Elements City Church Podcast

We are each building a life. We're building on a foundation. We each get to choose what that foundation is and at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling us to choose him as that foundation. He is the one to build your life upon and the only foundation that will help you and I withstand the storms of life. To build your life on Jesus means that you trust him and that you not just appreciate what he says, you actually do it. Doers of the word, not just hearers.

In nearing the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is bringing home his message and making it personal. He’s indicating that his teaching is not to be merely praised but to be practiced. It’s not to be commended but to be carried out. He’s challenging his listeners then and now to move beyond mere admiration of him and to choose to follow Him and his ways.

Again Jesus returns to the invitation that prayer and connection with the Heavenly Father beckons us to discover. We’re to live with a desire to persistently ask, seek and knock in order to receive from His hand as He extends provision, wisdom and guidance. There are no supply chain issues in the Kingdom of God and His heart is more than ready to commune and connect with His children. He is always for our best.

Matthew 7:1-6 contains one of the most often quoted verses, yet it is one of the most misunderstood teachings of Jesus. How are followers of Jesus meant to use discernment in confronting sin in each other and ourselves? How are we to use discernment in confronting those outside the church? Jesus answers these questions for us in this short, but often mischaracterized, passage of The Sermon on the Mount.

As Jesus continues His sermon, He makes several strong statements regarding the relationship His followers should have with their possessions. The whole-hearted follower of Jesus cannot pursue Him and material goods. Doing so creates an anxious heart that prevents His followers from seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness before all other things. How can Jesus’ followers overcome this anxiety and live with a single-minded devotion to Him?

As Jesus finishes this section of the Sermon on the Mount on practicing religion with Kingdom righteousness, He teaches His followers how to fast. In this week’s message we look at reasons to fast and benefits to fasting. In transitioning to the next part of the sermon Jesus calls us back to examine our motives. He calls us to seek the eternal rewards our Heavenly Father wants to give us.

Prayer is all about our relational connection with God. Jesus unpacks some incredible truths about the reality of God and the power we are invited to experience through a vibrant prayer life connected with our Heavenly Father. The Lord’s Prayer lays out some insights and practices for us to utilize as we engage in prayer.

As we enter a new section of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, we see Jesus shift from explaining how to righteously fulfill the Law to how to righteously practice our faith. Jesus calls us to check our heart’s motivation when we give. Are we generous because we want to build our religious reputation, or do we give because we desire the rewards God has on offer for those whose generosity is an act of worship?

Love and enemies are words that seem mutually exclusive. Putting the two together raises serious questions. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies it is as shocking and challenging in our generation as it was in the 1st century. Jesus is challenging us to grow and ground our reactions from a place of spiritual maturity more than emotional retaliations. We all were once enemies of God, but through Jesus, we’ve been made a friend of God. (Romans 5:8) We’re now invited to love like God does. We’re to live above the law of reciprocity - to do good, bless and pray for…

In Matthew 5:38-42 Jesus tells His followers they need to radically reorient their thoughts toward retaliation. Not only are His followers to not retaliate, they should not even resist the one who seeks to do evil toward them! How can we, as His followers today, become the type of Kingdom-oriented people who generously sacrifice our own wants and needs in order to actively live in and proclaim the Gospel to those around us?

We are to be people unconditional about love and unapologetic about truth. People of integrity - which is not perfection, but of integration and wholeness. People able to admit our faults and learn from them, people committed to being truthful in all we do, just as Jesus is.

Heat can be a good thing in the right context - but mismanaged heat is a dangerous thing. Jesus challenges us to not let ourselves mismanage our heat - our anger. It can get us sideways and destroy relationships. We’re called as followers of Jesus to let our anger drive us to be helpful instead of hurtful.

As followers of Jesus we are invited into living with distinction and influence. We’re invited to live in the way of Jesus that marks us as different, but it also releases us to have godly influence upon the world and to invite others to discover the hope of God available to them. We're to be salt and light in our here and now moment of history. Today we examine 3 key ways to live into that influence.

All great moments of connection have actions of celebration. Tonight we gather to celebrate people professing their faith in Jesus through following him in baptism. A public display of allegiance and affection for Christ. An act of obedience that Christ modeled and called us to do and an ordinance of the church from the beginning. Baptism is worship. Baptism is a declaration we can not save ourselves. Baptism is our pledge to rest in the life, death and resurrection of Christ alone. Baptism is worth celebrating!!

It's Easter - the resurrection of Jesus is the world event that changes everything! Thomas was that follower that gets the rap for hesitating and doubting. But maybe doubt can be the beginning step toward faith? It seems to be a spot where Jesus loves to show up - interacting with people so that their faith can move from hesitation to HOPE. Easter invites us to make this move…and to discover the joy of a secure HOPE in Jesus.

Each one of our lives are guided by the choices and decisions we make. Tonight we peer into a conversation Jesus has with his earliest of followers where he’s asking them to choose him. We will learn a good question that can really help us, when we’re tempted to hit the unfollow button or shrink back as things get challenging following Jesus. Remember: salvation is free, it costs you nothing. It did cost Jesus everything. A life of following after Jesus will have costs to it. But not following Jesus, might just cost you everything.

As we follow, we’re going to be invited to lead like Jesus. So tonight we’re going to look at a passage where Jesus actually gives us his secret to great leadership. See Mark 10:32-45. And as we prepare for Easter, Jesus is going to walk out the way he’s calling us to walk in.

There are moments in following Jesus were our personal agenda and God’s agenda will come into direct conflict with each other. How we respond in those moments will reveal much about us. What must we do then to get ourselves to the place where it’s no longer “My will be done,” but where we can honestly say, “Thy will be done!”?

Eventually, following Jesus is going to cost you something. And you will be glad it did. Deny yourself now or lose yourself later. All relationships have a cost to them, but good ones, also have a reward. Following where Jesus leads is always for our best, but it may not be the easiest.

What should a follower of Jesus wear? That may seem strange, but there’s always something that distinguishes people who are following after someone — there’s a look that identifies them…see sports fans attire. Well, Jesus tells us clearly what should distinguish us as his followers and the Apostle Paul expands it and tells us to cloth ourselves always in LOVE.