99 CHURCH

Who we believe God to be has a profound impact on our lives. Many of us go through life thinking we're worshipping the true God, when in reality, we're actually worshipping a false version of him. The false self is rooted in a distorted view of God. This week, we expose some of these false versions of God that we carry, and reveal who God truly is.

We know we want to live from our true selves – but what's really driving the false self underneath it all? This week, we dig into the deep-seated beliefs that fuel our need to perform, control, and self-protect. Through a powerful framework of God's greatness and goodness, a personal story of anxiety, and the raw honesty of a father's cry in Mark 9 – "I believe; help my unbelief" – we discover that the journey from false self to true self isn't about gathering more information. It's about moving from belief to conviction on the true character of God: finally sitting down and letting God take our full weight.

We continue our teaching from last week, as we explore the life of Peter through the framework of the six Stages of Faith. What we find is a fascinating case study of the journey of shedding the false self and uncovering the true self.

Within each of us, is what the ancients throughout history called the false self. It's the self rooted in who we think we should be, rather than who we actually are. The journey of faith calls us to shed off the false self and embrace the true self, the fullness of who God created each of us to be. But how do we get there? What does this look like? This week, we explore a helpful framework called the "Stages of Faith," to discover how we can step into the truest version of ourselves in God.

One of the hardest things to do as a storyteller is to tell a story when everyone already knows the ending. Who cares about a story we already know the ending to? But there are those rare exceptions, when the ending is so good, that it actually enhances and redefines the rest of the story. Today, we explore the ending of the Easter story that has the power to shape each and every one of our stories.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, an invitation that is both attractive and troubling. How can human beings be peacemakers when our long history of violence, systemic injustice, institutional failure, and moral cowardice testify to our continued inability to guarantee anything but destruction? Looking at Palm Sunday, we will see that Christ is doing something cosmic and strange by entering Jerusalem as a king who is preparing to die, and revealing to us something radically new—a peace that originates from outside of us, given to us as an inheritance from his future kingdom.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

There is a lot to grieve in our world today. But we are notoriously bad at mourning. We are a society addicted to comfort and repelled by grief. But all throughout Scripture, we see a God who isn't afraid of our sadness, who isn't overwhelmed by our pain. This week, we explore what it means to be those who are comforted in our mourning.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

As people part of modern day western civilization, this might the hardest beatitude for us to understand. What could we possibly know about persecution? Yet we find that this blessing isn’t just for those who are literally following Jesus at the cost of their lives. This blessing applies to the rest of us too, albeit in an indirect way. This week, we explore how God might be forming us through the circumstances in life that we don’t choose.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Most of us assume righteousness means being a good person and following the rules. But that definition often leaves us feeling exhausted, guilty, or empty. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offers a radically different vision. This week, we explore what righteousness actually looks like in the kingdom of God—and how seeking right relationships with God and with others leads to the life we were made for.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

The beauty of this Beatitude is that the blessing is not in receiving this kind of mercy, but in giving it away. There's a kind of blessing reserved only for those who have learned the divine art of giving others mercy. This week, we explore the symptoms of an unforgiving heart and how mercy shows us a better way.