God Owes You Nothing - But He Chose to Give you Everything

King of Kings Week 5: The Truth About Repentance

Repentance. It's not a word that we hear much outside of church life and quite frankly, many people aren't sure what exactly it is. Repentance, however, is absolutely essential if we are to live the lives that Jesus has planned for us. This Sunday morning we will learn several truths about Repentance and why it is so essential for our lives. See you on Palm Sunday!

God is God and God is Good

Please watch the following video. Last night at prayer meeting we touched on the issue of God allowing pain and suffering. Zac Smith's story explains it better than I ever could...NOTE: For some reason you may have to skip ahead and then rewind to see the video...my player showed black screen at first.

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

God is Sovereign

God is sovereign in all!

King of Kings Week 4: The Perfection of God's Timing

This week we are continuing our look at the early life of Jesus, our Lord and Savior and King of all Kings. On Sunday we'll learn how God protected and provided for Jesus and his family as they fled from the horrible acts of King Herod. We'll also see how God's timing is made perfect in our lives in three areas.

See you all on Sunday!

Thoughts on Fatherhood

As i was packing up CDs today at my house, getting ready for the big move, I came across a CD with this song on it:



Doug Supernaw was one of my favorite 90's country artists when I was a teenager, partly because several of his songs had such good melodies but also had real stories. Real stories, often sad ones, is a big reason that the country music genre is so popular - the common man can relate to the songs because he's been there.

One of the reasons this song is so powerful (it reached #1 in 1993) is because the exact story it tells is played out in families across America every weekend. The dad comes and picks his son (or daughter) up for the weekend and then brings him back to his mama and new boyfriend (or husband). (By the way, it takes a special man to marry a woman with a child and raise him as his own, so I'm not attempting to trash the new man in the boy's life. Praise God for those men). Then the boy's dad drives away, in case of the video, while the boy is having his birthday party, but all the boy really wants is his daddy to be there with him and his mommy...together.

Divorce, estranged parents, etc. is a heartbreaking tragedy. It's heartbreaking because children are the innocent bystanders that get heartbroken in the process. And when families are broken up, many times the dads aren't around at all.

I think the absence of fathers who are around their children all the time is part of the reason that American culture has a hard time relating to the doctrine that God is Father. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us like a child. However, many people don't see that aspect of God as a positive thing. Perhaps their father wasn't around or just saw them every other weekend and went camping with them once in a while. If that's the type of relationship God wants with us then I'll worship another God, the skeptic says.

However, God perfectly fulfills the role of Father in all of his adopted children's lives. You see, God not only plays the role of 'biological father' perfectly, he also plays the role of "step-father" perfectly. When God saves us he adopts us into his family and He loves us perfectly as a Father should and as only He can.

Part of the reason that God has designed people to grow up in families is so that we can try to understand how He loves us. He loves his children unconditionally, much like a Father does and should. He is the perfect model of fatherly love, one that we should strive to have, no matter how old our children are.

Pray for those boys, girls and fathers that are estranged. Pray that they will somehow have a reconciled relationship with each other. They each yearn for it and need it. Pray also for those that never had that type of relationship with a father and never will. Pray that they realize that only God can fulfill their 'father-void' that they so desperately are trying to fill with other things. God will love them perfectly in this earth and completely one day in Heaven. But, we must all acknowledge Him as that and place our faith in Him so that He may adopt us as his children.

Estranged relationships are an effect of sin in this world. But a day is coming where all things will be made right and we will be reconciled to our Father and Creator, thanks to Jesus, forever and forever and enjoy perfect communion with Him...our father who will never leave us.

Who was St. Patrick?

Just who was St. Patrick? Well, in short, he was one of the greatest Christian missionaries who ever lived. And his favorite color was apparently green. Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church, Seattle, has a good synopsis of the man, the myth, and the legend. Here is a snippet:

"Patrick gave his life to the people who had enslaved him until he died at 77 years of age. He had seen untold thousands of people convert as between 30-40 of the 150 tribes had become substantially Christian. He had trained 1000 pastors, planted 700 churches, and was the first noted person in history to take a strong public stand against slavery."

For the entire article click here

Counterfeit Gospels

Here is a great post from Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham's grandson) and pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, concerning the seven counterfeit gospels that Christians use instead of THE Gospel.

