Practical Grace: Advent Conclusion (Randy)

We conclude our series on Practical Grace with a lesson called “Preparing for Home.”  The Advent season calls us to prepare our hearts for Jesus to be born anew within them, and our homes for him to live with us. When we do, Jesus enters in and, as the 19^th Century preacher and author Phillips Brooks wrote in his carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, “God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav’n.”  Those blessings are a gift of grace from our savior.  A gift that transforms our hearts and enables us to live abundant lives. Join us as we reflect on this gift of grace this Advent season.

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Practical Grace: True Identity (Chris)

This series has explored a vital question: how do we supernaturally transform from being tossed and turned by the world to being anchored strongly in the security of faith in God through Jesus Christ?  This week's lesson returns to where we started: 1 Corinthians 13.  The Apostle Paul helps us to see that our central issue is IDENTITY.  Spiritual transformation in our hearts and our lives occurs when we see ourselves as God does and not through our own limited awareness.  This amazing gift -- won for us on the Cross and delivered through the Holy Spirit -- changes everything about us and how we live.  Please join us for a message of truly Good News. 

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Practical Grace: Living Grace - The Fruit of Love (Randy)

This week’s lesson is called “Living Grace” and focuses on Paul’s famous passage in Galatians 5 where he discusses the Fruit of the Spirit.  What is the nature of the Fruit of the Spirit, and how do we get it?  How does the fruit manifest itself in our lives?  How do we know we are growing in Christ?  Watch and find out!

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Practical Grace: Enduring Grace (Chris)

This week’s lesson is called “Enduring Grace,” and focuses on self-control – one of the greatest challenges in life.  We all wrestle with urges, impulses, desires, distractions, and weaknesses that cause us and those around us harm.  This week's lesson explores the Apostle Paul's teaching on how Spiritual Transformation changes the way we live, leading to Gospel power over ourselves that we never could achieve on our own.

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Practical Grace: Truthing in Love (Randy)

This week's lesson challenges us to think about what we truly believe – our truths – and how they manifest in our lives. Paul calls us to speak truth in love, but what is truth, and how do we “speak it in love,” exactly?  With so many competing truths circulating around in our society today, how do we really know what is real and what isn’t?  How do we avoid getting tossed here and there by all of these ideas, and instead anchor on what we know to be true?   Watch "Truthing in Love" to find out.

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Practical Grace: Blessed Self-Forgetfulness (Chris)

In every age and stage of life, our egos can be our worst enemies.  Each accomplishment can inflate our pride and each failure can make us deflated and depressed.  The human condition is a roller-coaster of concern about what others think of us and what we think about ourselves.

In 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul shows us another way.  How can we forget ourselves to the point where we not only cease caring what others think, but we even fail to care what we think of ourselves?  Instead, how do we rest and rejoice in what God thinks of us?  What the world calls "Humility" can be something dramatically better and more powerful for Disciples of Christ.

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Practical Grace: True Tolerance (Chris)

This week's lesson relates directly to the unease and upheaval we see all around us in our church, in our community, in our city, and in our country.  How are we called to live as Christians in a time of radical disagreement and discord?  The world teaches either obvious intolerance (reject those with whom you disagree) or a false tolerance (promote diversity and inclusion but only for those who share your views).  Neither of these approaches is consistent with a supernaturally changed heart according to the example of Jesus Christ.  True Tolerance comes through Receptive Grace: divinely-inspired consideration of others and self-sacrificial engagement with them.

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Practical Grace: Resting Grace

We continue our series on "Practical Grace" with a lesson on “Resting Grace.” In his Last Discourse, Jesus promises to give us peace and we often repeat this in the church's benediction, “May the peace of Christ be always with you.” But what does it really mean? What is this peace, and how do we get it?  We explore these questions in this lesson.

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Practical Grace: Befriending Grace (Randy)

We continue our series on "Practical Grace" with a lesson on “Befriending Grace.” What is the true nature of a friend, and how can we be better friends to those around us?  By shifting from a self-centered view to a Christ-centered one, we can experience befriending grace in a whole new way.

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Practical Grace: Forgiving Grace (Chris)

This Sunday, we are continuing our series on "Practical Grace."  At its essence, the Bible is about how the worship of God, the example of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit transform our lives from the inside out.  The result is a supernatural heart aligned with God rather than the self-centered motivations of the world.  This lesson explores Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18:21-35 about forgiveness and patience.  How does the Lord's guidance lead us towards a deeper and richer relationship with God and with each other?

