Grace: Amazing Grace (Randy and Chris)

We conclude our series on Grace by reflecting on the true meaning of grace and thinking about it through John Newton’s famous hymn, Amazing Grace.  Though not a traditional Christmas hymn, it does invite us to think deeply about the true meaning of Christmas.

Listen to Grace--Amazing Grace

Handout 1 - Understanding Grace

Handout 2 - Amazing Grace Lyrics

Grace: Grace, Peace, and Christmas (Chris)

Something sacred and wonderful happened at the birth of Jesus Christ.  So much so that echoes of the blessings delivered by God in that moment echo today even in our very secular and selfish society.
 
Advent is a time of reflection and preparation.  This Advent season seems especially marred by division, discord, and distress.  What is the Gospel message for us in our day and time?
 
Our lesson this week puts the current world into context based on God's revealed plan for Creation.  We will celebrate the birth of our Savior and consider how his life and teaching equip us to be blessed by God's grace and to enjoy God's peace at Christmas and always.

Listen to Grace, Peace, and Christmas

Grace: The Grace of Christmas Peace (Randy)

Luke’s famous passage on the birth of Christ promises “peace on earth and good will toward men.” But where is this peace? The world is still on fire, and there are plenty of divisions within our society. Even inner peace is hard to come by. Yet God’s promises are true, so the angels must have been talking about something else when they promised peace on earth. In this lesson—The Grace of Christmas Peace—we explore why Jesus was born and how that makes all the difference in our lives.

Listen to the Grace of Christmas Peace

Grace: The Grace of the Gospel (Randy)

In this lesson, we look at the “Grace of the Gospel.”  Sometimes we forget what the gospel message really is and how it can transform our lives. Here, we go back to some of the basics and view the gospel message through Paul’s letter to the Galatians.  What is the good news, and why does it matter?  In this season of Thanksgiving, let’s reflect on all that God has done for us.

Listen to the Grace of the Gospel

Grace: ThanksGIVING (Chris)

As we approach a uniquely American holiday, we will reflect this week on how Thanksgiving helps us to understand God's universal grace and our proper response to it.  The words "thanks" and "giving" reflect the cycle of gratitude and generosity inherent in our love of God and love for others.

Listen to Grace: ThanksGiving
Handout

Grace: One Day at a Time (Randy)

Have you ever worried about the future or fretted over regrets from the past? Intuitively, we know these behaviors are unhealthy and might even remember that Jesus warns against them, but how does God’s grace factor in?   Where is it when we are in our deepest despair?  In this lesson, we explore how God’s promise of grace is as sure as the sunrise, but how and when God dispenses it differs from how many of us would like God to operate, and that leads us astray. Listen to see how God’s presence and grace actually works in our lives.

Listen to Grace: One Day at a Time

Grace: Grace in Celebration and Sorrow Part 2 (Chris)

Our fall series has been exploring the fundamental role of grace in our faith.  We again will consider "applied grace."  How does God's grace engage with us personally, particularly in our best moments and in our worst?

We also will consider Christ's teaching in John 15 to "abide in me."  What does this mean, and how can the teaching help us to live more grace-filled lives?

Listen to Grace in Celebration and Sorry Part 2
Lesson Plan

Grace: Grace in Celebration and Sorrow Part 1 (Chris)

Our fall series has been exploring the fundamental role of grace in our faith.  For the next two weeks, we will consider "applied grace."  How does God's grace engage with us personally, particularly in our best moments and in our worst?

We will start with Christ's teaching in John 15 to "abide in me."  We then will explore episodes of celebration and sorrow in the Bible and will examine how God's grace was present.  (Hint: the Holy Spirit was involved.)

Listen to Grace in Celebration and Sorrow Part 1
Lesson Plan

Grace: Grace First! (Chris)

Grace expresses the transformational love of God in our lives.  It is the foundation of our salvation and the essence of our relationship with Christ.  It also should be the FIRST element of our faith.

This week, we will continue exploring the nature of grace and its power in our lives.  We will reflect on how grace relates to other elements of discipleship like trust, obedience, peace, and joy.  We also will consider a provocative question: are you in love with God?  We hope you enjoy this conversation.

Listen to Grace First!

Handout

Grace: A World of Ungrace (Randy)

Grace is one of the most unnatural things in the world, and it is unique to our Christian faith. However, we live in a culture of ungrace which makes it difficult for us to accept God’s grace and live the transformed lives God promises. Where does this ungrace come from, and how do we overcome it? Join us tomorrow to explore these questions.

Listen to A World of Ungrace

Grace: Transformational Grace (Chris)

Grace is one of the most important concepts in Christian belief.  It is the essence of our salvation and the means by which we are restored to a right relationship with God through the redemption of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.  Nonetheless, grace can be hard to understand and can seem difficult to obtain.

Our series this fall explores God's grace and how it has been illuminated and experienced by some of the great Christian believers and teachers through the ages.  The first program is based on a sermon by Rev. Tim Keller, "The Grace of God," and focuses on Ephesians 2 verses 1-10.

This week, we will explore what grace is, why it is critical to our faith, and how it is delivered and received.  In particular, we will consider grace as indispensable, costly, and transformational.

Listen to Transformational Grace
Lesson Plan
Handout

Godly Success: What is Good to God? (Chris)

After a season of considering the question, "What is success to God?", it turns out that the Bible offers at least one simple answer.  Micah 6:8 tells us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.  We will consider the meaning and application of this text in the final lesson of this series.  We also will offer an appreciation for the Reverend Tim Keller -- one of Randy and Chris's favorite Christian thinkers and teachers -- who passed on to heaven this week.

Listen to What is Good to God?
Handout

Godly Success: Absolute Grace (Randy)

In one of our first lessons of this series on Godly Success, we examined the Sermon on the Mount and discovered how it showed us two important points: 1) God’s ideal is absolute and 2) God’s grace is absolute.  Tomorrow, we will dig into Absolute Grace even further and discuss what it is and how we can respond to it. We can’t even begin to understand God’s idea of success until we embrace his grace and let its true meaning soak all the way down to the core of our soul.

Listen to Absolute Grace

Godly Success: Success in Society (Randy)

For thousands of years, God sent prophets to Israel to teach the people about him, and they began to view following the law as the path to righteousness and acceptance in God’s eyes. By the time Jesus was born, the Pharisees had codified the law into over 600 specific rules and added thousands of additional precepts and guidelines. Like us, they knew their main goal was to love God and one another, yet they failed miserably. In many ways, we are like modern-day Pharisees, striving to follow the rules and live a moral, upright life as if that will somehow save us. Is that what God truly desires? Is that what it means to live a successful life? Knowing the nature of our hearts, God spoke to us not only through words, but also through his actions on earth.  What do the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection tell us about the true nature of Godly success?

Listen to Success in Society

Godly Success: God's Society Part 2 (Chris)

This Sunday, we will continue the conversation started last week about what God considers a successful society.  Society is made up of the elements that bring people together in life: family, neighborhood, community, country.  Our lives are made up largely of the relationships that exist within these elements.  Considering the nature of God (love / justice; order / inversion) and the teachings of Jesus, how are we called to live engaged with each other?  We will consider several passages of Scripture connecting these themes together.

Listen to God's Society Part 2

Handout

Godly Success: God's Society Part 1 (Chris)

Society is made up of the elements that bring people together in life: family, neighborhood, community, country.  Our lives are made up largely of the relationships that exist within these elements.  Considering the nature of God (love / justice; order / inversion) and the teachings of Jesus, how are we called to live engaged with each other?  This session is discussion-focused, and we will consider several passages of Scripture connecting these themes together.

Listen to God's Society Part 1
Handout

Godly Success: God's Economy (Chris)

The old adage is that politics and religion are two subjects you should avoid in polite company.  In our world of 21st Century American materialism, economics may be an even bigger landmine.  There is a reason that Jesus preached so often on money.  We can get very anxious ourselves on the topic and quick to wall off what is "mine" from what is "yours."  Continuing last week's theme, what is success to God when it comes to economics?  The short reply is "stewardship," but the New Testament offers even more subtle and challenging answers.  This week, we will explore the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16) and the practices of the early Christian church for lessons that still apply to us today.

Listen to God's Economy
Handout

Godly Success: Success in Economics (Randy)

That brings us to this week’s question: How does God view success when it comes to the economic sphere?  A month ago, we studied the famous passage in Mark 12:13-17 where Jesus says we must “give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” We learned that the Kingdom of God is something entirely different from the one dimensional (or two dimensional if you heard Chris’s excellent lesson last week) view of politics.  Can we say the same about economics, and if so, how does it inform our behavior in the market?

Listen to Success in Economics

Godly Success: Justice, Love, and Politics (Chris)

Continuing the theme from February 26th, this session explores Biblical justice and love as they apply to politics and civil society.  What is God's perspective on social order and social engagement?  Using the work of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., how can we better understand and balance our role as citizens and our commitments as disciples of Christ?  Ultimately, what does Jesus us tell us about how we are to live in a fractured and fragmented world?

Listen to Justice, Love, and Politics
Handout

Godly Success: Success in Politics (Randy)

How does God view success when it comes to the political sphere? We live in charged times, and it is difficult to know what God wants from us as we wrestle with the issues of our day. This is not new, though. The Pharisees and Herodians tried to trap Jesus by asking him politically charged questions 2000 year ago: Specifically, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" By studying the famous passage in Mark 12:13-17), we will try to make sense of how we should view and engage with politics today.

Listen to Success in Politics

Teacher's Notes

Godly Success: The Soul of Life (Chris)

Artificial Intelligence has been headline news, and new technology is imitating humans more closely than ever before.  Predictions abound about how A.I. will "disrupt" the world.  Lost in the fanfare is a simple but critical truth: computers have no soul.  There are essential characteristics of being human -- including faith, awe, and wonder -- that a machine never can replicate or replace.  As we continue our series on Godly Success, we consider what it means to be created in God's image.  Our model is Ruth, ancestor of Jesus.  How does her story of courage, sacrifice, and love reveal God and illustrate Godly Success?

Listen to The Soul of Life
Handout

Godly Success: Seeking Guidance (Randy)

Answering the question, “What does God view as a successful life?” invariably leads to the twin topics of guidance and divine will. Specifically, our desire to serve God impels us to ask him for guidance on his will for our lives. But what does the Bible say about seeking God’s guidance, and how do we go about doing it? Using Psalm 25 and Ephesians 2:9-10 as our Scriptural references, we will focus on these questions and discuss the profound implications of God’s grace and Christ’s saving action on the direction we should go.

Listen to Seeking Guidance

Godly Success: God's Own Heart (King David) (Chris)

King David is one of the most important and fascinating figures in the Bible.  On the one hand, he is described as “a man after God’s own heart.”  (What more could be said of anyone!)  On the other hand, he was a serial sinner who violated multiple Commandments and made repeated mistakes in every area.  How can we understand this seeming contradiction?  Our lesson looks at an obscure but marvelous episode in David’s life (2 Samuel 9) showing his radical humility and generosity.  These traits made David beloved to God — “successful” — and placed him at the head of Jesus’ own family tree. 

Listen to God's Own Heart (King David)
Handout

Godly Success: The Sermon Says It All (Randy)

We are in a series exploring how God defines success. Two weeks ago, we introduced the idea that we are so heavily influenced by our fallen state and the culture in which we live that we are prone to define success in secular terms: We want to be happy and fulfilled, and we expect to get there by achieving some purpose such as accumulating money, power, fame, beauty, comfort, relationships, and more. All of these are means by which we attempt to control our world, attain self-worth, and satisfy the void in our soul, but none of them can fully satisfy us, and all of them will disappoint us at some point or another.

God defines success very differently, and we are fortunate that Jesus lays out that definition in the Sermon on the Mount. There’s no place in the Bible where we get a better view into how God wants us to live our lives. But, reading the Sermon on the Mount can be devastating. Who can live up to such a standard

In this lesson, we go straight to the heart of the gospel to define how God views success and wants us to live our lives.

Listen to: The Sermon Says It All

Godly Success: A Calling from God (Chris)

Abraham is presented in the Bible as the Father of Faith in Almighty God.  He is the ancestor to which all monotheistic religions trace back.  His story also provides a powerful model of "Godly Success."
If Abraham is our model, then what is faith?  Belief applied through a call from God.

This class explores the five elements of a Godly Call:
1)  A call makes a request.
2)  A call includes a promise.
3)  A call provides an identity.
4)  A call involves tests.
5)  A call produces rewards.

By considering Abraham, we will ask a question of ourselves.  What is your call?  How do you follow it?
We hope you will join us to explore these questions!

Listen to A Calling From God
Handout

Godly Success: Worldly, Religious, and Godly Success (Randy)

What is success for God, and how does it differ from how we think about it? The dictionary defines success as “achieving an aim or purpose,” but I think a more complete definition would read, “achieving an aim or purpose so we can feel good about ourselves.” Herein lies the rub. Whether we pursue worldly success or religious success, we tend to do so motivated by our own, self-centered needs. This gets us in trouble, and we end up making an idol of whatever we deem as success whether we realize it or not. In tomorrow’s lesson, we will explore the similarities and differences between worldly, religious, and Godly success, and use that as a springboard to approach the topic of Godly success with an appropriate level of humility.

Listen to Worldly, Religious, and Godly Success

Godly Success: Good and Faithful Servants (Chris)

New Series: Godly Success
First Session: "Good and Faithful Servants"

This week we begin a new series based on a simple question: "What is success to God?"

As the old saying goes, "Begin with the end in mind."  If our aim in life is to stand someday in heaven and to hear our Lord say the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant," how does that goal translate into living now?  What does God value?  How do our own unique abilities and opportunities relate to God's kingdom?  Where can we find solid direction in an unstable world hostile to Godly purposes and priorities?  How also can we escape the trap of a culture that prioritizes "achievements" and "accomplishments" over humble obedience?

Thankfully, Scripture provides us with numerous examples of "good and faithful servants."  This series will focus weekly on people from the Bible and will explore how they lived in service to God with an emphasis on their fulfillment of Jesus' two Great Commandments: love God and love others.  The first session this week will hone in on the goal itself.  What does it mean to be a "good and faithful servant"?

Listen to Good and Faithful Servants

Handout