Cross United Church: Recent Episodes
Cross United Church: Lighthouse Point, FL
Those who want to be faithful to Jesus are always tempted to grab the sword to defend him. In other words, we try to do the Lord’s work in the world’s way. So in light of that temptation, I want to talk about some ways we’re tempted to grab the sword, what happens when we do, and then consider what it means to put the sword away.
We should pray for a united church that reflects God, so that the world will believe and know the gospel.
By following the example of Jesus and overhearing his prayer to his Father we can learn to pray well for the people of God in our own generation. We find here six ways to pray for the people of God.
Jesus wants us to actively and intentionally listen to him, and in this text we find three ways to do just that.
According to the dictionary on my laptop, a rhythm is “a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.” God infused our world with rhythms and patterns that make sense of our world. He put strong, regular, repeated patterns of movement that clue us into the nature of things. The rhythm of the sea. The rhythm of the seasons. The rhythm of a song. He put rhythms into his work of creation, and he also put rhythms into the work of redemption. There are strong, regular, repeated patterns of movement or sound in the song of the good news of Jesus Christ. God’s regular pattern of doing things.
Would you rather have a time machine to be with Jesus in person, or your current Christian experience?
Returning to NORMAL? As we have stumbled through the last 14 months, we have heard and said time and again the desire to get “back to normal” or to adjust to “the new normal.” We want to feel a sense of regularity, that things are dependable, or somewhat predictable. That’s what “normal” means
God cares about friendship, and God designed friendship. In fact, God is so committed to friendship that he actively wants us to be his friend. This is actually where the heart of friendship starts. When we’re brought into friendship with God, we can begin to form deep and healthy friendships with other people. Friendship where we don’t use people or let them use us, but where we are genuinely there for one another, caring for one another, refusing to give up on one another, enjoying being together, and being honest, vulnerable and real about the real us. All of this starts with friendship with Jesus. Jesus wants us to be his friends. Not just his followers. Not just his servants or slaves. But his friends. And in this paradigm of friendship with Jesus we will find seven keys for our friendship with him that will shape us into become real, true friends with another another.
Many have discovered to their great financial benefit that people are looking to grow and become better, newer, more improved versions of who they are. The personal growth industry is a $40 Billion per year industry and is expected to do nothing but grow for the foreseeable future. This movement taps into something that God put into the world and into us: God made the world full of things that grow. He made us, people, with a built-in tendency to grow. Even before sin corrupted our world and our hearts, this was true. And now, after the brokenness of our world due to humanity’s rebellion against God, we not only need to grow, but we need to change because we grow in all sorts of twisted and corrupted ways apart from the grace of God. But as much as the self-help movement has tapped into something that God put into the world, it has also twisted that truth into something that moves people away from rather than toward true personal growth. God wants us to grow. He designed us to grow. And in this message we are going to learn about Seven Christian Keys
Marketers for goods and services like insurance for cars and extra warranties for microwaves or lawn mowers have long known that people don’t pay a lot of money to protect their stuff. They pay a lot of money to protect their minds from worrying about their stuff. People are willing to pay and pay quite well for “peace of mind.” We inhabit a crazy, chaotic, busy, noisy world. Our ears, eyes, hearts, and minds are constantly bombarded by incomplete projects, chaotic and noisy family life, exhaustion from Zoom calls, bad music, traffic, vaccination and infection rates, anger that someone didn’t hold up their end of things, and shame and guilt for not holding up our end of things. In contrast, we long for complete project, quiet at home, good jazz, mountain air, sea breezes, and for a sense of inner well-being. We long for peace. But we often find that peace eludes us. Thankfully, Jesus offers peace.
