Connexus Church Audio Podcast

We’ve never been more connected, and yet we’ve never been more lonely. At the same time, when we are alone, we struggle to disconnect in a healthy way. Our phones, our screens, and the demands on our life have changed us—you might argue they’ve made our souls feel barren. We struggle to be present with ourselves, let alone with God. In this message, we look at how Jesus modelled the power of silence and solitude to feed his soul. Much of the content of this message can be found in John Mark Comer's book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. We highly recommend this book.

In the last decade, online relationships have exploded, and so have loneliness, depression, and suicide. AI is going to take that to a whole new level, making probable what few of us even dreamed possible a year ago.  It’s understandable why people want to escape the pain of real-life relationships and find someone ‘better’ online, but that appears to be (literally) killing us. People may be the deepest problem in life we all would love to escape from, but people are God’s deepest solution to loneliness. 

Something has shifted in our culture. We feel more lonely—some experts even describe it as a silent pandemic. It’s not merely about being physically alone but feeling a sense of isolation within. How do you find genuine connection in our lonely world? In this series, we’ll help you discover why you’re experiencing loneliness and uncover powerful insights from the Bible about forging deeper connections, cultivating meaningful relationships, and discovering a purpose that can help you move from existing to true belonging. Join Jeff Brodie as he starts a five week series called "Not alone, but lonely."

Sometimes we just need to know that God is here and that He’s paying attention. If we knew that with certainty, then maybe we would be fine or at least finer. Maybe you’re still looking for that sign and you haven’t found it yet, so you start to wonder. We all have a concept of what God is like, but until the arrival of Jesus, the world was left guessing. There was so much mystery, only hints and shadows, and then God came to dwell with us to demonstrate for us what he is like. If you look anywhere other than Jesus for what God is like, then you are looking in the wrong place. God is like Jesus. Jesus came to us to demonstrate, illustrate, and communicate what God is like, who He is, and who He loves.

The messiness of the world is what paved the way for God to do something extraordinary. God blessed the world with a different kind of king who came to establish a different kind of Kingdom. We are all familiar with the Christmas story but some of us are not familiar with the Christmas backstory. The story of Christmas begins with a remarkable promise to Abraham. God promised to make Abraham into a great nation and He did which set up the Christmas story we all know. The backstory of Christmas occurred during a 2,000-year saga that is fascinating, amazing, and inspiring. It’s also a bit convicting. If the arrival of Jesus was a blessing to the world, shouldn’t we as Jesus followers be a blessing to the world as well?

Throughout this series, we’ve unpacked the many different ways that lies come at you. But how do you get ahead of the lies? How can you be proactive in guarding yourself against the lies that the world, the devil, and the flesh try to put in your path? This week, we look at a letter from Paul and the instructions he gives for us to be able to do this very thing.

You are set apart from the world and for the world! In this message, Jeff Brodie looks at the role of societal lies; they tempt us to normalize the lies we hear in our lives so that we make the mistake of living them. He’ll be looking at how scripture teaches us to spot the lies in our society and how we don’t need to run from the world but run towards it.

We all have that part of us that wants to do what’s good for us and good for others, but so often we don’t. It’s more than temptation. Our priorities get out of order, and our wants become defined as needs. On top of that, we start to grasp for things that make us happy instead of things that give us fulfillment. What is this battle? It’s fertile territory for lies to derail us; scripture calls it “the flesh,” and Paul wants to show us how to win the fight.