Life on the West Side

The Spirit is implanted within us, yet we are called to "receive" the Spirit. Having God's Spirit is a wonderful truth! But what if we resist the Spirit? What if we choose not to yield ourselves to the Spirit's will? The Spirit wishes to work within us, to accomplish God's will in changing us and using us. Our calling is to accept God's lead and to stop resisting the Spirit within us.

The sermon today is titled "Power: The Spirit Works In You." It is the second installment in our "This Present Strength" Series. The Scripture reading is from Romans 8:1-11.  Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on September 4, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Faithful Presence.

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I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

Jesus promised to plunge his people in the Spirit. And Paul said the Spirit now lives in every believer. What if we believed that every Christian has been totally immersed, totally plunged into the living, active, powerful, Holy Spirit of God? With access to his presence, power, and the fruit of God’s kingdom He produces? That would change a person, wouldn’t it?

The sermon today is titled "Presence: The Spirit Lives In You." It is the first installment in our "This Present Strength" Series. The Scripture reading is from Luke 3:15-16 and Romans 8:9.  Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on August 28, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Faithful Presence.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

Your Life Can Be Different. When the Lord comes back, we will be changed. I believe that, and you do too. But standing there in the shadow of her brother’s grave, Martha needed to hear of a more immediate hope. In their short exchange, Jesus assures Martha that “even now” change can happen. Because she is not just standing in the valley of the shadow of death; she is standing in the shadow of Jesus, the same Jesus who calls into existence things that were not and now are; the same God who uphold the world by his power, who spoke life into existence, and shaped humanity with his own hands before breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. The same Jesus who now lives in all who call upon him as Lord and Savior; all who have accepted the Spirit of God and the forgiveness of sins in their surrender. All who died to themselves and buried their bodies in the baptismal grave. All who have chosen to die. Even now, says Jesus, I can bring life from the dead. Real life. Abundant life. And for the first time, you can begin to truly live. Jesus actually, truly, really, raised a dead man back to life again on that day (graveclothes and all); but to you and me he is echoing something deeper and better. Because physically dead men raised to physical life again will still die again. But I’m talking about eternal life—as Jesus says, “those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Transforms." It is the last installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from 1 Corinthians 15:50-54 and 2 Corinthians 5:17-19. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on October 16, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

The Upper Room prefigures the story of the cross. Jesus, the sacrificial servant, who strips down and offers his body and blood to a man who will deny him and another who will betray him. And he calls us to see him as our Lord. What love.

It was St. Athanasius who said the cross was the only form of death he knew where you did with arms outstretched. See the cross as the story of a God who looks at you as he stretches his arms upon the cross and declares, “Want to know how much I love you? I love you this much."

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Is Self Sacrificing." It is the eighth installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from John 13:1-17 and Romans 5:5-10. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on October 9, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

Deep down, we want a God who is Holy. If God believes in goodness, kindness, generosity, and peace, then he must hate evil, stinginess, mean-spiritedness, oppression, and animosity. You can’t be for something without being against its opposite. A God who could care less about sin, evil, and corruption is no God at all—powerless against darkness—and can never be trusted to mold us into people after His image. How could he be a God who makes righteous judgments if he allows unrighteousness to flourish?

 In short, if there is a God—who truly loves us—he must not only be generous and kind; he must also be a consuming fire. 

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Is Holy." It is the seventh installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from Isaiah 6:1-4. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on October 2, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

Don’t you love a good dinner table? Table is where you tell stories; it's where you share stories. And who you eat with tells me a lot about your story.

 The self-righteous and well-to-do tried to think up the worst thing they could say about Jesus. And here is what they came up with: “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). 

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Welcomes." It is the sixth installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from Luke 15:2, 11-32. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on September 25, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

God is a seeker. He seeks his saved bride, like a lover who never stops serving. He seeks the lost who know they are in need of being found. And He even seeks the betrayer, who defiantly lives without Him, because He refuses to give up on the One His soul loves.

You find me, I dare you, any such parallel story in all the great world religions. At the moment of the betrayal, Jesus called Judas “friend.” The same Peter who denied even knowing Jesus within eyesight of the man in his time of trial, he was invited to breakfast, and given a calling by the man He betrayed. My God is a lover who remains a lover. He pursues his bride when she is safe in his arms; he pursues his children who wander and know they need his rescue; and he pursues those who have scorned him, and don’t even know how much they need him…he looks for ways to make himself known again, because he can’t stop pursuing the one his soul loves.

