We are discipled by Christian influencers who don't know our name, and it makes us disagree with people in our own church who do.

We're beginning a seven-month series in 1 Corinthians, and Pastor Jim Essian opens with the letter's central diagnosis: the church in Corinth looked too much like Corinth and not enough like the cross.

Paul doesn't start with their mess — and there was plenty of it. He starts with their identity. Sanctified saints, together. Because identity precedes behavior, for a person and for a church.

Then he names the division. Four tribes, each claiming a teacher, each quietly convinced they were the better Christian. Paul's real concern wasn't doctrine. It was self-exaltation, and the posture underneath it: I have no need of you.

The hard question isn't whether you're right. It's whether you need them to be wrong.

Corinth's symbol was the wreath. America's is the platform. Ours is the cross — and a wreath tells you what you won, while the cross tells you what you're worth.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:1-17

Preached by Jim Essian at The Paradox Church in Fort Worth, TX

—

We saturate Fort Worth and beyond with the glory and grace of Jesus — by praying heaven down, preaching the gospel, planting churches, and pushing back darkness.

Plan a visit: [prdx.ch/sunday-gatherings]

Join a city group: prdx.ch/citygroups

Give: prdx.ch/give

Subscribe for new messages every week.

Full series: https://www.theparadoxchurch.com/the-multiplying-church

Prdx — Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paradoxftworth

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theparadoxchurch

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-paradox-church/id1126059565

Pastors Jim Essian and James Lepine discuss the wild range of topics that Paul addresses throughout the book of 1 Corinthians and why it matters for the church today.

In the final week of our Multiplying Church series, Pastor Jim Essian teaches from 1 John 1:5-10 on the fourth play we run as a church — pushing back darkness. But before the church can push back darkness in the city, it has to push back the darkness in its own heart. Otherwise we're just hypocrites who help.

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. That purity is what frightens us — and it's the only thing that guarantees he will never turn on us. If God had a dark side, he couldn't be trusted with ours.

The darkness makes us feel hidden when it has actually made us blind. And the lie we believe is that the light would be worse. It wouldn't. Confession means agreeing with God about what he already knows, and in that agreement every other agreement gets broken.

You can't hide and heal.

Scripture: 1 John 1:5-10

Preached by Jim Essian at The Paradox Church in Fort Worth, TX

You can build a church in America with a gifted communicator, good music, and a growing neighborhood. You don't need the Holy Spirit for that. But you cannot multiply without him. In week three of our Multiplying Church series, Pastor Jim Essian teaches from Acts 9:26-31 on how a church actually multiplies — and shares a major announcement about the future of The Paradox Church. When Saul arrived in Jerusalem, the disciples were afraid of him. It took Barnabas, the son of encouragement, vouching for the church's former greatest enemy. Churches that multiply are filled with people who remember their own story of redemptive grace — who know they needed it too. Luke gives us the formula in verse 31: walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the church multiplied. Not respect. Not reverence. Fear — the full-body kind. And a Spirit who doesn't remove us from the uncomfortable thing, but comes alongside us in it.

Scripture: Acts 9:26-31

Preached by Jim Essian at The Paradox Church in Fort Worth, TX

—

We saturate Fort Worth with the glory and grace of Jesus, even unto the nations — by praying heaven down, preaching the gospel, planting churches, and pushing back darkness.

In week two of our Multiplying Church series, Pastor Jim Essian teaches from Exodus 14 on what it means to preach the gospel — to ourselves, to one another, and to the world.

The Israelites were already free when God pinned them between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea. They were redeemed, but they hadn't learned how to live free yet. Most Christians know the same thing to be true of themselves: we know our sins are forgiven, but our past, our performance, and our fear are what's actually playing in high definition.

Every other religion sends back military advice — you're going to have to fight for your life. The gospel sends a messenger with news: the war is already won. The Lord will fight for you, and you only have to be still.

Scripture: Exodus 14

Preached by Jim Essian at The Paradox Church in Fort Worth, TX

—

We saturate Fort Worth with the glory and grace of Jesus, even unto the nations — by praying heaven down, preaching the gospel, planting churches, and pushing back darkness.

Plan a visit: https://www.theparadoxchurch.com/sunday-gatherings

Give: https://www.theparadoxchurch.com/give

Take your next step: https://www.theparadoxchurch.com/nextsteps

#TheParadoxChurch #FortWorth #Exodus14 #Gospel #MultiplyingChurch #Sermon

Pray Heaven Down | The Multiplying Church, Week 1

A year and a half ago, our prayer gatherings were 28 people in a room on a Tuesday at noon. We moved them to the Annex Chapel last July, and they've grown to 60+ people packed in, singing and praying. In this message from Luke 11, we look at why — and at what Jesus actually taught his disciples about prayer.

This is week one of The Multiplying Church, our four-week vision series on how we Pray Heaven Down, Preach the Gospel, Plant Churches, and Push Back Darkness — the four things we exist to do as we saturate greater Fort Worth with the glory and grace of Jesus.

In this message (Luke 11:1-13):

• Why "should" pray produces shallow prayers, and "must" pray produces kingdom prayers

• What Jesus means by "hallowed be your name" and "your kingdom come"

• Why persistence in prayer (Luke 11:5-8) is about identity, not will power

• The difference between coming to God as a beggar and coming as a son or daughter (Heb. 4:16)

• Why the enemy doesn't need a crisis to stop your prayer life — just your calendar

False gods make martyrs out of their enemies. Jesus makes missionaries out of his.

On Nation Sunday, Pastor Jim Essian walks through Acts 1:1-11 and the identity Jesus gives his church before the world: witnesses. Not activists. Not consumers. Witnesses — people who have seen a thing and testify to it. 

Jesus gives us proof that this is true, power from the Holy Spirit to carry it, and then names two problems that keep the church standing still: a kingdom that's too small, and a spiritual consumerism that's too high. Both of them make us the center of God's activity instead of sending us out. There are still 2 billion people in the world who have never heard the story of Jesus. Where you are is on purpose. Where you go is intentional.

When Jesus meets the woman at the well in John 4, he doesn’t lecture her — he asks for a drink.

Pastor Stan Rhoden walks through this encounter to show what it looks like when Jesus moves toward people in their sin instead of away from them, and what happens next: a changed life can’t stay quiet. If Jesus has given you living water, who’s the one person in your life who needs to hear “come and see”?

Closing out a series in 1 Timothy, Pastor Jim Essian takes the to two verses he calls "utterly unpreachable" — 1 Timothy 6:15-16 — and unpacks who God actually is: the blessed God, the only sovereign, the King of kings, immortal, dwelling in unapproachable light. But the good news is the God we can't approach has already approached us. A message about fighting the good fight, finishing the good confession, and being rich in good works — not to earn God, but because he's already given himself to us.

Money and controversy both promise satisfaction they can't deliver. In this message from 1 Timothy 6, Pastor James unpacks two disordered desires that quietly lead people away from following Jesus — the craving for controversy that fuels false teaching, and the love of money that Scripture calls the root of all kinds of evil. Because neither one delivers what it promises.