Mercy Hill

In Acts 11, disciples of Jesus who fled persecution in Jerusalem, share the good news of Jesus with people in a city called Antioch. This is groundbreaking! Now the good news of Jesus is spreading to non-Jews far outside of Jerusalem. Listen in as we see how God uses unexpected ways to further his kingdom.

The beginning of the book of Acts is a whirlwind. While a crowd of people are in town for a festival called Pentecost, the Holy Spirit begins to work and the group of disciples grows from 120 to over 3000 in a single day . What do you do when your church grows that drastically? Luke records for us exactly what the first church did in Acts 2:42-47.

Can you look back on a moment in your life that you now know changed everything? Maybe it was meeting your spouse, choosing a college, or changing jobs. The events of Acts 2 are such a moment. But this moment has implications greater than we could imagine - it was a moment had echoes in the past, in the Apostles’ present, and in our time as well. 

In 2024 we’ve been reading through the big picture story of the Bible. We’ve now arrived at Jesus’s resurrection in Luke 24 and now we are getting to the center point of the story. Or maybe the better way to say it is: the resurrection is like a key that unlocks the entire story of the Scripture. It effects every part of the story. The resurrection helps us see what this story has actually been about the entire time.

But there’s more! The claim of the Scripture is that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is also the key to unlocking the meaning of our own lives. This story we’ve been reading actually has massive implications in our everyday lives. I’d love for you to join us this Sunday as we see how Jesus’s resurrection helps us understand the Bible and, more importantly, understand our own lives.

In his account of Jesus’s crucifixion, Luke includes a variety of other characters, from government officials to religious leaders to Jesus’s disciples to a couple of criminals who were crucified with Jesus. Some of these characters are depicted as weak, some as cowardly, some as wicked, some as self-righteous, and some as sorrowful.

But, one character stands out. A thief, who was crucified next to Jesus, seems to see clearly exactly who Jesus is, despite the circumstances, and this man asks Jesus to save him.

Have you ever felt a disconnect with another person? You know them, you’ve been around them, but for some reason things just don’t click. For many of us our relationship with Jesus can feel the same way. We know who Jesus is, we read about Him in the Bible, and we go to church, but at times the relationship feels distant or disconnected.

Over the past few weeks as we’ve read the New Testament accounts of His life, Jesus identifies Himself in many different ways; the True King, the Beloved Son, and the Bread of Life. In John 15, Jesus calls Himself the Vine, and He uses that metaphor to explain how He is connected to us and how He connects with us. 

Have you ever had a conversation and felt like the other person kept missing the point? Conversations with someone who is continually focusing on the wrong thing can be hard, and it can be incredibly frustrating to repeat over and over: “No, you’re missing the point.”

In John 6, Jesus miraculously feeds a massive crowd with only five loaves of bread and two small fish. But, when the crowd tracks Jesus down the following day, it becomes clear that they completely missed the point that Jesus was trying to make. He intended the miracle to show the crowd something significant about himself, but they were focusing on the free food. Jesus is the one saying: “No, you’re missing the point.”

Join us as we read through John 3, and learn about God's immense love for us.

This past Sunday we saw the arrival of the true king, Jesus. After Jesus began his public ministry with an announcement of good news, we see him do something strange; He wanders into the desert for forty days. If the kingdom of God is “at hand” (Mark 1:15), why would Jesus leave to go into the wilderness? And what happens while he’s there?

Join us this week as we examine Jesus response to Satan tempting him in the wilderness.

This Sunday we began the next chapter of the storyline of Scripture with the arrival of the true king, Jesus. Jesus begins his public ministry with an announcement of good news. He says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand…” (Mark 1:15). By “at hand,” Jesus means that God’s kingdom is here. It has arrived. What exactly is God’s kingdom? How does it “arrive”? And how is the arrival of the kingdom good news for us?