Gulf Coast Community Church Podcast – St. Petersburg

Nearly anyone who has been the recipient of an inheritance (or should have been) can relate to the man who approached Jesus with the request, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Most people feel either slighted or justified in one way or another in such circumstances.

That there are disputes over inheritances is no surprise. Jesus’ response to this man, however, likely surprises most of us. After his terse response that amounts to “What business of mine is this?” He immediately begins talking about greed—evidently both on the part of the brother who stole the inheritance and on the part of the brother who wants things set right.

In truth, Jesus is talking about a much greater possession or inheritance which people are squandering in their pursuit of what they feel is right. He shows us all the way to this greater inheritance. And it is not just “going to heaven” when you die.

Join us in worship as we continue our series Becoming a Merciful Church: Radical Generosity, exploring Luke 12:13-34.

The book of Acts begins with Luke telling us that his first book (Luke) was about all that Jesus began to do and teach. The implication is clear: Acts is about what Jesus continued to do and teach through His Spirit empowered church.

But what is it, exactly, that they did? What did Jesus do? What did the early church do? We often focus 95% of our energy on what they taught (I made that statistic up!) The early chapters of Acts demonstrate the importance of what they did. And our text this Sunday, Acts 6:1-7, shows the impact of living out the radical generosity of Christ’s kingdom.

Join us in worship as we begin the 3rd component of our larger series A Royal Priesthood – A Holy People, Becoming a Merciful Church.

Text: Matthew 7:13-29

Themes: Spiritual formation, Holy Spirit, Community, Abiding with Jesus. Transformation. Following Jesus.

Summary: We learn from Jesus in the sermon on the mount how we are to live and we see this played out through the rest of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus reveals and leads us in the way of life, forming a new humanity and we must follow His ways to experience the good life he promises. There is a way to live your life that is countercultural but it leads to life and transformation.

What is the bedrock your building your life on?

Text: Acts 2:42-47; Exo. 20:3-6; 1 Pet. 2:8-10

Have you ever been in one of those moments when you wanted to have a spiritual conversation but the only way to bring it up was to awkwardly insert it in an abrupt fashion? Did you want to cringe and hide after that? What if there were a way to have those conversations without all that cringe? What if it left people feeling more loved and cared about?

There are no secrets for making everyone receptive to the Gospel. But there are ways we can learn to listen to people and discern where they are already seeking answers for something the Gospel addresses. While there is no magic button for “winning souls” it is a great way to learn how to love our neighbors while representing King Jesus!

Join us this Sunday as we gather for worship, exploring “Five Magnetic Points of Intersection” that everyone’s story has with the true story of the whole world.

Themes: Evangelism

We live in a fractured world. What can we offer them? Does the church offer a compelling alternative to what the world offers? If so, how so? If not, what needs to change?

As Christians in America in 2024, how we live during this election year might say more about our faith than anything else. That might sound too strong (and maybe it is). However, if followers of Jesus cannot show a compelling alternative to the rancor and venom permeating America’s social conversation why should anyone listen to us?

The mission of God doesn’t stop for election years and we don’t get time-off to follow another king. As a community of disciples, we must demonstrate that we have a higher allegiance—an allegiance to a king who achieved His rule through suffering and laying down his life. What does allegiance to this king look like?

Join us as we explore the hope that we have and how that is relevant to being people of God’s mission.

To become a people of God’s mission, we must be a prophetic people. To be clear, I do not mean by that a people who prophesy (though that might be a legitimate use of the phrase). I mean a church that first sees clearly (the prophets were known as seers—see-ers) the idols of our age and rid our own lives of those idols.

The hardest idols to root out of our lives are those we have reimagined as Christian. Just as the Israelites in the wilderness made a golden calf and named it Yahweh, declaring it had brought them out of Egypt, so believers through the ages have renamed various idols as God or Christian. We must see these for what they are.

The seductive nature of these idols combined with their ability to masquerade as Christian virtue require supernatural discernment. Join us as we explore the idols of our own making as well as the connection between idolatry and mission.

There is often a grave inconsistency in the lives of those who profess faith in the Lord Jesus. This is not unique to the Christian faith. It was certainly a significant factor in Israel’s community in the Old Testament. People today might call it hypocrisy, which indeed it is.

Not hypocrisy in the traditional sense of the word— “professing to be one thing and living as another” —but a deeper hypocrisy. It might be described as “freely receiving an outrageous mercy and not proactively extending it to others.”

So far (and I am almost finished), the word “hypocrisy” has not made it into my sermon. It probably won’t. However, we will be speaking about how God’s redemptive acts toward us must inform our lives. Redemption must lead to redemptive living. We will see how this is a pattern both in the Exodus and in the Cross of the Lord Jesus.

Join us in worship as we continue discovering how we start becoming people of God’s mission.

Text: 1 Cor 10:23-33; Col 3:12-17
Headings:
1. Context Matters
2. Relationships Matter
3. Everything Matters