What is truth? Is it relative? Is it based on how we see things? Or what things really are? Here’s another question for you? If you look at a piece of literature, artwork, a painting, a drawing, a sculpture, how would determine what it is? Would you use your judgement based on other things that you have seen before or what others have told you about it or would ask the author or creator, the painter, the artist, the sculptor what they say it is? There are several ways to look at these series of questions, but it really comes down to this, we want to be in control.

From the way we dress, or how we want the outcome of our day to be, or the way other people should drive, and lets not forget the way other people should think. We believe our way is best. And as it pertains to Jesus and the place he holds in our life, as far as his kingship, well, we want a king we can control. And the funny thing about that is, a king that is controlled is not a king at all. If I could, to borrow the cadence from an Eastside philosopher, interpreting the words of one history literary greats, Friends, Romans, countrymen lend me your eardrums, listen, Jesus is not a pawn that we can control. He will not be reduced to the guarantor on plains that we have made. JESUS is king.

John | The Final Chapters | La Muerté | Unwanted King | John 19:1-16

Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Dallas Police Officers... Our country has immense problems. The question for us today is, how should we address them? What is the role of the disciple of Jesus, with regard to #justice?

We’ve been going through John’s history of Jesus' final days on earth. The closer we get to the climax, the more John’s Gospel reads like a drama, with the playwright switching scenes, con- trasting themes, highlighting the majesty and control of Jesus even when he seems most out of control.
I call this The Tale of Three Kingdoms, because we see three competing kingdoms contrasted, two manmade kingdoms and one the Kingdom of God. We tend to put all our hope and allegiance in kingdoms we create, and that leaves no room for God’s. Two manmade kingdoms and one from God.

Trial | Tale Of Three Kingdoms | John18:28-40

When was the last time you denied something or someone? We find ourselves caught off guard and unready or UNWILLING to say what we know is true, or resist the wrong around us. We get asked if we are a Christian, and we fail to answer in the affirmative, lest we be lumped in with the worst representatives of those who profess to know Jesus. Or we choose not to stand firmly for Jesus among our friends, our co-workers, our relatives, our neighbors, because we don’t want to stand out or be rejected or create awkwardness by letting those around us see that we’re Christians. And after this happens enough, we begin to believe that we are no better than the last moment we failed to follow Jesus faithfully.
We are prone ​to define ourselves by our denials, by our failures, allowing each moment of spiritual infidelity to mark us with thoughts and words of unworthiness; of inadequacy, even questions of whether we are in fact Jesus’ disciples.

Trial | Denial | John 18:15-18;25-27

Why do we think we can save the day? Do we feel like we are the hero of our own lives and story? Hear from Pastor Léonce that even though we try day in and day out to save ourselves, to be the hero of our lives, God is the only hero of our salvation on this earth.

Trial | One Man | John 18:1-14

Of course this is just a simple parable, but in it we surface a universal truth: we believe weakness is bad and strength is good. It is at the very core of human nature. And everything around us tells us the same.
Flaws are diminishing, and perfection is the goal. Strength is an attribute, weakness a liability. If we show the cracks that we have, then we’ll be less useful, less revered. We cannot stand to be seen as weak, so we always play to our…..strengths.

Stand Alone Sermons | Our Weakness, Jesus' Greatness | 2 Corinthians 4:7-15

Now I know that this may not be the easiest thing for everyone to admit, but large in part we see trials as something to just endure. Your difficult boss, your over bearing mother, your penny pinching husband, your chronic pains, your neighborhood, the last two reps in a workout, if were
honest, we just want to get it over with. I get it. Especially when our favorite motto is “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.” This may not be a warm and fuzzy, by no means, but what this says for believers is, this
unshakeable gladness/happiness is tied to the hope we have in Christ. One does not rejoice in the trial itself, but in the benefit trials can bring.

Life Change | Perfect.... | James 1:2-4

God touches us in different ways. For some God overwhelms
with emotions and passions of his love and greatness, and then
those emotions drive deeper into mind, choices, desires. These
may experience mountain-top highs in worship. For me, God usually touches me through the gate not of emotions, but of the mind, through knowledge, through understanding, through words and facts, and from that mind gate, he sweeps on in to touch emotionally. My mind is the normal pathway for God to access my passions and heart. God delights in our efforts to search him out, drill down into the depths with him. What better way to spend our lives than in getting to know our tri-personal God and enjoying him?

Life Change | Our Amazing God | John 17:20-23

Are our bad circumstances God’s punishment? If we are were, this is probably the thought that what default to when things go south for the believer. If you are not a disciple of Jesus, you still struggle with this same thing. In fact this may be one of your biggest hurdles to religion, the perception that God is in the business of enacting retribution on His people. If this is you, what we have in this text, will cause complete life change once understood.

Life Change | Character > Sin | Psalm 103:10-14