Where does our community find God? That’s why every local church in every community is so important. The series we are in is called, ‘Finding God.’ We are talking about church, the presence of God and our role in all of it. Last week, we jumped right into scripture. We read about a party that Matthew, the tax collector, hosted for Jesus. The church people of Jesus’ day lost their minds because, to use their words, Jesus was . . . Read More »
What are you willing to do?
So today we are wrapping up our series on integrity. The big concept or theme of the entire series was that who we are matters more than what we look like, and we spent a lot of time talking about how challenging that really is in the culture that we live in today. I loved using the imagery a couple of weeks ago with you of walking upstream…the world, the people, just our culture in general pulling one . . . Read More »
God Enters Earth and Runs After the Notorious Sinner
27 Later on as Jesus left the town he saw a tax collector – with the usual reputation for cheating – sitting at a tax collection booth. The man’s name was Levi [this is Matthew]. Jesus said to him, “Come and be one of my disciples!” 28 So Levi left everything, sprang up, and went with him. 29 Soon Levi held a reception in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax . . . Read More »
Walking Upstream
Today we are going to talk about what it means to bring integrity into your relationships with others, so we are talking today about bringing God into our relationships or our dealings with people in this world. And I am just going to start by telling you something, that I know is true but wish at times that it wasn’t true and it’s this…the world, and the people of it really don’t like you standing as who you . . . Read More »
What is Church to you? Is it even relevant anymore?
What do you think of Church? Is Church even relevant today? Most of the people I hang out with, don’t go to church. They tell me a lot of things. Some say that they went to church years ago and were hurt. They saw a double standard. The leaders in the church, they say, had a set of rules for people and then later the leaders broke the same rules. They concluded that they believe in God, but . . . Read More »
Who We Are In Our Marriage Matters
So last week Ken kicked off a brand new series that I am really excited about and I will tell you why. It’s because what we are doing is taking all the God principles that we talk about here at MRC, and we are pulling them into our practical lives. That is awesome! Ken was introducing us to the idea last week of integrity…the idea that who we are matters. This is very important, because our culture today . . . Read More »
How to Get God into the Family
We are in a series about integrity. Integrity matters. Who you are matters. To prove my point, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever had a boss promise you something, then later, take that promise away? What did you think? You were disappointed, maybe furious, and you said to yourself, they have no integrity. To you, integrity matters in a boss or leader. Here is another example. You go to school and you see someone . . . Read More »
Wherever You Are, You Are There
Last week was Easter. It’s the most significant day, the Holiest of days, on the Christian calendar because we celebrate what Jesus did for us. He did what we could never do in our human effort. He broke the curse of sin and death over our lives. And for those who believe Jesus is the Son of God, that curse is broken. His sacrifice gave us spiritual freedom, a fresh start. God’s children are human beings – made . . . Read More »
The Greatest Story Ever Told
Welcome to Easter Sunday. Attached to the handout today is an article that answers the question, ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ My hope is that as you read it, it might give you handles on how to wrestle with that question. I also hope you get it into the hands of your friends who have that question. I want to start today by reading what Jesus said: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on . . . Read More »
The Magnitude of the Cross
You know here at MRC we stay focused on keeping things simple and introducing you to the magnitude of The Cross and I will just say it, I think we do a pretty good job of pointing to the Gospel message on a weekly basis. We want to introduce you to the amazing gift that our Heavenly Father gave us through Jesus. We want you to know it, and more than know it, we want you to feel . . . Read More »