Summit Drive Church

In Luke 6, we find Jesus claiming a kind of authority that God alone has, because, spoiler alert, he shares in the divine nature as God the Son. And that means, as our Author he has the authority to lead us and to teach us. The other piece we must see is that not only does Jesus have authority as our Author, but he is also revealing God’s mercy in such a way that we want him to lead us!

In Luke 5, we see Jesus call ordinary people to leave everything behind, follow him, and become part of a movement that continues today. Discover the one prerequisite for following Jesus, how following Jesus changes our lives more than we thought, and how every Jesus follower plays a part in this movement as we invite others to "come and see."

In Luke 4, Jesus introduces us to his mission and we see what it means that he came “to proclaim good news to the poor” – to those who are often excluded, pushed down, overlooked, or vulnerable. We’ll see how Jesus is the one who corrects our views and calls us to join his wide embrace of love for the world.

This week, we explore the question: "What do we lose if we lose John the Baptist?" We look at the significant role John plays as the key prophet in Jesus' story, and the ways that he invites us to be baptized and live a life marked by repentance.

At Jesus' birth, we find Jesus both in the expected places and also surrounded by unexpected visitors. It reminds us, in our search for Jesus, He both shows up where He is wanted and breaks in where He is needed. Luke's gospel will remind us, at the end, we are not the ones searching for Jesus, He is searching for us (Luke 19:10).

In Luke 1, we find how the coming of King Jesus “flips the script,” subverts our expectations, and turns the world upside down – or better, turns it back “right-side up.”

Luke begins his gospel by explaining how and why he wrote his “orderly account”, his carefully crafted narrative, about Jesus. He wrote: “So that you may know.” No. We don’t know everything. We can’t know everything. But, says Luke, we can know the truth about Jesus – about his life-transforming love and power – so that we can trust him fully. Luke believes in reasonable faith, and in this text, we’ll be invited to see what that means for us too.

What does it mean that God is “El Olam,” God Everlasting? Psalm 90 reminds us that God is everlasting; we are not everlasting. It calls us to “number our days” and so gain wisdom as we do. But we discover, in Jesus, that life is everlasting in connection to him.

In Judges 6, Gideon sets up an altar and names it Yahweh Shalom (Yahweh is Peace). We look at how Yahweh extends a gift of peace to us and how pop culture's concepts of "peacemaking" might draw us away from the true peace of Jesus.

We often forget one of God's preferred names—Holy Spirit or Spirit of Yahweh. When we forget the third member of the Trinity, we miss out on the life, peace, truth, and boldness God has for us.