’s not that money or the things we can buy with it are inherently evil. The issue is if we love money and the life it can provide for us, then we will miss what it is we are actually searching for—joy. Even stronger, the Teacher says that Only God gives the power to enjoy money and possessions.
Vanity | For The Love Of Money | Ecclesiastes 5:8-6:9
Have you ever asked yourself the question, "Why do I go to church?"
I believe this is an important question, because I'm willing to wager that there are a hundred reasons for the hundreds here. Maybe you attend because you grew up going to church, and it is tradition to do so. Maybe you go because you hope to build some great relationships. Maybe you go because you want to change the world and believe it is possible through faith in action. Perhaps you even go because you hope to find the answers to life's questions or even more simply, someone invited you.
But what if there were one reason above any we could come up with that should be the reason we are here? What if there were one reason that gave perspective to any other we could possibly have?
There is… God is awesome.
Vanity | Awesome | Ecclesiastes 5:1-7
Isolation robs us of rewarding lives.
But it is hard to avoid some measure of isolation in a society whose first god is materialism, and second is individualism. We are enculturated from a young age to believe that we CAN and SHOULD do it all on our own. And if we can’t, something is wrong with us.
And this ideology permeates everything, including faith, where a “me and Jesus” mentality rules the day, though the scriptures are clear that it is “we and Jesus,” and that we belong to one another.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, this “get it done on your own,” “I can do bad all by myself,” “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” individualists mentality is not new to the human saga, it is an issue as old as personhood itself. It was an issue during the Teacher's times as well, as life, culture, the economy was driven, above all things, by rabid individualism, and solitary existences.
But standing in contrast to the message of the culture, is the message of the Teacher—Relationships gift us rewarding lives.
Vanity | Better Together | Ecclesiastes 4:7-16
We are often not content with what we have or where we are in life.
There is not a person on this planet who’s not struggled with discontentment. We find ourselves dissatisfied in marriage, but the trend is to look for someone new to solve our discontent, rather than work on the relationship we're in. We want our children to perfectly reflect every aspect of our leading, and live through them the desire to erase former failures. When they don’t, we feel unsatisfied with them.
We change jobs, schools, churches, neighborhoods, and relationships like clothing—which we also swap out with a frequency now, not seen by previous generations. And as much as it is often a personal struggle, that only hinders our own lives, what we’ll see today is that just a little discontentment can have wide reaching societal impact.
Vanity | Dust To Dust | Ecclesiastes 3:16-4:6
We think time belongs to us, and we can do whatever we want with it. And anything that comes against our time, is an assault to our very existence. Whether we have ever voiced those thoughts or not, we know this to be true of ourselves. Something in this past week didn’t go as planned. How did we react? You didn’t get the grade on the test you expected, that you poured multiple hours studying for. How did you respond? The person you’ve poured days into investing, turns their back on you and rejects your help. What’s your response?
Because we think time belongs to us, and we should be able to do whatever we want with it. We think we’re the King of the Clock. The Masters of Time; Acting confidently that Time should be obedient to us. And yet life as a self-proclaimed Time Master drives us to autonomous, angry, anxiety laden lives.
Today we dive into the third chapter of Ecclesiastes to hopefully discover the truth that can help us see time properly. Time belongs to God and, this demands we stand in awe of Him.
Vanity | Time | Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves. - Blaise Pascal
Vanity | Enjoyment | Ecclesiastes 1:12-2:26
Imagine if you ran my leg of the 400, and you ran with the goal of finishing my 400; but you were not doing it to pass the baton. In fact, you couldn’t care less about anyone else and ran my portion, threw that baton to the side and left the track with a smug look of victory. Without the baton, your team, that is depending upon you, could not finish the race. How could they?
While this is a hypothetical situation/an imaginary situation, it is actually seen quite often. Not so much on the track, but in how older generations interact with the younger. The problem is that we think the race ends when we’re done.
Every generation struggles with me-centrism. Every generation thinks their generation was the best generation. You can often see that in the skepticism that is vocalized. “We didn’t have these problems in my generation.” “I don’t understand these young folks.” “I wish we could get back to the good ole days.” “Facebook? I remember when we had MySpace?” “Snapchat? Remember Twitter?” “Musically? I remember when we had Rapchat?" ”Lebron James? We had Michael Jordan.” We pit one generation against the other! In many ways, we give up on the next generation. But what we’re going to see today in God’s word is that God loves the next generation. It is the responsibility of every generation to tell about God and what He’s done to the next.
Stand Alone Sermon | God Of Generations | Psalm 78:1-8
In Western culture, self-actualization and “success” have become such important idols that many will pay any price to get them. We believe that if we have enough education or experience and work hard enough, it doesn’t matter who we step over (or on!) to climb the ladder. But the reality is that skill and knowledge can only get you so far: Fifteen percent of the reason [people] get a job, keep that job and move ahead in that job, is determined by [their] technical skill and knowledge – regardless of their profession…. What about the other 85 percent?
Cavett quotes Stanford Research Institute, Harvard University and the Carnegie Foundation as having proved that 85 percent of the reason people get a job, keep that job, and move ahead in that job has to do with [their] people skills and people knowledge.
What this quote shows is that, Christian or not, we must learn to value the people that God has brought into our lives, especially in the workplace. Not surprising, what these institutions discovered is actually a biblical principle. The Scriptures teach us that no matter who we work for or with whom we work, we should treat them, and the situation, as though we were serving Jesus himself (Colossians 3:23). We do not get to push people aside, but rather we honor them, as though we were serving Jesus.
In so doing, we combat the fear and competition that so easily sets in, as we strive to keep up in the workplace. Instead of seeking our own way forward, we learn to seek one another’s best, and in so doing honor our Lord, Jesus.
Relationship: Messy and Marvelous | Coworkers & Teammates | Leviticus 19:13, Colossians 3:23
At some point in our lives, either with a single friend or friend group, or with a community of people, we’ve all had those thoughts and feelings— I don’t need nobody, because it’s never what I hoped it would be.
If we can be a little honest today, at different times in our live for varying reasons and to varying degrees, we haven't seen friendship or community as essential or distinct. However, as we will discover today, history, human nature, and the scriptures prove that both are essential.
Relationships: Messy And Marvelous | Friendships & Community | Proverbs 17:17; Hebrews 10:24-25
We all want our marriages to thrive. No one gets into a marriage just to survive it, though it feels that we are just barely surviving sometimes, that it’s not what we’d choose if we could help it. We want to thrive. We all want to be the 70 or 80 year old couple that still gets giddy when they see each other, still holds hands, maybe even smooch a little in public. Maybe even get a little pinch on the hindquarters every now and then. That’s the dream! But how do we get there?
What we will find today as we search the scriptures together is that Marriages thrive when Wives and Husbands diligently pursue one another's joy, desire and honour. That is what will help to create a thriving, healthy marriage.
Relationships: Messy & Marvelous | Wives & Husbands | Proverbs 5:18-19, Song of Songs 7:1-13, 1 Peter 3:1-7
We all want healthy kids, and kids want clear boundaries. We want our kids to flourish. We want them to thrive in this world. And our kids want to know they are safe, loved, and led—even when they aren’t acting as if they do. How we relate to them and how they relate to us is integral to that flourishing.
Thankfully, parents, we are not the first people trying to figure out how best to have a healthy relational dynamic with our children. And thankfully, kids, you are not the first kids who had to think about how to respond to their parents’ love and leadership.
Here in Paul’s letter to the first church in the ancient city of Ephesus, we see the most important aspect of this relationship outlined for us: Obedient Children flourish under the discipleship of Godly parents. This idea is central to having healthy kids, who respond well to our (parents’) love and leadership.
Relationship: Messy and Marvelous | Kids & Parents | Ephesians 6:1-4
For most us, the idea of receiving something for nothing sounds too good to be true. In fact, it may actually cause us skeptical. Which is why for most of us, we try and determine who deserves how much of God’s kindness. Even if that judgement is directed just to ourselves. Even if we aren’t sure that we actually believe in God.
How good is good enough? What number of good deeds square the bad? When is enough, enough to “deserve” grace?
Jesus answers these questions and more in the story He tells. But what He desires to communicate in telling His story, we will discover, is clear—God’s grace is far more scandalous than we are willing to accept or believe. And when we see this, all of our judgements suddenly become meaningless.
Parables | The Workers In The Vineyard | Matthew 20:1-16
There are many lenses through which we view God. For some of us that lens is theology alone. God becomes a subject of our study. A Figure to be read about, and learned. For others God is seen as a distant deity, winding the world up as a clock, but largely leaving us to our own devices.Many of us see God as an angry judge, adjudicating the failures and events of our lives, but having little to do with our day-to-day reality.
And still others see God as a transactional being; a genie granting wishes and if you do right by him, He’ll do right by you. In fact, with enough faith and good behaviour, you can ask for anything, and He will have to respond.
But the most common lens is one that sees God as limited in His benevolence, and limited in His love. It is a lens that constrains us to seeing God as too good and too distant and too demanding to tolerate our sins and shortcomings. It is a lens that limits the love of God, to the degree that We think God’s compassion has limitations. It is limited to the loveable and good people.
Limited to the list of sins we’ve deemed forgivable, but never enough to cover me. Because of any one of these lenses, we struggle to think God can actually love us.
And yet even as we struggle to believe it, Jesus adjures us to hear that The Father’s compassion is limitless. God is a Father. A Father who seeks, and never turns away. His compassion is inexhaustible, and His love especially poured out for those who feel unloveable. And when we see Him this way, everything changes.
Parables | The Compassionate Father | Luke 15:11-32
If we are honest, we don’t like to pray. While there may be many reasons for this, at the base of it is we sometimes feel as though God doesn’t really care. He isn’t actually listening.
We very easily lose heart. We grow discouraged. We cease to believe that which we long for, or long to see will ever come to fruition. Our thoughts become consumed with the idea that things will always be this way. They will never actually change. We think to ourselves, God doesn’t hear me. God doesn’t care. The injustices of this world are overtaking my sight, and sucking life from my soul— We. Feel. Abandoned.
And though all of these feelings are real, and not to simply be ignored, they are met with this resounding, wondrous truism, a promise from He who cannot lie. Words we must speak over ourselves in moments of deep doubt, and mounting discouragement—God hears our cries, and acts on our behalf, so we should not lose heart.
Yes, it often seems vindication comes slowly. It often seems prayers go unanswered. It often feels as though things will never change, and we will remain stuck, or heartbroken, or unaware of which way to go. But Jesus assures us in this beautiful, short little parable, that we are not forgotten.
Parables | The Persistent Widow | Luke 18:1-8
At times, we've all felt like we're not good enough for the people who love us. We judge how good we are by how we measure up to others.
And as easy as it is to believe that we are not good enough for a our relationships, it is equally easy to believe that we aren't good enough for God—particularly if we’ve yet to follow Jesus. In fact, there is a common belief in our culture that we’ve done too much, or have gone too far, or simply aren’t good enough for God to see us and love us.
On the other hand, we can fall into the trap of believing that by being “better” than others, or doing more “good things” than others, that God will look more favorably upon us.
But, God’s gauge is not ours. He doesn’t look at how we compare to other people to determine our value. He doesn’t use external measures to decide how good we are. He doesn’t measure us by each other. He doesn’t categorize people, He looks at the state of our heart with respect to Him.
God looks primarily at our posture toward Him. He evaluates from where we derive our value, and how it makes us treat Him and other people. And He acts toward us based on this, and not the many external measures to which we would normally look. For this reason Jesus shows us that God makes righteous the humble and humbles the self-righteous.
Parables | The Pharisee & The Tax Collector | Luke 18:9-14
When is the last time you had a good… robust… intense… argument? Can you remember? We live in a society where people insist on standing on their rights in the face of any conflict, disagreement, differing opinion, or matter of offense—great or small.
And when we stand on our rights, we are equally likely to be slow to forgive—if we actually ever forgive at all.
Now, what's so incredibly inconsistent about this is that even as we stand on our rights, and find ourselves slow to forgive or failing to forgive or limiting what we’ll forgive, We all want unlimited forgiveness.
Standing in quite stark a contrast to our societal view of forgiveness as weakness are Jesus’ words here in Matthew 18, the core of which are very clear—If we are forgiven, we must forgive—and it is not optional, limited, or lip service, it is extravagant.
Parables | The Unforgiving Servant | Matthew 18:23-35
How do you know your life matters? How do you know you matter? These are two very important questions. By default most of us will drift toward the standard external measures of worth: accumulation, accomplishment, acceptance, or authority.
For most of us this is how we measure ourselves; each other; and our ability to matter. But if time has taught us little else, it has taught us that what you make, and what you drive, and where you live, and where you work, and who you’re with, and what you look like, how many electoral college votes you received will never actually make you matter.
Every one of our typical measures — Accumulation, accomplishment, acceptance, or authority — and their ability to even make us feel a sense of our ability to matter in a moment, is fleeting, gone before we know it.
Now if we can agree on this, then the question resurfaces—how do we know that we matter… that our lives matter? According to the words of Jesus, apart from throwing ourselves into something eternal, our lives won’t matter. Join us as we dive into one of His most difficult teachings.
Parables | The Sower | Mark 4:3-20
"What is something of such great value that you cannot even think of the lengths you'd go to to possess it?" It may seem like a simple or easily answerable question, until you're actually faced with the prospect.
It’s human instinct to seek after and sacrifice for what we think is valuable or will add value to our lives. There is not a realm of life that is absent from this instinct. All of life is a seeking after value. And if we find something that we consider valuable, we’ll do dang near anything to possess it; experience it; engage it; participate in it.
Jesus believes that God’s Kingdom—and participation in it—is the most valuable possession we could ever have. And He makes His case for that in two interwoven stories, first told to His first followers, now told to us.
Parables | The Treasure & The Pearl | Matthew 13:44-46
Throughout history, you have these moments in time, where God uses a people to place his character and glory on display in dramatic fashion. And as Dr. King put it, it was the ground crew and pilot of this flight of freedom that we all find ourselves passengers on, that displayed this to us. That took the superior position of great glory for our sake.
But here is the problem we are forced to face when listening to this poetic inspiration of Dr. King… we don’t believe him. We believe that being served is where the Glory is found. We believe that the position of honor are those at the head of the table. In this metaphor, first class. That glory, honor is found when our lives are seated above others.
But what we have in the words of Jesus is something so profoundly opposite, that it demands our attention. Jesus seems to propose, that glory is not found in taking the position of authority, but in taking the position of servant.
Stand Alone Sermons | Glory | Mark 10:35-45
Bible tells us that there will be more death, pain, suffering for the sake of the Gospel before God returns to rescue us. Scripture makes it clear that suffering is the common uniform that all Christians wear. All Christians. But especially so for those who leave their own homes and take the Gospel to the nations that sit in darkness. Overseas Christian workers. The world will only be reached through our suffering. The souls of men come at the cost of messengers' lives, health, prestige, family, comfort, prosperity. To reach the world, we must choose to suffer.
