The Sanctuary Fellowship Podcast

The cross is the symbol of Christianity, which can strike some people as odd because a cross carries so many conflicting implications: life, joy, death, pain, hope, freedom, suffering. As Christians and churches have investigated and studied the idea of the cross, and in particular the actions of Christ on the cross, one of the themes that repeated itself was that of redemption. Christians have seen in the cross the key to their redemption. As we grapple with our problems and suffering and distance from God, it becomes clearer and clearer that we need someone to redeem us- to bring us back into a family and to purchase us from the slavery we find ourselves in. God has seen our struggle, he has loved us and responded to our hopeless battle with sin, and he himself has come to do something about it. He is our Redeemer!

Maybe unbelievably, the cross of Christ can be one of those things that we get over-familiar with. We talk about it so much and sing about it so often that we can over-simplify it and miss the beautiful complexity in its simplicity. As Easter approaches each year, we can truly lose sight of the cross. We can easily trade it for family and egg hunts and children and Easter pageants and lunch with family. Easter can include all of those things, but what is it all about? More than that, Christianity is about church and worship and life and joy and overcoming, but what is it all about? We go through life thinking about all that we think we “need” and concocting plans to get those things. But most of the time we are confusing wants and needs and are just generally confused! The cross is the central point of history, Easter and Christianity. It is necessary to bring us out of death and sin and to bring us into life. Focus on the cross and all of our other wants and needs come into clearer focus!

CBS Academic Dean, Joe Parle speaks on the topic of spiritual gifts in the life of the church.

Have you noticed how the things we complain about reveal so much about us? We often have things that we complain about in church- we even complain about the Gospel! The Gospel is too hard, the Gospel is exclusive, the Gospel is unkind, the Gospel is weird. And then we complain about what we’re asked to do with the Gospel. Sharing it is hard, people will think I’m a radical, love is more important than words. But there are people dying. Millions with no hope and no relationship with God. God wants the Gospel to go to all. What are we doing about that? What are you doing about that? What keeps us from going, doing, giving and telling?

Lead pastor, Joe Sanders, preaches on the topic of communion.

A lot of people come to church, to God, and approach the Bible with questions. Questions about God, the meaning of life, sin, eternity, dinosaurs, evil. So many things we don’t know and want to know about! Surprisingly, when we come to the Bible for some of those answers we are actually faced with many questions directed at us…from God! God repeatedly asks us questions not to gain information (like he doesn’t know something), but to reveal something to us about ourselves or about himself. In this text, God confronts us with questions about his abilities, our faith, our degree of commitment to who he is and if we are asking the right people the right questions. How will you answer God when he asks you questions?

What a great tragedy it would be for any of us to live out our days an never connect with a purpose in life. How frustrating and senseless it would be to go through this entire life without discovering God’s purposes. Most of us wonder from time to time about God’s purpose for our lives- does he have one; what is it; am I living in it now; can I even know it? God is eternally and powerfully committed to bringing us into the fullness of his purposes, and he has designed a purpose for us from before we were born. He is specially preparing us for his plans and at the right time he will shoot us straight and true so that we experience the fullness of his purposes for our lives.

We all have such great high expectations when we start a new year, some of the best intentions to make things better for the future. But then life hits, we fail once or twice, our schedule gets flipped upside down, and we find ourselves far away from what we set out to do. Almost everyone would like a closer relationship with God, but despite what we set out to do we often wander far away from God. Lots of things contribute to this and it can leave us feeling hopeless and powerless in our desire to know God and to live with him. The good news is that God is fighting for us, moving heaven and earth to be with us and to empower us to be with him!

God’s creative works are amazing- in nature, in fashioning babies, in the creation of all life. Somehow we have lost our amazement at the creative works of our Lord and we have become enamored with our own works toward happiness and fulfillment. As Christians, we have lost the ability to think clearly and critically about the issue of life and all of the attending issues. We are in need of a total heart and head change when it comes to issues of life. We must stop sacrificing everything on the altar of me, the altar of man, the altar of self. We are called to hold back those who are headed to slaughter. What will we do to choose life for those who can’t choose for herself?

Life brings painful times. That pain is not always a direct result of your sin or the sins of others. Sometimes, life and circumstances bring tough things to us. When that happens and we begin to try and reconcile the idea of a good, powerful God and our pain we can find our faith shaken and our commitment challenged. Pain is inevitable; it cannot be avoided. But what it does to us and what we do with it can be influenced by our choices and responses. Before pain comes our way, we have to decide that the next time it comes we will not waste our pain, we will not get lost in bitterness or despondency, and we will draw near to the Lord through it all.