That's Grace Podcast

“Love your neighbor." "Turn the other cheek". Jesus' statements sound ideal but living them out is tough. Rather than rally political revolt like many of his day had hoped, Jesus focused on inner change instead. His piercing principles targeted the very areas we still today drift from God — money, enemies, judgment, hypocrisy. Beyond nice words, He exposes and transforms hearts, however unexpectedly. The question is — will we trust His wisdom to shape our lives for His greater purpose? In this teaching, we explore the gap between admiring Jesus and following Him when spiritual rubber meets life's road.

Do you ever feel like your life is too messy or you are too unqualified to be used by God? It’s easy to assume God favors those who are more put together, more educated, or with more skills. But in this video, we see that Jesus does the exact opposite of what we’d expect. Instead of finding the best of the best, he picks a group of regular people to launch a world changing mission. From this story we will see that while we believe we need influence, status, or better behavior to be used or noticed by God, God is looking for people just like you to do some pretty incredible things.

At Christmas, we often want to experience the feelings of merry and bright, the calm of silent nights, and the glimmer of anticipation for what’s to come. But when our reality includes grief, loneliness or disappointment instead, we wonder where’s the hope in that? It can feel like you got short-changed. What if the first Christmas was as confusing and unpredictable as this year feels for you? This Christmas Eve, see how Jesus freely chose an unideal birth to bring surprising hope to your imperfect holidays and uncertain plans. Discover how joy and purpose can emerge from the messiness we want to edit out of the story.

Out of the three gifts the wise men brought in the Christmas story, gold seems to make the most sense. No new family would turn down gold, especially a family that just had a baby in a barn! But what we might not understand about this gift is that it wasn’t an appropriate gift for just anyone. It was a gift for royalty. In this video, we dive deeper into the meaning of this gift to understand the Magi’s motivations in giving this gift and we’ll discover that this communicates that we all have a choice to make on who Jesus will be in our lives.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh - we know the three gifts in the Christmas story. Gold sounds like a decent gift for any new family to receive, but myrrh? Its main use was for embalming dead bodies! Why would the Magi give funeral oil to a newborn baby!? In this second week of our Christmas series, we discover more about this strange gift, why the Magi may have  thought it was appropriate, and why its symbolic significance matters for us today.

We all know about the three gifts from the wise men - gold, frankincense and myrrh. But have you ever wondered why they brought such odd things as gifts? Why did they choose to bring these things for a toddler? In this first video of our Christmas series, we dig into the surprising significance of that fragrant gift - frankincense. We learn more about what it is, why it was given, and why its symbolic significance matters for us in this Christmas season today.

What’s the difference between feeling grateful and truly expressing gratitude? It’s good to verbally express thanks but too often, our sense of gratitude fades away with the words we say. If we want to live lives defined by gratitude, we need to move beyond just words. But what does that look like? In this video, we discover three principles that help guide us on a path of gratitude and sets us free from worry and fear associated with money. These principles not only remind us of all we have to be grateful for, but overflow into blessing those around us.

In our hustle-bustle world of instant everything, gratitude and thankfulness often get squeezed out. You’d think with all we have we’d be more grateful! Instead, we find it so easy to take for granted our many blessings and comforts. In this message, we find practical ways from the Bible to cultivate sincere, consistent thankfulness in our lives and learn how to move past discontentment and entitlement and let your needs and blessings prompt you to draw closer to God.

We take so much for granted - our lives, loved ones, talents we have. But have you ever stopped to seriously ponder where all the good in your life actually originates? Most often we assume it's from our own efforts and take full credit for it, but what if our thinking was totally backwards? In this video, we see what the Bible says about the true source of every blessing we receive. See the life changing difference between believing we're entitled to the good we have versus understanding it all as an undeserved gift from God.

Grace Church turns 18 years old! It's crazy to look back on how we started out with just 35 people crammed in a hotel conference room and to see where God has brought us. In this video, our Lead Pastor Sean Sears shares some awesome stories and history of where we have been as a church but also reminds us that we've only just begun to tap into all that God dreams for us. Hear how we can be a church God continues to bless and how you can be a part of helping these dreams become a reality!