In tennis we work to score the advantage so that the next winning point might be ours. Do we play the game of life the same way, with God as our tennis ball? In the parable of the wicked tenants, Jesus warns us not to attempt to smash an ace against others using His gospel message or we ourselves may be crushed by it!

Could you be convicted of being a Christian based on the joy level of your life? As we consider Jesus’ joyful entry into Jerusalem we’ll ask ourselves about our own celebration of the Christian life. Will the stones need to cry out in joyful praise to Jesus because of our own lack of joyful celebration?

We wrap up our study of the Parable of the Minas in Luke 19:11-27. We learn that while our eternal life comes by faith alone, we still must exert much effort to live the way Jesus intended us to live. As exiles living on Planet Earth, we will be judged someday for the way we have lived our lives. So what kind of evaluation should we be doing every day now?

As exile Christ-followers on Planet Earth, we should be living our lives with Christ as our sovereign, loyal to him as our king, managing well our resources for His kingdom, knowing we will be accountable some day. God expects growth, but how and what kind of growth? God will give us rewards for our growth. How does that work? Finally serving Christ as king takes courage. How do we not flounder with fear? We attempt to answer these questions as we continue our study of the Parable of the Minas in Luke 19:11-27.

Jesus tells his followers that his kingdom will not begin on Planet Earth immediately. In the meantime, they should follow the commandments he taught them. To give them an idea of what this means, Jesus tells the parable of the ten minas, and along the way, gives us 10 principles for exile living. In this first of three sermons, we consider the first four principles.

We study the story of Zacchaeus - a wealthy entrepreneur, hated by those who loved Jesus. What opportunities do we miss when we only look for those who look like us? What initiatives do we miss when we think we have our mission all figured out? Jesus came to seek and save the lost. We are reminded the lost includes “us” as well as “them.”

What if our greatest challenge in life was the faith to believe God’s promises to care for us and answer our prayers? We consider the story of the blind man who begged Jesus to stop and restore his sight. Along the way we hope to gain our own sight for imagination of what God could do for us.

There are many times we don’t understand what God is saying or doing in our lives. Is it ok to ask God why? What should we do when we don’t understand God’s answer? We discover that even the disciples didn’t understand Jesus when he plainly told them what was coming. So why should we expect anything to be different with us? We’ll learn 8 things to understand, when we don’t understand, launching our lesson with Luke 18:31-34.

We come to the curious incident of the rich, young ruler - to whom Jesus instructed to sell everything. How should we understand this mystery? Must we sell everything if we want to follow Jesus? Or is there more to this improbable passage than first meets the eye? Let’s do a little of our own CSI as we take out our Bible magnifying glasses to discover the truth of Luke 18:18-30.

When is right living wrong? How can wrong living be turned right? Shouldn’t we live the best life we can? How are we as an imperfect people “just” before a perfect God? Does God grade on a scale, assuming none of us can live up to his standards? And what could living as children possibly have to do with all of these questions? We’ll do our best to answer all these questions as we study Luke 18:9-17.