Steps to Blessing: Step 5: Give, Part 1
Steps to Blessing: Step 4: Desire
Our whole western society is set up to encourage us to seek happiness. But happiness is one of those things that cannot be obtained by seeking it for itself. The only way to get happiness is by seeking something else.
Steps to Blessing: Step 3: Believe
The saying "your best life now" is half right. "Your best life then" is more like it. In this message we study the most radical beatitude—blessed are the meek. The idea that the meek will inherit the earth is astonishing.
Steps to Blessing: Step 2: Recognize, Part 2
How do we get ourselves to stop being so uppity before God? How do we make ourselves realize our own spiritual poverty that we might inherit the kingdom in all its power and glory? The answer, of course, is that we cannot. Before you can receive spiritual fullness, you have to realize that you need it.
Steps to Blessing: Step 2: Recognize, Part 1
People today want to be spiritual. They want to get in touch with a higher power, they believe in transcendence, they want connection with something out there. But Jesus says we must realize we are not spiritual at all.
Steps to Blessing: Step 1: Listen
We need to recapture the idea of the power and authority of Jesus' Word in church life. That is what will feed people; that is what will grow people. And the lack of it is why we have nominal Christianity—people aren't being fed.
Confess, Part 2
Atonement is made at the point of confession. When we sin, grace abounds. Where we fail, mercy thrives. When we are broken, healing comes. God's grace and mercy comes to the point of our real need and brings healing.
Confess, Part 1
When you have a small god people look big. You fear being open about who you are because you care about what others think. The only way to have people be real about who they are is to have them be real about who God is. As you center your life on God, you find fulfillment, integrity, and authenticity.
Christ's Countercultural Church: A Better Mountain
Consumeristic Christianity finds people choosing a different church just because they don't like the music. When we talk about worship, our goal is to forget about the technicalities of music and actually worship God.
Christ's Countercultural Church: A Better Temple, Part 2
What do you think of when you think of church? Perhaps you just can't see that it's going to make any real difference in the world in the times we live in. Sometimes we compartmentalize God from the rest of our lives. But church is a mission to the world.
Christ's Countercultural Church: A Better Temple, Part 1
Some of you are disappointed by church. To be honest, you would rather play golf on Sunday morning. We all need to be called back to a vision of what the point of church is.