Glocal | Choosing to Suffer |
There is a story In Greek mythology that most of us will not be familiar with, yet the nature of it will seem common to every single person here. As the mythology goes, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He was renowned for his trickery, deceitfulness, cleverness and cunning. He used these traits to manipulate family members and “gods.” He used them even in his rise to the throne. But one day he went too far, and offended Zeus with his treachery.
As a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to endlessly roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself.
This consigned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus—through the classical influence on modern culture—it came to pass that apparent continually tedious or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean. Now how, you may be wondering, is this common to us? I’m sure most of us haven't offended any mythological greek “gods” recently.
But would it be a stretch to say that there are many days where in we look at our lives and we feel such monotonous tedium —such mundane, uninspiring, uninteresting, wearisome, frustrating, irksome, repetitiveness— that we may as well be rolling a boulder up a hill... just to have it roll back down again? Wake up. Get ready. Go to work or school. Fight the traffic. Do the thing. Come home. See the kid... or spouse... or roommate... or pet... or just the house. Watch TV or Workout. Dinner. More TV. Go to bed. Start over... and we look down the barrel of the repetition and sometimes wish we were anywhere but here. And being a Christian... doing Christian things, is just one more layer added to the continual monotony.
Now maybe... for a few of us... this sounds a little extreme. But I would wager if given the opportunity to sit down across from any one of you and chop it up, that it’d quickly come to the surface that to some degree, great or small , we are all experiencing the same thing. We choose to live mundane lives; yet God has granted us more.
Vision&Values | Spirit-Led | Acts 2:1-4; 4:1-31
It is easy for us to move Jesus to the margins of our lives. And when we do, the door is opened for us to become enthralled with so many other things, every trapping that this age has to offer— Knowledge, Fame, Power, Prosperity. A Jesus Centered Life—founded on God’s Wisdom and Power—boasts only in the Lord. The gospel is foolishness to much of our world, but the wisdom and power of God to the believer. Join us, as Pastor Léonce unpacks our value of being Jesus-Centered.
Vision&Values | Jesus-Centered | 1 Corinthians 1:18-20;26-3
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - John Ehrlichman, Nixon Advisor (Quote taken from the documentary, 13th)
Why use this quote? Because it reveals what happens when the powerful shape the narrative and others do little... but rather move through their lives unconcerned with human flourishing.
But most unfortunately, they each reveal the vacuum created by the myopic gospel to which SO MANY Christians subscribe; one extraordinarily concerned with personal piety, and solo-salvation, but disconnected from the suffering and struggle of others. Many Christians have long treated the gospel as a personal message, free of social implications. And it is in this way that Christians bear a great deal of responsibility for how the most vulnerable in the U.S.... in the world even, remain that way
Vision&Values | Socially Conscious | James 1:27
We believe that every human being is endued with the Imago Dei, the image of God, captured in unique cultural and ethnic expressions, which embody the full breadth of God's creative genius, not to be subverted to the ethnic/cultural identity and preferences of another, but celebrated in creating a fuller expression of our humanity; a woven tapestry of color, culture, and “class” as God forms a people for Himself from all people. This is THE definition of Transcultural, and it is how we will be defined as a community.
Vision & Values | Transculturalism | James 2:1-4
Over the next 21 Days we as a church will be going through a collective fast. Pastor Léonce guides us through a few of the ways fasting is a beneficial and necessary part of the Christian walk.
Our Corporate Fast
What's the worst thing you’ve ever done? Odds are whatever comes to mind is not greater than the several acts of audacious sin committed by King David. In one scene in scripture, David commits murder, conspiracy, and adultery. But what he does AFTER is paramount to our understanding of worship. You see, if we’re honest, when we sin; When we fail; When we hurt people; When we’re guilty; When we’re apathetic, often our first response is one of three things: we wallow, run from God, or wish it away. We either spiral into condemnation , as has been my proclivity for years, pull further away from God, believing Him to be angry and ready to pounce, or treat our sin so lightly that it becomes evident that we have no true view of grace.
But none of those things is what is good, right, or best— worship is what restores. Confessing our sin. Contemplating our frailty. Communing with God. Only in these things are we made whole. When we fail, we either move toward God , or away from Him , and only the former will bring freedom.
Throne | Consider Your Response | Psalm 51
On January 8, 2010, Yosemitebear62 posted a video of himself experiencing the magnificence of the rarely seen Double Rainbow. He reasonably titled the video, “ Mountain Double Rainbow. In his own words, he reports, “It was rainbowing for at least an hour [that day]. It was incredible. I knew immediately what it was, [and] I was shaking as I watched it for the first time....The camera could not capture the vivid intensity and brightness. Look into the mirror, look into your soul! What it means.”
This may seem a silly exploit; simply a laughable moment. But there is something raw, human, powerful about this video. This man is in awe of what he is witnessing and experiencing. He is overwhelmed , and it is obvious. He rejoices at the sight of this double rainbow. He weeps as he dwells on its significance. He resounds with joy, crying out at the privilege of getting to experience this moment. He questions why he gets to encounter something so awe-inspiring and mesmerizing — and all he’s seen is a Rainbow.
And so I wonder, could there be something deeper that would challenge all of those notions and more? Could there be, at our core , something else that is expressed through those many other reasons? I believe there is... We are not in awe of God.
Throne | Declare His Worth | Isaiah 41:4; 44:6
No one says, “I want to be as miserable as possible.” Quite the opposite. Whether we use the language of fulfillment, purpose, or meaning, we all want a life that is rich and full. We all want to know that we’ve invested our lives in something that will satisfy us now and last forever.
However, the rich and full life is not an add-on to, or a subculture of, the world we live in. The kingdom of God is signaled by a hostile takeover of one’s heart by Jesus, accompanied by a cataclysmic shift in one’s priorities. It is in essence a choice, a choice to live in a completely different way, one that looks crazy to the world but one that Jesus promises will be blessed. To humanity’s eternal quest for the rich and full life, Jesus authoritatively declares that the countercultural kingdom is what you’ve been looking for.
Kingdom | Counterculture | Mathew 7: 13-29
Christian or not, most are familiar with Jesus’ words found in Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Typically we hear it reiterated as, “Only God can judge me” (thank you, Mr. Shakur) or “Christians aren’t supposed to judge!” exclaimed in defense to some criticism, deserved or not. What these misappropriations of Jesus’ words touch on is a deep desire in all of us to be treated better than we deserve. When it comes down to it, the truth is none of us really want to receive what we deserve.
Kingdom | Only God Can Judge Me | Matthew 7:1-12
Whether it’s fear of rejection, being overwhelmed with too many things to do, or worrying about what the future holds for us, every one of us is anxious about something. What many of us don’t realize is that anxiety is a result of desiring and seeking after things that ultimately don’t matter (at least not as much as we may think they do). We desire to be accepted by others, so we fear rejection. For the same reason, we say yes to too many things and then become irritated when it all becomes too much. When our success at work or our kids’ success at school doesn’t come fast enough, we stress over future opportunities. This same anxiety sets in with the acquisition of material possessions, as Randy Alcorn insightfully notes, “Every item we buy is one more thing to think about, talk about, clean, repair, arrange, fret over, and replace when it goes bad” (The Treasure Principle, pg. 54). So, whether it’s possessions, success, approval from others, or some other form of achievement, every one of us is anxious about something.
Kingdom | On My Grind | Matthew 6:19-34
The first line of a 2010 Forbes article reads, “Like a good tax advisor, a charitable connection is now considered essential for a celebrity building, a brand.” That’s pretty much true for most sectors of society, isn’t it? Good works are often a means of brightening up a company or person’s public image and a vehicle for greater success rather than an actual expression of heartfelt love and service. Oftentimes, the same is true for devotion to God (e.g. giving, praying and fasting). These gifts of grace, given to the follower of Jesus to cultivate a heart more like God’s and reap heavenly rewards, instead are often used for selfish ends. If we’re honest, we all drift toward performing acts of devotion to be esteemed by people rather than God. We all enjoy being recognized and rewarded for doing good.
Kingdom | PDA | Matthew 6:1-18
When someone wrongs us, our instinct is to get immediate payback. When we’re treated unfairly, everything in us lurches forward to demand our rights and justify our dignity. Our human nature loves the idea of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” What’s funny is, when we offend someone, we don’t seem to want this system of payback any more, do we? Instead, we want the o ended party to extend some patience and understanding, maybe even grace. For some reason, it seems so much easier to justify or explain away our actions when we’re the o ending party. When we hurt others, we want grace and mercy, not justice. Though we know that we are in the wrong, we don’t want others to treat us the way we know we deserve. In other words, everyone wants to be loved in spite of themselves.
Kingdom | Crazy Love | Matthew 5:38-48
“Say what you mean, and mean what you say.” “An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.” “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.” These phrases and others like them indicate that God has wired humanity to practice infidelity and honesty. If a person says they’ll do something, we expect them to follow through. Everyone wants honesty—we all do. If we’re honest though, none of us keep this standard perfectly, resulting in a world full of broken promises. This rampant infidelity brings pain to both those making promises and those expecting them to be fulfilled.
Kingdom | Fidelity | Matthew 5:31-37
On a scale of one to ten, chances are you think you’re a seven. You’re not alone! Truth is, we all tend to think pretty highly of ourselves. For example, in a classic 1977 study, 94% of professors rated themselves above average relative to their peers. Another study found that 30% of software employees believe their performance is better than 95% of their colleagues.
Likewise, drivers consistently rate themselves above average, even when a hazard perception test shows them to be, in reality, quite awful. These data point to a startling, yet pervasive, reality: when compared with others, we all think we’re pretty good people.
Kingdom | Good, Better, Best | Matthew 5:17-30
Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French mathematician and Christian philosopher gave us keen insight into the deepest longing of humanity when he said the following:
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves (Pensées, #425).
No matter the way we go about achieving it, the basis of every one of our actions is the desire to increase our happiness, whether that is pleasing others (because it increases our happiness) or causing harm to ourselves (we believe the harm will ultimately make us happier). But while it is true that we all want to be happy, the question we must honestly answer is, Do we ever really find it?
Kingdom | Counterintuitive Blessing | Matthew 5:1-16
What is God's disposition towards the marginalized? How about the poor and the fatherless? In Psalm 146 the Psalmist gives a clear insight to the character and action of God towards those our society deems as less worthy. In addition, we are given an insight into our role as His disciples.
In keeping with this scripture Renovation Church has begun a partnership with Compassion International. Join us as Pastor Léonce goes further into what our role with Compassion will be. vime
A world awakened to the wonder of God and His transcultural church.
Do you have the desire to be apart of something bigger than yourself? As a people, we are designed with an innate desire to make a positive impact on the world around us. But how can we fulfill these desires? What is the best way for us to engage the world around us in a way honoring to Jesus?
This past week, during our bi-annual vision Sunday, Pastor Léonce spoke on what it means to be engaged in the life of Renovation Church. Renovation Church is to be A City On a Hill; a light in a world filled with darkness.
"I'm just not sure if I believe." This phrase has been present in everyone of our lives. Whether we are investigating the claims of Jesus for the first time or if we have been a disciple for many years; doubt has been part of our story. The question that plagues us during these times is, "If I doubt, have I abandoned the faith?"
Thomas who had been with Jesus for most of His, was doubting whether the resurrection was real. Jesus answers his doubt directly, and what we discover in this interaction can forever change our view of doubt.
John The Final Chapters | La Vida | Doubt | John 20:24-31
The resurrection of Jesus was the single most important event in human history. So important in fact, that the church father Paul wrote, "And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." Yet, if we’re honest, we don’t live as though Jesus resurrected from death. Not consistently. Not confidently.
For those of us who say we believe Jesus, how are we so unaffected by His beating death? Jesus isn’t dead , and that fact alters all of human history, and should alter the faith and focus of any who believe.
John The Final Chapters | La Vida | Resurrection (I Have Seen The Lord) | John 20:1-18
There is a common question that surfaces among all people and cultures. Entire religions and philosophies are created around answering this question, and the question is, "What are we to do with our wrongs?" Absolution, penance, and sacrifice are all measures of dealing with the weight of our wrongs.
Christianity is starkly different in it response to this question. Join us as we look at how the blood and water of Jesus offer us distinctly unique answer to this question.
John The Final Chapters | La Muerté | Blood & Water | John 19:31-42
If you are in tune with what is happening around us, the current injustices has created a vulnerability of sorts that allows us to share a common narrative, and lament the realities of it, even with perfect strangers. We can share our fears and feelings liberally, though the only thing that may be connecting us is the common feeling that This world seems like it keeps getting worse, without purpose. If we’re honest, at one point or another, even now, we’ve felt just that way.
Humanity does not seem to be progressing as the scholars of old predicted. And because of this, there almost seems to be a collective PTSD, causing reactions ranging from numbness to panic.
What then, do we do? May I submit to you that in the midst of the chaos remember , Jesus died on purpose; Jesus' death is the down payment on an unbroken world. Jesus’ death was not incidental nor individual. His death came at great cost, and bore with it great purpose and promise.
The Final Chapters | La Muerté | It. Is. Finished. | John 19:17-30
What is truth? Is it relative? Is it based on how we see things? Or what things really are? Here’s another question for you? If you look at a piece of literature, artwork, a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, how would determine what it is? Would you use your judgement based on other things that you have seen before or what others have told you about it or would ask the author or creator, the painter, the artist, the sculptor what they say it is? There are several ways to look at these series of questions, but it really comes down to this, we want to be in control.
From the way we dress, or how we want the outcome of our day to be, or the way other people should drive, and lets not forget the way other people should think. We believe our way is best. And as it pertains to Jesus and the place he holds in our life, as far as his kingship, well, we want a king we can control. And the funny thing about that is, a king that is controlled is not a king at all. If I could, to borrow the cadence from an Eastside philosopher, interpreting the words of one history literary greats, Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your eardrums, listen, Jesus is not a pawn that we can control. He will not be reduced to the guarantor on plains that we have made. JESUS is king.
John | The Final Chapters | La Muerté | Unwanted King | John 19:1-16
Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Dallas Police Officers... Our country has immense problems. The question for us today is, how should we address them? What is the role of the disciple of Jesus, with regard to #justice?
We’ve been going through John’s history of Jesus' final days on earth. The closer we get to the climax, the more John’s Gospel reads like a drama, with the playwright switching scenes, con- trasting themes, highlighting the majesty and control of Jesus even when he seems most out of control. I call this The Tale of Three Kingdoms, because we see three competing kingdoms contrasted, two manmade kingdoms and one the Kingdom of God. We tend to put all our hope and allegiance in kingdoms we create, and that leaves no room for God’s. Two manmade kingdoms and one from God.
Trial | Tale Of Three Kingdoms | John18:28-40
When was the last time you denied something or someone? We find ourselves caught off guard and unready or UNWILLING to say what we know is true, or resist the wrong around us. We get asked if we are a Christian, and we fail to answer in the affirmative, lest we be lumped in with the worst representatives of those who profess to know Jesus. Or we choose not to stand firmly for Jesus among our friends, our co-workers, our relatives, our neighbors, because we don’t want to stand out or be rejected or create awkwardness by letting those around us see that we’re Christians. And after this happens enough, we begin to believe that we are no better than the last moment we failed to follow Jesus faithfully. We are prone to define ourselves by our denials, by our failures, allowing each moment of spiritual infidelity to mark us with thoughts and words of unworthiness; of inadequacy, even questions of whether we are in fact Jesus’ disciples.
