» Crestview Church of Boulder -Weekly Podcast

Exodus: Gods Story Our Story: God calls and raises up delivers in unexpected ways with unexpected people

The Word of God is sharper than a double edged sword, bringing both comfort and conviction. (Hebrews 4:12-13). The Word of God is useful for ‘teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.’  (2 Timothy 3:16-17)  It lights our path, guides our steps. (Psalm 119:105)  Do you have Word?  Are you taking it in, ‘HAGAH’ (Joshua 1) with regularity, meditating on it ‘day and night’ (Psalm 1), drinking from it like a tree by a living stream?

Sunday we begin our discipleship faith journey together into the Book of Exodus.  Exodus reveals the heart of God, the deepest needs of humanity, God’s ongoing call to redeem and call a people to himself for his glory.  We begin at the beginning, a very good place to start, Chapter 1.

In preparing for this message, I’ve been struck by the courage and faith of two Hebrew midwives who defied Pharoah’s order to do evil.  It’s a stunning witness to the world, both then and now, of God’s call on our lives to revere God over all.  They feared God more than anyone or anything.  It’s a testimony of faith in the midst of challenging times when a critical choice needed to be made: Do I stand up for what is right, even if it may cost me personally?  Or do I go with the flow, and watch evil unfold?

Read Exodus chapter 1 in preparation for Sunday.  What strikes you about the faithfulness of Shiphrah and Puah?  God is always calling people to the ‘fear of God’ and the faithfulness that follows.  Shiphrah and Puah ‘feared God’ and fulfilled the calling God gave them.

Is someone or something getting in the way of you fearing God more than another or anything else?  Anything, anyone, encouraging you to obey some other ‘law’ other than God’s law?  What may God be calling you to be faithful in, faithful with, in your ‘fearing God’ more than Pharaoh (man)?

    See you Sunday,
         Pastor Mark  

Exodus: Out of the Silence – A Deliverer An Intro… Overview (The Bible Project)

Summer is passing and Fall is dawning, another one of God’s marvelous waxing and waning events every year.  Fall seems to stoke in me a sense of gratitude.  Not sure why.  It just naturally does.  I wonder if there is a creational rhythm built into the cycle of plowing, sowing, growing, and reaping.  Fall is known for its harvest festivals.  A time of thanksgiving for the harvest.  Thanksgiving for the full storehouses of what God has provided.  Thanksgiving as we remember family and friends who we worked beside through this beautiful cycle God has given.  Did it involve labor, toil, sweat, time and energy?  Sure.  Yet now, we experience the fruit.  

I’m excited to make our move from Genesis to Exodus as God’s story of redemption unfolds.  In Exodus, we see God hearing the cries of his people, raising up a deliverer, and leading them out of bondage. God creates, redeems, and calls a people to himself, to be his people.  It’s really God’s story from beginning to the end of history as we know it.  In Exodus, we find God revealed as ‘compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.’ (Exodus 34:6). This too, is God revealed from the beginning to the end of history as we know it.  Today, it’s good to find ourselves in God’s story.  Where are we?  Where am I?  Where are you?  

    See you Sunday,
         Pastor Mark  

Genesis: God’s Story, Our Story: Joseph!

Lovin’ the journey through Genesis: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and this week – Joseph!  This week’s mediation, reflection, study and prep for the message involving Joseph’s life this week, I am stunned.  It struck me again, how marvelous God’s Word and revelation of his story astounds.  Over and over again in the life of Joseph, God is on display.  God is mentioned as working behind the scenes, within the scenes, in spite of the scenes, permeating the scenes of Joseph’s life. 

So strap on a seatbelt for Sunday – to much goodness to communicate in a single message.  Yet we are on a mission to see with broad strokes God’s story as it unfolds in Genesis 12-50.  A couple of teasers to prep for Sunday: Take a quick look through Joseph’s life (Genesis 37-50) and look for when and where God is mentioned.  Reveal anything?  Does the story of Joseph have relevance to today’s world, to our lives?  How?  I’ll give you a clue… we live in a world of family fracture, exploitation, sexual pressure toward sexual immorality, institutional injustice, economic uncertainty, and we are always prone to the temptation to let suffering define us.  You mean all of that is coming Sunday?  Yes! A final thought: Joseph says to his brothers, in spite of the suffering he has experienced in his life, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”  What can he mean?  

