Heartland Evangelical Free Church: Recent Episodes
Heartland Evangelical Free Church
Galatians 1:11-24 What can we focus on that will help us walk in unity and love, and actually contend for the truth and share the Scriptures? What is it that we can pay attention to that will help keep us from foolish, fleshy, personality-driven, over-spiritualized, painful moments in the church? We can focus on THIS gospel. We can sit humbly under God’s Words alone, accepting them as perfect, without error, and unlike anything that humans might come up with.
Galatians 1:1-10 The gospel is God’s message. It’s God’s message of grace – that as a gift, believed by faith, we have the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus credited to our account. And all the deepest issues in life – acceptance before God and His people, significance, peace, security, provision, a future – it’s all been utterly, fully, and completely resolved by the work of Jesus. It’s all a gift. It’s all grace.
John 11:1-44 It’s really important that we catch what Jesus just said here. “I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25) Jesus makes a statement here that is utterly, absolutely divine. Nobody other than the One True God could make this statement. He’s saying, “The resurrection, the very life of all creation, all mankind… I am it. I’m the only supreme authority over life. When it comes to the resurrection one day… that’s Me. That’s My plan. My power
Matthew 27:27-44 Even in His humanity, Jesus had the choice to call upon His power as God to crush these soldiers. But Jesus was saying to Peter and to us: I choose a different path. A path of powerlessness. A path whereby Rome actually arrests me. Takes me. Holds me prisoner. Mocks me. Spits on me. Tries me. Convicts me. Executes me. Labels me. Buries me. We must understand both Jesus’ death – the supreme display of human weakness and
1 Peter 4:7-11 The fifth and final part of this series on spiritual formation is our social development. God Himself in His being is three persons in one God. When He created man in His image, He included social relationships. If our marriages, family relationships, and interactions at church are Christ-centered, we will be growing socially in a God-honoring way. 1 John 3:2-3 speaks about the ultimate face-to-face encounter when we see Jesus face-to-face. Our social growth now should be
Colossians 3:12-17 Our will allows us to not be controlled by the things we think are out of our control. And that includes our character traits. We have a tendency to say, “I’m not a patient person.” Or “I can’t have compassion for them. It’s not in my nature.” But Paul is saying we can put on these character traits! And he gives us a great reason why: God’s will is working in tandem with our will. Just knowing that
1 Corinthians 6:9-20 Our bodies are the means God has designed for us to interact with the world and express our full humanity in it. Their ultimate purpose is to display the glory of God. God wants us to see our bodies as allies as we grow in Christlikeness. Our motivation is the saving work of Jesus. We are called to offer them as a “living sacrifice” for the glory of God.
Galatians 5:16-25 Part 2 of a series on being transformed, putting on the character of Christ, in our emotions, feelings, and desires. Our feelings often seem like enemies to our spiritual growth. Modern life idolizes feelings, and gives them a place of ultimate authority over our lives. Many people think that their feelings must be obeyed. But the Bible calls this slavery. Feelings are good servants, but terrible masters. Instead, God can replace our sinful feelings and desires with emotions and affections that are
Philippians 4:8 Our mind is the frontline of our spiritual development. If we fail here, we will fail everywhere. If we want to grow in the depth of our relationship with God and live the life that He saved us for, we must train our minds to think about the right stuff. Each of us has a decision to make. Every day, we are given an opportunity. Will we choose to fill our minds with God and grow closer to
Exodus 34-40 It’s all so brilliant and divinely tied up together. Jesus is the Ultimate everything in this story. God saves us through the work of Jesus, through Jesus’ exodus – His cross, His resurrection, and His ascension, His exit of this world into the Promised Land. We, by faith, trust Jesus and follow Him. By faith we are saved. Once God saves, we follow Jesus through obedience. The great dance of enjoying God and being loved by God shows
Exodus 32-34 Enjoying God glorifies God. Why? Because enjoying God is enjoying a person. It’s choosing and living for and delighting in the person and presence of God – not what He gives, not His blessing, not stuff, but Him. The idea of enjoying or glorifying is intensely relational. In the beginning, people had the presence of God. We had life. We enjoyed God and His glory. And we lost this because of sin. This is what Jesus came to
Exodus 3, 5, 20 God is HOLY. Our God is a consuming fire. “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” (Isaiah 6:3.) And God is also intimate, tender, and desires to be with us, to draw us into His life. This world is a miracle – God’s miracle. This world with its beauty and tragedy is God’s way of communicating to us. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of
Exodus 30:11-31:17 The Tabernacle and the entire sacrificial system showed the people that God loved them and wanted to be with them. But it showed them that He was not like them. One man, one day a year, in great dread represented all Israel to God. But the beauty of the story is that one man, one day a year, in great dread, represented all of Israel to God all because God Himself made a way. God does the work
Exodus 25-27 The most essential thing about us is that we were made to be with God. Everything we need – purpose, acceptance, relationship, dignity, meaning, hope security, peace, pleasure – every deep human longing we have was made to be satisfied in the presence of God. And the beauty of it is that God wants to satisfy us with His presence.
