Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. There can be many challenges in following Jesus, but one of the strongest for us today is surely the fact that being a Christian will likely cause you to stand out.  To be different.  And not usually in desirable ways!  But we'll see this week that being different is actually a great blessing -- for us and for others!

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. The gospel promises us many things, one of the clearest being a changed life.  But if we're honest, sometimes our lives don't feel very changed; especially when we compare them to others.  Paul wants us to see this week that through our faith in him, Jesus really has changed our lives.  But he wants more than for us to see that; he wants us to believe it! 

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. When you look around at the world, when you look at the circumstances of your life, are you hopeful? Or is it difficult to see any real reasons for hope for you and those around you? This Sunday, the apostle Paul will show us that regardless of any circumstance, any situation, any struggle, we can have hope that never fails.  Why?  Because God's promise to raise us with Jesus defines our future, not our circumstances.

Doug Karst at Fountain City Church takes us through John 14.

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. We close our series this week by looking at Psalm 100 and the practice of Celebration.  In a day like ours, in a time of history like ours, is there anything we can truly celebrate?  Bad news persists, Conflict is everywhere. On Sunday, we'll see that we can celebrate, and we should celebrate regularly, for one big reason: because of who he is and because of his grace for us. 

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. It has been shown that gratitude is a primary indicator for wellbeing.  It is good for us to be grateful in life.  So, where does true gratitude come from?  How can we be grateful and content with our lives?  We'll see this week that a life full of gratitude flows from seeing and believing God for who he is and that he does all he does out of love. 

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. An amazing truth this passage will set before us is how once we've encountered the love of God in Jesus, our lives will not, they cannot, remain the same.  God's love turns our lives into channels of that same love; it begins to pour out from us.

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church.  It can feel like busyness in our lives is a given, but does your busyness ever turn into a constant sense of hurried, frantic, and exhausted?  Do you ever long for rest, but rarely find it?  By exploring the Sabbath, we'll see that busy and tired and stressed is not how God wants us to live out our days.  God wants us to experience genuine and lasting rest, and he wants us to find it in his finished work. 

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. In this passage, Jesus tells a pretty profound thing: when we connect our life with his, he floods us with the source of true, abundant life.  How many of us would love to find the answer to what will satisfy our longings? Or what will give me purpose and meaning?  Or what will provide real help for living my life well? What Jesus wants us to believe is that He wants to do all that and in prayer, we meet with him and receive his help.

Pastor James Cottier, Fountain City Church. In the pages of the Bible, we hear from and meet with the God who alone can tell us who we are, why we're here, where we're going, and why we can have hope.  But more than that, when we engage with the Scriptures, we engage God himself and encounter his abundant grace to us in Jesus.