OOOh lala,
    See you Sunday,
         Pastor Mark  

Genesis: God’s Story, Our Story: Jacob!

When you hear the phrase, “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” what comes to mind?  When exploring God’s story in Scripture, this comes up a bunch of times.  And when you explore the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 11-50) you encounter God making covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  “I will be your God… I will be with you always… I will bless you and you will bless the nations… you will have as many children as the sand on the shore, the dust on the earth, the stars in the sky…”  

Yet, everywhere you turn in God’s story, there are threats to this promise being fulfilled.  Often it’s human desire to force the issue, to choose another path, to simply avoid the promise, undermine the promise, breaking covenant with God.  And yet, God loves the world, loves people, and remains faithful to his promise through it all.  

This Sunday we will take a look at the life of Jacob and God’s faithfulness to him, and to his covenantal promise.  As we learn more and more about God’s story, we see in God’s story, our story.  We too, are called to faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  

When it comes down to it, we are not much different than Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – same flaws, same waywardness, same manipulations and deceitfulness… we are always grasping for God’s blessing, when we run from God, he will meet us there (cause he’s already there), when we turn away, he calls us back to him, and in repentance we receive reconciliation.  How can this be?  Because God is faithful to his covenant promise even when we are not.

I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and God’s covenant promise is for me!  God’s story is my story,
       Pastor Mark

Genesis: God’s Story: Isaac!

This week we celebrate our fall ministry kickoff with a special outdoor fellowship meal cookout. In Wednesday BBQ style, we will have some burgers and brats going, and encourage bringing a dish to share. We welcome Barb Bulthuis from Crossroads School, and Pastor Paul Jorden will be bringing the message and leading us in communion celebration.

Paul Jorden is a semi-retired pastor from Family in Christ, in Westminster, CO. I say semi-retired because Paul is an active pastor, it’s who he is, engaged in the Gospel and the life of the church continually. So glad to have him with us this week to bring the message from Genesis: God’s Story of Isaac!

Crestview Core will return following the worship service from 10:45am-11:45am on September 27th: God’s Story: Promises, Covenants, Exodus and Law. Public Reading of Scripture every Wednesday in the sanctuary from 7-8pm.

(I’ll See you Next Sunday),
Pastor Mark

Genesis: God’s Story: Abraham

Ready, Set, GO!  This week has been on my radar particularly because Sunday we begin a new message series: God’s Story, Our Story!  We will begin with God’s Story with Abraham in Genesis 12-25, then God’s story with Isaac, Jacob and Joseph… then it’s on to Exodus and Moses, Egypt, the wilderness, ups/downs, twists/turns, from deliverers, to judges, to prophets, priests and kings, captivity, slavery, lions dens and more… God’s plan for Jesus coming is an adventure ride.  But there is no doubt, it’s all pointing to Jesus.    

And here is the beauty of God’s story.  When we understand God’s story, and we can understand God’s story in our story, we will understand our place in God’s story.  So, this is important stuff to know and to engage, it’s all found in God’s story and can be found in Jesus.  And you know what Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.”  So let’s dive in – let’s ask, seek, and knock… and open our hands to receive, be ready to find, and anticipate the door to open.  

Lord, we want to know you and we want to share your love.  So reveal yourself to us in your story, by your power and spirit, open our eyes to see you, our hearts to know you, and our wills to then follow you. AMEN.

It’s not too late to consider joining the growing list of people that will be involved in Crestview Core beginning Sunday following our worship hour, from 10:45-11:45am.  We will journey together this fall in God’s Story/Our Story.  See you Sunday, 

Having fun getting ready.  You want to be more ready?  Review Abraham’s life from God’s story in Genesis 12-25.  What is God doing in Abraham and Sarah?  How are Abraham and Sarah in God’s story? Why Abraham and Sarah?  How is their story (God’s story), our story?    

