York Alliance Church Message Podcast

Generosity can't be limited to, but must include, our resources, financial and otherwise. Jesus taught extensively on how we handle our material resources, constantly reminding us that the way we handle them shows what is in our hearts. Far from eliminating the principle of tithing, Jesus taught us to move beyond a fixed standard into a rule of life that reflects the generosity of God.

Our goal as apprentices of Jesus can be summed up in a variety of ways. However, one practical way is that we would become people of love, specifically, the kind of people who both receive and give the love of Jesus. We can only become people who are completely pervaded by love if we love others generously.

What does the church have to offer the world that no other person or organization can? While the church most certainly should meet basic material needs in people, we must always be sure to offer the one thing that no one else can offer — the transformational love of Jesus.

Sacrificial and authentic communities were not anamolies in the early church, and they shouldn’t be in the modern church either. By caring about and for one another, the church becomes a countercultural movement that pours out grace.

Pentecost has been called by many the birth of the church. While the people of God were already gathered, it took the empowering of the Spirit to shape them into a movement and the declarations of Peter and the 11 apostles to invite others into this movement. This same Spirit still empowers us today and, while some results may be different, there are many that must remain the same.

The waiting process for followers of Jesus always contains two key elements: worship and prayer. When we expand our view of worship to a lifestyle and engage prayer as the first and primary work of the believer we are preparing ourselves for the work that Jesus loves to do.

Before He ascended to the Father, Jesus gave us clear directions. The Kingdom will come when we receive power to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Learning to be witnesses is vitally important in order to allow people to experience the Kingdom of God for themselves.

The beginning of the book of Acts provides a foundation for all that is to come--a clear missional direction, a call to be reliant on God's power and not our own, and a supernatural fusion of the Kingdom of God with the reality of earth. Every encounter we have with Jesus should call us back to engaging these same truths.

Obedience to Jesus can have many motivations, and obedience rarely, if ever, produces love. However, when we learn to truly love Jesus, that love always produces obedience. This distinction was a central theme of Jesus' final teaching before his crucifixion, and it's a lesson that we must learn along with Peter after the resurrection.

After engaging Jesus' resurrection, our temptation is to go back to life as normal. However, Jesus wants us to see that, while the world is still much the same, everything has changed. The resurrection of Jesus changes the way that we engage the world. We live in a world where there are plenty of fish.