Covenant Life Church

The Bible contains many different names for God, including Adonai, El Shaddai and Jehovah, and for those who grew up in church, this might have caused confusion. Why would God have so many names? This week, Cindy Diaz shares how the names of the Lord show various aspects of the Lord’s character.

There are times in our lives when we don’t recognize Jesus because things are too dark or distracting for us to look for Him, but make no mistake: He can be found. He can show up as El Roi (The God Who Sees Me) or Emmanuel (God With Us) even in the most unexpected places and difficult moments of our lives.

Acts 9 gives the account of Saul’s surrender. At the time, he was the most passionate persecutor and executioner of early Christians, but after an encounter with Jesus, he became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. His transformation was so complete, so incredible and so surprising that God changed his name.

This week, we’re going to learn more about what surrender IS by exploring what it’s NOT. We’re going to look at the lifestyle of surrender embodied by Paul — who wrote 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament — to discover what surrender looks like for us today.

Due to the subject nature being discussed, this message is only intended for viewers age 11 and older (middle school and up).

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We live in what has to be the most sexualized and sex-saturated generation in history. From video games and commercials to advertising and entertainment, sexual messaging and content is everywhere, and the attitudes of people toward sex and sexuality are different than that were a generation or two ago.

This week, we’re continuing our Surrender Series with a look at sexuality, diving into the idea that there is virtually no difference in what we believe about sex and sexuality inside the church compared to the culture at large. We have lost — and desperately need to reclaim — the clear biblical foundation of truth about sex.

When we say that a follower of Jesus has to live a life of surrender, it may be difficult to think of a person we admire who was also completely surrendered. Often, we look up to the rebels, the mavericks and the ones who bucked the system to lead people to a better place. We build statues to the courageous and bold — not those who were fully surrendered.

A few weeks ago, we started the Surrender Series, exploring the different aspects of surrender and how it interacts with things like our will or desire for control, and this week, we’re going to look at what it means to be fully surrendered by turning to the greatest example of surrender in the Bible: Jesus Christ. No one went all-in on things or surrendered more than Jesus.

We started a new series a couple of weeks ago called the Surrender Series. These messages bring together different things that the Lord has been sharing with Pastor John about the new year, and what ties them all together is the need to surrender. We have already talked about surrender in the life of Joseph, and last week, we explored the importance of getting out of the boat.

This week, we’re diving deep into the topic of control. Control is our effort to bring order to a disorderly world; it’s how we try to make sense of things that are senseless and guarantee a specific outcome in an uncertain world. Control appears to be strong, courageous and full of faith. In reality, it is weakness, fear and pride in disguise — all hindering our ability to surrender.

Pastor John’s messages in the latter half of 2023 carried a tremendous weight each week. We spent much of last year digging through the ways that we’re hurting, grieving and suffering. We spent a lot of time looking in the spiritual mirror, and the Lord laid out some tools and processes we can use to find the healing that we need.

If last year was about getting honest with ourselves about our need for healing and getting to the One who can actually heal us, the message for this year is this: it’s time to get out of the boat — just like Peter did in Matthew 14. There is a season in which it’s okay to be in the boat for safety, healing, reflection or rest, but at some point, we have to start living, loving and doing the work of ministry again. It all starts with surrender.

NOTE: Due to technical difficulties, we could not record and stream our service as usual, which is why the audio for this message sounds different than it usually does. Thanks for understanding!

This week, we’re starting a new series called “Surrender,” and for the first message in this new series, we’re going back to the Christmas account to look at Joseph’s role in the birth of Jesus. In Matthew 1, we see Joseph intuitively demonstrating an understanding about who he was supposed to be that we need to learn and apply in our walk with Jesus.

This is the first message of the new year. This is a time when people reflect on the old and look forward to the new, and a lot of people also get more serious about their spirituality at this time of year. They are determined to change something, so they can be who they are supposed to be in Christ. Surrender plays an important role in this transformation.

To capture monkeys in Africa, people set out cages equipped with bait sticks to lure them inside. The monkeys are too smart to go into the cages, so they reach through the bars to grab the sticks. However, this traps them because sticks are too large to fit through the bars, and the monkeys refuse to let go of the sticks.

A similar thing is happening in countless churches around the world. The devil has set out cages in an effort to trap believers, but because we're too smart to go inside the cages, he adds a bait stick: offense. This week, we're exploring the fact that the most common tactic being used today to destroy the lives of believers is to get us offended.

John 1:1 and John 1:14 are not typically considered Christmas scriptures, but together, they lay the foundation for the whole thing. Additionally, it also describes the main difference between Christianity and all the other religions. Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, the One through Whom everything was made stepped out of heaven and came to earth.

He didn’t come to reveal Himself in all His glory. He didn’t come to demonstrate His power, might, splendor and majesty. Instead, He came as a poor Jewish baby in a troubled region of the Roman Empire. The passage says that the Word became human. This week, we’re exploring the amazing fact that Jesus, the Son of God, became one of us.

This week, we're wrapping up our Know-vember Series. Over the past four weeks, we have been trying to provide answers to questions that people within our congregation have wanted to know, and one of the big questions was about Israel. We started by discussing current events before looking ahead to the future fulfillment of prophecy.

So far, we have talked about the rapture of the church, the tribulation, the judgment seat of Christ, the marriage supper of the Lamb, the Second Coming of Christ and the battle of Armageddon. There's still more to come, but we're now in the home stretch before we arrive at our eternal state as believers.