See you Sunday,

     Pastor Mark 

Life Giving Rhythm: Sabbath

Labor Day Weekend, 2026!  How fitting that this weekend we take a closer look at Sabbath.  Sabbath is a gift, God given, to delight in.  To ignore its practice, to not enter in, I think, is a sin.  A command, an invitation to rest… Do we not trust, God knows what is best?  When we say, “Don’t interrupt me, the flow of my week!”  Is this not a Sabbath slap on the cheek?  STOP!  SHABAT! God speaks and offers me, “Enter in!” Yet, we do not enter in, which I think is a sin?!  Sabbath is a creational rhythm that cannot be denied, only denied to our detriment.  It’s a command, 1 of 10 to be sure… a command that says, “Flourish!” and in God’s SHABAT and SHALOM, “Nourish!”  

So come this holiday weekend to worship the Lord, on SABBATH, in the spirit of SHABAT, in God’s command of SCHEMA, SHALOM!
  

See you Sunday,

     Pastor Mark 

A Community Killer: Gossip

Gossip… born out of curiosity? To know and make known? Did you know… did you hear? I’ve had this message on my mind for many weeks, maybe a year. Research has shown that engaging in gossip is an ‘oxytocin thriller.’ But in reality, it’s a relationship killer. As words of gossip leave our lips it begins to take on a life of its own. Scripture is loaded with instructions about such a thing. Warnings to forsake it, reject it, disengage from it. As we dive into the topic of gossip, may God prepare our hearts for hearing and receiving. For Jesus surely calls us to embrace his ways of love, freeing us from gossip’s prison cell. The truth about gossip is it’s a wound producing well. God calls us to love one another, may gossip be no more. May we find God’s love in loving one another well, and in this well – dwell.

Looking forward to the message this Sunday on gossip… I heard it’s going to be juicy.
See you Sunday,
Pastor Mark

Galatians: Worthy Gospel?  Worthy Messenger?

Crestview Faith Family,

This is our campout weekend at Long Scraggy where some of our peeps will be in Buffalo Creek, CO for the weekend. What that means for me, is Deone and I will be camping with some for the weekend, and also joining others on Sunday am for worship at Crestview. Looking forward to it all! Our focus will be The Heart of Worship, with Psalm 95 as a starting point for our time together. The message will be interactive and you will be invited to participate in bringing the message about worship to life.

What is worship? Can you identify specific ways to worship God? And how do you worship God in your life? The ways of worship are myriad. Can’t wait to engage this with you either Saturday at Long Scraggy or Sunday at Crestview Church.

     Pastor Mark

2 Timothy: Discipleship: When the going gets tough… the tough __________.

Sunday the 16th of August we wrap up our series on 2nd Timothy.  Discipleship takes central place in Paul’s letter to Timothy.  As we have learned from Paul, and continue to learn in following Jesus is that discipleship is more than belief, it’s a lifestyle.  

There is a big difference between Western thought and the Hebrew/Jewish thought about discipleship.  Our Western view emphasizes ‘faith in Jesus’ with making a choice for Jesus by believing a set of beliefs and truths about Jesus with the outcome of ‘going to heaven.’  For the Hebrew/Jewish understanding, belief is only a starting point.  When Jesus says, “Follow me,” belief is the beginning of a journey, a lifestyle transformation.  It’s about following, becoming like the rabbi, walking as Jesus walked.  Instead of getting to heaven (Western) it’s about getting heaven to earth (Hebrew/Jewish).  

When Jesus calls us to discipleship he is calling us to wholistic discipleship.  After all, the greatest command, to “Love the Lord Lord with our whole heart, soul, and strength,” it’s exactly that, with our ‘whole.’  Love is a verb, it’s action, not just belief ascent. To profess “Jesus is Lord,” isn’t a statement of belief as it’s the engagement of a lifestyle transformation.  

So let’s wrap it up with 2nd Timothy, by entering fully into the Hebrew/Jewish understanding of discipleship: Hagah (take it in), Halak (walk it out/live it!), and Hazak (be strong in it.). See you Sunday, communion celebration and fellowship meal enjoyment this Sunday,

     Pastor Mark