Trial | Denial | John 18:15-18;25-27
Why do we think we can save the day? Do we feel like we are the hero of our own lives and story? Hear from Pastor Léonce that even though we try day in and day out to save ourselves, to be the hero of our lives, God is the only hero of our salvation on this earth.
Trial | One Man | John 18:1-14
Of course this is just a simple parable, but in it we surface a universal truth: we believe weakness is bad and strength is good. It is at the very core of human nature. And everything around us tells us the same. Flaws are diminishing, and perfection is the goal. Strength is an attribute, weakness a liability. If we show the cracks that we have, then we’ll be less useful, less revered. We cannot stand to be seen as weak, so we always play to our…..strengths.
Stand Alone Sermons | Our Weakness, Jesus' Greatness | 2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Now I know that this may not be the easiest thing for everyone to admit, but large in part we see trials as something to just endure. Your difficult boss, your over bearing mother, your penny pinching husband, your chronic pains, your neighborhood, the last two reps in a workout, if were honest, we just want to get it over with. I get it. Especially when our favorite motto is “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.” This may not be a warm and fuzzy, by no means, but what this says for believers is, this unshakeable gladness/happiness is tied to the hope we have in Christ. One does not rejoice in the trial itself, but in the benefit trials can bring.
Life Change | Perfect.... | James 1:2-4
God touches us in different ways. For some God overwhelms with emotions and passions of his love and greatness, and then those emotions drive deeper into mind, choices, desires. These may experience mountain-top highs in worship. For me, God usually touches me through the gate not of emotions, but of the mind, through knowledge, through understanding, through words and facts, and from that mind gate, he sweeps on in to touch emotionally. My mind is the normal pathway for God to access my passions and heart. God delights in our efforts to search him out, drill down into the depths with him. What better way to spend our lives than in getting to know our tri-personal God and enjoying him?
Life Change | Our Amazing God | John 17:20-23
Are our bad circumstances God’s punishment? If we are were, this is probably the thought that what default to when things go south for the believer. If you are not a disciple of Jesus, you still struggle with this same thing. In fact this may be one of your biggest hurdles to religion, the perception that God is in the business of enacting retribution on His people. If this is you, what we have in this text, will cause complete life change once understood.
Life Change | Character > Sin | Psalm 103:10-14
We are better together than we could ever be apart. There are enumerable tales, and unquestionable examples that prove this to be true. When we can get past ourselves, and see the power resident in working as a unit, unimaginable possibilities exist.
But very often we let individuality undermine the power of “WE.” Very often, we allow our own agenda or goals or perspective or PAST to blind us to the possibility of contributing to the greater good and greater goals able to be accomplished when “WE” work as a “WE.” In nearly every endeavor imaginable, We > Me. And though a multitude of cultural examples exist, from team sports, to military campaigns, to your loved one’s conspiring to hook you up with random people, Church should be the place that this sentiment is most readily displayed.
Church | We > Me | 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
We all have thought and said that we are going to church. The Church was never meant to be a place; it has always been a people. Yes, the church exists in beautiful tension. It is a messy movement. And it is most certainly a Transcendent gathering. But it is the people, not the place, that make it so. Hear from Pastor Léonce Crump Jr. as he walks us through what it means to be the Church and not go to Church.
Church | Is A People Not A Place | Acts 2:42-47
Why should we gather with God's people? There is a special grace in the transcendent experience of regularly gathering together with God's people, in God's name. Transcendent, meaning beyond or above the range of normal human experience; surpassing the ordinary; exceptional. Incomparable, matchless, unrivaled, beyond compare, and of God. And it is this grace supersedes even language and genetics, overcomes anxiety, emboldens the meek, strengthens the faithless, and calls back the wandering. And it is available to all of us, if we see the gathering of God's people rightly.
Church | Is Transcendent | Hebrews 10:24-25
What is the Church? Now, some of us grew up in church our entire lives, and so it was just there, a part of the family rhythm. A part of the weekly routine. Some of us came to faith late in life, and with no one to tell us exactly what the church is meant to be, we just jumped into the stream of what was “normal,” any pushback or questions we had signaled division rather than genuine curiosity. But most of us, whether we grew up in church or we’re experiencing church for the first time, have reduced church to a weekly routine that will have little impact on this world. Hear from Pastor Léonce Crump Jr. as he walks us through scriptures on what is the Church.
Church | Movement | Acts 17:1-9
Is this really the only option? Life is the party, and once it's over, then there is bleak, dreaded, nothingness? Death is the end, and the world keeps spinning, leaving us behind? What dreadful prospects. But from the beginning of time till now, people are at their core, the same as they’ve ever been. And for any number of reasons, We—human beings— cannot imagine how open God’s invitation is, or the lengths to which He will go to fill His table.
Easter | The Invitation | Luke 14:12-24
What does it mean to have a King? For most of us, that level of upheld hierarchy is foreign; that type of authority a thing of fairy tales, fantasy fiction, and foreign nations “stuck” in another age. And yet, as often as He is described in any other way, Jesus is called King. How then do we, as Jesus’ people, relate to the King?
Palm Sunday | King | Luke 19:28-40
Isn’t it thrilling —if you are in fact Jesus’ disciple —to hear of such seemingly miraculous stories? But often that is where it ends for us, is it not? We are thrilled to hear of where God is working elsewhere, or what God has done in the past, but not compelled ourselves to see such wonders. Why? Well, if we can be honest, the answer is far more simple than we would make it out to be—We Don’t Believe that God Goes Before Us. To be honest, that is our primary issue. Hear from Pastor Léonce Crump Jr. as he unpacks Luke 10:1-9 for our final sermon of the Glocal series with the message entitled “God Goes First”.
Glocal | The Prayers of the Nations | God Goes First | Luke 10:1-9
We as a church, and as the people of God, pray often that the message of Jesus would go to the ends of the earth. We are the answer to that prayer. Many peoples around the world are praying for Gospel messengers and Gospel resources to arrive many of them before they even worship Christ. We are the means to answer their prayers.
Glocal | The Prayers of The Nations | The Unknown God | Acts 17:16-31
How do we valuate human life? Who determines the variables by which value is bestowed? These are questions that have been answered for us in the poetic praise David directs toward God, here in Psalm 8:1-9. Hear from Pastor Léonce that if we’re “pro-life”, we’re pro-all-of-life. From birth to death, well off, or welfare. Orphaned or parented. Imprisoned or innocent; we ought to esteem human life...because our God does.
Stand Alone Sermons | The Value of Life | Psalm 8:1-9
We start far too fast, and give up far too quickly in so many of life’s endeavors. Unfortunately the Christian life, which should be characterized by steady, enduring growth and change, often ends up among that which is abandoned—in whole or in part—as time passes, gratification comes slowly, difficulty arises and we tire. But starting fast and falling short is not what God intended. This passage in Hebrews tells us that God calls us to take the long view. Lasting change is a lifelong endeavor, and we must fight to endure to the end. And scripture tells us exactly how to get on with it. This week Pastor Léonce unpacks Hebrews 12 to show us what the scriptures have to say about the long walk that characterizes the life of the disciple of Jesus.
No matter what someone says about who they are, or how they've changed, it’s human nature to look for evidence of that change, not only in others, but in ourselves. This is undeniable. It’s what we do. We need clear evidence that communicates to us—and those around us—the actuality of our change.
This is widely understood well beyond “church” circles, right? In school, the evidence of change is knowledge gained. In business, the evidence of growth or change is often a promotion or acquisition of some kind. This week we Pastor Léonce shows us in Galatians what the evidence of the true change should be.
Start, Stop, Repeat | Faithful Gardener | Galatians 5:13, 16-24
Growth in godliness involves both right belief AND obedient action. Godly habits do not simply appear. Paul goes on to compare physical training with spiritual. Training our bodies has some benefit, but physical training is limited to just that—the physical dimensions of life. Godliness on the other hand, penetrates every aspect of life: our view of self, marriage, parenting, business, school, environmental outlook, relationships; Nothing escapes godliness; it pervades everything. It gives true life. If we take the scriptures as true, how do we go about this training? What are the means, the instruments of our exercise? Well God has given us tools, often referred to as Spiritual Disciplines, that help us to train ourselves for godliness. They help us to cultivate that newness God has worked in us.
The life of the mind is an essential dimension of progressing in our new nature. Regrettably though I believe it fair to say that after we experience this irrevocable newness from God, we often live on autopilot, failing to thoughtfully approach how we walk in our newness. You know this to be true. We believe in Jesus, yes. We believe that we’re new. But we challenge and diminish the effects of that belief by failing to consider how we think about God, His scriptures, or this life.
Start, Stop, Repeat | Higher Thinking | Colossians 3:1-2
We all want to change. It is inherent in the American story. As one writer for Forbes magazine put it, “Self-improvement, or at least the desire for it, is a shared American hobby.” It’s the reason that every year starts the same, with so many of us—estimates say more than 40% of people in the U.S.—making New Year’s resolutions.
With the majority of these resolutions being abandoned shortly after beginning, the question that arises is, how do we actually change? Join us as we begin a new series on what it takes to actually change.
Start, Stop, Repeat | Fresh Start | 2 Corinthians 5:16-18a
Looking at the modern day, Western Church, it is easy to forget what it really is. It is ancient in that it has always been the plan of God, at the very centre of His eternal purpose. Future in that God has much more to show and do through His church as we move toward the restoration of this fragmented world. That is the true nature of the Church, the Church as God has revealed it. Only when we see the Church as God does, will we be the Church that God intended.
Stand Alone Sermons | Our Story, His Glory | Ephesians 3:7-11
Our God is one who cares deeply about His people. So much, that He has gifted ever single person in a unique, specific way. The question is, what was His intention when He gifted us? Was it for our gain and benefit? This week Pastor Doug unpacks God's plan for building the original tabernacle and what it has to say to us today.
Stand Alone Sermons | God Is In The Details | Exodus 35:29-36:19
Every election cycle it seems we find ourselves caught up in a cyclone of expectations. We have a tendency to believe that the next political leader will be the one to fix all the problems we currently face. Inevitably we are let down, but in this struggle is a deep truth is revealed. We all desire a great leader. One who is benevolent and just. Is there a leader who can be these things for us? In Psalm 110 we have perhaps the only true hope for that great leader revealed to us.
Overcome | Conqueror | Psalm 110
During this time of Advent, our hearts are reminded of the deepest desires that God has shaped within us. One of those is the desire for security, to know that we have a foundation we can stand upon. This week Pastor Ralph unpacks the truth of Psalm 118 that, CHRIST is, Christ must be, Christ has to be our Cornerstone.
Overcome | Cornerstone | Psalm 118
At the core of every person is the desire to experience the love of God. The god may change from culture to culture, but the desire is the same. The question is, how do we satisfy this desire? Everything in our world is seemingly telling us that there is a distance between God and man that cannot be overcome. In Psalm 22 we have this core problem on full display, but instead of leaving us with rules for achieving God's love, it gives us something much more.
Overcome | Crucifixion | Psalm 22
Our world is overwhelmed with strife and conflict of all kinds. From the latent racial tension that has recently surfaced itself in the United States, to the mass murders of Nigeria, to the political conflict in South Africa. We live in a world that is seemingly overcome by chaos. But we as disciples of Jesus have a promise of hope. A promise that reminds us that our King will overcome the chaos of this world with peace. This advent season we will be spending time in the Messianic Psalms to remind ourselves of this fact. Our King has overcome this world.
Overcome | Chaos | Psalm 2
In a world where we are constantly connected to "everyone" around us, do we have have real connection? Or has this abundance of connection actually caused us to be more isolated than any other time in history? And if so, what are the implications for us as a society? This week Pastor Doug unpacks one of the core desires of all humans. The need for affection. He answers question we have all asked, "How do I achieve genuine love?"
Stand Alone Sermon | Never Go Alone | Romans 12:9-12
God did not create a world and haphazardly throw humans into the mix. Nor did he simply let it evolve (or devolve!). God crafted the world in such a way so as to maximize his glory and our good. In the very beginning, God set a fixed order to his creation, with cycles and seasons and hardwired functions for everything. And when he did, he did not forget about us! On the contrary, as the crown of God’s good creation, we find that God’s design is for our greatest joy. What an undeserved gift! What an honor that God would consider our joy in the design of the cosmos!
Beautiful By Design | Your Best Life Now | John 10:7-11
Marriage is not a state institution, dreamed up to give couples a break on taxes. And no matter how a country or state may define it, it originated with God and therefore and its true meaning from him and his Word. Marriage was designed to be a dance of death and submission, as his image- bearers spread God’s glory throughout the earth. While the husband is called to lead in humble submission to Christ, giving himself up for his wife’s good; the woman is to submit to his leadership, as the marriage head, even as Christ is the head of the church. This institution is a picture of God’s love for his people in Christ: as Christ died for the church, the church submits to his leadership over their lives. In this dance we discover that marriage was designed to make us holy, not happy. Though certainly there will be times of great happiness, that’s not the goal of its design.
Beautiful By Design | The Dance | Ephesians 5:22-33; Matthew 19:4-6; Genesis 2
While Jesus may or may not have been speaking of those with same-sex attraction (SSA) in Matthew 19:10-12, the applicability of his words is undeniable. Some are born, others made, in such a way that they cannot experience the fruits of sexual and emotional intimacy that are experienced by so many, if they are to hold fast to the Scripture’s teaching on sex, human sexuality and intimate relationships. Equally as clear, from Isaiah 56:1-8, is that God promises a unique gift for those committed to celibacy. Many might say a life of celibacy is unconscionable, that no one can bear such a burden. But sexual grati cation is a privilege, not a right. And to those who hold fast to God’s covenant through celibacy, God says, “I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters...an everlasting name that shall never be cut off.”
Beautiful By Design | Born This Way | Matthew 19:10-12; Isaiah 56:1-8
Sex has a context. That is to say, there are certain bounds designed by God inside of which humans are to practice and enjoy sexual intimacy. Sex is not wrong or bad, but sex outside of God’s designed context can, and usually is, destructive to those involved. But sex in context is a good gift from our good God. So, what is this context? It is evident from God’s Word that He has designed sex to be enjoyed between one man and one woman for the purposes of procreation, intimacy, and pleasure. Or put more succinctly, God designed us to become one, with one. Unlike what our culture may tell us, we were meant to become one flesh with one spouse.
Beautiful By Design | One | Genesis 1:27-28; 2:7-25; Proverbs 5:18-19; Song of Songs 7:6-9
Too often in the church, or even in secular culture, singles seem to be told that they’ll “matter” once their married. But the Bible says that singleness is a gift! The Apostle Paul even wishes that all were single like him. So, although we tend to think (and are often told) that we are not complete until we are married or that singleness is some sort of not-fully-human state, we see in 1 Cor. 7 that being single does not make you insignificant. On the contrary, it is a good state to be in, a gift from God, and in some cases a calling and assignment from the Lord (v. 17). While the married person is “anxious about worldly things,” the single person is free to be “anxious about the things of the Lord” (v. 32). How fulfilling to know that the single person is complete in Christ, lacking no good thing, and is able to have undivided devotion to the Lord.
