That's Grace Podcast

The Bible is no doubt the center of the Christian faith, but does that mean that we have to rearrange our lives around everything the Bible says? If so, how do we know that the things written in the Bible are actually true? How do we know that it has not been changed and what difference does it make if I don’t follow everything written in it? In this week’s teaching, Pastor Sean talks about whether or not we can trust the accuracy of the Bible, why it matters for the Christian life, and why being Biblically Centered is the most important value of our church.

There are things that we wear or do on the outside that can communicate about who we are on the inside. A common example is marriage. It’s not the ring that makes someone married. A wedding ring worn by someone who is single does not make them married. The ring is simply a outward symbol of a commitment, a covenant, that two people have made together. In the first week of this series, Pastor Sean talks about the new covenant that God has made with man and how baptism, just like the wedding ring, is the first step in a follower of Jesus making their faith public. 

All it takes is a little education and research to know that Jesus really did exist in history and that he was killed by means of crucifixion. But the more important question is….why does this matter to me? How does the death and supposed resurrection of a man over 2,000 years ago impact my life right here and right now?This Easter, Pastor Sean shows how the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a matter of religion or philosophy, it’s a matter of history. Either Jesus really did come back from the dead or He did not. And if He did come back from the dead, how do we choose to respond and how does this impact our lives today.

Have you ever looked at evil in the world and wonder why God doesn’t squash it right then and there? What is He waiting for? Does He not see what is going on? But when it comes to God dealing with the wrong and evil in our lives, we want God to give us a slap on the wrist. As we conclude our series in Amos, Pastor Sean talks about a time when God is done waiting – when He will no longer rescue from the consequences of our wrong actions. But there is a reason why God’s patience is so long.

We all love the idea of justice. We love the movies where the evil villain gets punished, or where the school ground bully gets put back into his place. We love justice being served, unless it is being served to us. In the second week of this series, Pastor Stephen talks about the profound affect that the act of mercy has upon humanity and how God has called to play a part in restoring peace in this world. We all experience both justice and mercy in our lives, and God has called us to live lives that reflect the mercy and second chances we’ve been given by God.

Evil in the world is almost impossible to ignore. It seems to be everywhere. On the news, social media, on your morning commute. You may have even said to yourself, “What is happening to this world!?” It’s hard to imagine a good God allowing all of the injustices we see go unpunished, but where is God in all of this? Does He care? In the first week of this series, Pastor Sean shows from the book of Amos how God sees the injustice in the world and why sometimes it seems like people get away with evil. He also points out that we tend to be quick to point the finger at the evil in other’s, but we willingly overlook and ignore the evil that exists within us.

Money. You can never seem to have enough of it. You spend the majority of your time during the week working hard to get it, but no matter how many hours you work, or how much you get paid, it never seems to be quite enough. Why are we so consumed with getting something that never seems to last? Why do we choose to trust God with our prayers, our health, our family, our jobs, but never our money. When it comes to God and our money we get rather uncomfortable. In the last week of this series, Pastor Sean shows why our money is so important to God and why we have such a hard time when it comes to this subject. It’s not that God needs our money or wants it, He’s after something else.

Our culture dreads work. We’re fed the philosophy that we’re all “working for the weekend.”We’ve adopted phrasing like the “Monday Blues”, “Hump Day”, and TGIF. It’s the thing we spend the most time doing and the least time enjoying. But what if what you do for a living matters more than you think? What if you are simply looking at it wrong? In the fourth week of this series, Pastor Sean talks about what God has to say about our work and how one little mindset shift, can totally change how we think, enjoy, and approach our work.

How often do you feel completely present? Not distracted or preoccupied by your schedule, your agenda, or your phone? If you’re like most people, you probably feel like you can barely keep up with all you have going on in life, let alone have time to slow down a bit. In today’s teaching, Pastor Stephen talks about how when we get too busy, we often see the relationships in ouras valuable only to the degree that they benefit us and our agenda. And when we choose to now be present, we limit the influence and the impact that we can have in those relationships. So what can we do to change the pace in our lives?

All of us want our kids to grow up and be successful. We want them to have good grades, to be a starter on the team, to get accepted into a good college, and to land a good paying job. But the things our culture tells us we need to do in order to help our kids be successful is very different from where the Bible says our focus on our kids should be. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure our kids get ahead in this world, but what are we doing to make a difference in their lives for eternity? In week two of this message, Pastor Sean shares how we all, whether we have kids or not, can shape our priorities and our influence over the kids God has put in our lives in order to help them be successful in the things that really matter.