Gulf Coast Community Church Podcast – St. Petersburg

Just two days after the horrific Charleston church shooting (2015), grieving family members stood before their loved ones’ murderer and spoke words of forgiveness. They did not deny their pain. They did not deny his evil. But they offered forgiveness.

They gave the world a gift that day.We live in a world that knows how to expose evil and punish evil – but often has no idea what to do after that.What if one of the greatest gifts the Church can offer the world is a model of forgiveness? Not the kind that ignores evil or pretends it never happened, but the kind that is learned at the Cross.Join us this Sunday as we continue our Cultivating Forgiveness series and discover how the Cross teaches us what forgiveness really looks like.

Has the cross changed more than your eternity?

Has it changed the way you think about justice... mercy... and forgiveness?

Most of us assume forgiveness means overlooking wrongs or pretending everything is okay. But Scripture paints a far richer—and far more demanding—picture. The cross doesn't abolish justice; it transforms it for those who have received God's grace.

This Sunday we begin a new series, Cultivating Forgiveness, by exploring a foundational question: What does it mean to forgive as a Christian?

Join us as we discover why forgiveness is hard, why it is rooted in grace, and why it is necessary for everyone who has been forgiven.

📍 Gulf Coast Community Church

555 76th Avenue North Saint Petersburg FL

gulfcoast.community

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Every kingdom has an economy.

The way people spend, save, and share reveals what they believe about the one they serve.Jesus announced the arrival of God's kingdom—not simply to change where people go after they die, but to create a new kind of community whose life together bears witness that He is King.This Sunday we'll explore Malachi 3:7–12 and discover that God's concern has never simply been raising money. His concern is forming a people whose generosity proclaims justice, mercy, and the reign of King Jesus.Join us this Sunday in worship as we finish our Cultivating Generosity series with "Kingdom Economy."

Why do Luke and Acts, which proclaim liberty to the captives, end with Paul in captivity?

In Paul's farewell to the Ephesian elders, we discover that the Church has been entrusted with something far greater than a message to believe. We have been entrusted with a way of life.

We'll explore:
The Word: What does it mean to be entrusted to "the word of His grace"?The Way: Why did Jesus say it is more blessed to give than to receive?The Witness: How can a captive Paul reveal the freedom of the Gospel?
The broken Christ still exposes our idols, calls us to take up our cross, and invites us into the surprising joy of a Jubilee life.

Join us this morning at 10:00 AM as we conclude our Cultivating Generosity: Becoming a Jubilee Community series and consider what it means to follow Jesus on the road to the cross.

Why Did the Gospel Start Riots?

It wasn't because the early Christians were looking for trouble.

It was because they proclaimed a new King, formed a new kind of community, and lived by a radically different economy. When people began believing that Jesus – not Caesar, not wealth, not status – was Lord, the old world pushed back.

This Sunday we'll continue our Cultivating Generosity series in Acts 17–19 as we explore how the Gospel creates a new world that threatens the old.

Together we'll ask:
What stories about the world are we believing?Has Jesus really become King over every area of our lives?What would it look like for our church to embody such generosity that our city noticed?Join us this morning at 10:00 as we continue discovering what it means to become a Jubilee community.

Paul's journey to Macedonia (Acts 16:6-40) begins with an unexpected vision: "Come over and help us." But who is really crying out for help?

A wealthy businesswoman? A trafficked slave girl? A Roman jailer?King Jesus' Jubilee comes to every corner of society—but it doesn't come without cost. As people are set free, others willingly bear suffering so that life might reach them.We live in a world filled with cries for help. Do we have ears to hear them, hearts disturbed enough to care, and faith to follow where the Spirit leads?Join us in worship this Sunday at 10:00 a.m. and discover how Christ still forms His people to bring His Jubilee to a hurting world.

📍 Gulf Coast Community Church

555 76th Avenue North Saint Petersburg FL

gulfcoast.community

🎧 Watch and listen to more sermons here

gulfcoast.community/resources

🎧 Listen now on Spotify or Apple

▶️ Watch on YouTube and be challenged to love in a way that makes Jesus visible to the world.

Subscribe and share this message of hope.

Follow us for more sermons:

🌐 gulfcoast.community

📍Instagram & Facebook: @gulfcoastchurch

When we interpret God's faithfulness through our wilderness instead of interpreting our wilderness through God's faithfulness, grumbling becomes inevitable.

📍 Gulf Coast Community Church

555 76th Avenue North Saint Petersburg FL

gulfcoast.community

🎧 Watch and listen to more sermons here

gulfcoast.community/resources

🎧 Listen now on Spotify or Apple

▶️ Watch on YouTube and be challenged to love in a way that makes Jesus visible to the world.

Subscribe and share this message of hope.

Follow us for more sermons:

🌐 gulfcoast.community

📍Instagram & Facebook: @gulfcoastchurch

Not all opposition is a sign that something has gone wrong. Sometimes it is evidence that God's kingdom is advancing. A gospel that doesn’t threaten the status quo is probably not proclaiming the reign of a new King.

In Acts 13–14, Paul and Barnabas proclaim Jesus as King, and the result is escalating resistance. They are mocked, expelled, pursued, and even stoned. Yet every attempt to stop the Gospel only carries it farther. The old kingdom resists, but it is no longer the true government of the world.Join us Sunday as we consider why, where Christ is proclaimed, Jubilee is decreed... and where Jubilee is decreed, opposition arises.

Distorted Jubilee | Galatians 5:1
What does it mean to truly live in the freedom Christ purchased for us?
In Galatians 5:1, Paul declares:

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free."
Y
et many Christians find themselves pulled back into old forms of bondage. Some return to legalism and performance, trying to earn what Jesus has already secured. Others drift back into the patterns of the flesh, finding comfort in old habits, sins, and ways of thinking. Still others allow fear, social pressure, and division to distort the unity Christ created.
In this message, Samuel explores how the churches of Galatia faced these same temptations and how Paul's words still challenge us today.

📖 In this sermon:
• The danger of spiritual recidivism and returning to old bondage

• Peter's compromise and the threat of social pressure

• Why legalism can never save or justify us

• The difference between freedom and self indulgence

• Walking by the Spirit instead of the flesh

• Christ's work of redemption and true Jubilee freedom

• How a Jubilee community reflects the freedom of Jesus
Whether you struggle with performance, people pleasing, legalism, addiction, fear, or old patterns of sin, this message points us back to the freedom found in Christ alone.

📍 Gulf Coast Community Church

555 76th Avenue North

St. Petersburg, FL

🌐 Visit us online: https://gulfcoast.community

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https://gulfcoast.community/resources

One kingdom runs on power, control, scarcity, and the praise of men.

The other runs on generosity, shared lives, and the Jubilee reign of Jesus.In Acts 11–12, Luke places these two kingdoms side by side. One is represented by Herod's throne. The other by a weak but praying church, a generous community, and a prisoner who walks free.Join us this Sunday in worship as we continue Cultivating Generosity: Becoming a Jubilee Community and explore what happens when the kingdom of Jesus collides with the kingdoms of this world.