Who are you, and where do you get your identity? In this episode, we’ll find where we can get the greatest identity we can ever have.    In this conversation, Pastor Philip and Pastor Eric discuss how to diagnose our own identity traps by mapping our hearts. We’ll discover a way to determine who we are, how we’re wired, and how we can stay on track with our God-given identity.    They address key questions from the sermon, including:    1) How would you define identity?  (1:39)   2) Why is talking about an identity important? Can't we just repent, believe, and move on? (4:30)   3) Is it wrong to want significance, security, and satisfaction? (9:50)    4) What is the right way to pursue them? (11:45)   5) Is there hope for getting these three things in the right way while on earth? (15:23)   6) What’s the first step we can take for moving towards our true identity? (21:05)   A graphic map of our hearts used in the sermon is available at: https://moodyaudiobucket.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/audios/2023/01/05143926/Mapping-Our-Hearts-scaled.jpg   To watch the sermon for this episode, visit https://youtu.be/brEuXtdLO4I   Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to [email protected]. 

Away from the manger...our little Lord fled. The Christmas holiday holds such incredible beauty, but the original story is also filled with deep brokenness. How can we reconcile these two competing themes?   In this conversation, Pastor Philip and Pastor Eric discuss the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and how that event can help us deal with post-Christmas letdown. They address key questions from the sermon, including:    1) What does Jesus’ exile to Egypt teach us today? (5:11)   2) How should this truth affect us who may live a life of relative ease? (9:13)   3) Jesus was despised. How we think of family and friends who think we're backwards and simple for being a Christian? (15:20)   4) How does this passage help us to cope with Christmas letdown? (20:14)   Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]   For more information about The Moody Church, visit: https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new

Who are the wise men, and how do we seek and follow God without a star to guide us?

In this conversation, Pastor Philip and Pastor Eric discuss the lessons of the three kings from Matthew 2. We also discuss important questions from the sermon including:

1. Why is cultural context so important? (1:45)
2. Is God still working today like that He was in the prophecies of the Old Testament? (8:45)
3. How should we be seeking an invisible God today? (12:50)
4. How should we follow God’s leading in our lives? (17:14)
5. How do we live a life of listening, welcoming, and seeking? (22:30)
6. For people who are seeking God, what does it mean if God appears to remain hidden to them? (26:00)
7. Is Jesus seeking the lost, even if He knows their hearts aren't open? (28:47)
8. How should God's character—knowable, findable, receivable—impact how we approach evangelism? (30:40)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/99Zj1iI6nLA

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

 

When your dreams are shattered, how do you pick them up and give them to God?

Joseph is a Bible character that doesn’t get a lot of attention in the Christmas story, but his courageous choices deserve high honor. In this conversation, we discuss how Joseph and Mary gave God their shattered dreams and found new hope for their future. We also discuss questions from the sermon, including:

1. How would Joseph have understood the reference to the Holy Spirit in verse 20? (3:57)
2. How do we give God our mess? (7:32)
3. What’s the difference between trust, apathy, and avoidance? (11:30)
4. How would Mary and Joseph been treated by their community? (16:10)
5. What steps should someone take if their dreams are shattered? How do we give God our unknowns? (20:58)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/Cj7wsdHaefw

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

For more information about The Moody Church, visit: https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new

What do Taylor Swift, Herod, Spider Man, and the genealogy of Jesus all have in common?

In this conversation, Pastor Philip and Pastor Eric discuss Matthew's genealogy of Jesus and how to live out lessons from this unique historical time line. They address key questions from the sermon, including:

1. How accurate is the genealogy timeline? Were any generations skipped over? (2:52)
2. Who is your favorite super hero? And why do we love super heroes so much? (8:29)
3. We all want to be the hero in our story, but always come up short of expectations. What should we do when we realize that we're not super heroes? (12:00)
4. Why does our culture root for the anti-hero? (15:55)
5. In an anti-hero culture, how do we help people to see the beauty of a real hero? (20:25)
6. Would Jesus be a better hero if he didn’t have to die? (25:10)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/D9hXivAT_j8

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

For more information about The Moody Church, visit: https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new

Just like Jonah, God has sent you to your city. How do you share the heart of God for your city?