Beautiful By Design | Tinder | 1 Corinthians 7:6-8, 17, 32-35
The Bible is clear that God made humans “male and female,” designed to be a complementary pair. And yet our culture has chosen to accept the notion of gender fluidity, although it is willing to admit one is “assigned” a gender at birth. The very clear teaching of Scripture from Genesis onward is that men are designed particularly male and women are designed particularly female. And though equal in worth and dignity by virtue of being created in God’s image, men and women are designed to occupy different roles. When God created woman, he gave her a unique identity and purpose in life.
God designed a specific role for women to fulfill and, by living out that role, to increase human flourishing. She is called “helper.” Far from being a demeaning role, the Bible uses the term to communicate the unique strength and ability that God has entrusted to women. Women work together with their male complements to cultivate and exercise dominion over the earth and to spread God’s image throughout the world. Without female engagement and leadership in the home and church, the ministry and power of both will be lacking.
Beautiful By Design | Fill In The __________ (2) | Genesis 2:15-25; 3
The Bible is clear that God made humans “male and female,” designed to be a complementary pair. And yet our culture has chosen to accept the notion of gender fluidity, although it is willing to admit one is “assigned” a gender at birth. The very clear teaching of Scripture from Genesis onward is that men are designed particularly male and women are designed particularly female. And though equal in worth and dignity, by virtue of being created in God’s image, men and women are designed to occupy different roles. When God created man, He gave him a unique identity and purpose in life. God designed a specific role for man to fulfill and, by living out that role, to increase human flourishing.
One of the unique ways that men fulfill their responsibility entrusted to them is through male headship in church and home. This headship should be characterized by the commands in Genesis 2:5-15 to work and keep what has been entrusted to man’s care. As men lead, love, serve and protect, they fulfill God’s commands to work and keep what the Lord has given to their care.
Beautiful By Design | Fill In The __________ (1 | Genesis 2:4-8; 15-25; 3
God said something unique when he made man: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Unlike any of the other creation, humanity is made like God in a special way and is called “very good.” But what does this mean? Our first clue comes immediately after those phrases, when man is given dominion over the rest of creation. Further, we know from the poetic section in v. 27 that humanity is meant to be portrayed as the height of God’s creation (note the use of the superlative, “created” 3x), by virtue of being made in his image. There is also a special blessing conferred on them, as they are told to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and thereby subdue it (again, “have dominion”, v. 28). All these descriptions indicate that humanity is the pinnacle of God’s beautiful design — made in his image.
Beautiful By Design | Image | Genesis 1:26-31
One of the most intricate aspects of God’s design for the world is that of complementary pairs. Notice how many pairs are mentioned in Genesis 1:3-25. In Hebrew poetry the use of pairings or opposite ends of the spectrum juxtaposed in this way is called merism. It is a literary device used by the author to show the fullness and completeness of a system. What does that mean? And why would God insert so many pairs in the creation account in Genesis? Because complementary pairs are essential to God’s good design. Whether it is day and night, light and darkness, heaven and earth, man and woman, or Christ and his church, God has designed the world to function properly through the harmony (or consummation) of these pairs. Until, that is, the day when heaven becomes one with earth, Christ receives his bride (the church), and the dwelling place of God is with humanity!
Beautiful By Design | Echoes | Genesis 1:3-25
Creatio ex nihilo is the Latin phrase used by theologians to capture the idea of God’s creating the world from nothing. He did not use raw material. The world did not exist from eternity past like the Godhead. Instead, God created everything, from nothing, by design. And after he did, he formed it and made it good. He gathered, called, shaped and named everything that he brought into existence. And so, we see in Genesis that the world did not come about haphazardly, but was crafted by a loving, skilled Creator to be a home for those made in his image. And it is by living in harmony with this design that humanity finds its greatest good and its greatest joy. Indeed, it is rebellion for the creation to deviate from the Creator’s plan for itself.
Beautiful By Design | Ex Nihilo | Genesis 1:1-5
Our living sent lives, in and through the joy of Jesus, is the way the world will change. But listen, as we do that—live sent lives to see the world change—what’s produced is not a smattering of individuals who now pledge allegiance to Jesus, rather God is forming something far more wonderful for us to experience—a family. A united community, founded, sourced, and secured in Him.
This week Pastor Léonce unpacks the implications of Christian community that is formed out of the Trinity.
Dinner Theatre | Dear God | United | John 17:20-26
It is not uncommon to go through our lives without remembering we are put here for a purpose. When Jesus prayed for His disciples He didn’t ask that they be taken out of the world, but that they would be protected in the world. As a follower of Jesus, it gives no glory to God to disengage, but rather, we honor God most when we live as though we were sent into the world for a specific purpose, just as Jesus was.
As we continue this series of walking with Jesus in His final moments on earth, Pastor Leonce challenges us to ask ourselves how would everything change if we lived “sent” lives. We are kept by the Father to fulfill a plan.
This week Pastor Leonce shares the meaning behind Jesus’ prayer for us, and reveals what the lifeline to our faith is and key to experiencing joy to the full.
Dinner Theatre | Dear God | Sent | John 17:12-19
What would change if you actually believed that God is keeping you? How would your life be different if you believed that God is walking with you right now, and deeply interested in your life in Him? As Christians, we can truly rest in this promise that God is faithful to uphold us and as the Author and Perfecter of our faith, we can have confidence that it is only faith alone in Jesus that justifies us.
Not long before Jesus gives His life for us, He prays for His disciples and all those who would believe in Him. Jesus prayed to His Father for you and I. That’s amazing, and beautiful, and comforting.
This week Pastor Leonce explains exactly what Jesus asked His Father for on our behalf, what we learn about God and His relationship to us, and what this High Priestly Prayer means for us. We pray that you would listen, that the Holy Spirit will incline your heart towards Him, and that you’d be free in Christ.
Dinner Theatre | Dear God | Kept | John 17:6-11
Whether it’s niagra falls, the grand canyon, or seeing the ocean for the first time, we have all had experiences of one sort or another that inspire wonder in us, do something to us, move us emotionally. As moving and wondrous as it is to behold them, they only possess the ability to move us so far, before, over time, they lose their lustre. And yet, we find in them a hopefulness as well.
If this is true—that the Creator is the source of glory, and the gloriousness we find in this vast and wondrous world—then it is equally true that we need a consistent gaze upon the glory of God. In fact, I believe we can say with certainty that until we know and exult in the glory of God, we cannot know why we exist, or what meaning life has
Dinner Theatre | Dear God | Glory | John 17:1-5
At many times in our lives we experience the feelings of being completely overcome, exhausted, and overwhelmed. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian, or an unbeliever. You will experience times of deep emotional defeat.
Jesus knew this and in those last hours with His disciples, He didn’t try to minimize their hurt as they began to be fearful about Him leaving. In fact, He tells them that in this world you will have tribulation. You will have suffering. You will have anguish. You will have misery. You will have pain. But, be not discouraged. Take heart, for I have overcome the world. In me, you may have peace.
If we are in Christ, that is great news and it means we look at our present suffering differently because we also have a very present hope. This week, Pastor Leonce shares what it means that Christ has overcome this world and the peace that He offers His followers, and those who will put their trust in Him. Jesus Christ’s triumph secures our peace. Rest in that.
Dinner Theatre | Peace | Victory & Shalom | 16:25-33
If we’re all honest, many days joy seems impossible. For the Christian and for the person who has not put faith in Jesus, our struggle to experience and maintain joy is real. We all desire an unshakeable joy that is not fleeting nor fades. The good news is that God knew we would desire this. In fact, He created us to experience this joy.
Nearing the hour when Jesus would be crucified, the disciples who had spent so much time with Him were getting discouraged and losing heart. Jesus acknowledged their pain and sorrow but also assured them that their sorrow would be turned into joy. Jesus promises the same thing to us. His desire for all people and promise to those who put their faith in Him is that our joy may be full.
This week Dr. John Sherwood takes us through this encounter between Jesus and His disciples. Through Jesus’ teaching, Dr. Sherwood explains what joy is, where it is found, what threatens it, and three ways we can begin to develop deep joy.
Dinner Theatre | John 16:16-24 | In Jesus, Sorrow Turns to Joy
Our hope and the promise of Scripture is that the Holy Spirit would help us to navigate this world in a way that is wise, truthful, and loving. Whether the issue is same-sex marriage or any other sin, Jesus promised that the He would send the Holy Spirit to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgement and the work of the Spirit is best displayed through His saints.
Pastor Leonce explains what Jesus meant regarding each way the world would be convicted, and gives us three ways to respond to the truth of Jesus’ words. It doesn’t matter how far the dominant culture seems to move away from God, because of the Spirit’s active role, nothing can upend the will of God. That is our hope.
Dinner Theatre | Peace | John 16:5-15 | Not Without the Spirit
We have accepted that somehow we have a mostly Christian society. Because the Christian church has been somewhat connected or influential in the formation of the Roman, British, and American cultures that have established the society in which we live, we can be tempted to think that somehow we can follow Jesus within our society while holding a place of honor and prestige and that we don’t need to be ridiculed in order to be true witnesses of the death, resurrection, and Lordship of Jesus....which leads to the third way that we embrace a worldly witness...
But Jesus promises us that the Helper is coming, and He will bare witness through us to the world.
Dinner Theatre | Vine | But When The Helper Comes | John 15:26-16:4
Living in a culture where the majority opposes God and His law makes it extremely hard to be a Christian. Even the most faithful men and women whose only desire is to please the Lord fall into the danger and sin of conformity. Jesus said Himself that He chose us out of the world. That means we belong to Him and are not just affiliated with Him.
This week Pastor Doug delivers an extremely hard and personal message; as followers of Christ, will we remain distinct or assimilate to the dominant culture? Pastor Doug gives us what our proper response should be as Christians to opposing ideas and to people who have different beliefs than we do.
Can we not lay down our life for the love of Christ? It’s a simple, but in some ways profound question. Not to minimalise the love one can have for a people, a country, but how much more then should the love of, for, and from Christ shape our lives, and our willingness to lay them down?
This is the question set before us in John’s recollection of Jesus’ continued farewell to His disciples. Jesus gives them, and us, a new commandment; love. But not the costless, feelings inspired, wavering “love” of postmodernity and movies. But a love that makes us evaluate and reevaluate how we engage one another, and if we can lay down our lives for one another.
We are inherently self-reliant. We believe we have all the answers. We believe we are strong enough by ourselves to withstand every obstacle. We believe we can do our best work without seeking help. When it comes to trials, we believe we can save ourselves. When it comes to our salvation in Christ, we believe we can earn it and that we have the power in ourselves to lose it. Naturally, we were born with the inclination that we can rely on ourselves. If you asked yourself how this belief has worked out for you and were honest about it, you’d realize it hasn’t. Luckily, Jesus knew this behavior would ultimately lead to an unenjoyable and unfulfilled life, so in His grace He provided us an alternative.
The truth is, apart from Him we can do no good thing. As Christians we must abide in Christ to live godly lives. The good news is we don’t have to do this alone. Our Father in Heaven has promised to prune us and destroy anything in us that is not of Him. Despite the lies we believe, we can not rely on ourselves.
This week, Pastor Leonce shares four keys we must understand about this process of being made like Christ and bearing good fruit, and gives us four ways we can respond to this truth.
“If you loved me, you would do what I am asking you to do.” At some point in our lives, we’ve probably heard our parent or caretaker say this to us, and if they never said it, they’ve probably wanted to. That statement doesn’t come from selfish ambition. It comes out of the desire for us to display evidence that we actually love and trust those who care for us. Furthermore, to show evidence that we love those we say we love.
Jesus ultimately tells us the same thing; “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In our culture it has become normal to say we love God, yet show no regard to His word or His commands. When we choose to disobedient and prefer our own ways over His, what we are actually saying is “Lord, I do not trust you, nor do I love you.”
This week Pastor Leonce tells us the importance of our obedience to God, and what it displays. Our prayer is that you would accept His love, for that is where our obedience flows from.
“Jesus does not want to fix our lives. He wants our lives.” In an absolutely beautiful portrayal of the gospel, guest pastor Jerome Gay points us to Christ as not only the one who saves us, but Christ as the one who never leaves us. Many of us believe the idea that Jesus rescues and sets us on the right track. Both of those are true beliefs. He does rescue us and He does transform our hearts and set us on the right track, but what He says in this week’s passage is that He IS the way, which means that “The Way” is a person and not a direction.
For anyone who has given their lives to this savior, there are so many ways that the gospel brings comfort to our lives. This week Pastor Jerome Gay shares six ways the gospel comforts, three lies we need to stop believing so that we can experience life that the gospel gives, and three responses to Jesus’ love.
Our prayer is that this word would lead you into a relationship with Jesus Christ and believe that you are lovable by him with no performance necessary.
One of the scariest things we learn in the Bible is how close we can be to Jesus, yet never really love or serve Him genuinely. As we continue in our series on The Last Supper, we focus this week on Judas’s betrayal of Jesus.
“...Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’” There is so much to learn about the character of Jesus in this scene, as well as implications for how we are to respond when we find ourselves having grieved the heart of God. Most importantly, we see through this encounter between Jesus and His betrayer that betrayal is real, but it does not block the gospel.
This week, Paster Doug Logan visits us from Camden, New Jersey to break down this iconic scene in a way that reveals the power of the gospel, Jesus’ heart, and our response.
In every human heart is the desire to have a clear conscience. Depending on the culture one is from, you will use different language for the same idea. But the question that our actions in this life leave us with is this, "Can we ever truly be clean?" In the opening verse of John 13 we are given a picture of what Jesus offers the world. We are given a insight into His desire for this world. He has come to make it clean.
In Western culture we believe the more we have, the happier we'll be. We even believe that more of the same stuff that has not been able to satisfy us will satisfy us. Years of discontent and hearts that are unsatisfied by the things of this world attest to the fact that more stuff will never make us happier. Why? It is all fleeting. One of the richest men to ever live once said, "I am the most miserable man on earth".
We live our lives so closed-handed that we do not see the joy in generosity when in fact, giving is the only antidote to materialism.
In the last week of The Treasure Principle, Pastor Leonce gives us the last two keys necessary to experience financial freedom and to steward our resources as God would have us to.
Why do we invest like this is our home? Why do we live like this life lasts forever? Contrary to the “you only live once” (YOLO) mindset that is plaguing this generation, this is not our home, and we will spend eternity in one of two places.
In week two of The Treasure Principle, Pastor Leonce shares the next two keys of faithful stewardship over the finances God has entrusted us with. Having a clearer understanding of living for eternal purposes is understanding these two keys: Heaven, not earth, is my home, and we are to live for the line, not the dot. God has given us an awareness of the eternal and our unsettled hearts without Christ can attest to that. We were never meant to live our lives accumulating. Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it this way; “Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected…. Hoarding is idolatry.”
