CrossLife Church

The United States leads the world in prosperity, innovation, abundance, and convenience. Despite our affluence, we are also a world leader in anxiety and fear. Of all the phobias and fears we most often hear labeled there is one in which most people will suffer at some point or another. This common fear is Chronophobia or sometimes called Anticipatory Fear.

Chronos is the Greek word for time and phobia is the word for fear. Chronophobia can be triggered by an individual's fear about a future event, circumstance, or any number of "what if's." "What if I die. What if I fail. What if I get sick or hurt."

Some people will anticipate the worst possible scenarios, so they can be prepared or avoid disappointment. Nonetheless, dwelling on the past leads to anger, guilt, and shame. While dwelling on the future will lead to fear and anxiety. For those who know and follow Jesus. Anticipatory fear should not be an ongoing battle.

In Daniel 2, we find that God alone is the "revealer of mysteries." Not only can we trust God with the unknowns of the future, but God has already revealed enough of the future to shed enough light to comfort His people even in the darkest of times.

This message reminds us how to fight through dark times of anxiety and despair with the light of truth.

One of the greatest challenges for followers of Jesus is knowing how to relate to the world. There are some who claim to follow Jesus and yet their lives are indistinguishable from those in the world who are without Christ. Others try to live as separate and cut off from the world as possible to avoid corrupting influences.

Those whose lives have been changed by Jesus have been called out and delivered from the world. Jesus's followers have also been sent back into the world in search of others who have not yet followed Jesus.

Jesus made it clear that the Kingdom of God was not on defense. Those that are citizens of that Kingdom have been placed on earth, delivered from sin, and sent back into the world for a purpose and with a mission.

As the world gets darker and days grow more evil it becomes even more urgent for believers to learn how to live boldly in an increasingly hostile world.

In Daniel 1:8-20, we can gain some helpful encouragement and insight from the lives of four Jewish teenagers. These young men saw their homes and nation destroyed and were taken far away to live as captives in a completely foreign land.

Why did God send Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and take the Jewish people into captivity? Is God bitter and jealous or loving and kind?

The celebrity Oprah Winfrey claims that the teaching of God as a jealous God is what made her leave Christianity. Once, she recounted the time she heard her pastor in a sermon declare that God is jealous. She says about that moment, “[...] something about that moment didn’t–didn’t feel right in my spirit, because I believed that God is love [...].” 

All throughout the Bible, there are commands to love God and to worship Him. A major example of this is Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Additionally, the Bible has many commands to not worship other false gods or idols; for example, we are told in Exodus 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

But if we really stop to think about these commands, it can often be somewhat bothersome to us. We think to ourselves, “Why would God tell us to worship Him? Isn’t that a little self-centered of Him?” To make things worse, the Bible shows that God doesn’t take it lightly when we fail to comply with these rules; instead, He deals out severe punishments because of it. It can even cause us to think of God as mean, unkind, selfish, insecure, or cruel. Why does God command us to worship and love Him?

We are given the answer in Deuteronomy 4:23-24: “Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord, your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.” We are told in these verses the reason is that God is a jealous God.

Pastor Ray Ortlund describes God’s jealousy this way: “The jealousy of Yahweh is His profoundly intense drive within to protect the interest of His own glory, for He will admit no derogation from His majesty.” Basically, God’s jealousy is His holy devotion for His own glory and fame, which moves Him in pursuit of the worship He rightly deserves from His creatures. 

 “Can we truly love a God who is jealous?”

In this message we consider this question and dig into the heart of worship, and why our responsibility to love and worship God may be one of the greatest blessings that God could offer us.

With each passing year, it becomes increasingly clear that we are in the midst of moral, spiritual, and cultural change in a way we have never experienced before. There are intellectual, moral, and spiritual philosophies that have been slowly growing from subtle influence to mainstream norms. Some have called them worldly-views, as they represent the thinking of worldliness in opposition to godliness.

Wilkens and Sanford have identified "individualism, consumerism, nationalism, moral relativism, scientific naturalism, New Age, postmodern tribalism, and salvation by therapy as the most prominent worldlyviews that, 'because of their stealthy nature,.. find their way behind the church doors, mixed in with Christian ideas and sometimes identified as Christian positions"(Steve Wilkens and Mark L. Sanford, Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our IVP Academic, 2009), 12).

Many who claim to be Christian have become increasingly worldly, while the world has become increasingly intolerant of the views of Biblically faithful Christianity.

How does a follower of Jesus live a Biblically faithful life in the midst of an increasingly hostile world?

The Book of Daniel provides one of the greatest and most compelling answers to that question. The Bible often uses Babylon as synonymous with "the world." Daniel is carried off as a captive to the foreign land of Babylon and immersed in its culture. There he rises to a level of influence that is hard to imagine, while never forsaking His God.

