ComChurch Teaching and Discussion Audio

A year after Brock’s diagnosis and a few days before he returns to MD Anderson for more treatment, he and Brittney share about suffering, healing, community, and surprising new life.

The book of Jonah doesn’t just make for good VBS material. It’s a rich (and weird) story with something for all of us. Don’t believe it? Listen for yourself.

In the scene leading up to the baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist is declaring the coming of the Kingdom of God, which will see the sins forgiven and the chaos of broken lives brought back into harmony with God and God’s ways. His words echo the earliest moments of creation, a time when God brought light into darkness and order out of chaos. John’s announcement then gives way to the actual coming of that peace as Jesus appears, enters the river, and prompts God’s explicit expression of his pleasure.

As Christians, we are called to trust God and live in the faith that He is who he says He is, but what exactly does that look like in our lives? The Psalms answer this question not with systematic doctrines, but with vivid images. The Psalms paint pictures of faith and provide illustrations of trust, which are both encouraging and instructive to us. As we see the variety of images associated with trust (such as stillness and eating) we are challenged to probe deeper into our faith with God and seek his leadership in shaping us into trusting, faithful people.

The season of Advent gives us the opportunity to learn to confidently and patiently hope for a new day when the light of Christ will make all things right. Through a study of the prophet Isaiah’s words, we see how God foretold of His intention to do just that.

The story of the harlot who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears stands as a great reminder that risk taking in the name of Jesus is often the most direct path to experiencing him fully. In this vein, we must become a people more willing to take risk, and we must be willing to accept the failures that will often come with risk taking. To do so is to be vulnerable, a kingdom characteristic the modern church has undervalued for too long.

One of the beauties of regularly taking Communion together is its ability to remind us that we are neither better nor worse than others. We all come to the table with different manifestations of brokenness, but we come with brokenness of some sort in common. As we meet and remember Jesus at the Table, we are reminded that we were created in God’s image, that he remembers us, and that he meets us there to restore us to that image. We also are reminded that he loves the folks we like the least in exactly the same way.

An update from the Meadows family in Haiti.

Why do we preach? In a context where the gospel is generally known, and among a people who already believe it, what is the purpose of preaching in the Church? We answer that a bit by exploring the importance of daring speech that interrupts and subverts the regular news and habits of our lives that tend to reduce the Gospel to “a truth widely believed, but greatly reduced.”

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