As Christians today, we can fall into two dangers. It’s been said that Satan doesn’t care whether we fall into the ditch on the right hand of conservatism or the left hand of liberalism as long as we wander off the narrow pathway of following Jesus. On the right hand, we can ignore the work of the Spirit, we can acknowledge him theoretically but without any real personal life experience with him. On the left hand, we can obsess about the work of the Spirit and wrongly elevate him above the Father and Son in our understanding or functional pursuit of the Christian life. The solution is to staying on the path is listening to the biblical testimony. That's what we are going to do in this week's teaching as we meet (or get reacquainted with) the Paraklete, the Holy Spirit.
We have a vague sense that we should do God’s will and that we should pray, and we understand these are connected. But we don’t understand at all the mechanics of it. We often have a superficial meme-level, superstitious understanding.
While Peter was concerned with bravery, and Thomas was concerned with practicality, Philip thinks it’s a problem of sufficient calculation, of resourcing. If they only had a bit more, Philip says, then that would be “enough.”
Thomas was a lot like us. He wanted proof and practical answers to problems. Jesus meets him at his point of doubt, and it changes everything for Thomas.
In this mini-series, "Best Supporting Actors?" we are looking at the lives of three of Jesus's friends and followers, Peter, Thomas, and Philip.
Can true believers lose their salvation? Find out in this message from our study in The Book of Life.
God wants to move you from the place of darkness and death into the land of living hope. Scripture says that we are enslaved all our lives by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15), but God wants to see us free. This is the inheritance God gives us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Advent presents us with the gift of remembering and rediscovering hope in a world of darkness and death. Our study is called “Light and Life to All He Brings: Find Hope for Christmas.” We have looked finding Thrilling Hope in a Weary World (Romans 5:1-5) and Invisible Hope in a Visual World (Romans 8:24-25). Now we are going to turn to the letter of a long-time friend and follower of Jesus to discover Radiant Hope in a Dark World (1 Peter 3:13-17).
In a world flooded with images, we need something we can't see. We need invisible hope in a visual world.
After nearly forty weeks in the wilderness of the global pandemic, after the unrest of racial injustice and protests, after a contested election divided the nation, a consistent theme resonates from our hearts. More than frustration, more than anger, more than even fear, I hear people voice their weariness. “I am tired.” I am tired of my kids missing the normal life of birthday parties and ballgames. I am tired of my kids worried about whether their skin color will end up sentencing them to death. I am tired of partisan politicians hypocritically saying one thing but then the opposite when it serves their political self-interest. I am tired of masking my face and distancing myself. I am tired of thousands of people dying from a virus we can’t see and can’t seem to control. I am tired of wondering whether and whence my next paycheck. I am tired. We just passed Thanksgiving, and the holidays press in with tidings of more work, stress, financial concern. We are tired. We are weary. Our world is weary.
We learn in this message four principles of the Old Testament and four practices for reading the Old Testament.
As John has invited us to “wake up and see the glory” in the triumphal entry narrative (12:12-19), he points us now toward four ways to see the glory of Christ.
John tells us the story of the the counter-intuitive glory of the King of the cosmos, the entire universe, Jesus Christ, God the Son, incarnate. Jesus enters Jerusalem as the King and Savior God had promised centuries before, but, despite appearance, his seemingly royal entry into the city did not ultimately exalt him as King. His royal arrival foreshadowed his true glory, which God would reveal on the cross and vindicate in the resurrection.
Do you believe that Jesus deserves all that you have, or do you believe he owes you something?
How should faithful Christians think about politics? Find out in this three week mini-series.
Jesus offers us the freedom and flourishing of fullness of life in the presence, promises, and purposes of God.
Jesus wants us to learn to discern the difference between an imposter and a Pastor, between a stranger and a Shepherd, between the world and the Word.
John 9 a story of amazing grace that John tells so that we can know who Jesus is and what Jesus offers to us. Here we see the amazing grace of Jesus in saving sinners by giving them sight.
