Episodes

  • This is Church: "How God Builds His Church: In Christ"

    This is Church: "How God Builds His Church: In Christ"
    Jul 22 2024

    July 21, 2024

    Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker

    “We cherry-pick our favorite traits and words of Christ and run with them - amplifying some parts while silencing others - to suit our personal visions and preferences. In doing this, rather than the true and the whole, we create caricatures and distortions of His character - false Christs made in our own images - and are left with no mystery as to why He would say we must deny ourselves daily in order to follow Him.” -Criss Jami Matthew 24:3-6 Jesus is GOD in the flesh Colossians 1:15 “Man's maker was made man that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother's breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused of false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.” -St. Augustine of Hippo “The nativity mystery “conceived from the Holy Spirit and born from the Virgin Mary”, means, that God became human, truly human out of his own grace. The miracle of the existence of Jesus , his “climbing down of God” is: Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary! Here is a human being, the Virgin Mary, and as he comes from God, Jesus comes also from this human being. Born of the Virgin Mary means a human origin for God. Jesus Christ is not only truly God, he is human like every one of us. He is human without limitation. He is not only similar to us, he is like us.” -Karl Barth Jesus is the CREATOR of all Colossians 1:16-17 Romans 1:20-23 "God is the Creator God, he doesn't want to say, "Okay, creation was very good, but I'm scrapping it." He wants to say, "Creation is so good that I'm going to rescue it." -NT Wright Jesus is LORD Colossians 1:18 Philippians 2:10-11 Jesus is SAVIOR Colossians 1:19-20 John 14:6 "It is faith that looks up at the creator God and knows him to be the God of love. And it is faith that looks out at the world with the longing to bring that love to bear in healing reconciliation, and hope." -NT Wright 2 Corinthians 5:17-18

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    5 mins
  • This is Church: "How God Builds His Church: In Wisdom"

    This is Church: "How God Builds His Church: In Wisdom"
    Jul 15 2024

    July 14, 2021

    Associate Pastor Louise Waller

    What is worldly wisdom?

    Wisdom: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Genesis 3:4-7

    We Are Fools

    Wisdom is nonsense to those who don’t believe

    Isaiah 55:8-9 1 Corinthians 1:18 Matthew 11:25

    What is Godly Wisdom?

    Colossians 1:9-14 James 3:17

    How do we get God’s wisdom?

    Luke 11:11-13 Proverbs 9:10 Proverbs 3:5-7 James 1:5

    (NIV)
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    5 mins
  • This is Church: "How God Builds His Church: The Gospel"

    This is Church: "How God Builds His Church: The Gospel"
    Jul 8 2024

    July 7, 2024

    Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker

    “The good news is that Christ frees us from the need to obnoxiously focus on our goodness, our commitment, and our correctness. Religious has made us obsessive almost beyond endurance. Jesus invited us to a dance...and we've turned in into a march of soldiers, always checking to see if we're doing it right and are in step and in line with the other soldiers. We know a dance would be more fun, but we believe we must go through hell to get to heaven, so we keep marching.” -Steve Brown Colossians 1:1-8 The Gospel inspires FAITH "Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat out denial of the gospel of grace." -Brennan Manning The Gospel inspires LOVE “Some Christians try to go to heaven alone, in solitude. But believers are not compared to bears or lions or other animals that wander alone. Those who belong to Christ are sheep in this respect, that they love to get together. Sheep go in flocks, and so do God’s people.” -Charles Spurgeon "When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy.” -Corrie Ten Boom The Gospel inspires HOPE “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” -Tim Keller Galatians 5:5-6 Ephesians 4:2-5 1 Thessalonians 1:3 1 Corinthians 13: 13 (NET)

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    32 mins
  • 3 temptations of the church: "temptation #3: to be powerful"

    3 temptations of the church: "temptation #3: to be powerful"
    Jul 1 2024

    June 30, 2024

    Associate Pastor Eric Burch

    (Audio issues during the first two minutes or so.)

