This week, we began our new sermon series, "Battleground." Scripture warns us of the tactics Satan uses to try to turn us away from God. Jesus is fully victorious over these tactics, and through studying Scripture's guidance for both offense and defense against the enemy's schemes, we can walk in the freedom and protection that God provides.

Every person on earth, no matter age, culture, religion or any other factor, has four fundamental questions for which they need answers. "Who is God? Who am I? Who are my people? What is my purpose?" By looking at Jesus' actions in the week leading up to Easter, including His death, burial and resurrection, we see that God provides us answers to each of these four questions.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem a week before His death, the Israelites very likely believed He was entering to deliver them from their Roman oppressors. Instead, the first thing He did was go to the Jewish temple and rebuke the Israelites. When we are disillusioned, disappointed or bitter about how our expectations haven't been met, let us deal with what is wrong in us instead of pointing the finger at external sources of pain in our lives. Let us confess where we have chosen not to align with God and His truth, and let us repent. He is patient — even while being crucified, He said of His murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Throughout Church history, parallels have been drawn between Noah's Ark and the Church — both are vessels used by God to provide salvation for all who accept it. Let us be people who put our faith and belief in God, follow the blueprints He's provided us, center our lives and purpose around God's covenant with us, and forgive and honor the people around us.

This week, Vincent Carpenter discussed Ephesians 2:19-22, which tells us all about God's household. What can we learn from this passage? God's household gives you an identity. God's household provides you with responsibility (which is to make outsiders feel like insiders). And God's household calls you to unity.

The Church is a family. We are called to be disciples of Jesus and to welcome anyone and everyone into our family to follow Jesus together. When we are tempted to settle into the comfort of what is familiar, let us be intentional to welcome others into the Church's family, regardless of the perimeters of our comfort zones. We are broken people, which is why we need the Church — to seek God's healing alongside community.

We are called to be a house of prayer. This week, Jimmy Seibert led us through many places in Scripture where we see God calling His people to be a people of prayer. Through adoration, we can enter into God's presence, and prayer is the key to welcoming God's will, rule and reign into every area of our lives, just as it is in heaven.

This week, Jimmy Seibert shared from Colossians 1:18 about Jesus being the head of the Body of Christ. Regardless of whether your family of origin was healthy, hurtful or somewhere in between, you will always have a place to belong in the family of Christ. Although this family made of humans will always have dysfunctional elements, we can move toward health by believing in Jesus, receiving the Truth He has spoken over us, obeying His leadership and abiding in His presence.

This week, Carl Gulley talked about a character in the New Testament who may seem minor, but without whom, much of the New Testament might never have been written. Like Barnabas, may we be people who truly see others and champion them to reach their full potential in Christ.

As we continue to explore the Word of the Lord we feel God highlighting for our church this year — to be a "multigenerational family on mission" — we want to study in Scripture what God's intentions are for family, uncorrupted by sin and human failure. Although today's culture is rife with broken family and church hurt, the family of God was never meant to be the source of so much pain. We need to experience the sacrificial love of Jesus and be transformed by it so that we can love sacrificially in turn.