Fountain City KC

It may be a bit simplistic, maybe a little cliche, but isn't it true to say that life is messy?  Where we like things clear, neat, tidy, smooth, so much of everyday life is confusing, disorganized, missing expectations.  None of us like the mess, but we especially don't like it when it's our fault.  Is there much worse than when you do something foolish or boneheaded and make a mess of things.  Not just like you lost your car keys, but something with serious consequences – life-altering and unwanted.  From this passage, we'll explore the good news of why we can have hope in the midst of our mistakes, even the big ones: no mistake is too big for God's grace to redeem.

Sometimes the most difficult stories can lead us to the most powerful truths.  This account of a man named Achan is one of those stories.  Achan was a man who carried something we all can understand: a mistake, a failure, that he kept hidden.  Psychologists tell us that shameful secrets and unspoken guilt do incredible damage to our whole person.  But how could we ever bring what is in the dark, bring what is hidden, out into the open?  Through Achan's story, we will see how our gracious and redeeming God can turn our deepest troubles into a door of hope. 

A word in our cultural moment that describes a goal or desire we all share is success.  It's a word that captures so many things: accomplishment, victory, fruitfulness.  When we plan out our lives, we envision success.  When we come up against challenges, we long for success.   But what is true success?  And how can we attain it?  Even though the word itself doesn't appear much in the Bible, the theme of, the essence of it is everywhere.  In this well-known story of the Israelites and the city of Jericho, at the center of it is a struggle, a campaign, and the hope for victory or success.  Through this story, God wants to show us that He wants to give us true success in our lives.  The catch?  We have to keep in step with Him.

Promises are made to us all the time. Direct and indirect. Promises of what will make us happy, successful, safe. Promises from advertisements, influencers, politicians. God is also a promise maker. Do you know his promises? And more importantly, how can you know you've his promises yours?  How can you have confidence – live with confidence – that you now and always will possess what God has promised? This Sunday we will press into what God's promises are and how you can walk in them everyday. 

No matter the century we live in, we all experience challenges in life. We all experience life as a kind of journey that we can't control or foresee. One of the recurring themes of journeys is the suspense of how are we going to make it? What God showed the ancient Israelites in the book of Joshua, He also wants to show us. The way through this life, the way to where we want to go, can be reached by following only one way: trusting and remembering that Jesus alone is our deliverer.

There is one God at the center of the entire Bible and in our passage this week He reveals the expanse of his grace. While we may know of God's redemption, a question that can bother us, is who is welcome to His grace; who does God invite to receive His love and salvation? Through this amazing story of a woman named Rahab, we'll see the answer is anyone who responds to Him with faith.

A reality that all of us face as we follow Jesus is that faith and obedience are incredibly hard. One of the most powerful reasons for that is fear. When Jesus calls us to follow him in the day-to-day details of our lives we don't know how things will turn out. Faithful obedience calls for surrendering our will to God's. This Sunday, we will see that as we follow after Jesus with faith-filled obedience, courage will rise as we set our hearts on his never-ending promises, protection, and presence.

From time to time, a question we all ask about our lives is, why are we here? Why do we exist? As we pull out of the summer months and head back toward more regular rhythms, this time presents us with as good a time as any to reflect on these questions and seek the Lord's direction. In Ephesians 4, we'll see that our meaning and existence are grounded in a new life, a new way of living, and a purpose that transcends anything we can see today.

One of the more loaded or charged topics in our cultural moment is children. How should we view children, think about children, what should be our aim for the children we have? It can feel like there is an ever-widening set of extremes to answer our questions. As we close our time in the book of Proverbs, God will not only give us wisdom regarding children, but also draw us nearer to His heart as His own children.