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Practical Grace: Love and the Practical Graces Part 2 (Randy)

Our series on Practical Grace examines what Reverend Tim Keller calls the difference between a Spiritually changed heart and a morally restrained one.  Every major religion and world philosophy advocates for character and offer lists of virtues, suggesting we must try hard to live a good life so we will be blessed and rewarded.  Christianity offers a very different view.  Instead of building character through sheer will power, Christianity tells us our character forms as a result of God's power.  Rather than a means to faith, character development is the outgrowth of our faith. This is a radical idea. In this introductory lesson, we explore how character forms through a transformed heart - all by God's grace.

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Practical Grace: Love and the Practical Graces (Chris)

This lesson kicks off a series on “Practical Grace” based on a sermon series by Rev. Tim Keller.  The key element of life as a faithful Christian is not our actions but our being.  We are invited into a relationship infused with God’s love which then radiates from us out into the world.  The mark of this change in our lives is a supernatural heart transformed by the Holy Spirit.  Using a familiar Scripture from the Apostle Paul — 1 Corinthians 13 — we start the series with a provocative challenge to our Discipleship.  

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Luke: The Power of the Holy Spirit (Chris)

Luke's Gospel was written as the first part of a two-part story.  The second book -- the Acts of the Apostles -- might better be called "The Acts of the Holy Spirit."  Jesus' last worldly act was to prepare his disciples to receive the Holy Spirit and to instruct them what they were supposed to do with it.  This message and a better understanding of the Holy Spirit are as important for us today as they were for the first followers of Christ.  On Pentecost Sunday, we conclude our study of Luke with a call to prayer and to action in and with the Holy Spirit. 

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Luke: The Cross and Resurrection (Randy)

Luke the historian captured a lot of action in the final three chapters of his gospel.  There, he describes the last supper and the plot to kill Jesus (chapter 22); the trial, crucifixion, and death of Jesus (23); and the resurrection and ascension of Jesus (24). During these episodes, something so radical happened that it changed the disciples’ lives and ultimately changed the world.  What happened and what does it all mean?  We explore these fundamental questions in this penultimate lesson of our series.

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Luke: Christ's Last Teachings (Chris)

When Jesus came to Jerusalem, his followers believed that they would witness the powerful and present triumph of the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.  They could not imagine the actual mission of suffering and eternal salvation that Christ came to deliver.  Knowing what was to come, Jesus spent his last precious days delivering lessons that would sustain them going forward.  These teachings were recorded in Luke's Gospel to provide us with the same Coaching, Challenge, and Comfort.  This lesson Chris focuses on these final worldly words from our Lord and Savior.

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Luke: For the Love of Money (Randy)

We haven’t spent much time on this topic over the years, yet Jesus focused on it often. In fact, he warned his disciples far more often about money than he did about sex.  This is especially true in Luke chapters 16-18 where he speaks very directly about the risk money poses.  In this lesson, we explore how money deceives us, how it puts us in danger, and how God helps us deal with it.

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Luke: Godly Life vs. Worldly Life (Chris)

The pace of Jesus' teachings picks up as he travels his road to Jerusalem.  Luke presents a rapid-fire series of encounters and parables in the middle chapters of his Gospel.  Collectively, these help to explain the nature of God, of God's Kingdom, of Jesus' role as the Messiah, and our role as Christ's disciples.

This week's lesson focuses on a series of teachings directly applicable to the challenges of affluent, "First World", 21st century, American life.  How do we live in the world but not be of the world?  How can we be stewards of wealth, influence, and opportunity in ways that are pleasing to God?  What does faith require of our time, our talent, and our treasure?

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Luke: Be True - Avoiding Hypocrisy (Randy)

We often think of Jesus as meek and mild, but he criticized the religious leaders of his time for their strict adherence to the moral code while ignoring love, mercy, and justice.  He warned his disciples and the crowds that followed him to “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees,” by which he meant, “beware of their hypocrisy.”  While his disciples weren’t religious leaders (yet!), he took the time to warn them against the insidious tendency for hypocrisy to sneak into their lives.  Why was he so ardently against hypocrisy? What harm does it do? And how do we avoid it ourselves?  We tackle these questions and more in this lesson.

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Luke: The Purpose of Prayer (Julie Street)

Luke pays close attention to all the times Jesus goes off to pray, and he pays particular attention to a time when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray in Luke Chapter 11:1-13.  Here, Jesus gave them the Lord’s prayer (a truncated version from what we see in Matthew) and also taught them about the purpose of prayer in the subsequence verses.  Julie Street guest teaches on this powerful topic. 

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Luke: The Better Part (Chris)

Chapter 10 in Luke's Gospel contains two well-known passages: the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of Martha and Mary.  This week's lesson addresses fundamental questions of faith raised by these stories.  How can we overcome all of the difficulties, distractions, and dangers of earthly life to rest securely in the peace and blessing of God?  Is it enough to be a "nice person," or is there something even more basic and more important at the heart of discipleship in Christ?  There is "Good News" in this message.  God wants us to live unburdened and fulfilled, and Jesus teaches us how to do so.

