New Life Downtown

What is it that makes lust destructive? It's the way it distorts our desires. Christ calls us not to eliminate our desires nor to simply postpone them until marriage, but to let the Love of God reshape them and realign them. Continuing in the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Glenn Packiam calls us to go beyond managing our behavior and to identify the wound of loneliness or rejection that leads us to misuse others. When our longings get set upon Christ and we are satisfied with the richness of His love, our other longings for relationship and intimacy get set in their proper place and become the gifts they were designed to be.

Murder may seem like a distant idea or a social ill. But Jesus makes us look beyond "certain people" or "certain weapons" into the human heart, to the anger and hatred that make murder possible. What makes anger dangerous? Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see how anger creates distance between us and the "Other", cultivates disdain, and culminates in destruction. None us want this cycle of violence and vengeance or to be on the path toward judgment and destruction. Yet out of fear and a desire to control, anger rises up repeatedly in us. Yet Jesus comes to us saying, "Fear not! You are not in control, but you are deeply loved by the God who is."

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says he didn't come to abolish the "law and the prophets," but to fulfill them. But what does that fulfillment look like? How are we supposed to understand the Old Testament and how Jesus is a continuation of Israel's story? And why does it matter to our own stories and the story of our church? Guest speaker Dr. Patton Dodd examines the implications of Jesus' words for how we understand two distinct but related Bible stories--the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament, and the fall of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in the New Testament

What does it mean to be salt and light in this world? As the series on the Sermon on the Mount continues, Pastor Glenn Packiam explains how Jesus once again deals with our identity before addressing our behavior. Because He is salt and light, we--together as the people of God--have become a preserving presence and a visible witness in the world. We are challenged not to withdraw from the world but to work in it, cultivating the "soil" around us, fueled by the love of Christ, for the sake of the world and for the glory of God.

In this special Mother's Day message, Pastor Glenn Packiam "interviews" his wife, Holly about her journey as a mother. Through her vulnerability and wisdom, we find a reminder for all of us--in every season and stage of life--that we cannot live well and love well on our own. Glenn wraps up the talk by showing us how women reflect the image of God into our world, and by calling us again to the Fountain of Love-- our Triune God.

Who's got it made? Who's living the good life? Jesus turns our notion of success and "blessedness" on its head. The Beatitudes are a stunning reversal of fortunes made possible because of God's arriving Kingdom. Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us see that Jesus lived this kind of upside-down life, and it resulted in His death. Yet God vindicated Jesus by raising Him from the dead, showing that this kind of life wins out in the end. But is such a life possible? In Christ, our blessedness trumps our brokenness, making Christ's blessing the truer word, the final word, and the transforming word.

Our deepest hope is for the God who created the world to come & be King in it. The stunning announcement of the Gospels is that He has. Moreover, this King inaugurates His Kingdom by founding a new people. The Sermon on the Mount is our Magna Carta, our constitution. In the first installment if this series, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us understand what the sermon is, and how it can only be understood in the light of Jesus' gracious, costly, and transforming call. To live as the community of the called, we must keep coming back to the One Who calls.

Having framed the conversation of who Church is by broadening our understanding of Jesus and salvation, Pastor Glenn Packiam explores what it means to say that the Church has been sent into the world to bear witness that Jesus is King. We find that the New Testament joins proclamation of the Gospel with demonstration of the Gospel, so that our announcement of Jesus' reign and our actions in Jesus' name form a unified witness. Toward the end of the sermon, Glenn explains one way New Life Church does this in our global missions effort through our partnership with Children's Hope Chest in Swaziland.

What comes to mind when you hear the word, "church"? This question strikes at our deep desire to belong, to know our place within the world. Yet, when our hopes are the highest, the hurt can be the deepest, and so for many, "church" conjures memories of hurt and pain. In order to deal well with the question of who 'Church' is, Pastor Glenn Packiam helps us to zoom out and ask who Jesus is and what is the salvation that He brings. Working through these questions, we pull the curtain back from many popular approaches to church and mission and begin the work of recovering the Kingdom-shape seen in the Book of Acts. Finally, Pastor Glenn walks us through the specify family values of New Life Church.

Lent is 6 Sundays long; Easter, however, is 7 Sundays. Why? Because the Feast outlasts the Fast. With God, joy and victory and generosity, not sorrow and suffering and stinginess, get the last word. In this shortened homily (because of a potluck!), Pastor Glenn Packiam explains how the Feast helps us to see what God is truly like, to learn how to be a Family, and to proclaim the Future that has already begun.