In Luke 22v31-38 Jesus warns his disciples that a sifting is coming. Their trust in Him will be tested in the coming days.

Jesus points out that it is Satan, or, “The Accuser” whose aim it is to expose & inspire faithlessness in His followers. Satan’s accusation is that the disciples only love Jesus for what they think He can do for them. 

The New Testament refers to Satan as the ruler of this age. So it’s safe to say that we too can expect to be sifted in this life. The beautiful thing about Jesus is that no matter how humiliated or hopeless you may have become in the sifting, His heart remains open to you. The sifting at its best creates an opportunity for mercy you didn’t know existed. 

The path of the disciple, like Peter, is the path of having all your images of God fail you, so that you can truly know and love Him as He is.

On Sunday, one of our elders, Austin Smith, explored Jesus’ radical definition on greatness found in Luke 22v24-30. 

While the disciples argue about status, Jesus teaches that true greatness in His kingdom is found in humble service—becoming useful rather than trying to get ahead.

Worldly self-centeredness will keep us from loving others well, but in Jesus’ life we see another way to live. He is so certain of His identity as a beloved son, that he is able to go low, to be grateful and generous in every situation.

As we grow in gratitude to God, may our lives become acts of worship and may we be found useful to his kingdom. 

Luke 21v5-38 has been interpreted by many modern Protestants as an end times prediction. On Sunday, Alex gave us some helpful tools to aid in our interpretation of Jesus' words in this passage.

There is both prophetic and apocalyptic language in this passage, and it is important to distinguish which is happening when. Jesus does describe an actual event in the future of Israel where Rome takes Jerusalem by siege and destroys the temple (70 AD). He also uses apocalyptic imagery to describe patterns we can expect to see in the world until His return. 

Amid the tumult of living in this world, Jesus calls our attention to what matters most - the Holy Spirit with us and the mission God has given us to advance the kingdom.

We pray that this message encourages you in your walk with Jesus!

The overarching idea of this series is that we live in this world, we don’t live in heaven fully yet. God designed it this way, and it means we have a role to play. 

Your labor will likely be one of the largest roles you play in bringing heaven to earth.

While toil is a result of the fall, labor is not. Humans were made to labor with God - made to build, to act upon created things in order to make them more than they would have been on their own.

In God’s economy, labor leads to ownership and ownership leads to offering. This is a life of worship. 

We pray that through this series, God will be speaking to you about your gifts, your limitations, and the opportunities He's given you. These will inform how you take ownership and serve wherever He has placed you.

In this series we have been talking about how we experience our faith in the world around us. This week, Alex aimed to answer the question, what sort of world should Christians seek to build with our politics?

We cannot avoid politics because our faith is incarnational, shaping culture, institutions, and everyday decisions. However, history warns us against using power or theocracy to impose belief. 

There is a tension between what we believe to be universal morals, and the particular realities of our day and age. We must be slow, humble and thoughtful in forming political views.

We believe Christians should advocate for governments that protect God-given freedoms; however, the heart of our witness is not policy but a life shaped by the cross, where mercy and self-sacrifice speak louder than power.

Is Christianity mainly about the Spirit catching people up into the progression of heaven on earth? Or is Christianity mainly about building institutions, societies, and laws that benefit the individual conscience and familial aims?

We see both in the Scriptures. Spirit and structure. 

As Christians, we engage in politics because of the Incarnation. Because Jesus is both God and man, heaven and earth are coming together. The earthly king is not God, but humans have the ability in partnership with God to bring His rule into ours. 

The messy part is how that happens and with what sort of methods. Many Christians disagree on these things, and we must guard our hearts against resentment.

May God bring us to repentance, extend His grace towards us, and show us how to love one another so that we can receive His vision for heaven on earth in all its nuance and beauty.