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Luke: To Jerusalem (Chris)

Chapter 9 of Luke's Gospel is pivotal in the story of Jesus Christ and his earthly ministry.  The key verse (51) is: "When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem."  This week, we will explore the transition towards the fulfillment of Jesus' purpose and the significance of this seemingly simple statement.  What did "Jerusalem" mean to Jesus and to his followers?  What should it mean to us?  What are our priorities as Disciples of Christ?  Where does this road of life we are traveling lead?  How are we called to follow our Lord and Savior now and in the days to come?

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Luke: Who do you say Jesus is? (Randy)

When John the Baptist was in prison facing certain death, he began to have doubts about Jesus. Was he really the Messiah?  If so, why wasn’t he doing anything to restore Israel?  Where was the promised judgement? And by the way, why hadn’t he gotten me out of jail yet?!  We share John’s doubts and ask similar questions, but Jesus wanted to John – and us – to know that God doesn’t operate the way we think.  Through Luke’s gospel (7:18-35), we will explore how Jesus answered John and use that example to understand who he really is.  We’ll conclude by asking ourselves the same question: Who do you say Jesus is?

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Luke: The Power of Christ (Chris)

Jesus performs many miracles in Luke's Gospel.  These are acts of compassion, but they are much more than good deeds.  Jesus demonstrates for his followers and for us the difference between God's power and worldly power and ultimately God's values versus worldly values.  The world breaks us down but God lifts us up.  The world is selfish but God is loving and kind.  The ways of the world lead inevitably to death but the ways of God in Christ lead to eternal life.  We will explore miracles this week and will celebrate the Good News they offer us as followers of Jesus.

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Luke: Hope for Healing (Randy)

We tend to have a somewhat transactional relationship with God, but Luke wants us to know that Jesus wants so much more from us.  He wants our heart.  While fear keeps us from Jesus, he wants us to approach him so he can help us.  In this lesson, we examine four stories from Luke 8:22-56 that show us how Jesus drives out our fears so he can give us peace, heal our bodies, and guarantee us everlasting life. 

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Luke: Following Christ (Chris)

 Jesus came to save and ultimately to rule the world.  He is the King of kings, yet he was born in poverty and obscurity.  He was empowered to overcome physical limits in service to God, yet he humbled himself by refusing supernatural powers when it came to his own comfort or prestige.  When he chose his friends and followers, he largely ignored the wealthy and powerful.  Instead he selected those who were on the margins of society but willing to be faithful.  This week's lesson focuses on that group of disciples.  We will explore Luke 5:1-11 and 27-32, Luke 6:12-16, Luke 7:1-10 and 18-23, Luke 8:1-3 and 19-21, and Luke 9:1-6.  The questions to explore are: why did Christ select these "ordinary" people, and how can we be like them in our own lives?

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Luke: Jesus's First Sermon (Randy)

I found this advertisement nailed to a tree just outside of Nazareth and thought you would like to see it:  “Did you hear the great news?  Jesus is coming to synagogue here in Nazareth tomorrow, and he is sure to speak!  He has been traveling around Galilee for a while now, and everyone is talking about his miraculous healings and other acts.  We hope you will come hear our hometown hero during service tomorrow.”  

Ok, maybe I made that up, but we can imagine something like this circulating through Nazareth when Jesus returned to his home in Luke 4.  He had just gotten baptized and faced the devil in the desert (Luke 3), and now he was home to share the goals of his ministry. Drawing on Luke’s narrative in Luke 3 and 4, we will examine what Jesus said and discover the true nature of his ministry on earth.

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Luke: Welcoming Jesus (Chris)

The Gospel of Luke is a powerful window into the ministry and meaning of our Savior Jesus Christ.  With our own celebration of Christmas just past, we will reflect this week on Luke chapters 1-2 and the coming of Jesus into the world.  Who were the people selected by God to prepare for and to greet him?  What does their reaction to the birth of the Messiah teach us about how we should prepare for and welcome Christ into our lives?

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Luke: An Introduction to the Gospel of Luke (Randy)

 Tomorrow, we will kick off our new series on the Gospel of Luke.  Our objective this winter/spring is to survey Luke’s gospel and draw faith and life lessons from it.  I’ll start us off in the morning with an introductory lesson on the who, what, when, where, how, and why of the book, and we’ll get into more detail as we dig into various passages as the season unfolds.  If you have a particular favorite passage from Luke that you’d like us to cover, please let us know!  We are treating our schedule somewhat openly to see where the Holy Spirit takes us.

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