What are the most essential things for living? Some might put food, water, and shelter at the top of the list, but what about friendship? Friendship is an often-overlooked idea, but it's something the Proverbs speak frequently about as essential for a life of wisdom. But how can we pursue friendship? What does it look like to be a true friend? How can we overcome the guilt of failures and the shame of loneliness? As the Bible will show us, true friendship with others is restored by true friendship with Jesus. 

With advancements in life-saving technologies, our modern society has done a good job of avoiding death until the last possible second. But this is not how death works. In the Bible, death is personified as a shepherd for the arrogant (Ps. 49:14) and a consumer of flesh (Job 18:13). Death comes for us all. No matter how long we try to avoid it, it will claim our lives. But the good news of Easter Sunday is that Death no longer has any power over us because it could not hold Jesus in the grave. Jesus came to overcome the power of death to give us new resurrection life now and in the future. The big idea from Acts 2:22-40 is this: Because death could not hold Jesus Christ, it cannot hold us.

Our world cries out for justice, but how does God define justice? If the foundation of his throne is justice and righteousness (Psalm 89:14), what does it look like? True justice begins in the pursuit of godly wisdom, so that the saint devoted to godly wisdom understands and lives out godly justice.

Would you consider yourself to be an angry person? We often associate anger with explosive outbursts, but we can often miss its more subtle forms that leak into most areas of our lives. The truth is that we all have a problem with anger. The problem is that our anger is directed at the wrong things, at the wrong times, in the wrong ways. But anger isn't the problem; sin is. This is why the redemption of our anger begins when we fully surrender to Jesus.

Words have a powerful place in our lives. With our words, we can build people up and tear them down. We can give people life, or we can promote death. This is the power of words, which is why the Proverbs have so much to say about our words. Because how we use our words reveals what we believe about God, we must use them wisely.

Everyone wants wisdom. Wisdom helps us navigate which job to take, who to marry (or not marry), and how to parent our children. For centuries, people have turned to sages and gurus for wisdom on how to live and make decisions. But the Bible offers us something different. It tells us of an all-wise God who created and sustains the world with wisdom. He has written it into the fabric of creation and uses it as the center stage for his Story of Redemption. The center of Biblical wisdom is a relationship with the One who holds “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col. 2:3) The book of Proverbs addresses this deeply human desire for wisdom by showing us how things should work in God’s world if we live according to his way.

But we need to be able to answer three questions because our source of wisdom directs the orientation and outcome of life: What is wisdom? Why do we need it? And how do we get it?

All of us are daily swimming in multiple cultures. Culture, broadly defined, is the stories we tell and the way we interpret the world around us. But, because we believe in one story and one reality, Christians must be able to engage the cultures around us with the ultimate aim of inviting people into God's Story. We see an example in the apostle Paul as he witnesses to the resurrected Jesus in Acts 17:16-34 and models how we can invite others to know him.

Most people don't like to talk about money, but as a courageously sacrificial church, we must understand that our money isn't ours but God's. It means we must be willing to lose something in order to gain a greater reward as we follow the example of Jesus and give generously, as our God has been generous with us.

The things we focus on change how we live. No one knew this better than Paul, who offers the Ephesians church a broad understanding of ministry in Ephesians 4:7-16. Ministry isn't an occupation reserved for the spiritual elite; it's a calling placed on every Christian. It has a source, a purpose, and a goal. To be a ministry focused church means we believe that Jesus gives us everything we need to grow together in maturity.

One of the greatest tests of our faith is our devotion to prayer. Like 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, "pray constantly." As a prayerfully dependent church, we have to be unified on what prayer is, why we pray, how do and what we pray, and to whom do we pray to?