New Life Downtown

Preaching from Genesis 18, Pastor Dr. Michelle Anthony unpacks the transformative truth of God's design and plan for our lives. His ways are higher than our ways and His plans cannot be enhanced or thwarted by our success or failure.

How do we get to participate in God's plan to put the world back together? Do we try to impress God? In Genesis 17, we see God's covenant once again as God's gracious initiative. There is nothing we do to deserve it. It is a promise that changes our identity and our relationship to God. And yet, as Pastor Glenn Packiam explains, it is the gift that requires everything from us.

Have you ever felt powerless, stuck and unable to escape? Genesis 16 is the story of two women who are powerless. Sarai is powerless in her barrenness; Hagar is powerless as a female Egyptian slave. One tries to take over; the other is overtaken by the kindness of God. Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to recognize the God who sees us, and sends us to see others in the light of His grace.

Genesis 15 is a pivotal point in Biblical history, where Abram's faith is 'counted as righteousness.' Dr. Steven Todd takes us on a look beyond the theological implications of this story and considers how Abram had still not seen God's promise of a son and yet moved toward God in simple belief. We see throughout Scripture God seeking us out not turning us away, even when we're filled with doubt, confusion, or disappointment.

Genesis 14 features Abram as a warrior, a king who appears from nowhere acting like a priest, and the strange custom of tithing. Pastor Glenn Packiam explains how Abram reconfigured the ancient custom of tithing to become an act of worship. While there is no magic in the math of giving, there is a power in worshipful giving to silence the lie of self-reliance and break our slavery to the false gods of consumerism and more. We never give in order to gain a blessing; we give because Christ has blessed us with the greatest blessing: His very life.

The older we get, the harder it is to let go, to live generously. In Genesis 13, Abram was transformed by the generosity of God, and went from selling out his wife to save his skin to offering the best land-- his inheritance!-- to a relative with whom he was in conflict. Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to see how we can begin to live like we have nothing to lose.

Kicking off a series on the life of Abraham through the book of Genesis, Pastor Glenn Packiam invites us to see the story of Abram in Genesis 12 as the story of Israel, the story of humanity, and, more profoundly, the story of grace. It is a story of God making promises where there is no human potential and possibility. Where the ancient Greeks sought a story of glory and postmoderns insist that there is no story or that we must write our own, Genesis invites us into God's story: the story of grace.

Are Christians to be spiritualists who shut out the world and await escape, or realists who try to take matters into their own hands? Preaching from Isaiah 6, Pastor Glenn Packiam challenges us to begin by seeing the world not as natural or supernatural, but as sacramental-- created to be a container for the glory of God. The Seraphim's singing, 'The whole earth is full of His glory', challenges the despair of our realism; but Isaiah's confessing, 'Woe is me', challenges the self-righteousness of our spiritualism. We are implicated in the infection of evil in the world. Yet, there is a way for us to become carriers of God's glory in the world.

What do Christians do when they find themselves in situations beyond their control? Drawing from the dramatic story of Peter's miraculous release from prison in Acts 12, Pastor Rich Villodas from New Life Fellowship in Queens, NYC, inspires us to believe in the power of a prayer. Power seems to be in the hands of cultural and political leaders, but the praying church is the most significant force on earth. Yet the power is not found in great faith or special prayers, but in the great God whose name we call upon.

This final week of the "Thy Kingdom Come" series, pastor Evan gives insight into the tension of the Kingdom here but not here, now but not yet. The good news? That in the midst of the tension there is hope.