For the Christian, we have such a beautiful inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading”. Such a gift can never be gained here; It is in Heaven.
God sees our faith and our finances as inseparable, yet many of us don’t know how to handle money. How we handle money is a revelation of where we’ve directed our hearts.
To change the way we handle money takes a radical shift in thinking of how we view money. If we believe the Bible, then we must begin to believe that God owns everything, and we’re just His money managers.
This week, Pastor Leonce preaches a sermon not only about our finances, but more importantly about God, who is our treasure. To begin this three week series, we focus on two principles that are key in shifting our thinking about our finances, as well as questions to ask ourselves that will challenge our spending habits, and ultimately our hearts.
Henry Martyn, a missionary to Persia and India in the 1800’s said, "The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become."
God has a special care for the nations; Especially the disadvantaged. Because our God is a missionary God, and the spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, it is only appropriate that we be missionaries and love the nations as God does. The nearer we get to God, the more intensely missionary we become because loving God deeply necessitates that we love the sojourner. It compels us to love “the other”.
If we’ve been loved by God we are commanded to love the sojourner.
In our final week in Glocal, Pastor Leonce challenges us with these question: Will we live out the gospel we profess? Will we love the sojourner? He explains how we can genuinely love the other and see the sojourner as Christ saw us. It isn’t a list of do’s and don’ts, rather it is a call for our hearts to be transformed.
Why is it so important that we lose our lives for the sake of those who don’t follow Jesus? Because all other gods are worthless idols. If we believe what the Bible says then we believe there’s an urgent need of the nations to proclaim Jesus, worship in the splendor of His holiness, and sing to the Lord a new song. The nations need a new song!
Because Christ has redeemed us and given us a new song, it is our joy to meet the needs of the nations with this song. Hudson Taylor, one of the greatest missionaries this earth has seen once said, “If I had 1,000 lives, I’d give them all for China.” Let us live with this sense of urgency for those who don’t have access to the Gospel, and let us live with this passion to bring joy to the nations.
This week Pastor Leonce walks us through Psalm 96 and shares why we must take the Gospel to those without access to it. He gives us two practical ways we can begin to burden our hearts for lost people around the world, and ends by challenging Christians to ask the Lord if He’s calling us to go. How beautiful are the feet of those that bring good news!
“God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.” As Christians, it can be easy for us to see missions as a mandate. It can be easy for us to see what Dr. John Piper describes as “renouncing the quest for worldly comforts” as harsh, unfair, and uncomfortable. But it’s God’s desire that we join His passionate efforts to bring gladness to the nations.
The extraordinary thing about God using us is that we don’t have to be extraordinary. From the beginning of time He’s used the most inadequate and feeble men and women to bring His purposes to pass. That’s good news for us! The burden of saving is on God. All we have to do is be available to be used.
This week Pastor Leonce shares what the gladness and joy of God is to the nations and how we can be a part of this radical mission to bring the knowledge of God to people groups all around the world. Missions is not just a mandate. It’s the means in which we bring the most beautiful news to people desperately in need of it.
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
If you had to define your life’s mission, what would it be? If you are a follower of Jesus hopefully it would contain something about discipleship. While there are many things vying for our attention and our time, Jesus left humanity with one thing to do: share the good news of the gospel. Even for those of us who truly believe the good news that Jesus came down and died so that we could have life, it’s still hard to share it with others. Before Jesus left the earth, he commanded us to share this good news! We have the comfort of knowing that all authority has been given to Jesus and therefore to us.
This week Pastor Ethan explains what it means to have this authority and shares what this looks like practically. As people who carry the best news in the world and who have been given the authority by Christ to share it, we don’t have to worry that we’ll say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. The Lord has promised that He is with us always. Let’s trust that He will give us the words, and let’s trust that He will do His saving work.
Is Christianity the only way? Contradictory to God’s word, seventy percent of Americans say “no”. Sadly, many of us who claim to be Christians do not believe that Jesus is the only way to God or to Heaven. The truth is, every human being desires something better. There’s an innate longing in each of us for a Heaven of some sort. So why is it so hard to share the truth? We live in a culture where exclusivity is mean and to say that one way is the only way is prideful and inconsiderate.
Jesus knew that this hard truth of Him being the only way to the Father would be tough for us to understand and share with others. That’s why He leaves us with one command. “Believe in God; believe also in me.”
This week Pastor Leonce gives us three ways to respond to the truths that Jesus shares. Jesus is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. Jesus is the only way to see God. Let your heart not be troubled, and just believe.
In a culture that glorifies the accumulation of “stuff,” there is an enormous social pressure to want what everyone else wants, and to purchase these things regardless of the costs. Because of the way our money and possessions have a way of controlling us, we are warned all throughout Scripture to flee from the sinful pursuit of money and possessions, and to not set our heart on riches. Jesus takes this so seriously that He tells us in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, we must sell everything for His sake.
Jesus loves us so much that He’d rather us be sold out for His sake, than to be a slave to our possessions. We can either continue to buy the lie that tells us our value is determined by the things that we “own,” or we can trust that Jesus can and will save us from vanity.
This week Pastor Leonce explains exactly what Jesus meant when he told the rich man that in order for him to have eternal life in Heaven, he must sell everything that he has and give to the poor. He guides us in asking ourselves some hard questions and evaluating our view of possessions. What Jesus teaches is a hard truth for any believer, but a joy to know that our treasure is not be found in this world. Our treasure is in Heaven.
“And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’”
Obviously, Jesus does not mean this literally. We are not expected to destroy those body parts that we sin with. All throughout Scripture we are told that at the root of our sin is the heart. His use of these words is to show the severity of our sin. He would rather us take drastic, painful, and uncomfortable measures to cut off the things that would cause us to spend an eternity apart from Him. He would rather us lose an eye than to lose our lives.
Without a proper understanding of Jesus and His character, these words seem harsh and insensitive. But Christ loves us so much that he wants us to walk in the fullness of life. This life is only found in and through Him. Sin separates us from Him and ultimately leads to death.
Thank God for the Gospel! Because of God’s grace, we can kill sin and experience life that Christ offers.
This week Pastor Leonce explains the truth about this hyperbole and the seriousness of sin. He pleads with us to see our sin the way the way our Father does and offers three suggestions that we can use to begin to kill the sin in our lives.
“Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.’”
It’s easy for our love of everything else to come before our love of Jesus. Without the Holy Spirit working in our lives, it’s actually natural to idolize any and everything above Christ. If someone were to ask you if you had any extra time, would you say yes? Perhaps it’s American individualism or just the professional atmosphere that values production to the point of exhaustion and values the bottom line over people’s health, but our lives are so jam-packed with work, recreation, family outings or obligations that there’s no room to fully live out what it means to be a follower of Jesus. How can we give our life away when so many things have already staked their claims on it?
If we are followers of Jesus then we know that God is love… So is He really telling us that we must hate our families? What Jesus is saying in this sermon is again antithetical to our natural human desires. Since He is love, then we know all of His commands are birthed out of love. This gives us great comfort.
This week, Pastor Leonce explains exactly what Jesus is getting at with this text, and shares the applications that this text gives for those who are followers of Jesus. In losing the whole of our lives for Christ, we actually gain everything!
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
These words of Jesus are absolutely conflicting to our natural human preferences, yet Jesus is speaking to the very core of our hearts. It’s easy to love those who love us, be kind to those who are kind to us, and pray for those we care about, but Jesus is calling us to something much more weighty. He’s calling us to extend the grace we’ve been given by loving those who hate us, and praying for those who persecute us.
On our fourth year anniversary, we celebrate the man who helped to inspire our vision of transculturalism and a gospel-centered approach to social justice. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” He was a man who deeply understood the truth of this text.
This week, Pastor Leonce unpacks this hard text, helping us to believe in the love that Christ first loved us with when He died for us. Pastor Leonce challenges us to ask God for help in three ways that would help us to love like Jesus loves. Let us all be known as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father by the way we love.
“No matter where you go, you are not without family.” For the family of believers in Jesus Christ, this is a beautiful truth and promise. We are sons and daughters of the Maker of the universe, and brothers and sisters by the blood of His Son. We are those whose hearts cry “Abba” to God, and all those whose hearts cry “Abba! Father!” are brothers and sisters in the most glorious family.
How do you treat the Church? Do you really see us as family? Pastor Doug shares with us the implications of what it means to be a part of the royal, holy, reigning family, and challenges us to change our thinking about the people of God because it is in fact true that we are brothers and sisters in Christ.
With | Galatians 4:4-7 | Holy Family
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” In our last week of Advent, we focus on God as our Prince of Peace.
We all long for peace in our hearts, souls, and minds, and through His grace, He has granted us peace right now through the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ. Although we do not see the perfect fulfillment of this prophesy, we can have hope in the promises of what the world would be like when the Prince of Peace comes back again to reign forever. Pastor Leonce shares three ways Christ has given us peace and challenges us to believe that His peace will and does fulfill every longing we have.
What a joyful thing to know that Christ is coming back! May this knowledge grant you peace today.
With | Isaiah 9:1-7 | Prince of Peace
“There are no fatherless followers of Jesus.”
Many of us struggle with earthly fathers who weren’t there, who weren’t present, who were abusive, who were emotionally distant, and who were flawed in many ways… All of our earthly fathers at some point have failed us. They have failed to love us appropriately. Failed to comfort us when we needed comfort. They have failed to provide for us. Some of our fathers simply failed to be there at all. All of us are left with the effects of a father who at some point or in some way let us down.
Thank God that in Him we have an Everlasting Father who’s love is perfect and unwavering!
In our third week of Advent, we continue to focus and reflect on who God is. There is much hope, comfort, and security in knowing we have a heavenly Father who is Everlasting. Where our earthly fathers have been distant, God say’s “seek me, and you will find me.” Our prayer is that you would bask in the love of your Everlasting Father.
With | Isaiah 9:1-7 | Everlasting Father
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” With heavy hearts and deep longings for things to be made right, we look to Christ as our “very present help in trouble.” When our lives seem to be spiraling out of control, when people fail us, when this broken world seems hopeless, and when we realize how weak we are, the prophesy of Isaiah about our Christ gives us hope. The promises of His character give us a renewed faith.
In the second week of Advent, we continue to focus our minds and hearts on what awaits us in the second coming of Christ, but also remind ourselves of what gift we have right now in Christ. This week we reflect on another attribute of God’s character. He is Mighty.
With | Isaiah 9:1-7 | Mighty God
Advent is a season of longing for the return of Christ. It’s a time where we renew our hope in the presence and the promises of God as we wait for Christ’s second coming. In our first week of Advent, we set our hearts on Jesus to discover what it means for Him to be a Wonderful Counselor.
We turn to our friends, family, and professionals for guidance and counseling many times before we turn to God. Through the death and resurrection of His Son, we have access to go boldly before God, seeking His face in any and every circumstance in our lives. He has made Himself available and is the Wonderful Counselor and best friend our souls will always long for.
With the comforting truth on this attribute of God’s character, Pastor Leonce also describes the vision that Isaiah saw and what we await in the glorious coming of our Wonderful Counselor, Jesus Christ.
With | Isaiah 9:1-7 | Wonderful Counselor
How glorious will it be to actually be a part of the fulfillment of God’s plan? How amazing will it be to be a part of a sea of faces that is too many to count? How perfect will it be that people of all nations, tongues, and tribes will gather together standing face to face with Jesus, giving praise to the Lamb? This is the fulfilled promise that we live towards.
In our final week of Transculturalism, Pastor Leonce gives vivid imagery to describe John’s vision of the culmination of God’s redemptive plan to bring all people to Himself.
“Who is my neighbor?” This is a question we all wrestle with. We are like the man who approached Jesus, wanting to know who he was to give his life to, love and care for. Many of us at times hope that our “neighbor” isn’t anyone that will make us uncomfortable or un-liked. What if instead of answering this question with thinking of what value they can bring us, we asked a different question? We can’t choose who our neighbor is, but we can ask ourselves if we will be a neighbor.
Jesus’ reply to the man asking how he could inherit eternal life is at the heart of the Gospel and at the core of our identity as a local church.
This week Pastor Leonce unpacks what it means to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” This idea reflects our value of transculturalism because neighboring means we include all people in our story, just as Christ included all people in His.
A transcultural community is God’s light to the nations. In the family of God, all are welcome, and all people are a part of God’s redemptive plan to form a family for Himself, from all people.
As we continue our series on Renovation Church’s identity, Pastor Leonce again describes what transculturalism is, and how what the vision of a transcultural community could look like. He takes us through four aspects of this glorious idea.
The Hope
The Problem
The Remedy
The Vision
Pastor Leonce invites us to be a part of this gospel informed and gospel centered movement by giving us four ways to check our hearts and engage with the “other.” It is our prayer that God would give every believer His vision for His transcultural Church.
The Bible is all about God’s redemptive plan to bring all people back to Himself. Yet, in the spending of our time and giving of our resources, it seems we buy segregation. We make conscious and unconscious decisions every day that keep us within the bounds of our comfort zones, around the people who are most like us, leaving no room to engage with people who are different than we are. God’s praises will be lifted up by all people, and we must live in a way that reflects this transcultural community of worshippers.
This week, Pastor Ethan preaches a hard message about our selfishness and proclivity to our natural preferences. For the believer and non-believer, our only remedy is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to have our hearts continually changed by it. For the believer, and those of us who call Renovation Church our home, Pastor E gives us five practical ways that we can begin to faithfully be a part of God’s redemptive plan to gather all people back to Himself.
The whole narrative of the Bible is about God’s redemptive plan to bring all people back to Himself. Transculturalism embodies the truth that we are all made in the image of God and are to be celebrated in our differences because we are all a part of the beautiful tapestry of God’s people. Creating a transcultural community and a genuine love for all people is not an addendum to the Gospel, but an implication of the Gospel. Although it’s easier to build deep relationships with people who are like us, vital to our identity and deeply embedded throughout Scripture is the truth that we are all one in Christ and agents of God’s redemptive plan to have a family of people from all nations, tribes, and tongues.
As we continue this series on how the Gospel informs who we are, Pastor Leonce challenges us to move outside of our comfort zones and begin to not just tolerate people who are nothing like us, but to love them. We are to reflect God’s plan to redeem people of every nation and be a part of His transcultural family now. Pastor Leonce ends with three questions that convict and challenge us to see where our hearts are, and live in light of these truths.
How amazing would it be if the people of God gave freely to the mission of God? Specifically for Renovation Church, how incredibly could we impact the city of Atlanta and the world through a gospel movement if we as a family took our God given gifts and used them for the specific thing God has called us to do for His Kingdom? God has gifted and designed each of us in a specific way, and then through His Spirit empowers us to serve excellently with that gifting. At the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is our service. As we continue in the series that brings us back to who we are as a local church, Pastor Doug reminds us what our service to Christ should look like and how to serve with excellence.