Living Faith in a Season of Crisis: God is More Fearsome than Our Fears (Habakkuk 3:3-16)
Living Faith in a Season of Crisis: Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can’t Lose (Habakkuk 2:2-4)
Living Faith in a Season of Crisis: A Three-Part Pattern of Pursuing and Persistent Prayer (Habakkuk 2:1)
Living Faith in a Season of Crisis: When God’s Character and Conduct Seem to Conflict (Habakkuk 1:12-17)
The suffering of coronavirus pandemic is preparing an eternal weight of glory for God's people.
Living Faith in a Season of Crisis: When God’s Answer is Unbelievably Hard to Accept (Habakkuk 1:5-11)
Why should you study Habakkuk? Learn along with us about living faith in a season of crisis
Jesus is better than your best thoughts about him, and he can make you better in ways you can even imagine.
What are the most important things for you in 2020? Learn along with us as we follow Jesus into an unlikely conversation
When we celebrate Christ at Christmas, who are we really talking about? Who is Jesus really? Listen in to find out.
What can gratitude do in your heart and life this holiday season? Listen in to find out.
Is the story of our lives and the story of the world basically a story with a happy ending or a story with a tragic ending?
Despite our very real differences, we all have two things in common and one common need.
How do people start to follow Jesus. In the witness of John the Baptist and the story first disciples, we find out.
Let's find out about Jesus together. Not the cliche Jesus. Not the cuss word Jesus. But the real Jesus.
For the month of August, we are talking about who God is in a series called “God•ology 101.” We have talked about the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have seen in both the OT and the NT that God is a Trinity. Last week we talked about the question, “What is God like?” What are God’s character traits or attributes. God has two kinds of attributes: incommunicable and communicable. Last week we talk about two foundational incommunicable attributes: Incommunicable attributes (ways we can’t be like God) God is totally unique, unlike any other (“there is no one like him”) God is independent and self-sufficient, (“the living God”) There are many more incommunicable attributes of God, but this morning we are going to look at two of God’s communicable attributes. There are many more than just these two. Communicable attributes (ways we can be like God) God is Holy God is Love 11 Lord, who is like you among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders? 12 You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them. 13 With your faithful love, you will lead the people you have redeemed; you will guide them to your holy dwelling with your strength. (Ex 15:11
Today we address three questions: Is there a God? What is God's name? Why should you care?
God•ology 101: How does the Trinity show up in the Old Testament? In this sermon, we look at all the ways the triune God shows himself from Genesis and beyond.
You know the song. “When you wish upon a star.” I bet you already have the tune in your head. Disney’s theme song, written in 1939 for the movie Pinocchio, ends with the line we all know: “When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.” For all the ways we dismiss this as cartoony, Disney kid-stuff, the song has soaked into the way we think and plan our lives. We believe we have a right and even a responsibility to pursue our dreams. A poet named Langston Hughes captured this in a poem called, “Dreams”: Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field, frozen with snow. But what happens when your dreams don’t come true. Hughes has another poem about dreams called, “A Dream Deferred” that starts with the line: “What happens to a dream deferred?” What do you do when the dreams you dreamed don’t turn out the way you wanted? What do you do when the dreams you dreamed come true, but they don’t give you the happiness you’d hoped for? The book of Haggai speaks to this very thing. The book of Haggai was named for the prophet Haggai who wrote the book. Haggai was called by the God to speak to the people of Judah at a pivotal moment in their history. What to Do When Your Dream Fails You (Haggai 2:1-9)
For Israel, it wasn’t possible to have true worship without the temple. So failing to rebuild the temple was really a crisis of worship. And God loved them too much to let them ignore his temple and to live their lives backwards and without true, wholehearted worship. He loves us too much to less us lose vision and fall into misdirected worship. He wanted them to build and he wants us to build because he is worthy and because he wants our hearts. He wants us to experience the joy of wholehearted worship. In this message, we see Five Ways to Return to Wholehearted Worship.