"In light of Paul Tripp coming to Coral Ridge this weekend, I’ve gone back through a lot of my Paul Tripp books–he’s such a huge gift to the church!

In one of his books (co-authored with Tim Lane), How People Change, he identifies seven counterfeit gospels—-”religious” ways we try and “justify” or “save” ourselves apart from the gospel of grace. I found these unbelievably helpful. Which one (or two, or three) of these do you tend to gravitate towards?

Formalism. “I participate in the regular meetings and ministries of the church, so I feel like my life is under control. I’m always in church, but it really has little impact on my heart or on how I live. I may become judgmental and impatient with those who do not have the same commitment as I do.”

Legalism. “I live by the rules—rules I create for myself and rules I create for others. I feel good if I can keep my own rules, and I become arrogant and full of contempt when others don’t meet the standards I set for them. There is no joy in my life because there is no grace to be celebrated.”

Mysticism. “I am engaged in the incessant pursuit of an emotional experience with God. I live for the moments when I feel close to him, and I often struggle with discouragement when I don’t feel that way. I may change churches often, too, looking for one that will give me what I’m looking for.”

Activism. “I recognize the missional nature of Christianity and am passionately involved in fixing this broken world. But at the end of the day, my life is more of a defense of what’s right than a joyful pursuit of Christ.”

Biblicism. “I know my Bible inside and out, but I do not let it master me. I have reduced the gospel to a mastery of biblical content and theology, so I am intolerant and critical of those with lesser knowledge.”

Therapism. “I talk a lot about the hurting people in our congregation, and how Christ is the only answer for their hurt. Yet even without realizing it, I have made Christ more Therapist than Savior. I view hurt as a greater problem than sin—and I subtly shift my greatest need from my moral failure to my unmet needs.”

Social-ism. “The deep fellowship and friendships I find at church have become their own idol. The body of Christ has replaced Christ himself, and the gospel is reduced to a network of fulfilling Christian relationships.”

As I said two weeks ago in my sermon, there are outside-the-church idols and there are inside-the-church idols. It’s the idols inside the church that ought to concern Christians most. It’s easier for Christians to identify worldly idols such as money, power, selfish ambition, sex, and so on. It’s the idols inside the church that we have a harder time identifying.

For instance, we know it’s wrong to bow to the god of power—but it’s also wrong to bow to the god of preferences. We know it’s wrong to worship immorality—but it’s also wrong to worship morality. We know it’s wrong to seek freedom by breaking the rules—but it’s also wrong to seek freedom by keeping them. We know God hates unrighteousness—but he also hates self-righteousness. We know crime is a sin—but so is control. If people outside the church try to save themselves by being bad; people inside the church try to save themselves by being good.

The good news of the gospel is that both inside and outside the church, there is only One Savior and Lord, namely Jesus. And he came, not to angrily strip away our freedom, but to affectionately strip away our slavery to lesser things so that we might become truly free!"

This Week

Latest happenings for this week

King of Kings Week 3: What Essential Faith Does

This Sunday we'll be looking at Matthew 2:1-12 - the story of the "three wisemen"s visit to see the baby Jesus. As we look at the passage we are going to reveal some inaccuracies often associated with certain myths surrounding the visit of these men from the east. We'll also deal with the age-old question, "Just what was that star that the wise men saw?"

We'll also talk about attributes of having an essential faith. What it that? Among other things, it's having a faith that is real and glorifying to God. We'll see what the looks like this Sunday.

Kings of Kings Week 2: The Flawlessness of God's Plans

Do you know that every plan that God has will ultimately come true? Last week we learned how God used all sorts of people, ordinary ones, powerful one, and exiled ones, to set up the family line of descendants that would bring His son, Jesus to the earth. He did not use perfect people. He used people who messed up in terrible ways. However, because of his grace and mercy, God used these sinners, and sometimes their direct sin, to still bring about His ultimate plan for the world: The incarnation of Jesus.

This week we are going to continue to talk about God's plans and how they are flawless. We'll meet a young woman who, even though she was just engaged, was all of a sudden found to be pregnant. We'll see that even though the world couldn't understand God's plan for her life, she continued to trust His flawless plan.

See you this week!

Wednesday Nights: Resolving Conflict Biblically

Check out the latest video previewing our new Wednesday night study series: