Jesus has invited us to respond.

The fifth message in our “What Is The Gospel?” sermon series asked questions like, “what kind of response does the work of Christ require?” , “who can respond?”, and “who should respond?”. The Gospel tells us that Christ first responded in love toward us to successfully deal with our sin where we had failed. This initiative on the part of God bids everybody respond with the simple, yet infinitely profound posture of the heart called “faith”.

Listen to last week’s sermon from Romans 10:5-13 to learn more.

The Heart Of The Message At The Heart Of Christianity

Jesus took what we did not want to give what we could not get. On the cross, Jesus exchanged our sin for His righteousness. The Father sent Him, the most valuable thing in creation, to pay our penalty that we might be reconciled to God. You can’t make it up. It’s the greatest story ever told. It’s the only essential message in all of history. It’s the only way to be saved. This is a message worth listening to.

Listen to the message here.

Sin: The Bad News of The Gospel

Before the Gospel is good new, it is first bad news. It may seem easier and more comfortable to pretend like this bad news doesn’t exist, but in reality, this bad news is the underlying cause for every evil act, every injustice and every disaster on this earth. Furthermore, without this bad news, we’d have no need for the good news. Listen to the third message in our “What Is The Gospel?” series to understand exactly why we so desperately need the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Listen to the message here.

Created In The Image Of God

God created all things. But He set a particular focus on creating humans. No other creature in the entire created realm received the attention that humans received. Created with the very image of God, His character, His likeness, within them. Created for relationship with the Creator of the universe. Created with the capacity to love. Created for a purpose. Listen to the second message in our “What Is The Gospel?” summer sermon series to discover God’s intent in creating you.

Listen to the message here.

If God Is There, Everything Changes

This summer, we’ll spend six weeks exploring the contours of the message of “Good News” under six sequential headings which will help us to both understand, explain and believe God’s message of salvation. This past Sunday was the first message in the series, which explored the reality of a God who has always been there, who has always been good and yet, has always been King. Stay tuned for the next five messages in our series.

God

Man

Sin

Christ

Response

Return

Listen to Message #1: God

After nearly a year in the Gospel of John, we’ve finally, and somewhat sadly, concluded all 21 chapters. Though the journey through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus has completed, our walk with Him as Christians will continue until the day He returns. Listen to last week’s message to discover what the resurrected Jesus’ priorities are for those who seek to continue to follow Him.

Listen to the message here.

What History and The Book of John All Hinge Upon

The crucifixion of Jesus. It’s both cruel and gracious. Horrific and beautiful. Shameful and infinitely victorious. It was the moment when Satan seemed to have struck the final death blow to God’s purposes, yet, in all actuality, when Jesus struck the final deathblow not only to satan, but sin and death itself. Listen to last week’s sermon and learn about the history-altering, life-transforming reality of the cross of Christ which makes a claim on every single one of our lives.

Listen to the sermon here.

Than To Be a Friend of Caesar’s …

Associating with the cause of Christ is often neither situationally beneficial nor convenient. Pontius Pilate, as he stood with Jesus before him, had the task of issuing a verdict and a sentence. He knew Jesus was innocent. Yet the crowd falsely accused him of treason against Caesar. An innocent verdict could be political suicide. This moment in Pilate’s life was inconvenient. It was one case among hundreds he’d rule on. Seemingly insignificant and terribly inconvenient. Yet in the grand scheme, it was Pilate’s eternity that was being weighed in the balance. In our lives, we experience many moments when siding with Jesus is just flat inconvenient, but in the scope of eternity, is far better than siding with anyone else. Listen to last Sunday’s sermon from John 18-19.

Listen to the sermon here.

The Arrest and Trial of Jesus

This past Sunday was a very different Sunday. Our usual meeting place, Heninger Elementary, was unexpectedly unavailable to us. At the last minute, we shifted gears and moved our Sunday meeting to the Houlton home. We were packed into the living room like a bunch of sardines, but aside from the location, nothing was different. We worshipped together, we listened to the preached Word from John 18, we took the Lord’s table together and fellowshipped with one another in the joy of Jesus.

There is no sermon audio recording available from last Sunday’s sermon, but nevertheless, the Lord has a lesson for all of us reading this blog post right now: the local church is a body of people gathered by God through Jesus Christ for the worship of His name. Regardless of where we meet. Regardless of how planned or unplanned our Sunday morning’s are.

Who knows, maybe we’ll make a tradition of an annual house-church service …

Jesus Prayed For Sovereign Grace Santa Ana 2000 Years Ago

In one of the most profound and holy scenes in the New Testament, we find Jesus, God the Son, pleading with God the Father in John 17. In that “High Priestly Prayer”, Jesus prays for “all those who will believe through the [11 disciples’] word”. In other words, He prays for all future believers. Included in that number is our very own local church. What Jesus prays for is His greatest desire for our church in 2019. What is that desire? Unity. Jesus desires unity so that the world might be persuaded of His love for the glory of God.

Listen to last Sunday’s sermon to hear about Jesus’ priority of unity for our church.

Listen to the message here.