Many have described the current status of our culture and society as “post-Christian.” Before now, Christian faith influenced our society in many ways. It even influenced the thinking, decisions, and actions of people who did not follow Jesus in a committed way. In past times, the church centered the community, and people respected the Bible’s teaching. This cultural Christian influence did not make society a perfect place or a utopia (just ask millions of black slaves and their descendents), but it did seem to make the role of the church fairly easy to understand. The church’s building marked the time with its chapel bells ringing in the hours of the day and the church’s ministers called upon people to believe what they already knew about God and the Bible. The church today in the American and Western world faces a very different situation. Committed Christians who believe the Bible and Christian teaching increasingly find themselves as a minority population. This trend will continue as our culture and society move further beyond the cultural influence of Christian faith. The question is not whether or not committed Christians will be a minority population. The question is, “What kind of minority population will we be?” How will Christians respond to our status as a cultural minority? Will we get angry and defensive? Will we get scared and reactive? Will we get complacent and halfhearted? I don’t think God wants us to respond in any of these ways. He doesn’t want his people to be angry, scared, or complacent. He wants something better for us, and he’s told us what our response should be. one place we find the blueprint for our response is the little-known, often-neglected, tiny Old Testament book of Haggai. Haggai spoke into a situation very similar to our own. The people of God has lost ground. They had been exiled from their land. Their temple had been destroyed. They were struggling and they had lost their nerve. They had lost sight of God’s call upon them as his people. And God loved them enough to send them a prophet to call them back to God’s better way. The message of Haggai to the people of that day speaks to us directly today. Haggai’s call is the same today. It’s not the time to get angry. It’s not the time to fear. It’s not the time to give up. It’s time to build.
If you could jump in a time machine and see yourself in the future, what would you be like? We get a glimpse of this in the Epilogue to the story of the Ephesian church. Thirty years after Paul wrote the beautiful letter to the church in Ephesus (a letter we call the book of Ephesians), we see another letter to the same church. This letter comes from Jesus himself. How did the church respond after receiving Paul's letter and his final word, “Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 6:24)? We will see the answer in the last book of the Bible. In Revelation 2:1-7, Jesus speaks to the church, and it isn't very pretty. He has some hard words for them. And these hard words remind us and warn us as we think about who we ourselves could become in thirty years.
In the example of both Tychicus and Paul, we’re going to see 10 characteristics of Christian friendship.
Sometimes things we can’t see are very real and very dangerous. The Bible talks about this. The Bible explains that things that are invisible are very real. Invisible creatures are fighting against us and trying to hurt us. We are not alone. We are at war. But we don’t have to be afraid because God has given us a way to be prepared.
You have a job. God has placed you in a specific place, doing a specific thing. Whether you're a manager or an owner, an entrepreneur or a stay-at-home mom, whether you’re in retail or in marketing, whether you work from the kitchen table, outside in the sun, in a cubicle, a classroom, or a corner office, whether you’re a student, in training, or the resident expert, the Bible and the gospel have a lot to say to help you thrive where God has placed you.
The gospel changes everything. Marriage mirrors the messiah’s mission to bring people to God and bring people together through the gospel.
God the Father fills the church with God the Son by God the Spirit. Rather than being filled up with the excess, wastefulness of the world, we are called to pursue being filled full with Christ, by the Spirit. The way we do this is by speaking truth to each other, worshipping the Lord wholeheartedly, thanking God the Father in the name of God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Two important words in Ephesians 5:1-17 help us understand the way God wants us to live in light of the gospel.
Three big questions confront us continually: Who am I? What should I do? What should I believe? The Bible offers compelling answers to these questions.
Therefore, he says in 4:25, in light of all that God has done for you and in light of the fact that you’re a part of God’s new family, whether you’re black or white or brown, rich or poor, male or female, old or young, liberal or conservative, don’t live like a dysfunctional family. We’re going to see five ways to be a healthy family rather than a dysfunctional family here in Ephesians 4:25-32.