In this conversation, Pastor Philip and Pastor Eric discuss big takeaways from the Book of Jonah. The core message of Jonah is about cultivating a heart for people who are far from God. God showed Jonah His love for the city of Nineveh, and he wanted Jonah to have a heart like that too.

There are six major takeaways (3 Do's and 3 Don'ts) for us to develop a heart for our own city:

1. Don’t run the other way. (5:40)
2. Don’t call down condemnation. (10:16)
3. Don’t make it “Us vs Them.” (16:04)
4. Do serve with sacrificial love. (19:54)
5. Do speak grace and truth. (23:35)
6. Do keep the Gospel central. (26:43)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/WRNPG5CW0BU

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

For more information about The Moody Church, visit: https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new

Nineveh greatly needed God’s forgiveness. What if we’re more like Nineveh than we realize?

In this conversation, Pastors Philip and Eric discuss Jonah 3 and the topic of repentance. They answer important questions from the sermon, including:

1. In what ways are we like Nineveh? (2:45)
2. What’s the difference between repentance, sorrow, and fear? (9:02)
3. Why would the king of Nineveh have herds/beasts also wear sackcloth and fast? Is it because the image of such creatures also represented their other (false) gods? (13:48)
4. What’s the difference between an individual’s and a community’s repentance? (17:34)
5. What lies do we tell ourselves that keep us from repenting? (27:10)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/2WMJengDPoQ

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

Have you ever felt far from God, distressed and overwhelmed? The story of Jonah teaches us how we can find our way back to God.

In this conversation, Pastors Philip and Eric relate Jonah's distress in the belly of the fish to our need for redemption today. Key questions include:

1. How can distress feed our faith? (1:42)
2. How does scripture help us anchor our soul? (5:23)
3. Why does Jonah say that he expect to see God in the temple? (8:38)
4. How do we make idols out of good things? (12:22)
5. How do we know if we’ve put our idols above God? (18:12)
6. How can we pray, like Jonah, that "Thanksgiving, sacrifice, and salvation belongs to the Lord"? (20:10)
7. If we've been running away from God, how do we yield and rededicate ourselves to the Lord? (22:44)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/MWJ89RtNgGA

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

For more information about The Moody Church, visit: https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new

Like Jonah, we all experience storms in our lives. How do we know if the storm is God trying to get our attention?

In this conversation, Pastors Philip and Eric continue the discussion of our series through the Book of Jonah. We'll see that grace is holding out hope in God's call to come home.

They cover key questions from the most recent sermon, including:

1. Why was Jonah sleeping in the boat during the storm? (1:00)
2. How do we know if we are ignoring God like Jonah did in this passage? (4:03)
3. How do we know if a storm is intended to get our attention, or if it’s just a part of normal life? (7:18)
4. How do we avoid a karma-like mindset? (10:30)
5. What if the sin in your life doesn’t lead to a storm? (13:53)
6. How do you help others see the storm in their lives? (19:56)

Watch the sermon for this episode at: https://youtu.be/_5Z8p7kYvMQ

Questions for Living the Message can be emailed to: [email protected]

For more information about The Moody Church, visit: https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new

Thousands of years ago, the prophet Jonah was sent by God to a a nation that didn't deserve a second chance. Jonah is a story that is often misunderstood and misread, but it holds some incredible truths for our lives today.

In this conversation, Pastors Philip and Eric discuss our new series, Relentless, where we explore God's unrelenting grace for undeserving people. They address some important questions from the sermon, including:

1. Why would God send Jonah to Nineveh? And why then? (1:45)
2. Is the culture today irredeemable? (5:45)
3. How can we grow in awareness of our prejudices? (9:35)
4. Jonah’s a prophet. How did he think he could run from God? Do we do this and not realize it? (13:30)
5. How do we know if God is calling us to something and we're running away? (20:33)

Watch the sermon for this episode: https://youtu.be/0vPeiNRNv6Q

For more information about The Moody Church visit, https://www.moodychurch.org/im-new.

Questions for Living the Message can be sent to [email protected].