New Life Young Adults: Recent Episodes
New Life Church
Here at New Life Young Adults we're passionate about addressing topics that are not just interesting but pertinent to life as a young adult in today's world. That's why our monthly series cover a wide range of topics from friendships to finding God's will for our lives to scoring the digits of that guy or girl you've had your eye on. Everything we talk about is geared to help your life practically and to equip you to live in God's best for your life. Tune in and see what God would speak to you today!
For week 3 of our Ears to Hear series we discussed the ways that the Holy Spirit speaks to us internally and three ways that we can test and discern this voice.
For our second week of "Ears to Hear," we studied the central belief in the Scriptures that Yahweh is a speaking God and began to discuss what things need to be present in our hearts and lives, if we are going to hear him clearly and consistently.
Pastor Matthew talks about being prepared for your calling starts with grasping the love of Christ and being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
For the conclusion of our Ancient Chaos series, we studied the role that obedience plays in our life of faith and what disobedience and sin does to us even after conversion.
For part 5 of our Ancient Chaos series, we studied one of the main ways that the gospel is presented and articulated in the New Testament - "the Kingdom" - and discovered the importance of interpreting sin through this important paradigm.
For part 4 of our series on sin, we studied in brief the sacrificial system, how it was a response to the destruction of sin, and how Jesus fulfilled this system with his death and resurrection.
For week 3 of our Ancient Chaos series, we studied the giving of Torah to the people of Israel and his promise of Shalom that was available to them, if they lived in covenant obedience to Yahweh. In this study and within this framework, we found that sin is not going against the arbitrary preferences of God, but violence against Shalom and the way things are supposed to be.
For week 2 of our series on sin and shortcomings, we studied Yahweh's ordering of the universe (Genesis 1-2) and Adam and Eve's act of sin (Gen. 3) that ushered in and inaugurated the reign of chaos in God's good creation.
Why is it important to understand the topic of sin? Why engage in such a study? For week one of our series "The Ancient Chaos" we sought to unpack and answer these questions and, in doing so, found that to the extent that we understand our sin and depravity is the extent to which we can understand the depths of God's grace.
Our own Bethany Cantrell shares her story of the journey that the Lord has taken her on in the valley and how she has learned to trust him even in seasons of darkness.
Jesus taught his disciples in John 16 that one of the primary things that the Holy Spirit would do is guide His followers into all truth. If the Holy Spirit is about guiding us into truth then we should be about posturing our lives to listen. This week we looked at the role that listening for the Holy Spirit plays in our lives and why it's so important to our lives of faith.
Our own Sarah Bram shares her story of the journey that the Lord has taken her on in her search for community and becoming comfortable with the person God has made her to be.
Pastor Josh, Dr. Mark Mayfield, and Pastor Brad field some live questions about the issues of mental health.
For the final installment of our Life Together series, we looked at the connection between our relationship with God and our relationships with one another and found that reconciliation in broken relationships is crucial to pursue if we are going to live in right relationship with God.
Pastor Matthew talks about John 17:21, "that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
As we began our series titled "Life Together," we looked at what the author of Hebrews has to teach us about the relationship between faith and community and what this truth means for us today.
For the final installment of our series on calling and vocation we looked at the trap that we can fall into in trusting on the certainty of tomorrow. In doing so, we discovered that Kingdom vocation is not "one day" but is here and now. At every turn we are invited into faithfulness and attentiveness to what God's put in front of us today.
For part 3 of our series on calling and vocation we looked at what Scripture has to say about counsel in decision-making and found that often the greatest impediment to us discerning the leading of God in our lives is our deep-seated individualism.
Vocation is a gift from God yet we all too often fall prey to the temptation to abuse it and turn it into something it was never designed to be. For week 2 of "Called" we gave attention to this reality and defined the three primary ways that we as young adults can mishandle the gift of vocation in our lives.
In kicking off our series on vocation and the will of God, we looked at and defined the two-fold calling that transcends every other calling: to be reconciled to the Father and to engage our sphere of the world with the ministry of reconciliation.
"Who am I?" is a question all of us wrestle with. It is the question of identity. In this teaching, Pastor Andrew discusses how the encounter with Jesus shifts the source of our identity.
How are we to live wholeheartedly when we enter into seasons of trial? What ought to anchor us in these painful seasons? In week 5 of our "All" series, we explored these questions and more and found that suffering both plays a unique role in our life of faith and can be the terrain upon which we learn to love God well.
In week 5 of our "All." series, we study the role that joy serves in our lives today and a great enemy to maintaining joy in our lives: envy.
For part three of "All," we studied the gift of Sabbath and the role it played in the life of Israel and the role it continues to play in our lives today.
For week 2 of our "All" series, we looked at the great paradoxical confession of the church - that God is transcend and immanent - and pinpointed a big deterrent from us living with an awareness of God's immanent presence with us - clutter.
How are we to live in such a way that God has all of us? How are we to fully obey the commandment to love our God and our neighbor? For part 1 of our series called "All," we began to answer these questions and found that there is inseparability of living for God and living with Him.
Pastor Jason talks about how the OT stories come together in the great story of God's kingdom.