“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old...” Last week we saw God’s plan and promise to raise up, renew, restore, and rebuild what has been broken. In part two of Cultural Renewal, Pastor Leonce explains what our parts are in the renewing work of Christ in our city and in the world. We are reminded and encouraged that we have a part to play in ushering in this new Kingdom, right now. He shows us what we must believe and things we must do if we are going to faithfully influence culture and impact the globe
Can you imagine a world that is perfect, overflowing in abundance with every good thing, and as it was intended to be in the beginning? In our brokenness, it is hard to visualize a world where humans flourish and nothing made is misused as an idol or a distraction from the glory of God. It’s hard for our minds to conceive it, yet every human longs for a day without the infection and disease of sin and evil. In the passage for this week, we see God’s plan and promise to raise up, renew, restore, and rebuild what has been broken. It’s a beautiful illustration of the tangible earth God’s people will get to partake in.
Continuing this series on the identity of Renovation Church, Pastor Leonce shares that as Disciples of Christ, it is our responsibility to take our biblical worldview into every area of our lives, as we join in the renewing and transformative work of God in our city and in the world. Pastor Leonce speaks very vividly on what God will do and on the lavishness the people of God can expect when Christ returns.
Shortly before Jesus ascended into Heaven, he commanded all of His disciples and those that would become disciples to go make disciples. By His power and authority, He commissioned us to bring to Him those that are not yet His. As Pastor Leonce continues to share with us what shapes our identity as a local church, he reminds us that everything we do is centered on making disciples for the glory of Jesus. He challenges us to believe that Jesus’ commission is commanded to every Christian. This week, Pastor Leonce teaches what it means to make disciples, how we are to make disciples, and leaves us with three practical suggestions on how we can be faithful to the command to go and make disciples, as well as be faithful to the identity and purpose of Renovation Church.
It’s been said “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” From shoes, homes, cars and money, to our families and friendships, we place some kind of value on absolutely everything. We ascribe something its value by the price tag placed on it, instead of its true worth.
As a follower of Jesus, we must ask ourselves how much is Jesus worth, and what value have we given to Him. Is He worth everything? Do our lives bear the fruit of a faith that’s worth our whole existence? What would it look like to give up everything in worship and adoration of Christ because of His worth, and what causes that kind of worship and abandonment? Are we like Mary, who knew His worth and was devoted, even foolishly in worship? Or are we like Judas, rebuking those in high adoration of Christ
This week Pastor Leonce narrates the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet as a beautiful display of worship. He challenges us not to be like Judas, ignorant of the value of Christ and unknowing of His worth, but to be like Mary, knowing full well His worth and to be okay looking foolish in our worship because of it.
How do we see Jesus? Are we like the crowd that came to see Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem? Only desiring to see Him because we’ve heard He’s done signs? Do we long for Jesus because we long to be delivered from our problems? Have we shown up at His feet out of our selfish desires for what He can do for us? Jesus came to Jerusalem for one reason; to proclaim who He was. He came to proclaim that He is the Messiah, the Savior, and the King. The people who met Him there came for other reasons, and a lot of us have also desired to see Jesus for reasons other than the ones He came to the world for.
This week, Pastor Leonce helps us do the hard work in recognizing how we’ve treated Jesus. He leads us in a confession to Christ and repentance to turn from viewing Jesus as a celebrity and service provider, to seeing Jesus for who He is... Our Savior, and our King.
Throughout our country and around the globe, injustices have been brought to light, and chaos has rung loudly through our nation leaving many of us divided on the issues of race and forming allegiances not inspired by the Bible. We’ve taken these problems and instead of viewing them rightly through a gospel lens, many Believers have chosen to see them through a cultural lens. This is detrimental not only to the way that unbelievers view us, but because of the apathetic and dispassionate spirit that consumes us. As Christians, how should we respond to the turmoil, chaos, and complex crisis in our lives, this nation, and around the globe?
In a passionate plea against the selfish and irresponsible way we’ve handled what’s going on in this country right now, Pastor Leonce urges us to have more compassion and walk worthy of the Lord. He gives us a framework of how to respond to crisis through the way Jesus responded to complex crises in His own life and walks us through how we should feel, how we should pray, and what we should do. Simply, there is a way we respond to crisis and it is to emulate Christ.
In an act of obedience and complete surrender to the Father, Jesus gave His life for us at the cross so we could also be heirs of the Father and heirs with Christ. The only way sinners could be reconciled back to a holy, righteous, and just God, was if Christ paid the sin debt that we owed, and bore the wrath that was due for us. In His life leading up to His death on the cross, and in His willingness to actually die for us on the cross, we see in perfection what it means to die to self, in order that life may be produced in others.
Throughout history we see faithful men and women who have been obedient to the call on their lives and have also given up their comforts, their entitlements, and their lives, even to the point of death, for the sake of others and the sake of the Gospel. In the face of injustice and in places where the Gospel is not known, if we’re saved, we must act.
We cannot say that we follow Christ and cling tighter to our lives in this world than we do to Him, and according to the Word, we will not see eternal life if we choose not to lose it. We must die to ourselves or Christ’s death for us is vain. This week, Pastor Leonce challenges us to really look at our lives and to question if we’re serving our own self-interest, or His. He shares what it looks like tangibly to give our lives so that we may be fruitful and produce life in others, and reminds us of the promise that if we lose our lives for Christ, God will honor us.
“Christ is being proclaimed. Our responsibility is to respond.” In a very convicting sermon about the sovereignty of God in our salvation and our belief in Him, Pastor Ethan helps us understand through Scripture that yes, God saves, and yes, God is sovereign, but in His sovereignty He does not open everyone’s eyes to see the Truth. In fact, God blinds the eyes and hardens the hearts of those who wouldn’t believe. Like many of the Jews in the New Testament, some of us see Christ’s glory and hear testaments of Him, yet still reject Him because we desire glory from man. Only God has the authority to open our eyes and ears, and soften our hearts so we’re able to respond correctly to the revelation of Christ and the Gospel, but Pastor E reminds us, “Never does Scripture talk about God’s sovereignty without man’s responsibility.”
Believing in the power of the Holy Spirit to do its work in our own hearts, Pastor E does not offer practical steps in how to respond to this. He asks hard questions that shed light on where we place our glory.
As Christians, many of us have been taught that the world we live in is evil. Although it’s our current home and reality, we’ve been taught to separate ourselves from it completely, treating it as a waiting room until we get to Heaven. We’ve created a dichotomy that has us believe the material world is bad and the heavenly realm is our home. This perception of the world has everything to do with how we live here, and if we don’t understand God’s plan for creation, why He sent His Son, and His redemptive work through us as followers of Jesus, we see the world wrongly.
Without understanding why Christ came, and our role here, we fail to point unbelievers and injustices to the only perfect mediator who was and is, Jesus Christ. This week, Pastor Leonce takes us through the story of God’s redemptive work from Genesis, all the way to the New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation. He preaches that Heaven is important, but it’s not final, because everything in Scripture points to a renewed Earth that followers of Jesus have stewardship over. Pastor Leonce leaves both the unbeliever and the believer with implications to the understanding that Heaven is not ultimate. We’re at home now and must work diligently with what God is already doing because Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it.
We’ve all been through seemingly impossible situations. Some of us are in the midst of those trials right now and feel completely hopeless that anything good can come from it. Whether it is death, sickness, addiction, a broken marriage, unemployment, dry seasons in our spiritual walk, or the salvation of a loved one, at times we lack the belief that God will be who says He is and that nothing can stand in the way of His authority. Our inclination is to consider a situation dead, too broken to be fixed and disregard our faith in the Almighty, all-powerful Creator of all things.
What situations in your life have you deemed dead? In John 11, we see that not even physical death can stand in the way of Jesus’ authority and that He has the power to bring dead things to life. His glory will not and cannot be diminished. This week Pastor Leonce urges us to put ourselves outside the tomb of Lazarus and to imagine what it would be like to see the dead be resurrected by the authority of Christ. He walks us through why Jesus waited days after Lazarus’ death to come to him, and challenges us to believe that if God can undo physical death, there is nothing outside the scope of His power, and that it is all for our joy and His glory.
John 11:38-44 | Not Even Death | He Already Stinketh
What is our hope in? For centuries we’ve been fascinated with what’s going to come next. We’re interested in how our circumstances are going to play out and many times we put our hope there. Even for the believer, it’s easier to put our hope in the future promises of God and the coming kingdom, forgetting that in Christ we have life now.
In Jesus’ encounter with Martha, we see that this anxiety about the future and our hope in better circumstances is not what Jesus wants for us. He’s after our hearts. He wants our faith, hope, and trust to be in Him.
This week Pastor Ethan asks us to question where our hope is and urges us to believe now in the power of Christ. Our hope is not to be in Jesus fixing our problems, but in Jesus alone. He ends with two questions to reflect upon, and a challenge that would lead us to know that Jesus is better than any other thing we could ever place our hope in.
John 11:17-27 | Not Even Death | The Dead Live Now
All throughout Scripture, we see the relationship between remembrance of the mighty works of God, and a right standing with God. Predictions and prophecies were made in the Old Testament beginning in Genesis about the coming Messiah, yet when the Jews were face to face with the Son of God, they could not see Him for who He truly was. They forgot His works and consequently lived with no expectation that God could be God.
Just like the Jews, Jesus issues us the same challenge to live in expectation. He commands us to believe in the past works and promises of God and to live with faith that He will continuously and abundantly work for our good. This week, Pastor Leonce helps us recognize why we fail to expect God to be God, and how we should respond practically to the challenge to trust God and live expectantly that He is always who He said He would always be; God.
Do you really believe that you are secure in Christ’s hand? Has God’s promise of eternal and abundant life through His son become a reality in yours, or are you living in fear of condemnation? Many of us, like the Jewish leaders who questioned Jesus, continuously need to be reminded of what it means to be sheep in His pasture.
This week we continue to unpack the implications of what it means to be His, and why we can believe wholeheartedly that all of our being is secure in Christ and that to Christ, we are His greatest gift. Pastor Leonce walks us through how our ideas about our security in Christ characterize the relationship we have with our Heavenly Father, and how to move towards living a life that completely reflects the promise that nothing and no one, including ourselves can take us out of The Father’s hand and away from His love. It’s a beautiful promise.
“I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me…”
Jesus is not simply “a” good shepherd. He is “the” good shepherd. He knows His sheep intimately, and His sheep find rest in His care. When His sheep are under attack, Jesus does not flee. He saves, and He rescues. Jesus loves His sheep selflessly in His life, and sacrificially in His death.What makes the way a shepherd cares for his sheep special, is that sheep are completely weak and defenseless on their own, and must be kept under a watchful eye, lest they perish.
This is a rich metaphor of the way Jesus loves and cares for His sheep, because we are the sheep. We are His sheep. He knows us, and we are altogether satisfied by His presence. This week, Pastor Ralph walks us through the beautiful truths of what it means to be sheep in Christ’s fold, and the ways we respond to Jesus, our Good Shepherd.
A French philosopher and historian once wrote, “When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.” Regardless of our faith, many of us believe these six things about money and possessions.
Money equals security. More is better. More money makes us more. Borrowing is necessary and normal. My money is my money. My use of money has nothing to do with my view of God.
Whether we are followers of Christ or not, how we view money matters, and based on the staggering amount of debt that plagues our nation, communities, and households, we need to reconsider what we believe about money and possessions. If we are followers of Christ though, we must come to believe that our faith and our finances are inseparable.
Whether you’re thousands of dollars in debt, or living comfortably with none, how should you view and steward your finances? This week, Pastor Leonce takes us through what the Bible say’s our view of money and possessions should be, and gives us four practical steps to change the way we think about money, freeing us of all the lies we’ve bought in pursuit of more.
Proverbs 23:4-5 | Proverbs 15:16
In every human heart, there's a desire to be fully satisfied, and in that desperation for satisfaction, we consume things which do not satisfy. We consume because it's gratifying, but it never really satisfies. Naturally, we believe the needs of one, outweigh the needs of many. We see all of our resources as a means to our own end, therefore spending thousands of dollars a year on things that we want, as opposed to things we need, leaving little room to save, and more importantly, give. The Bible calls this behavior foolish.
This week, Pastor Copper shares the hope through Christ that we have as the only true satisfier. He also explains how Christians ought to live and steward our finances. For both the believer and nonbeliever, he leaves us with practical steps to begin taking control of our finances, and saving, and asks us to imagine what it would look like if we never again bowed to our consumption.
Proverbs 21:20
2 Corinthians 3-5 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations: They gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then by the will of God also to us.
It’s hard to imagine how many more lives could be transformed and cities restored if all of us “urgently pleaded” to give. How much more powerful would our giving be if we counted it a privilege, instead of an obligation. There is freedom in our generosity. Regardless of what stage of our lives we’re in, or where we’re at financially or spiritually, God is calling us to give something to the advancement of His kingdom. What step of faith in your giving is God calling you to step out on? Pastor Leonce radically challenges us to be faithful to what The Lord has called us to do here, using the resources given to us, to make beautiful what is broken.
Essential to truly understanding the Gospel of Jesus is seeing the neediness of our souls. Western culture has taught us to believe that we have the power within ourselves to achieve everything we need. That all we need to do is pull ourselves up by our boot straps. However, this is the antithesis to the Gospel of Jesus. In the conclusion to John 9, this truth illuminated for us. Jesus gives everything to the man who had no way of healing himself, and condemns those that claim they need no healing. He gives sight to the blind, and shows the seeing their blindness.
John 9:35-41
"If I say Jesus, what will happen next?" This is the question we have all asked ourselves, when presented with the opportunity to confess Jesus. We wonder how people will respond to our declaration. Will they mock me? Will they tell me I believe in myths? What are the consequences of my confession? During his second round of questioning, the man born blind experienced many consequences for his confession of Jesus. This week Pastor Doug unpacks the consequences for one of the earliest disciples of Jesus and how they are relevant for us today.
John 9:24-34
The culture of the United States is one that puts the opinions of others as a supreme value. In fact, while we may privately have as many different views as we want, publicly our values must be that of popular opinion. This has bred an environment that has become increasingly difficult for all faithful members of a religion, particularly disciples of Jesus. We are tempted to value the camaraderie of people over the community of Christ. The parents of the man born blind experienced this same temptation. They where given a choice: deny Jesus and maintain your place in society, proclaim Jesus and lose your community. This week Pastor Leonce dives into their decision, and the fear that ultimately captured their hearts.
John 9:18-23
n a culture that was the center of Christendom there are many people filling sanctuary seats who say they’ve encountered and embraced Jesus, but their lives look no different than if they'd never known Him. Yet, scripture seems to indicate that this is impossible. That you cannot encounter and embrace Christ, and remain as you are; or go on unchanged. Scripture seems to indicate that a true encounter with Jesus produces an undeniable transformation. A transformation so thorough, that who we were before we encountered Him is no longer recognizable. This is exactly what happens with our friend, the man born blind.
John 9:8-12
Are we a part of God's Kingdom? This is the question every person must wrestle with. Every miracle Jesus performed was a preview of the coming Kingdom of God. This coming kingdom is something that believers over the globe long to see. Just as strong as believers anticipation for Kingdom of God to be fully realized, those who have a vested interest in maintaining the current systems of this world are opposed to it. In the healing of the man born blind we see the stark contrast between those who are disciples of Jesus and those who are not. The revealed kingdom of God divides those who are Christ's disciples, from those who do not know him.
