Elements City Church Podcast

Perspective dramatically impacts how we see and engage with reality. This psalm highlights to the short sightedness of a human perspective -vs- a heavenly perspective. The psalmist (Asaph) in Psalm 73 goes on a challenging journey of wrestling with God. Is pursuing God worth it? The first half he's wrestling with bitterness and envy. In the second half, he gains a clarity and freedom from his angst. What is it that changes everything for Asaph? The same thing that will transform our perspective: worship. The mysteries of life only make sense in the presence of the Majesty. It's in Jesus and his presence, with our focus on him, where we see things most clearly. This psalm is a great one to lean into as we navigate the tough tensions of life.

As we launch into our Summer in the Psalms series, we dive into the first Psalm in the book of Psalms. This is a Wisdom Psalm – one chalked full of imagery that paints a picture of the person who seeks out God, His Word and pursues godliness in contrast to the one who disregards God and seeks to live by the ways of the world. The psalmist is pointing out: there is no greater wisdom than ordering our lives according to the Word of God. We see the "principle of the path" - the right path will take you where you want to go; the wrong path will take you anywhere but where you really want to go.

As we participate in the practices of ABIDING with our irresistible Christ and BELONGING to a healthy biblical community, we’re on our way to BECOMING an irresistible kind of Christian. And the world needs more of us to be this! Tonight we unpack our Christian 'job description' - to be Christ's ambassadors in our world. To 'leave it better' and 'lead toward Jesus'. Let's dream together and aim to grow an irresistible faith!

Just like LEGOs function best when they are connected, so do we. We’ve been made FROM connection and FOR connection. We are fashioned in the image of God – bearers of his image. Jesus had one main practical call for us and it was a relational challenge. We are to BELONG to a biblical community that puts God's love on display and extends an invitation to come belong as well. And for us to live out biblical community: takes godly ATTENTION and TIME. We can build a lot of things with money & resources, but we can’t build relationships without ATTENTION & TIME.

Easter highlights how the unstoppable God of Grace came for us – but he didn’t just come for us – he now launches us to become an irresistible force for His good and His name in order to reach others. We're to live as 'sent ones'. And despite cultural trends and challenges, Jesus' call to 'go and make disciples', and sharing the Good News of the gospel remains unchanged. Evangelism is about being bold enough to have spiritual conversations AND being sensitive within our interactions with others.

We're so glad to have you here with us to celebrate Easter and remind ourselves again of the greatest event in history. The resurrection changed everything and holds out the promise that God can change anything. The EMPTY tomb provides us a way to now have a FULL life with God! We're not blocked from a relationship with God, we don't have to climb to him and we're not too messy for him. Jesus came for us - He stands at the door of every human life and knocks.

As we wrap up this series in Esther, we see the story doesn't end with a battle, but a celebration. The Festival of Purim is inaugurated to help the people REMEMBER. It reminds us that no matter how dark things get, there is reason to hope. On an even more personal level, Purim is a call to a reawakening of faith and remembering of how God intervenes for us. Jesus established the Lord's Supper as an act of remembrance to tether us to our faith in Him. An act that Christ followers all over the world have done for 2,000+ years to REMEMBER.

We are beginning to unpack the finishing of Esther's climatic story and how after she steps up, God steps in and brings about a change and transformation in the story. We see His improbable and incredible timing (in Ch. 6 & 7) to bring help and hope. This story is teaching us again to pursue the path of humility and avoid the trappings of pride. It's calling us to wait on the Lord and trust in His timing and ability to intervene. 

Esther learns godly timing. She hits PAUSE – she models 2 key things for us. Prayer and Waiting on the Lord are so key to us living a life of faith, following after God and His best, especially in a world that pushes us to make every decision FAST and FURIOUS style, solely by our own merit and will. We need to grow as disciples who are following after Jesus well; and we would do well to make prayer and waiting up on the Lord a natural rhythm of our lives.

We continue to look into the story of Esther, new character is introduced and he has evil intentions. We see Esther and Mordecai's faith bolstering and bravery growing in chapters 3 and 4. We're highlighting the drastic difference between a worldly sense of power (to control and dominate) with a godly sense of power (based in vulnerability and advocating for others). God desires for each of us to grow in our bravery for him, for faith and to be an influence for good.

As we begin this series in the book of Esther pay attention to what goes unnoticed within the story. God is not mentioned in this book, but yet His sovereignty is within every turn in the story. Tonight we wrestle with pushing back on the notion to seek conformity or isolation and instead pursue a 3rd way - the way of Jesus and obedient living and seeking to be an influence of good. Esther's story is one where God is building bravery. He may at times, seem silent, but God is never absent.

Often friends take each other for granted and we forget about the power of blessing others! Blessing can create breakthroughs with people and their relationship with Jesus. See how Jesus blessed Zacchaeus and Paul blessed his jailer and their lives were changed!!

When conflict comes up God wants us to Stop, Drop, and Roll!!! We cannot wage war like the world does!

It’s imperative that we have a heart of humility within us as we seek to build healthy, godly and good friendships. The Apostle Paul unpacks this challenge and points us to the ultimate example of humility in Jesus in Philippians 2. We must practice humility as YIELDING our hearts to others. Humility becomes the WD40 if you will, that keeps friendships functioning well, greased up to help one another succeed and experience life-giving hope, love and joy. Bottom line: There's harmony within friendships when there's humility within each heart.

As we navigate life, we know that adversity and challenges will come for us all. That's when a friend is really needed. A friend is always there (see Proverbs 17:17). True friends are those rare people who come find you in dark places and lead you back to the light. You never walk alone when you have a friend. We are blessed to have those friends in our lives and blessed to have Jesus as that kind of friend. We are called to be that kind of friend.

As we begin this new series, we're looking into some key biblical ingredients that help build healthy, godly and good friendships. Tonight we look at one of the most profound building blocks of great relationships: empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel with people. We see Jesus model this so well. The heart of our Heavenly Father is empathetic, moved with compassion toward us. God feels with us. And God wants us to feel with others.

As we finish up our series all about tuning in to hear from God, we are reminded to listen carefully. Sometimes to hear someone, we must listen past their words, so we grasp and understand their heart behind their words. We want to hear what God has to say, but we also want to learn to know Him better in the process. Tonight we practice an ancient method of reading Scripture called: 'lectio divina' as a way of opening ourselves to engaging with God in His Word.

We live in a world that is saturated with sound. When we’re surrounded by so much noise, commotion and so many voices, it can hinder our ability to hear the one voice we need to hear from. We must be deliberate to carve out space and time for solitude and silence in order to hear the whispers of God. 1 Samuel chapter 3 gives us a simple principle of prayer. Learn to position yourself to have ready, available and open ears to hear, like Samuel. Why? Because listening doesn’t happen by default, it happens by design. It takes intentionality.

God's still speaking friends. Hearing from God isn’t just about hearing information about God, but hearing relationally from the ONE we’re saved through, connected to and forever loved by! God has an 'outside' voice, but he longs to communion and connect with us through whispers deep within. We want to learn how to tune in, lean in and listen closely to hear God's voice speaking into us. God speaks more clearly to those who are mulling over his Word consistently...if we want to hear FROM God, we must abide WITH God.

We have a big God that wants us to do the impossible and never give up, because He is with us! How can we, as His church, be more intentional with our purpose and mission? Nehemiah gives us a few clues as to how God works is the lives of the faithful.