Christ Community Sunday - Olathe Campus

We know the world is often a tragic and ugly place, but sometimes it’s hard for us to see because we don't know what to do with it and we don’t want to face it—in fact, we try to ignore or cover it up—but the world is often a dark place. A place that has so much potential for light and truth and goodness and beauty and life and joy—the world as it ought to be—but it has come to be characterized by darkness and lies and all sorts of evil and ugliness, death and tragedy. This is the world as it is. We might expect God to hate the world.But this is precisely why this verse is so wonderful: God loved the world.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4884793222.02.27

We all know and feel the dissonance in our bodies and souls between who we are and who we long to be. And that’s because we know and feel the need to be born again of water and Spirit. And we know and feel that we must be born again because we must be born again.With a wide-open heart, pledge your full allegiance to King Jesus above all else and surrender to his good, true, and beautiful reign over your life. With wide open hands pursue your vocation, relationships, time, and resources with his kingdom in mind. For you are not your own but you were bought with a price through the washing of your sins by the precious blood of King Jesus.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4884399422.02.20

When we see Jesus, who is meek and mild, entering the temple as Jesus mean and wild, we must see him acting as such because of his unstoppable love for you and for me. For the zeal he has for you and for me and for all to know, see, behold, delight, and enter the holy presence of his father now and forever is what moves him to be so lovingly angry. There is so much that keeps us from coming to God. Our sins that destroy us, our religiosity that deludes us, our greed that spoils us, our national and cultural identities that blind us, but hear this good news dear heart. There is NOTHING that will keep God from coming for us! Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4884043122.02.13

When the wine runs out we must turn to the one who brings the very best joy and the very best life. Instead of desperately scraping our fingers at the bottom of the wine barrel for more, we need to turn and see that the very best has arrived in Jesus. When we see that the very best joy and life has arrived in Jesus, then it is only natural and right and good for us to listen to the timeless words of his mother, “Do whatever he tells you!” Not from a place of religious obligation but from a place of joyful adoration for what he has done for us.Because it is no chore to do whatever we are told by the one who has come to bring us joy and life abundantly.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4883671822.02.06

So whether we are a skeptic with objections, or a Christian trying to respond to someone with objections, often the best thing we can do is take these words to heart: come and see. We need to enter in first, and then invite others to enter in, to see how Jesus makes sense of it all.This is who we encounter when we meet Jesus for ourselves. The Lord of all of heaven and earth, come to dwell among us. The Son of Man, lifted up high on a cross. Risen and ascended to heaven and ruling over all creation. Someone who knows everything about you, better than you know yourself. This is who we meet when we meet Jesus for ourselves.This is who people find when followers of Jesus invite others to come and see Jesus.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4883308322.01.30

Friends, you may not be asking the question “where is the lamb” in those words. But all of us are asking it in some way. “Where can I find hope? Where can I find meaning? Where can I find change? Where can I find rescue?”Without knowing it we are all asking “Where is the lamb” because we all know that we are not who we ought to be. That the world is not the way it ought to be. Is there anyone or anything that can be done to remedy our wounds, our shame, our guilt, and our pain? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4882952622.01.23

Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4882572922.01.16

When we behold and believe the fullness of the Word made flesh we come to find a way of living as his followers in this world.  For in it we find the power to emulate the sympathetic and compassionate nature of God who drew near to social outcasts and sinners. Who came not simply declaring the good news of the kingdom but displaying it through his compassion and care for the needs of others.What this means is that the embodied nature of Christ as the incarnate word of God communicates to us the wide scope of God’s mission in the world. God became a material being in part to show us that he cares about our material existence.   Jesus became a human body to suffer with us to model for us the way of his kingdom in suffering with others.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4882102422.01.09

If you are a follower of Jesus, my prayer is that you would more fully, faithfully, and fruitfully believe and behold Jesus as the Word of God. Be open to Jesus as the Word who speaks into every part of your life.If you are not a follower of Jesus yet, be open to the Word of God. Be open with your questions and doubts. But also be open to doubting your doubts and questioning your questions and the possibility that Jesus is the Word of God who has come to bring you out of darkness and into the light of his kingdom.Be open to the possibility that while there might be a leap ahead of you to follow Jesus, there is also a leap behind you toward disbelief.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4881575822.01.02

