CCW Podcast

This week is the grand finale of our Forward series, and it’s a beautiful closing statement on Joshua’s service as well as a charge to us all. Have you ever heard someone say, "I felt the prayer?" In Joshua 10, we see a looming battle and as the Israelites gain the upper hand and we see an amazing prayer. Joshua 10:14 says, “There has been no day like it before or since when the Lord heeded the voice of the man.” Joshua prayed an audacious prayer, Sun stand still and God did it.

When we pray "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done," we are praying that His rule and reign would come in the hearts and lives of the people who don't know Him; we are praying that His rule and reign would come in our hearts to the fullness He's worthy of; and we're praying, too, that someday He will come and break the tyranny of sin and set this evil, ugly, cursed world right. That glorious day is coming. But till that day, the Kingdom is in our midst as He rules and reigns in the hearts of His people. This Sunday we will look at what "Thy Will Be Done," looks like in our lives.

We serve the Lord as we pray, when our prayers are in accord with His design for prayer. Prayer is as vital to the Christian as breathing is to the human being, giving us our life, and sustenance so we must know how to pray! Here in the Disciples' prayer, or what is commonly know as the Lord's Prayer, Jesus gives us a skeleton from which all prayers are to find form. This Sunday we will be looking at "The Program of Prayer: Thy Kingdom Come." Because this Sunday is Mother's Day, we'll be honoring all our mothers. Two mothers who have the most family members and guests with them will receive a beautiful study Bible. We'll also be having baptism and baby dedication.

"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." How do we hallow God's name? It's more than words we say in a prayer. The implication in the Lord's Prayer is that God's name is to be hallowed in our lives. This prayer is not saying that God's name is to be revered as holy just in heaven or around the world, it is saying that God's name is to be respected and honored in me and you! This is where prayer begins. "Hallowed be Thy Name" means "In me, God manifest Your holiness by my right knowledge of who You are, and by my right living in response to it." I Corinthians 10:31 says, "Whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God." Matthew 5:16 says "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." This Sunday we will see how we can hallow God's name in our lives.

As we begin the study of the Disciples' Prayer, we face one of the most vital subjects in all of Christian Life. The subject of prayer! Prayer has been much discussed, much talked about, and much taught about; and yet, much misunderstood. As believers we must learn how to pray. If we are to experience the fullness of communion with God and know the fullness of His blessings, we must know how to pray! The disciples asked Jesus, "Lord teach us to pray." May we learn, along with the disciples, as we sit at Jesus' feet and listen in on how the Master taught his disciples to pray! Don't miss this new series on the Disciples' Prayer.

When the disciples heard Jesus pray, it was not like any prayers they had heard before. He prayed about personal things, private things, dangerous things, and difficult things. He prayed in the morning for bread to eat later in the day. He spent a lot of time in His prayers praising God. And He prayed for protection from harm. In fact, the disciples were attracted to Jesus' prayers because He prayed about all the stuff they spent time worrying about! So it probably came as no surprise to Jesus when they said, "Teach us to pray."

So teach them He did. The prayer He taught them is the most famous in the world. We call it the Lord's Prayer because the Lord Jesus taught it, but it is really the Disciples' Prayer because it was given to His followers as a model for how they should pray. If we are disciples of Jesus, the prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13 is for us to use as a pattern for our own prayers. This Sunday we start our new series on The Lords' Prayer. The first sermon is "Daddy, Teach Us to Pray."

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to the Christian faith. It really is not something we observe one day a year and then forget about.

To deny the resurrection is to remove the cornerstone of our Christian faith. The crucifixion of Jesus would have been in vain without the Resurrection, for the Resurrection validates Christ's work on the cross. Of all the religions of the world, only Christianity is based on the resurrection of its leader. Therefore, if the Resurrection is not a fact, Christianity is a waste of time. If Christ is not raised, our preaching is vain, our faith has no foundation. If Christ is not raised, the writers of Scripture lied, and deliverance from sin by faith in Jesus is a joke. If Christ is not raised, then hope after death is no better than wishful thinking. But, Christ is risen, and over 500 eye witnesses saw Him! This is not a fairy tale, it's historical truth based on evidence. This Sunday we will examine the record and celebrate the truth of the Resurrection!

If ever a women loved the Lord Jesus, it was Mary Magdalene. Christ had transformed her life. At one time she was possessed of seven demons who manifested themselves in all manner of wickedness and sinfulness, but the Lord cast out the demons and set her gloriously free. In the gospels, we have no less than five pictures of her contact with Jesus. The one which surpasses them all is the scene of Mary at the tomb on that resurrection morning. This Sunday we will look at the great lesson of this encounter for each one of us. The title of the message is "From Desolation to Jubilation".

Easter Sunday is not a day when we remember a crucified Christ who hung upon a cross; rather, it is a day when we worship a risen Lord who showed the battle scars of His triumph over death to His own. When our Lord suddenly appeared to his disciples in that upper room, on the evening of His resurrection, the first thing he did was to show them his hands and his side, after which He commissioned them for service. These scars of the Savior speak of the victory of the cross. This Sunday we will see how The Victory of the Cross applies to us personally.