The book of Daniel provides a snapshot of the History of the world from 605 BC to the end of time, from the vantage point of prophecy. This is a series you do not want to miss.

Do You Have a Reason to Rejoice?

Today, laughter and comedy are commodities to be purchased or streamed. Laughter is easily found on YouTube or your social media feed. For most people, reasons to be happy, joyful, or rejoicing are a struggle to find and difficult to maintain.

Unfortunately, the internet has not yet presented an option for filtering out the many reasons for discouragement, fear, and anxiety. In order to escape the constant barrage of bad news and hype people often live in denial or battle with disillusionment.

The Advent+Christmas season can provide a much-needed distraction from the busyness and negativity of everyday life, but that is just another temporary fix. Within the birth narrative of Luke's account of the events preceding Jesus's birth, we find a deeper cause for rejoicing.

In Luke 1:26-56, we find the record of Mary, a young virgin girl, discovering God had shown mercy and favor upon her, appointing her to be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. Mary's response wasn't temporal happiness, but a deep soul-satisfying joy! Mary was so overwhelmed at God's mercy upon her and upon her people that she broke out in spontaneous song of praise.

If you struggle to find reasons to rejoice, join us this Sunday. The reasons for the soul-satisfying joy Mary experienced are still available for you.

Experiencing GOD

Have you ever experienced God? Many people have had spiritual experiences. Spiritual experiences have been felt by people around the world in many cultures, times, and places. Among those who have a Christian background, there are many who would testify of sensing God's presence. But, is that the same thing as experiencing God.

The historical Biblical account of the events surrounding Christmas are all about the reality of "Experiencing God."

Last Sunday, we were reminded of the desperation of the Jewish people as they struggled under the oppression of Roman and Herod their evil King. Additionally, there was the priestly couple Zechariah and Elizabeth, who had faithfully served God and yet struggled to understand why God had never blessed them with a child in their younger days. Why had God not intervened?

When you feel God is silent and not listening know that God hears and God is at work. He may not be working the way you want or the speed you may want, but He has a purpose and a plan that will not fail.

What God wills, He will accomplish on earth just as it is in heaven. And it will be for your greatest good and His greatest glory.

This Sunday, we will explore Zechariah's encounter with God and His messenger. Within these verses we find some helpful insights on how to experience God.

When one considers the many ways God works, reveals, and speaks through the Bible, it is easy to grow concerned that in our present times God seems suspiciously silent. With each new day, it seems the world is rapidly spinning into greater chaos and disorder.

The feeling that God seems silent and absent is a common tension throughout the Bible. For generations, God’s people watch and wait for God’s deliverance.

Learning to see God at work in the midst of what we perceive as silence is an important part of growing and maturing as a follower of Jesus. As Chuck Swindoll explains, “God’s silence doesn’t mean His absence. Silence is God’s call for you to grow deeper.”

One of the best places to learn from God’s people, waiting in the midst of desperation and silence, is the birth narratives. This Sunday, we will begin an Advent Series from Luke’s careful account. In Luke 1:5-25, we find God breaking 400 years of silence to speak to old priest Zacharias who would become the father of John the Baptist.

If you are struggling to "see" God at work when He seems silent, you don't want to miss this message.

The heavenly aroma still hangs in the house. The smells of the season, turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables, pumpkin pie might linger but by this weekend there will not be a morsel of the greatest dinner we partake in each year left. Oh, if we could make your Thanksgiving last forever! But maybe we can.

Come and join us this Sunday to find out the recipe to “How to make your thanksgiving last forever” as we listen, hear, and obey the precepts and principles prepared for us in 1 Chronicles 16.
Come hunger!

Give Thanks!

Thanksgiving Day receives something of a token acknowledgment as far as holidays are concerned. It is almost completely bypassed in stores as the transition is made from Halloween to Christmas décor. The following day, Black Friday consumes much more advertising and time of planning and commitment by many. The day itself has largely become occasions for family and friends to gather for parades and football on television, grand feasts, with a turkey and the appropriate trimmings, all of which are good things we can enjoy in this life. But what is so often forgotten in the activities of all these things is a time of genuine expressions of thanks to the living and true God as He is seen in Scripture.

We should not be surprised that a society that has very little knowledge of God would have no sense of gratitude to One whose very existence they may even question. Who exactly do self-sufficient and self-reliant people offer gratitude and thanks?

Sadly, there is a parallel between the world and the people of God, who too infrequently offer expressions of thanks to God for the many blessings received daily. If there is one group who should be leading the way in the regular offering of thanks to God, it is those who have become his people by trusting in Jesus Christ.

Psalm 107 is a call to thanksgiving (the act, not the day), reminding us of the many reasons it should be the normal, routine practice of the grace-filled heart. Come this Sunday ready to receive instruction and exhortation from this Psalm, and willing to be renewed in our commitment to the giving of thanks to our God in our daily lives.