As we began our series "Out With the Old?" we established the "ground rules" that are necessary to keep in mind if we are to responsibly and correctly engage the Old Testament. In doing so, we found that the Old Testament plays a crucial role in our lives as "new covenantal" believers.
Pastor Brad discusses ways to successfully get through difficult seasons in young adulthood.
In wrapping up our Eternity series, we sought to answer the question, "How now shall we live?" as we look ahead to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
In the third installment of our Eternity series, we examined how our modern notions of heaven fit and do not fit into the Bible's narrative of God's redemption of humanity and creation.
For week 2 of our Eternity series we explored the topic of hell and how it relates to the nature of God. In doing so, we found that though hell is inescapably present in the teachings of Scripture, God is still presented in both the Old and New Testament as a God who is all-loving to his creation and worthy of our trust.
For the first installment of our Eternity series we considered what Scripture does and does not clearly say about death and the afterlife. In considering this, we discovered the New Testament authors' primary purpose in explicating death and the afterlife in the first place: to excite hope for our future resurrection and the life of the world to come.
Pastor Matthew talks about Philippians 4 and thinking about such things and putting them into practice.
Pastor Andrew explains how the concluding line of the Lord's prayer pushes into radical dependance on God.
For part five of our series on the Lord's Prayer we looked at the prayer for daily bread, forgiveness, and deliverance and found that the God who we ask provision of is the God who has perennially made himself known as the God who provides. This Jehovah-Jireh (the God who provides) can be trusted to meet the needs of our lives.
For week four of our series "Teach Us to Pray", we examined the heart, the grand movement of the Lord's Prayer that pleads for the Kingdom of God and his reign to extend both in the public spheres of the earth and in our personal lives today.
In week 3 of our series "Teach Us to Pray," we studied the phrase "Hallowed be your name" - the first of five requests found in the Lord's Prayer. In doing so, we found that praying these words reminds us that our life is not about our life and that the honor and glory of God stands as the supreme purpose for which we were made.
In week 2 of our series "Teach Us to Pray," we studied the first phrase of the Lord's prayer and discovered the reawakening that can occur when we come to God anew as "Father."
What's so important about the Lord's Prayer? What role is it to serve in our lives today? As we began our series "Teach Us To Pray", we answered these questions and discovered that this prayer, the greatest prayer, is the one that grounds and informs all other prayers.
For week 2 of our series, You & the New Year, we look at Jesus' invitation to Kingdom life, which we find is a life characterized by receiving the love of God and extending love back to him and to our fellow man. In doing so, we find life as it was meant to be lived.
As we begin a new year we look into the long-tested practice of building sacred rhythms into our lives. In doing so, we find that these rhythms posture us to live the entirety of our lives in the love of the Lord.
Pastor Andrew talks about the church as the place where God intends for us to experience intimacy and connection.
Pastor Gabe talks about something that often interferes with the development of deep and fulfilling relationships.
Pastor Gabe talks about some practical things that every young adult should know for navigating the path toward marriage.
As we conclude our series on Pilgrimage we study the Psalms of new orientation - psalms that speak of the seasons of life that are marked by resurrection, redemption, and rescue from destruction. It's here we see the profound reality at work in our lives that Yahweh is the Lord of our journey.
Where is God when life is not as it should be? What can we do when all we can do is echo the prayer, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" For week 3 of our series on Pilgrimage we give attention to the Psalms of Disorientation and the frequent fear we and the psalmists alike feel in seasons of suffering that we have been abandoned by God.
How ought we to view God and life with him when things are working as they should? When there's richness in relationships, bountiful provision and satisfaction of soul, what does that say about God and his interaction with us? To answer these questions we study the Psalms of Orientation to find that when we seek God as the one true Gift, all other gifts often proceed as a result.
For week 1 of our series on Pilgrimage we examine the Psalms anew to discover a truth that both grounded the psalmists then and continues to ground believers today in the tumultuous seasons in which the people of God have always lived - we are in covenant relationship with our sovereign God.
In week 3 of our series The Practice and the Presence, we examine the heresy of Gnostic Dualism that plagued the early church and find that our modern notions of God at times aren't far off from this first millennia distortion of the gospel. In doing so, we are invited into the practice of considering even the common ground of our lives as sacred and the hope that all can be opportunities to worship, adore and encounter our God of love.
In our second week of our series, "The Practice and the Presence" Pastor Josh Caldwell invites us to take a fresh look at Luke 24 and the Story of the Journey to Emmaus. In doing so we find the invitation stands for us to see the Lord's constant presence with us today and to cultivate an awareness of his presence with us that intimately journeys with us on the road of our lives.
As we begin our series on "The Practice and the Presence", Pastor Josh Caldwell unpacks the profound reality that God has always chosen to draw near to his people and continues to do so today by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Pastor Josh talks about how we can hear the voice of God through the written Word of Scripture.
Pastor Josh talks about our motives and the role they play in hearing the voice of God.
Pastor Josh begins our series on boundaries by talking about the nature of and needs for boundaries.
Pastor Josh talks about the calling to trust the Lord and how we are to trust Him in the culture in which we live.
Pastor Josh talks about comparison and how it negatively impacts our relationship with the Lord.
Josh talks about what our identity is as the people of God according to the creation narrative in Genesis 1.