John 9:13-17
"Why do bad things happen to good people?"
This phrase—though boiling over with theological inaccuracies—touches on something in our common humanity that sees the state of things as they are and our soul screams, “not, right!” “Not right” that children should suffer from hunger. “Not right” that women & children are trafficked in the suburbs of Atlanta; bought and sold as property; robbed of their dignity.Even our children, if we avoid the common practice of sheltering them from what is ugly in the world, instinctively sense the same thing. Just the other night as we were putting the girls to bed, and doing their devotional, Eden prayed words that we have not overtly taught her.
Despite what we’ve come to believe, God does not delight in our pain. But our pain does give rise to the occasion of God’s radical intervention, and His readily revealing His glory in us. But that’s only half of the equation. In addition to His glory being revealed through our pain, and in our suffering, His glory is revealed in our response to others pain, and others suffering. That’s the other half of the equation. That’s the critical factor we must wrestle with in our hearts: will we shut our eyes to the suffering of others, or show them the beauty of God’s coming Kingdom?
John 9:4-7
In the United States we live in relative physical comfort compared to the rest of the world. This has led us as a people to develop a poor understanding of God, and the manner in which He works. We have been deceived into thinking that if God is pleased with me, my life will be relatively comfortable. Inversely, we believe that if I am suffering then I must be in sin. God must be mad at me. This week Pastor Doug dives into this fallacy. He begins the journey of unpacking Jesus' miracle of healing the man born blind.
John 9:1-3
All of us have found ourselves cringing as we remember things from our past. But for some of us we have become defined by these events. Whether it was sins we committed or sins committed against us, we have come to believe that we will never escape these actions. Even worse still, we live under the belief that those sins make us unloveable by God. We believe that if we could take this one thing back, God could love me. Where do we take these struggles? What do we do with this crippling fear? For believers we look to the scriptures. Join us as Pastor Leonce unpacks a song of hope by King David for those of us who struggle.
Psalm 103
Spoken Word Ransomed Random by Adan Bean https://soundcloud.com/renovationchurch/ransomed-random https://vimeo.com/84542170
If someone asked you, “if you could have one more thing,” what would you say? In general we are not a contented people. We are not content with what we have. We’ve been cultured into believing that “more” is better than “less,” and taught that to truly achieve the American Dream we have to ascend to a place of financial security in which we can have virtually anything we desire.
But standing in sharp contrast to our ceaseless striving for more is Paul's words here to the Philippians, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have.” Even the most critical among us has to wonder how someone can say this, especially considering that it’s being written from a Roman prison. Join us as Pastor Leonce unpacks this letter from the Apostle Paul, and its implications for us today.
Philippians 4:10-13; 19
Spoken Word Strive by Keosha Bell https://soundcloud.com/renovationchurch/strive-to-die-by-koesha-bell
We all struggle with a sense that if we were more, had more, or had done less “bad things,” then our lives would be significantly better. Over the next three weeks our hope, particularly if you are new to exploring faith and/or Renovation, is that we would all see together that a change in our appearance, our status, or our history doesn’t automatically equal better, especially with regard to God. He is not waiting for a better version of you to love more.
Every single person on the planet has thought at some point, “If I could change this one thing about myself, then I would be more confident; then I would be more capable; then I could have the life/wife/husband/job/friends I want; then I would be happy." It is this thought that has motivated the ridiculous 11 billion dollar tab that 15 million Americans and people living in America spent last year on purely aesthetic and unnecessary cosmetic procedures.
So what can we do to avoid the trap of Insecurity in and dissatisfaction with who we are and how we’re made? Well, for the Christian especially, we run to the scriptures to see what they have to say. Join us today as we consider a song and prayer of the Israelite king, David, as he considers who he is in God’s eyes.
Psalm 139:13-16
Spoken Word Identity Found by Austin Whelchel https://soundcloud.com/renovationchurch/idenity-found-by-austin
The King has come and is coming again. Last week we celebrated the introduction of the Kingdom of God through the birth of King Jesus. This week we examine the consummation of the Gods' Kingdom in the second coming of Jesus. What will that day be like? What will Jesus do when He returns? These are the questions Pastor Ralph unpacks for us, with the goal of causing our hearts and minds to place our hope in Jesus.
Revelation 19:11-16
We are weary. King after king has come, and king after king has failed. Hearts of pride, lust, and greed have turned away from the true King and after the empty promises of this world, leaving us still in need of a King. A Holy King to rule over our hearts perfectly, triumphantly, carefully, affectionately.
But wait – a thrill of hope – could it be? In a line of men who have stood up, only to have fallen, there is a disruption: a holy breaking of the trend of broken promises, failed rulers, wayward hearts. Is this the King who will finally set broken paths straight? The King who will reign forever on His throne, subjecting all things to himself, making all of our dirtiness beautiful in His time?
Disrupt our fallen world with your perfect rule, new and coming King! We need a King who is with us – aGod who is with us. Immanuel.
Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel. The coming King shall be revealed to us, and in his presence we shall find fullness of joy, hearts renewed, promises kept, and everlasting life.
Thank you, Gracious King, for your coming, for your revealing, and for your reign! Reveal yourself, O King, that we may see You, savor You, and love You more deeply.
Isaiah 7:10-16 & Matthew 1:18-25
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
The whole earth is full of his glory!
There is none like our God. He is set apart, most precious, most glorious – He is utterly holy. There is none beside Him; we want none beside Him. His voice causes the foundations of the earth to tremble.
Show us mercy, O God, for we are an unclean people in need of a holy God. We are in need of you. Woe are we! – for we stand in the presence of a holy King. We need your kingship and your reign, for there is none like You, and there is none so much in need of a savior as we.
Create within us pure hearts o God, that we may be made holy as You are holy. Take our guilt away, o King; atone for us our sin.
Fall on your knees – o hear the angel voices! A night divine is coming. Holiness shall meet the leprous; the promise of the King will be fulfilled; the night divine is coming. In the presence of He who is holy, we shall be made whole.
Isaiah 6:1-7
We have said, ‘Set a king over us.’
A king who is strong. A king who can carry our people, who can carry our burdens – who can carry us. Be strong enough to lift us up when we have fallen.
We have said, ‘Set a king over us.’
A king who lavishes affection upon us, who loves us with an everlasting love. A king who rejoices over us with singing; who quiets us with his love. A king whose affection stirs and fulfills the longings of our hearts.
We have said, ‘Set a king over us.’
A king who is wise; whose judgment is most wisely discerned. By wisdom a house is built; build us a house in which to dwell, o King. Wisdom is better than any weapon of war. Guide us, in wisdom, o King, that we too may be made wise.
We have said, ‘Set a king over us.
Thank you, oh Lord, for the promise of a King – thank you that in advent we have the promise of His coming – that we have the promise of a King who comes in strength, lavishing affection, ruling over us in wisdom. Come, King Jesus, come. We want a king.
Advent is a time of waiting, of holy expectation for what is to come. It is a time of preparing our hearts and our homes for Christmas joy. Just four weeks from now, we celebrate the birth of our King. We want a King. Our fickle hearts writhe and turn, yearning for an object upon which we can throw our affections, our loyalty, our allegiance. Our very beings cry out: Lead me, because I am in need of a leader. Nowhere in civilization do we find a society without a king. Kings may vary in title, in power, and in description – they may even vary in number. But they are always found. They are found as tribal leaders in tangled jungles, as the most elite of castes in hierarchical societies, as dictators of corruption, as presidents of nations. Lead me, we cry. I am in need of a King.
We are, indeed, desperate for a King. We long to see justice served and to see purity win out over corruption. We plead for the restoration of the broken, and we turn to our kings for protection, provision, and guidance. After all – we know ourselves better than anyone. We know we are weak, fragile, hard-hearted creatures who are easily distracted and quickly lost. Leading ourselves leads us into a grave. No. There must be more. Lead us, we cry. We cannot make it on our own! We are desperate for a King.
But the kings of this earth fail us. They fall short of fulfilling our longing for leadership. They fall short of meeting our expectation; of holding our hope. But all is not lost, for Advent means arrival. It is the season of hopeful expectation of the arrival of the True King. The King of kings. The one who fulfills our longing, and quenches our desperation. Advent is the season that ignites and fans the flame of our desire for a King. This is good news! And we cry out with those who have cried out for centuries: Come, King Jesus, come. We need a King.
Advent is a time of waiting, of holy expectation for what is to come. It is a time of preparing our hearts and our homes for Christmas joy. Just four weeks from now, we celebrate the birth of our King. We want a King. Our fickle hearts writhe and turn, yearning for an object upon which we can throw our affections, our loyalty, our allegiance. Our very beings cry out: Lead me, because I am in need of a leader. Nowhere in civilization do we find a society without a king. Kings may vary in title, in power, and in description – they may even vary in number. But they are always found. They are found as tribal leaders in tangled jungles, as the most elite of castes in hierarchical societies, as dictators of corruption, as presidents of nations. Lead me, we cry. I am in need of a King.
We are, indeed, desperate for a King. We long to see justice served and to see purity win out over corruption. We plead for the restoration of the broken, and we turn to our kings for protection, provision, and guidance. After all – we know ourselves better than anyone. We know we are weak, fragile, hard-hearted creatures who are easily distracted and quickly lost. Leading ourselves leads us into a grave. No. There must be more. Lead us, we cry. We cannot make it on our own! We are desperate for a King.
But the kings of this earth fail us. They fall short of fulfilling our longing for leadership. They fall short of meeting our expectation; of holding our hope. But all is not lost, for Advent means arrival. It is the season of hopeful expectation of the arrival of the True King. The King of kings. The one who fulfills our longing, and quenches our desperation. Advent is the season that ignites and fans the flame of our desire for a King. This is good news! And we cry out with those who have cried out for centuries: Come, King Jesus, come. We need a King.
1 Samuel 8:1-18
We live in a time where the amount of information being thrown at us is staggering. Our minds are constantly being bombarded with different "truths" that are vying for our trust. Even the simple question of, "Who am I?" has more answers than we can fathom. This has produced a people that are unsure about everything.
This week as we end our series in John 8, Pastor Leonce exposes these "truths" through the lens of Jesus. What does Jesus have to say about who we are? What do the scriptures have to say about this world? And just as important as what they have to say, they show us why they can be trusted above all else.
John 8:39-59
What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Is belief accepting a set of rules? Or ascribing to an understood collection of knowledge and facts? And further, how do we know if we’ve truly believed? The scriptures seem to answer that question with this one; are you free from serving yourself, and free to follow Jesus? This is the underlying question that Pastor Leonce asks us to wrestle with as he teaches through John 8:30-38, and it seems to be the encompassing indicator of true belief.
What world are you of? Jesus challenges us to explore the depths of this question when He very strongly declares to the Jewish religious leaders, “You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He you will die in your sins.”
What world are you of? The answer to that question is far more complex than most of us have ever considered, and according to Jesus, it is a question of paramount importance. Whether you are a follower of Jesus or not, Pastor Leonce's hope is that you would see why your answer to this question is important, and how it ultimately affects every aspect of your life.
John 8:12 - 30
This week Pastor Leonce concludes our Single, Sexual, & Spiritual series with "The Talk." Sex has long been considered a shameful subject for many people growing up; many parents avoid the conversation entirely when raising children. This has left entire generations of people to interpret sex by cultural rather than biblical standards. The good news is Scripture portrays sex as a wonderful gift from God that should be enjoyed...but in its proper context. Listen as Pastor Leonce paints a picture of sexuality as it was meant to be, as we find out that Sex in context is a good gift from God. Whereas sex out of context may lead to pleasure, but it also leads to incredible pain.
(Genesis 1:27-28; 2:7-25; Proverbs 5:18-19; Song of Songs 7:6-9)
This week, we conclude the three-part sermon, The Dating Game. Pastor Leonce lays out the final five behaviors for Biblical courtship. Dating says, "I’m checking you out to see if I’d like to know you better." Courtship says, "I’m going to get to know you in the context of community to see if we could possibly share our lives together".
- Women Respond
- In Community
- Minimize Emotional Investment Initially
- Don't Drag It Out
- Keep It Pure
Last week we began a 3-part sermon called "The Dating Game". Pastor Leonce began by explaining the damage that modern dating has caused to all those involved. This week we look at several principles (2-5) for dating someone biblically:
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Know Who You Are (And Where You Come From)
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New List, New Standard
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Friends First
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Men Initiate
These are important, because one of our guiding principles is that we are trying to prepare to be a godly spouse, even as we try to find a godly spouse. All singles who profess Christ and aspire to marriage — even as a possibility — have this responsibility.
“That’s it...no more dating.” Most of the married folks can remember when they reached that point...probably multiple times.And if you aren't married yet, its not unlikely that you are either at that point right now, trying to recover from it, or headed that way. So today we are going to deal with dating and discover some guideline for doing it well.
In recent years our culture has told us that we are incomplete until we are married (think Jerry Maguire). Unfortunately, the church has been complicit. While marriage is good and should be pursued, it is not necessary to fully living out a Spirit-led, Christian life. This overemphasis has left those who are single in the church feeling insignificant. This week Pastor Leonce unpacks Paul's encouragement to singles from 1 Corinthians 7. There is significance in singleness.
1 Corinthians 7:7-8
There is no greater dichotomy than an angry servant of Christ. In the scriptures Paul gives us this view into what it means to always be joyful in serving. While this seems to be a naive reality, considering the world in which we live in. Paul proclaims that He has joy despite even the worst of circumstances. Through these words Pastor Leonce challenges us to see our lives through the lens in which Paul sees his life.
Philippians 2:12-18
The religious leaders of Jesus day sent a Roman solider to apprehend him for questioning. When he returned empty handed, he responded by saying, "No one has ever spoken like this man." This scene gives us an insight into what happens when people encounter Jesus and his claims. This is where we find ourselves as we continue our series in the book of John. Pastor Ralph Gordon shows us the three possible responses when encountering the truth of Jesus.
John 7:40-52 | Breaking The Law | Truth: Beauty And The Beast
This week Ralph Gordon continues our series with the question, "What makes someone famous?" This is an important question, because deep inside all of us is the desire to be known, to be famous. This desire seemingly works against the desire to serve. Being a servant and being famous are not normally synonyms, except in the case of Jesus. In fact, the Scriptures tell us that it is because of His service that God made Him famous.
"The Most Famous Person Ever, Was The Greatest Servant Ever."
(Philippians 2:5-11)
n Philippians chapter 2, Paul begins by outlining four incredible realities that we have been given by Jesus, and in which we exist as followers of Jesus. He then gives four commands that we should obey, and which are direct results of the incredible reality in which we exist, if our lives are hidden in Christ. Because these are present realities in the life of the believer, we should understand that Paul’s use of the word ‘if’ here is rhetorical. He is using the word “if” to set up a very powerful, emotive and personal argument for how life should look in the church among those who say they love Jesus. Pastor Leonce unpacks these four arguments and their central theme and shows that "At the core of a humble heart is a desire to serve."
