We scramble to fix whatR17;s broken, certain we know the one restoration that matters most. But when friends lower a paralyzed man before Jesus in Matthew 9, desperate only to walk, the first words he hears are “Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven.̶1; Do we trust Jesus enough to receive what he says we actually need?
WeR17;re drawn to people who seem useful, impressive, ready to contribute—and in Luke 18, the disciples felt the same way when they turned away parents bringing infants to Jesus. But Jesus stopped them: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.̶1;
WeR17;ve all set out to pursue what we think God wants, only to watch the road curve in ways that make no sense. How do you trust Him when His path seems to undo the very promise He gave? In Genesis 22, Abraham faces exactly that moment as God calls him to offer Isaac.
WeR17;ve grown so busy weR17;ve forgotten why we gather, and our culture whispers that rest is laziness—but Exodus 20:8 calls us to remember the Sabbath as a gift, not a rule, a weekly sign that we belong to the God who rescues us and knows what we actually need.
Are we trying to light up our lives with our own glory or GodR17;s? Pastor Tim takes us back to John 5, looking at verses 41-44 in tonightR17;s Steadfast.
As we wrap up our series in John 5, we are confronted with the most important question: do we believe His words?
When wise men arrive in Jerusalem asking where to find the one born king of the Jews, Matthew 2 says Herod was deeply disturbed—and all Jerusalem with him. ItR17;s a strange reaction to the fulfillment of a centuries-old promise, and it looks a lot like what we do when GodR17;s work threatens the status and stability weR17;ve been quietly building our joy around.
We know weR17;re going to die—itR17;s as inevitable as buttered toast landing face-down—but Romans 6:5 asks whether that death has to mean the same thing it did before Christ.
When the old broken software finally gives way to something that works, the last thing youR17;d do is press every button just to break the new one on purpose. Yet that same impulse faces us in the Christian life, and Paul confronts it head-on in Romans 6:14-15: since we are not under law but under grace, shall we sin?
We crave freedom, but Bob Dylan was right when he sang, “You Gotta Serve Somebody.̶1; No matter how strong that craving, weR17;ll find ourselves serving either righteousness or unrighteousness.