We want to be a “contrast community” where we live differently in light of the gospel. One of the ways we can do that is through how we spend our time. We can chart a path marked by life-giving restfulness in God’s presence and purposeful activity for God’s glory.

In this Christmas season we need to rest again on the firm foundation of the supremacy of Jesus and the reality of the hope of the gospel. If you feel a lack of peace, if you sense that things aren’t the way they are supposed to be, or if you crave a king who can truly make you whole, the king you need is the Prince of Peace.

In Psalm 103, David describes a God who reaches out to pluck you out of the darkness when you are helpless and weak, to forgive, to heal, to renew, and to shower you with his compassion and love. That’s the kind of King we need!

The king we need is a King with divine power, with the ability to defeat sin and evil and death, and with superior strength to achieve his purposes for history. In other words, we need a powerful king who exercises God’s power.

What kind of King do we need? What kind of King can pierce the darkness of this world? What kind of King is worthy of our full devotion? What kind of King could possibly rule over an everlasting Kingdom?

Jesus came to lead a new exodus and to form a new people; he came as the Greater Moses. But he is doing it in an unexpected way: He satisfies the physical hunger of a crowd of thousands of people as an illustration that he himself is the only one who can satisfy.

Jesus alone is the trustworthy authority, he is the key to history, he is the one the Scriptures point to. To truly be his disciple, you must first accept his authority, then and only then can you come to understand him and love him and obey him.

We envision a ministry where God uses each one of us to minister to each other in the Body through our gifts, passions, and everyday life. But the difference between toil and joy in this task is resting in the reality that “I am not the Christ,” Jesus is!

The apostle John records a conversation here between Jesus and a prominent Jewish Pharisee named Nicodemus. It is through this conversation with the best-of-the-best of Israel’s teachers that Jesus reveals something radically profound about what he came to do…that he came to inaugurate the new creation within the hearts of his people.

Our sinful flesh will always tend toward making our relationship with God transactional. But you can lay down the burden of a transactional relationship with God, or whatever other replacement for God that has enslaved you, and you can find freedom in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 55 is one of the best outlines of the message of salvation, and I want this message to encourage you about our purpose as a gospel-centered church. This chapter explains the gift of salvation with four steps: recognize our need, seek the Lord, submit to him, and be transformed for his glory.

This passage is the first of a series of events in chapters 2, 3, and 4 by which Jesus reveals that the old covenant is coming to a close, and that the new messianic age has begun. At this wedding celebration in Cana, Jesus foreshadows that the way to be cleansed of sin is now through his blood.

This sermon looks at the first words and actions of Jesus in his ministry to see that the gospel is an invitation to a new life in a new people through Jesus Christ. It is an invitation to be known and transformed by the Master.

In this passage, we are going to meet John the Baptist and see what it was like in this moment in time when John the Baptist recalled the promises of the prophets who said that a Messiah would come to purify God’s people and to lead the ultimate return from exile.

As we are going to see the most radical and awe-inspiring truth that Jesus is God himself in the flesh, the Creator coming to dwell among his creation, bringing his light and life to all who receive him.

Paul gives Philemon an opportunity to deepen his understanding of the gospel by putting the gospel into practice. This prayer reveals how Paul see evidence of God’s goodness in the fellowship of believers united in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Here’s the central theme of Paul’s opening words in this letter to the church in the city of Thessalonica: He is thankful because he sees the evidence of God’s love in the real transformation that is happening in their lives through the gospel.

The mission of the church requires us to pray. If we are going to surrender to God’s work in our own lives, and if we are going to participate in God’s work in the world, then we need to pray because it is an expression of our humble dependence and an acknowledgment of our need for God to do the work only he can do through us.

Paul describes the fruitfulness of the gospel and praises God for the growth of the message of truth throughout the whole world. And he prays that you and I would spring to life and grow in a gospel-centered fruitfulness in every part of who we are.

In order for you to know the vast love of Jesus displayed in the gospel, you need God to reveal it to you by the Spirit’s power, you need God to make you able to grasp all the dimensions of his love, and you need God to fill you with his fullness.