We began our Lenten series on the Sermon on the Mount last week with a look at the beatitudes. Jesus lists 8 characteristics of his disciples. Last week we covered the first four. This week we’ll look at the other half. How does Jesus expect his disciples to interact with the rest of the world? What kind of influence are we supposed to have? These questions are just as important today as they were in the first century.

Wednesday began one of the most important seasons in the church year, the season of Lent. This year during the Lenten season, we will be studying the Sermon on the Mount in worship. We begin this week with a look at the first 4 beatitudes."Blessed are the ______." What does that mean for us today? What is the point Jesus is making with the beatitudes? We will look at what it means to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek and to hunger and thirst for righteousness.Jesus' sermon seems as radical and counter cultural today as it did when he first preached it. We begin our look at the Sermon on the Mount this week.

This week, we close out the first series of the year with a look at the core practice that is the foundation of all the rest and a look at where we stand after an eventful year in 2019 and a great start to 2020. God is doing some great things at Masonboro. We'll celebrate some of those things and look ahead at even greater things to come.

It’s pretty common in Paul’s epistles to witness Paul defending the church against false teachers. Heresies are almost as old as the church itself. We’re looking at 1 Timothy 6 this week and we’ll see Paul dealing with heretical teaching that is still very much alive and well today. There are some temptations that remain just as powerful in the 21st century as they were in the 1st.

The apostle Matthew writes the account of his own conversion and it's an interesting one. Matthew was a pretty bad guy when Jesus called him. His story teaches us a lesson about how we are to welcome others.

If you are ever inclined to make a case that Jesus was a Baptist, you could make a pretty good argument for it based on how often he seemed to get together with people for big meals. Jesus was at home gathered around a table. He ate with his closest friends and he ate with his enemies. He performed miracles of abundance with fish and bread on a hillside in the synoptic gospels and with wine at a wedding in John’s gospel. Jesus did some of his best work at mealtime, and the church followed in his footsteps.

The Bible talks a lot about love. In any conversation we have about God, we won’t make it long in the conversation without bringing up love. Paul says if we don’t have love, it really doesn’t matter what else we do have because it isn’t worth anything without love. But love is such an obtuse word, it can mean a lot of different things. When we talk about the love of God, what exactly are we talking about? We’re going to look at a passage from 1 John that addresses this question and it’s going to point us toward another of our core practices at Masonboro.

We're continuing in our study of our core practices at Masonboro. If you missed last week and you want to catch up, be sure to check it out on the podcast. This week, we're looking at Mark 10 and talking about Jesus' command to cherish families. It's an important word for us!

There is an ancient Greek aphorism used by Socrates and many others that came after him, including St. Augustine of Hippo and “the Oracle” from The Matrix movies. Temet nosce is the Latin. In English, it’s “know thyself.” It’s easy to go through the day-to-day routine of life, get stuff done and never take the time to assess one’s self. You can do the same thing in an organization. It’s easy to go from week to week in church life without ever stopping to ask questions like: What makes us who we are? Why do we do the things we do? What are we shooting for? You can get from week to week without asking these questions, but that’s about all you can do. It’s tough to progress as an organization without having a clear picture of who we are and what we do.

For the last several months, church council has been working on putting some answers together for these questions. These practices are “what we’re made of” so to speak; they form the basic building blocks of our community of faith. Church council created the list. For the next seven weeks I’ll be expounding on each practice in a sermon. Specifically, I’ll be looking at the biblical basis for carrying out these practices. This week we’re discussing worship and reading the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. What can we learn from Jesus’ interaction with this woman?

While Wes was out of town, Eddie West shared a word about looking back on God's grace in our lives and looking ahead to the new year. This is the recording of Dr. West's powerful word for Masonboro.