 And that’s you. That’s you.

 Isn’t this our God? He’s not the God who is always angry with you. He’s not the God who abandons you. He’s not the God who only loves you when you please him. He’s a lover who will fight for every single person made in His image, who will fight for his bride, and who will run after every lost soul—even you. Even you.

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Seeks." It is the fifth installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from Hosea 2:13-14. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on September 18, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

What do you do when you don’t feel like you have enough? Life begins to look like what happens in musical chairs when the music ends. People begin to live from a condition of scarcity. Living from paycheck to paycheck is hard enough; but when you have no idea when—or if—your job will start up again, it can be sheer panic.  

That’s not only true when it comes to money. What does it look like spiritually to live from a condition of scarcity? It makes it very hard to love others, or even love yourself, when love seems so scarce. It means forgiveness is scarce; acceptance is scarce.  When you think what you have is yours, and is about to be taken away, we grab and claw, with tooth, nail, and pitchforks. It’s defense all around. And its winner take all.

But how would we be different—how relaxed would we feel, how open would we be, if we didn’t operate from a condition of scarcity, but rather, from great abundance? What if we had more than we could possibly imagine, and an ever-flowing stream with bread enough and to spare? What if we saw people in terms of God’s greatest hopes rather than our worst fears; what would it look like to be the people of unlimited generosity?

It would look like the kingdom of God.

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Is Generous." It is the fourth installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from Jonah 3:9-4:4.  Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on September 11, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

Revelation says our Lord is faithful and true. When philosophers talk about God, two overall characteristics are named immediately: God knows everything, and He can do anything. But that description is incomplete. When you hear God has all knowledge, that can scare you—like someone out there has your FBI file. When you hear God has all power, it can frighten you—like someone can always overcome your strengths by producing your kryptonite. This description of God says nothing about what such a God would do with all that knowledge and power. Talking about God as “all knowing” and “all powerful” makes for a fun debate with atheists but left alone they can (at best) cause you to cower before Him. But the God of the Bible—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God I see in the face of Jesus Christ—is a God worth loving and trusting.

So what makes God not only powerful but worthy of our trust? It’s his goodness.

God filters everything through his goodness lens. Our father has no evil intentions. That means that whatever He sends our way comes to us from a God who knows all, can do all, and filters every decision through his complete and total goodness. If he knows about it, he knows it so he can help you with it and bring goodness from it. There is no better guarantee in all the earth.

“Trust me, my child,” our Father says to us.

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Is Trustworthy." It is the third installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from Nehemiah 9:6-33. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on September 4, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack

What is “goodness”? When we say, “God is good,” what do we mean by that? The problem with the word “goodness” in English is that the word can mean whatever you want it to mean. Think of all the ways we use the word “good.” Is a good horse one that runs really fast or one that will walk slowly? Well, it depends on whether we mean one in the wild doing what it was made to do or one in the stable doing what it was trained to do. A good knife is one that cuts well. But if it cuts me when I don’t want it to, I say “bad knife!” So, think of this word “good.” Do we mean God is a silly, ignorant people-pleaser who only gives you what you want rather than what you need? Of course not. Ask any parent, and they will tell you: giving your children what they want rather than what they need is not good. Does it mean he will never hurt us? I love this line from C. S. Lewis. Someone said, “If God is all good, then that rules out any possibility that what he gives us will hurt.” And Lewis replied, “then I guess you’ve never been to the dentist!” 

It has to mean something, and it has to mean something bigger and more comprehensive than what we want in our little worlds on any particular occasion. So, let’s let the Bible give us a weighty definition. Try this on for size: goodness is where justice and mercy meet.

The sermon today is titled "The God Who Is Good." It is the second installment in our "Good and Beautiful God" Series. The Scripture reading is from Exodus 33:18-19. Originally preached at the West Side Church of Christ (Searcy, AR) on August 28, 2022. All lessons fit under one of 5 broad categories: Begin, Discover, Grow, Learn, and Serve. This sermon is filed under Begin: A Good God.

Click here if you would like to watch the sermon or read a transcript.

I'd love to connect with you!

• Watch sermons and find transcripts at nathanguy.com.
• Follow along each Sunday through YouTube livestream and find a study guide and even kids notes on the sermon notes page.
• Follow me @nathanpguy (facebook/instagram/twitter/tiktok)
• Subscribe to my email newsletter on substack.

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In partnership with:

• West Side Church of Christ
• Life on the West Side: Nathan's Weekly Substack