    Matthew 4:8-11

    “One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly give in to the temptation of power- political power, military power, economic power, or moral or spiritual power – even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to divine power but emptied Himself and became as we are.” -Henry Nouwen

    We want to be God instead of Worshiping God

    Genesis 3:5

    Mark 10:33-34

    Mark 10:35-37

    Isaiah 14:12-14

    Phillipians 2:5-9

    Power can be used overcome fear

    Matthew 2:1-3

    1 John 4:17-18

    Power is easier to wield than love

    “It seems easier to be God than to worship God. It is easier to control people than to love people. Easier to own life than to love life.” -Henry Nouwen

    1 John 4:7-8

    1 Corinthians 13:4-7

    (NASB 2020)
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    40 mins
  • 3 temptations of the church: "temptation #2: to be spectacular"

    3 temptations of the church: "temptation #2: to be spectacular"
    Jun 24 2024

    June 23, 2024

    Associate Pastor Justin Brunenkant

    Matthew 4:5-7 Psalms 91:11-12 Deuteronomy 6:16 Galations 6:7 (NKJV)

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    5 mins
  • 3 temptations of the church: "temptation #1: to be relevant"

    3 temptations of the church: "temptation #1: to be relevant"
    Jun 18 2024

    June 16, 2024

    Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker

    Not all testing is bad Matthew 4:1-4 Deuteronomy 8:2-3 Testing reveals who you really are Testing prepares you for your life as a Christ-follower. “We live in a culture that has replaced soul with self. This reduction turns people into either problems or consumers. Insofar as we acquiesce in that replacement, we gradually but surely regress in our identity, for we end up thinking of ourselves and dealing with others in marketplace terms: everyone we meet is either a potential recruit to join our enterprise or a potential consumer for what we are selling; or we ourselves are the potential recruits and consumers. Neither we nor our friends have any dignity just as we are, only in terms of how we or they can be used." -Eugene Peterson "By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching commitment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine ourselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant." -OS Guinness “A primary task of the community of Jesus is to maintain this lifelong cultivation of love in all the messiness of its families, neighborhoods, congregations, and missions. Love is intricate, demanding, glorious, deeply human, and God-honoring, but — and here’s the thing — never a finished product, never an accomplishment, always flawed in some degree or other.” -Eugene Peterson

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    5 mins
  • The Book of James: "Pursue One Another"

    The Book of James: "Pursue One Another"
    Jun 10 2024

    June 9, 2024

    Lead Pastor Dr. Dan Acker

    James 5:19-20 Isaiah 53:6 3 Causes of Wandering: 1) Believing that following Jesus is easy Matthew 7:13-14 "Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts, and then love more. Charles Spurgeon: You cannot be Christ’s servant if you are not willing to follow him, cross and all. What do you crave? A crown? Then it must be a crown of thorns if you are to be like him. Do you want to be lifted up? So you shall, but it will be upon a cross." -Mother Teresa 2) Listening to anyone who claims to speak for Christ Matthew 7: 15-23 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 3) Believing that words are more important than actions Matthew 7: 24-27 "Faith and works are bound up in the same bundle. He that obeys God trusts God; and he that trusts God obeys God. He that is without faith is without works; and he that is without works is without faith." -Charles Spurgeon “We are the Bibles the world is reading; We are the creeds the world is needing; We are the sermons the world is heeding.” -Billy Graham (NET)

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    5 mins
  • The Book of James: "It's a Team Effort!"

    The Book of James: "It's a Team Effort!"
    Jun 3 2024

    June 2, 2024

    Associate Pastor Eric Burch

    James 1:2-4 NASB

    Go to God First

    James 5:13

    “James means that there is no time in which God does not invite us to Himself.” -John Calvin

    “Our whole life should be so angled towards God that whatever strikes us, whether sorrow or joy, should be deflected upwards at once into His presence.” -Alec Motyer

    Don’t Go It Alone

    James 5:14-15

    Acts 20:28

    Matthew 18:19-21

    Hebrews 10:35-37

    Reconcile Sooner than Later

    Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. -James 5:16a

    Matthew 5:23-24

    James 4:1-2

    Make Human Effort, expect Supernatural Results

    A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much. -James 5:16b

    The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective -James 5:16b (NIV)

    James 5:17-18

    (NASB)
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    44 mins