Summit Drive Church

Wealth is spiritually dangerous. Jesus warns against wealth for its opposition to the ways of the kingdom: humility and sacrificial love. But there is one who can thread a camel through the eye of a needle...

We are all following someone or something. We are all giving our hearts to someone or something. The question about who or what that is will determine the whole shape of life now, and our eternity. In Mark 10, we are introduced to two very different ways to respond to Jesus: one is a rich man, the other a man who is blind. One walks away, the other walks behind Jesus. What will you do with Jesus? That’s the question we all have to answer. This text helps us see more clearly the way to do that.

There is a tension we feel between the goodness of creation, but also the fact that it is so broken too. And we know that brokenness and long for restoration. The Christian view holds all of this together, and in Jesus own body, he answers are most significant question about what real hope would look like. We’ll see in this message that “new creation” involves transformed bodies, the renewal of creation, and Spirit-empowered mission.

This week, we contrast the creative projects of the tabernacle and the golden calf in Exodus, and look at what they can teach us about engaging with the arts as followers of Jesus.

God’s nature, his 'attributes,' include many important features: omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, among other things. But we don’t always ascribe the attribute of joyful or (gasp!) playful to God. But a quick look at God’s creation, and the Scriptures, and we find a God who is full of joy and wants us to be as well. Joy is a ‘fruit’ of the Spirit after all. This week, we’ll explore the question: What would it look like for the Good News of Jesus to be a way into a life of levity, joy, and even a certain kind of playfulness?

Through Psalm 139, we learn to see our bodies as good this goodness has profound implications for our lives and purpose. We are here to love and be loved.

In this message, we are going to listen to what ‘wine’ has to say about God, about our humanity, and about redemption and hope. We’ll also see that there is a kind of wisdom that enables us to appreciate the goodness of God’s creation whether we do, or do not, drink wine.

Food, in the Biblical story, is about far more than simply nourishing our bodies. One of the things we notice as we get inside the long and winding story of the Bible is that the most significant moments in God’s economy, God’s plan of redemption, happen at a table – at a meal. For the table, and your place at it, that’s how you know you belong; that you’re part of the family; that you’re welcome and loved. In this message, we’ll explore the goodness of God’s provision of food and our human calling to cultivate tables that are places of welcome and beauty and gratitude.

Jesus' cross represents not just the reconciliation of God and people, but the beginnings of the reconciliation of God and all creation. Colossians presents an image of redemption and salvation where we aren't saved from creation, but for it.

What does it mean to be human? It’s a huge question, and the answer you get probably depends on who you ask. The Biblical picture of being a human is far more elevated, and far more earthy, than we often imagine. We’ll see the goodness of what it means to be human, and particularly see how Jesus – God in the flesh – elevates and dignifies the material world, and us within it.