(Philippians 2:1-5)
Have you ever had an enemy? If you are honest, then the answer is yes. Don’t be the one in the crowd thinking, “I don’t have any enemies...” You most likely have more than all of us. An enemy is someone who is actively opposed or hostile toward you, someone in the way of our forward progress, someone hostile to our very person. In light of that, PL asks us to consider something shocking...even perhaps upsetting. One of the most startling sentences I’ve read in the Scriptures is this one written by Paul to the church in Rome. He writes in Romans 5, v. 10 “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” This week we examine what God has offered to His enemies in Jesus.
John 7:25-36 | Breaking The Law | God's Gracious Offer To His Enemies
What if you were told that regardless of where you are with your walk with Jesus, and regardless of what you profess to believe, that every one of us has an unbelief issue? That we all daily wrestle with unbelief? Unbelief is not limited to those who don’t profess to follow Jesus. The primary reason we struggle to love God, obey God, follow God fully is unbelief, even if we’ve prayed the prayer and say with confidence that we are a “believer.” It is unbelief that falters our faithfully following Jesus.
John’s desire is for us to see that no matter how our unbelief manifests itself, Jesus is prepared to meet it with a message of hope about what God is doing in the world, and therefore what God will do in those that trust Him.
John 7:1-24 | Breaking The Law | The Root Of Unbelief
The idea of consumption is not foreign to us. We are a consumer culture. We consume goods. We consume services. We consume entertainment. We consume work. We are incredible consumers. Here’s the catch with that though: what you consume you can quickly be consumed with, and whatever you are consumed with will ultimately consume and conceal you. This week Pastor Leonce examines the unsettling command of Jesus, "Eat my flesh and drink my blood."
John 6:41-59 | Wine & Flesh | Christian Cannibalism?
Today our hearts and minds engage the interesting and weighty notion of God’s will. What is it? Consider that in an overarching sense regarding humanity. Consider it as perhaps even a hurdle for some to believe. Consider it as the reason some of us, even now, struggle to have faith. Because we don’t feel we can discern God’s will, we give up on trusting Him.
Pastor Leonce unpacks three important points from this very rich and large chunk of writing: 1. Faith is the greatest work we can perform. 2. Jesus = complete satisfaction. 3. There is nothing you can do to make Jesus quit on you.
John 6:22-40 | Wine & Flesh | The Will of God
A few weeks ago when we launched this short series, we asked a very loaded question, “What is faith?” This question is the driving force behind how we unpack and understand what happens in about a 24-hour period that Jesus’ little brother John covers in chapter 6 of his narrative on Jesus. This week we want to ask this question, "Who among us has had a perfect life? Free of trial, free of issues, free of family drama, free of feeling guilty for past wrongs. Free of storms?
The truth that comes out of this morning's text is that God uses specific situations and complex circumstances to test our faith; but He is always sufficient to meet any need.
This week we examine this truth through the miracle of Jesus walking on water. The beauty of this miracle is not the seeming impossibility of His walking on water. Don't miss the incredible beauty of what it means for Jesus to be present in our trial, present in our storm, present in our drama, present in our issues, present in our imperfection, present in our fear, and present in our doubt!
John 6:16-21 | Wine & Flesh | Choppy Water
This week Pastor Leonce continues our study in the Gospel of John by asking the question, "What is faith?" Some of us will automatically associate it with Christianity; with God; with Jesus; with church. But faith, though expressed most completely in each of those, is much more broadly defined. You see even if we don’t believe God, you still have confidence in something or someone. We use our appliances and drive our cars, trusting that they will do and be exactly what they are supposed to. Under that definition then, no one lacks faith completely, even if you would not be considered a Jesus follower.
But in the fuller sense of the word, attached to all it’s spiritual implications, faith is full confidence in God over and above anything else we can imagine, including our own ingenuity. But we all— Follower of Jesus or not—struggle with putting our trust in temporary things. So the question to consider over the next few weeks — no matter where we are spiritually— is this: “Does God get the full measure of my faith. And if not, why not?”
John 6:1-15 | Wine & Flesh | Sardines & Satisfaction
Last week we evaluated the witness of Jesus works, the miraculous things that He’d been doing is that Miracles are a means of showing Jesus is more than a human being—He’s God. They are not an end unto themselves. They are an arrow directing us to see Jesus as He truly is. Jesus is more than a notable human being. Jesus did unbelievably divine things, because He was unquestionably divine.
This week Pastor Leonce addresses the question, "Is God knowable?" While we cannot fully understand the God who has revealed Himself, we can know Him. And while we cannot and will not experience God with the full faculty of our senses in this life time, He has given us a way to experience Him. We can truly know God on a personal and intellectual level. How? Through the scriptures. The scriptures reveal who God is and how He has interacted with humanity through generations of people. The scriptures reveal God’s truest desire for people, even when they continually choose themselves over Him and everyone else. The scriptures are not some static book; they’re a living letter, testifying to God’s work in the world. And the pinnacle of that work was sending Jesus to live in a way we only dream; die in a way we could only dread; but rise in a way that would cause us to worship! All scripture points to Jesus.
n this sermon Pastor Leonce takes us to the court room...not literally; but in our minds. There are five witnesses in these few words, but we will focus in on two over the next couple weeks—Jesus’ works (i.e. miracles) and the Word (i.e. scripture). We have many questions about life, and questions certainly aren’t wrong, but I think at the root of most of our questions is a lack of trust. You see because we don’t trust God, and the fact that He wants good for us, the very best for us, we demand He substantiate His claims.
So this weekend and next we will question the witnesses to the words and work of Jesus. As we examine these few sentences, earmark your questions, write them down and don’t be reluctant to do so. But, as Jesus “calls His witnesses” so to speak, allow your heart to earnestly engage them, as they seek to substantiate all the claims that Jesus made, and all the things that Jesus did.
(John 5:31-36)
Last week we concluded that God is keenly aware of exactly what we need at all times. Sometimes God doesn’t seem fair, but He is faithful and forgiving. Faith allows us to know that, and enables us to redefine fairness. This week the story continues to get interesting. It was a sabbath, meaning a prescribed and commanded day of rest for EVERYONE, if they were Jewish. Jesus has healed this man, and the man is up walking around after being paralyzed for 38 years.
What did the paralyzed man do to earn his healing? Nothing. Was he good enough? No. Was he kind enough? No. Was he responsible enough? Charitable enough? Honest enough? No. He didn’t even want to take responsibility for carrying his mat. He immediately moved the interrogation to Jesus, even before he knew it was Jesus who healed him. His merit did not merit the work of God in his life. No one in the four narratives of Jesus’ life on this earth do anything to earn their healing, life, or salvation? Nothing. God just does, and He doesn’t stop doing. And He doesn’t require we do anything to earn the joy of experiencing His doing.
(John 5:10-18)
In this sermon Pastor Leonce asks a very dangerous question, “Is Jesus fair? And because Jesus is God, is God fair?” Is God fair in His dealings with humanity, with us? Jesus’ little brother John seems to have some clear thoughts on that question, and the hope today is that not only will we come to some conclusion on this but also that whatever that conclusion is we would accept it and act on it.
(John 5:1-9)
This sermon concludes our three-week series, “My Emote-Control.” The premise for this series is simple: all of us have emotions that, to one degree or another, infrequently or often, control us. The immediate sense of guilt we feel when we worship ourselves or our things or other people in place of God is there not to condemn, but to convict. Condemnation drives us away from God, but conviction drives us toward Him. Guilt is a healthy emotion God has given us to have a sense of right and wrong. However, lingering guilt can be a pathway to tormenting mental and spiritual bondage. Guilt and Shame prevents us from having intimacy with God because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from Him. Guilt and shame prevents us from having intimacy in the community of Christ, because we fear being found out for how “filthy” we are, so we fake it.
Here are two truth’s Pastor Leonce encourages us to meditate on, think about, and pray to believe: 1. In God’s grace my guilt is carried away, and I am granted access to Him through Christ. 2. In God’s grace my shame is covered and I am clean because of Christ.
(Colossians 1:21-22)
Fear causes thoughts and speculations swirl in our mind about whether we are loved. And because of fear, people and problems are made big and God, if we even believe in Him, is made small. So we must overcome it! If you want to overcome fear, you must first have faith that God is bigger than your fear. A genuine trust in God is the beginning of fighting fear.
(2 Timothy 1:7)
Emotions, whether good or bad, are the product of the mind, will, and heart. Oftentimes they are expressed because of a lack of control over ourselves or our circumstances. Since every emotions is based on what we believe, and the loyalties of our hearts, we need new beliefs and new loyalties. So for those of us whose greatest struggle is with the root emotion of control, what do we actually believe. It would seem that we believe we are the ultimate definer of our destiny. And what do we actually value? It would seem that we value having authority and control over, and in, every aspect of our lives. And guess what will change that? Submitting to the reality that God is the ultimate definer of our destiny. And God is the only true authority, and He has all control over and in every aspect of every single human being's life. God’s control gives His people comfort.
(Isaiah 40:1; 15; 18; 22 - 23; 25 - 27)
What is the deepest human need? If your first thought was food, you and I speak the same language, but most argue that it’s care; concern; affection; being valued—that is the deepest human need. Even Jigga says, “Love, I can’t get enough of it!” This need is what causes us to hide our hopes for affection in temporary relationships with the first person that shows us an inkling of attention. Human beings need know that we are loved, and feel that we are valued. It is an unstoppable impulse.
God, the Creator of everything, wired you with that impulse: to need love; to feel valued; to want care. He wired you with that need so that He could fulfill it with His overwhelming, unearned, and magnanimous love. And though God is often painted as distant dictator, or looming judge, or the absentee and uninterested winder of the clock that set creation's course and then backed off—He is NONE of those things!
God has great love, immeasurable love for humanity; even for you, individually.
(Matthew 10:28-33)
A continuation of the previous week's message, "As the World Turns." Last week Pastor Leonce urged us to pray for the lost, our friends and loved ones who do not know Jesus. God is patient with us, not wishing that any should remain separated from him. We are also told in Romans 10 that those who carry the gospel to the lost have beautiful feet. The second thing we must do as servants of God is to carry his message of reconciliation to the lost. We must open our mouths! God has so limited himself to use humans in his mission. It is so inefficient and counterintuitive that God would use his sinful, flawed, bumbling creatures to be the conduits of his grace. Nonetheless, the truth is that He has chosen the least likely people to take his message of good news to the lost. It's about souls! Let's share his gospel!
(Romans 10:1-17)
When was the last time you felt the weight of lost souls that will be separated from God? Do you yearn for others to know Christ? Do you long to tell others about the greatest love you have ever found? Unfortunately, if we're honest, the answer is no most days. Most days we're content to rejoice in our own salvation and pray that Jesus would return, but what Pastor Leonce reminds us of is that when Jesus returns triumphant and Christians enjoy eternity with him, there will be others who will spend eternity separated from him. Pray. Pray that the Holy Spirit would open eyes as believers share the gospel, that God would save, that Jesus would become real and satisfying.
(2 Peter 3:1-10)
Jesus so thoroughly loves the whore and hypocrite that he is filled on God's will. In John 4 he says that his nourishment, his food, is to do the will of the father. God's will is that all the whores and hypocrites would be filled on living water instead of returning to broken cisterns and empty water buckets. As followers of Jesus we can draw near to him and be filled with God's love and satisfied by his mission. Based on this truth, we ought to release ourselves from the pressure of "closing the deal" with unbelievers. Christians don't save people, the Holy Spirit does. Also, as a result of this truth, we should be excited to share the gospel we've received and the love we've found in Jesus.
We have a tendency to draw spiritual water from other sources besides Christ. This week, Pastor Leonce Crump investigates the narrative of John 4:27-30; 39-42 in which Jesus calls us to put down our water buckets and drink deeply from the overflowing fountain of God's love. This love, this otherworldly, magnanimous love, looks at us in our deepest despair and our most hideous sin and says, "You are mine! I still choose you!" Our response then should be to drop our buckets and run and tell our townspeople about the man Jesus Christ who can tell us everything we've ever done and yet loves us still.
We all have a thirst inside of us that is unquenchable apart from Jesus. Yet we all drink from broken cisterns that will never satisfy. We continue to look for natural solutions to our supernatural problem. Listen as Pastor Leonce teaches on John 4:1-26, the story of the woman at the well, and ask yourself if you have truly received the living water that is offered in Christ. And if so, why do you not drink deeply from it?
When Abraham was told by God to go, he did not ask "where." He simply left to find a city whose architect and builder was God. The renewal of Atlanta depends on us, believers of Jesus, responding to the call of God to go and make disciples. It is by faith in Jesus that a city is renewed. It is by receiving the gift of faith and new life in Christ that we are able to create culture and redeem what is broken in Atlanta. Listen as Pastor Leonce challenges us to make new God's city by starting with our faith in Christ.
Do you believe that the Church is the hope of the world? Do you believe that the church is the only eternal institution that begins in this lifetime and carries over into the next? Do you believe, as history shows us, that where vital, Jesus-centered, healthy churches exist, schools, hospitals, social improvements, and advances in civilization have followed? Listen as Pastor Leonce Crump II challenges us to live lives for the multiplication of His church and the making of disciples.
Renovation’s vision is "To make Atlanta a great city for all people through a holistic gospel movement, making beautiful what is broken." Renovation’s mission is "To make known the glory of God in the city through diverse communities of disciples." All of creation has one purpose: to make known the glory of God. He is the Lord, that is His name, his glory he gives to no other. But what is our role in that? Why were we created? How do God's glory and our existence intersect? Listen as Pastor Leonce Crump reminds us of the reason we were made and the end for which the entire world was created: the glory of God.
Every worldview rests on faith. Whether atheist, Buddhist, Jew, or Christian, all major belief systems rely on faith. The human condition therefore is not a lack of faith, but rather a lack of faith in the right object. Listen as Copper Nelms explains the walk of faith and how, when the fire comes, you will have the power to stand.
Christians so often make decisions out of fear, hoping to maintain a sense of safety. Discipleship, however, calls us to much more. The Parable of the Talents talks about so much more than simply stewardship; it talks about the nature of faith and the risk that is involved in serving the Lord. The love of Christ ought to move us past hoarding and squandering God's gifts to take risks for the kingdom of God.
Though we live in a world of shallow connections, human beings were ultimately wired for real relationship. Listen as we explore six characteristics of real relationships.
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world - is John's answer to every creeping and negative thought you have about your worth, your value, and your identity. Simply...we can't know who we are, until we see who Jesus is.
(John 1:29-31)
God has a loyal love. He sticks with people. No repentance this side of heaven is too late.
(Jonah 4:1-11)
God has a loyal love. He sticks with people. No repentance this side of heaven is too late.
(Jonah 4:1-11)
God has a loyal love. He sticks with people. No repentance this side of heaven is too late.
(Jonah 4:1-11)
God has a loyal love. He sticks with people. No repentance this side of heaven is too late.
(Jonah 4:1-11)