This abundant life that Jesus speaks of is the Psalm 23 kind of life. Feasting joy, free from danger. We can have a taste of this now, and will one day have it in full if we have Jesus as our Shepherd.This does not mean that we will never go through dark valleys or have Psalm 22-like experiences. But Psalm 23 shows us that on the other side of the valley of the shadow of death there is abundant life.Dark valleys will come. But right in the middle of our darkest valleys, our Shepherd is with us! He came to enter our darkest valleys, and went far deeper than any of us could ever go. We will fear no evil, for Christ is with us! Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4881570221.12.26

The promise of the name Immanuel is validated and confirmed in the power of the name Jesus! The reason we know God is with us and that we are never alone is because he has come to us. So close in fact that he became our very nature in order to identify with us, suffer alongside us, and be the atoning sacrifice for us.Immanuel puts to death our fear of loneliness because in Christ God has come to be with us. He has drawn near. But Immanuel also puts to death our fear of shame because God has come to rescue us. For not only has he drawn near to us, he draws us near by the power of his gospel.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4881211121.12.19

The powerful story of Christmas is that Jesus, who is the God who sees, has come into our world looking for us. And he sees us looking around looking for him. And he declares to us “There you are…I have been looking for you…I have come to see you…to be with you…to love you…to redeem you!” But he finds us turning our gaze away from him. He finds us distracted and looking past him as though he isn’t the one we are looking for. e.And he cries out all the more “I am here! I have come! I see you! I want you! I am the one you are looking for. Stop searching. Stop wondering. Stop turning. Open your eyes and see the God who sees you!”Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4880837421.12.12

As the Lord of Hosts, God is working in our world and fighting for us by bringing order to the chaos in us and around us. He actively guards, protects, and fights for his good creation. He does so by sending a son.Friends, we all have battles, challenges, and threats in our lives. But we must never lose sight of the truth that we also have a God who is our Lord of Hosts who fights for us, stands for us, defends us, and protects us.As we look upon our nativity sets and reflect on the story of Christ’s birth, may we see the Lord of Hosts being born unto us, fighting for us against our great enemy that seeks to devour us.SERMON NOTES: https://www.bible.com/events/4880152221.12.05

Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4880149621.11.28

If you are a follower of Jesus, you are here today because somebody in your life was obedient to Jesus’ command to make disciples. What a gift that is. Church, may we offer that same gift to others. We do not merely exist for ourselves and for those inside these walls. We exist for the complete and holistic flourishing of our neighbors and for those who do not know Jesus yet.This is who Jesus has called us to be and what he has called us to do. It is his unchanging mission for our ever changing world. I am so overjoyed and blessed to be on mission with you. I am encouraged and empowered by the truth that the other thing that hasn’t changed and will never change is who is with us.SERMON NOTES: bible.com/events/4879773621.11.21

21.11.14

We give generously because we have generously been given so much from God. When we receive and rejoice in the depth of God’s grace toward us in richly blessing us with his son whom he sent to die for our sins, our response of giving generously is not one of obligation but adoration. It is a delight and joy to give and live generously because we are responding to the joy and generosity of our loving Father.There are no two ways about it. James is very clear. If God doesn’t manage our wealth it will ruin us. May the Holy Spirit bring to us a deeper understanding of our tende21.11.07

Boastful arrogance has no air to breathe in a room filled with gratitude toward God. The less grateful we are to God, even for the small things, the more blind we will be to his goodness and presence, and more boastful and arrogant we can become.Real faith is prepared for what we can’t control...which is a lot of stuff. But are we a people who cling to Jesus tighter than our own plans? Or are we deceived by the illusion and delusion of our own control?The reason we can be ok not being in control is because we trust and follow the one who walked straight into death and hell itself following the will of God to bring about our salvation and security. 21.10.31

Lament is a way of getting what we want in line with what God wants. Because lament adopts God’s view of a broken situation so that it can begin to be made whole. It begins to develop within us a distaste for certain things so that we will turn away from them. It begins to reshape our wants and develop a taste within us for what God wants.I don’t know exactly what it is you need to turn from. It’s probably not all the same for all of us. But as we humble ourselves and turn to God, he will give us grace and show us what we need to turn away from. And when we come to the Lord like this, he will lift us up.21.10.24

Learning to listen and thinking before we speak can help train our tongues, but it cannot save our souls. These practices only address symptoms and surface level issues. They will not and indeed cannot remedy the source from which our words set things on hellish fire. Real faith changes how we speak. Real faith shapes and forms our words. Only because real faith comes from the one who is the word of God. Our only hope of being rescued from the fires of hell within us and that await us because of sin is receiving Jesus, the word of God, who is able to save our souls and give us new life now and forever. Real faith changes how we speak, but it's because real faith changes our hearts.21.10.17