Exodus 23:20-24:18 I read these stories in the Bible, and they remind me that this life we live with God is all grace. It’s all a gift. We marvel at how Israel missed this grace. But how easy is it for us to do the same thing with Jesus and the life of grace we live? There is simply nothing in our lives that we have or will possess that we haven’t been given. I dare you to mention one
Exodus 20:18-23:19 The clearest truth from these passages is this: justice, fairness, and the use of power appropriately happen when we have a proper view of God and a proper response to God. Where people do not fear the Lord, people will be treated unjustly. Power will be abused. But where people fear the Lord, we will treat each other with incredible humility, honor, love, service, and protection.
Exodus 20:17 Coveting is a heart issue. It’s a heart sickness. It’s not actually an issue of not having. It’s an issue of not wanting the right thing. I have absolutely no doubt that every one of us has coveted. What a powerful thing it would be if each out us would admit this, confess it, and pray, “Father, through Your Spirit, through faith in the finished work of Jesus, make the longing of my heart only say, ‘Give me
Exodus 20:16 Truth matters. How we see others, or ideas, or issues matters. How we speak or don’t speak about our neighbors matters for so many reasons. But perhaps most importantly it matters because we Christians need to be the most believable people on the face of the earth. We proclaim the most important truth in all the world – that there is salvation in Jesus and Jesus alone. If we bear false witness or lie even about the smallest
Luke 14:25-30 A part of what is so good and important at Christmas is to look at how God loves us so much. He loves every single person in this room with a love that is beyond our ability to understand. And this love is perfectly displayed in that moment when God visited earth. What a beyond amazing moment the incarnation was! God didn’t stop being God in that moment. He didn’t give up any of His deity when He
Various Passages If we want to have our breath taken away by what God has done, we must first have our breath taken away by who God is. This is what happened to a few people in the Old Testaments when they caught just a glimpse of who God is. Let me mention a couple. Moses asks God, “Please, show me your glory.” God has to wedge Moses into a rock and shield Moses with His hand so he doesn’t
Ezekiel 34:7-16 The things God promises to do in Ezekiel 34 correspond with what the wicked shepherds in Ezekiel 22:25-29 were not doing. God won’t lie or handle truth carelessly; He will speak the truth in love. God won’t try to get to the top; He’ll serve. God won’t oppress the poor or take advantage of the vulnerable; He’ll provide for them, elevate them, and care for them. And God won’t feast on them; He’ll lead them into pastures where
Exodus 20:15 Stealing is an action, but like murder, and like adultery, you don’t have to actually steal to have the heart of a thief. There are a couple distinct qualities at work in the heart of a thief. The heart of a thief is the heart of one who desires and is not content. The heart of a thief is also absolutely selfish. There are a million ways and a million things to steal if that’s your heart. You
Exodus 20:14 God made us as people to be holy and to only find our joy and peace and deepest pleasure in life when we are being holy according to His ways, and according to His Spirit at work in us. A lot of people accuse pastors of being “kill-joys” or God of being a “kill-joy.” But that’s simply not true. I want nothing more for you than that you be a thoroughly happy, joyful, utterly fulfilled human being. And,
On the surface, the 6th commandment, “You shall not murder” seems like a simple one to obey. But, in the New Testament, there are 2 passages which broaden the definition. In Matt. 5:21-26, Jesus states that the ways in which we speak to and about others can be considered murder – anger, insults, and name-calling are 3 specific examples that He includes. In James 4:1-3, our unchecked passions and desires can be murder as well. Our hearts and our minds
Exodus 20:13 The 6th commandment – “You shall not murder” – is prohibiting the most offensive act that a person can commit against God. Murder is the unjustified, illegal, or immoral taking of another person’s life. And the reason it’s the most offensive act a person can commit against God is because every single human being carries the image of God. We’ve been searching for how these commands show up in the New Covenant. First, obviously, murder is against the
Exodus 20:12 The first and primary audience for this command is children in the home. What you young people do with this command today will lead to flourishing as a person later or to floundering as a person later. That may seem like a huge thing to say about this one verse. Here’s how it is true: Your choice to honor your parents and obey them will shape you into a person who honors and obeys all the authority that
Exodus 20:8-11 The Sabbath for the Christian isn’t about whether biblically we can mow our lawn, harvest our fields, buy groceries, make meals, or play sports on Sunday. The Sabbath for the Christian is the satisfaction and joy and sense of completion that comes with knowing that the work is done. God has done it through Jesus. Work is defined in the New Testament as our attempts to try to somehow merit favor with God – to prove to ourselves
Exodus 20:7 When God gave Moses His name, God was giving Moses Himself. He was giving Israel the crystalized essence of who God is. The name Yahweh is God. In the life of faith, in which sinful people cannot actually see the face of our holy God yet, God’s name shows us God. Which means how you think of the name, how you speak the name, how you use the name reveals how you see God. This command, “You shall
Psalm 63 In Psalm 63:1, we see that David is at a crossroads. He’s being pursued by his enemies who want to take his life. He’s wasting away in one of the most desolate places on earth, and it looks like there’s no hope in sight. I can’t imagine the doubts that were swirling through his head: Is God really a good God? Is this God that I say I believe in really strong enough to save me? Have I
Exodus 20:4-6 God is a lover of people. He wants to be known by His people. That’s how you do relationship well, and this is entirely about relationship. That’s why Exodus 20:5 says, “For I, the LORD, am a jealous God.” Jealousy is a relational word. This is personal for God and super serious for us. God also knows that this is the path of life for us. In the New Testament, Jesus makes the statement, “the truth will set
Exodus 20:1-3 I think we struggle to see God as being truly relational and having perfect and beautiful reasons for this command, “You shall have no other gods before me.” I think our tendency when we read something like this first command is to say: He’s just dictating rules to us because He is God. We don’t tend to see Him as our Husbandman who loves us and has the rights to our heart and loyalty because He redeemed us
Exodus When we ask the question, “How does the Old Testament Law apply to the New Testament Christian?” we must be thoughtful with our answer. These laws are not our laws. They are not binding on us as if we still lived in the Old Covenant. But if we stop there and throw out the Old Testament, we’re not being thoughtful or faithful. There is a strong, beautiful, powerful relationship between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And the
1 John 5:13-21 Jesus now protects us as His family. We have a choice to make to not sin, and we have a way back when we do sin. But for the Christian, whether you sin or not, there’s no way for you to lose your salvation. The evil one cannot steal someone from the family of God. Jesus is infinitely able to keep you. This is important because it can feel really ugly down here sometimes. The entire world
1 John 5:6-12 God is truth. So the way He loves is entirely through truth. Being truthful. When He established Israel as His people, He commanded them to be truthful because that’s the path to life and peace. Telling the truth – getting to the truth – matters tremendously to God. The entire system that God set up required witnesses, truth tellers. Before a person was to be sentenced, he or she needed proved guilty or innocent by 2 or
1 John 5:1-5 The Gospel is big enough and powerful enough to make us lovers of God and of every single sibling in our new family. If you’re sitting there wondering, am I really doing this? John says, “Look at your life. Look at your decisions. Look at your commitments. Look at all of it to see if you are living for God and obeying all of His commands. If you’re loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and
1 John 4:7-21 Here’s the amazing thing – beyond amazing. John is saying that when you and I come together – Sundays, Wednesdays, throughout the week, in our homes perhaps – when we come together as God’s people to love each other like God loves, the invisible God becomes a tangible reality. Tangible means capable of being touched. It means actual, rather than invisible. It means definite, not vague, not elusive, not abstract, but concrete. When we show up to
James 4:1-12 What kind of desires would cause in-fighting in the church? Often church people (that’s us) confuse our desire for what is good with our desire to have our own way, our desire to win the debate, our desire to be the most right, or the most righteous. In church, if you are committed to always winning the argument, you’re going to lose on a much larger scale. You may win every single battle, but you’ll lose the war.
1 John 4:1-6 Start with the person and work of Jesus. The true Spirit of God is going to get the doctrine of the Son of God correct. The Spirit of God always glorifies the Son of God. Always tells the truth about the Son. So the first test of which spirit you’re listening to is: Is the person speaking the truth about Jesus? The second test is to examine what the world thinks of them. Remember, the world has
1 John 3:11-24 Comparison leads to jealousy. Jealousy leads to hatred. If it reaches hatred, according to God, we’ve murdered. We’ve taken life. This is not the stuff of the family of God. This is not what Jesus did. He didn’t take life. He gave life away. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (1 John 3:16) Here is the purest most direct biblical
1 John 2:28-3:10 This is where it gets challenging. You cannot be a son or daughter of God and carry a casual attitude toward sin. If you think you’re a Christian but don’t really care about ethical and moral purity, you’re fooling yourself. If you adopt and accept sin as if it’s a part of you, you may not be in God’s family. Becoming a child of God is supposed to change everything about how we act, how we quit sin
I John 2:18-29 What if God doesn’t want to be abstract, but rather concrete, clearly defined, absolutely knowable? How would He do that? God’s answer to that question is Jesus. “The image of the invisible God.” “Immanuel: God with us.” In this world, we love to talk about spirituality. We love to talk about God. We love to talk about love. We use these abstract words and are comfortable with them because it keeps God out there, undefined, where we
1 John 2:12-17 Each of us has two options when it comes to the thing, or Person, we choose to center our lives around. We can either love the world or we can love God. What is the world? John answers that question by describing the world’s drives or values, “For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but
1 John 2:7-11 Because of sin, we all start out selfish. Becoming a Christian doesn’t make our selfishness disappear. Studying the Bible, gaining a better grasp on who God is, growing up in a Bible-teaching church, none of that makes your selfishness and hatred just go away. Meeting Jesus and getting to know Him doesn’t automatically make us loving. Remember the disciples who actually lived with Jesus for three years? Remember how on the night that Jesus sweat blood because
Psalm 78 On Father’s Day, we continued the theme of walking in light by focusing on the essential part that families have in our lives in Christ. Psalm 78:1-8 emphasizes the roles that parents and other family members have in telling the next generation about the greatness of God. Specifically, fathers should lead the way in encouraging their children to put their confidence in God, remember the works of God and keep His commandments.
1 John 1:5-2:6 God is light. He only dwells in light. His country is light with no darkness… no sin, no moral evil, and no lies. If you are living in darkness, you are not living with God. But the reality is that Jesus came to save sinners. By God’s grace alone, sin isn’t the great disqualifier of living in the light with God. It’s what we do with our sin that either keeps us in the light or keeps
1 John 1:1-4 Fellowship is what is experienced when people who share the same faith in God walk together in the ways of God. Fellowship is the set of emotions, of commitments, of longings and likings that are caused by people loving and following Jesus together. Fellowship is a sense of deep connectedness when you know you are loved and you love others because you are rooted together in Christ on mission for the gospel. You want to talk about
Exodus 19:1-25 These moments between God and Israel were meant to instill the fear of the Lord. This covenant they have entered with God is serious stuff because God is unapproachably holy, and His holiness demands obedience. Friends, the sad part of reading Exodus is that while the people came to see God’s holiness, the Law alone had no power to keep them from sin. It made people labor in their own strength, in futility, always trying to measure up
Exodus 19:5-6 What God is offering His people is a return to the relationship that Adam and Eve had with God in the Garden of Eden. They had unbroken access to God’s presence, His intimate fellowship. God’s idea was to reflect something of Himself in us humans. We are not gods, but we are meant to reflect God, which is a mind-blowing thing. How do we reflect God? One of the main ways we reflect His image is that He
Exodus 18:1-27 True humility as God defines it, displayed in Christ, and as we see it here in Moses is the ability to see the truth about who you are and what God has made you to do. Then, motivated by grace, you do everything you can with who you are to love and serve God and others. Moses doesn’t deny he’s been called by God. He doesn’t deny that he has a special ability to discern and judge –
Exodus 17:1-6 Exodus 17 presents two different hardships or tests God takes Israel through as He teaches them to trust in Him. The first hardship is a genuine emergency – there is no water. The people are desperate and very close to stoning Moses. What’s interesting about what God does next is that He doesn’t just meet their needs. Of course He does that. He loves these people and is faithful. But he meets their needs in a way that
Exodus 16:1-36 God tests Israel here, giving them exactly what they ask for in abundance. He wants to see if they will, “walk in My law or not.” (Ex 16:4) The indicator that we depend on God and trust Him is obedience. Do we trust Him enough to follow His lead in our lives? The test here is trust. The consistent proof of faith is obedience. Jesus would later say, “If you love me, obey my commands.” He didn’t say,
Ephesians 4:1-16 I think God knew that community would be hard for us. That’s why he called us toward humility, gentleness, and patience with one another as we figure it out together. As you ask yourself (and you will), “What’s the point of loving each other? What’s the point of taking the risk of being vulnerable? What’s the point of using my gifts to build unity?” There’s one answer. Christ. If the God who loved me enough to die for
1 Corinthians 15:2-26 When Jesus died, Death should have won. He thought he was going to win. Like Goliath, standing on the opposite hill, taunting all of God’s people, Death was chanting, “I am unstoppable!” What a shock to Death when Jesus came back to life. God was victorious, and it stunned death! And here’s the exciting part for us. Death didn’t just lose power over Jesus when Jesus rose from the dead. He lost his power over us in