National Community Church Audio Podcast

Most of us get stuck spiritually because we’re waiting for God to make a move while God is waiting for us to make a move. Quit watching the clouds and start seeding them. Delayed obedience is disobedience!

Don’t box God in. Don’t box people out.

One moment, real and vulnerable, can change your whole life. He calls us, but He does not force us.

When Jesus asked his disciples, “who do you say that I am,” he was gauging to see whether they had the right interpretation. Many people have become angry at the church or walked away completely because Jesus’ followers have the wrong interpretation. So the question is, do you have a true interpretation and from where did it come?

If you have a problem with the God of the Bible, it's probably because of something He did in the Old Testament. Talking snakes, natural disasters, ancient moral codes, divine violence, sanctioned genocide . . . what does it tell us about God and what does it have to do with us? This weekend, we will confront the God of the Old Testament and explore best practices for engaging the text of Scripture.

Assumptions, associations, and misconceptions all tear down our faith in God. The problem is that they are rooted in untruth and so we walk away from a god that doesn’t actually exist. The goal of today’s message is not to push you to a next level faith, it’s not to convince anyone to believe in God, the goal is to weed through the misconceptions and identify the counterfeit gods in our thought process. Those ideas that we learned as a kid but never gained a great understanding or, those ill-fitted explanations from good intentioned people, or the outright manipulations from someone speaking out of turn. But somewhere along the way we might have learned or assumed things that are just not true of God. Let’s peel back the layers of untruth as we seek to explore who God really is during this series.

In the beginning, God created humankind in His image. We have been creating God in our image ever since. But what you end up with is a god who looks a lot like us! That’s the God we’re dismantling in this series so we can discover the true God, the God of the Bible. And that God might surprise you.

The key to changing the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we behave is NOT changing the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we behave. The key? Changing the stories we tell ourselves!

Prayer is a two-sided coin. You can’t just pray like it depends on God, you also have to work like it depends on you. Pray. Then pray some more. But at some point, you need to stop praying about it and starting doing something about it. The best prayer is a well-lived life. The best prayer is doing what Jesus did. And God will help you do it beyond your ability. It’s called the anointing, and it’s the difference between the best you can do and the best God can do.

Temptation and evil are a constant presence in our world. Jesus himself was tempted. But we have a way out and a way to win. When Jesus says, “lead is not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” he is saying we cannot deliver ourselves. Prayer is both our hedge and our help!

It takes seventeen seconds to recite the Lord’s prayer, but it takes a lifetime to live it and learn it. The turning point in the prayer, the tipping point, is this: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This prayer is the difference between bitter and better. If you’re stuck emotionally or spiritually, maybe it’s because you’ve prayed the first half of this prayer but not the second half. If you want to be whole, you have to pray the whole thing.

Today we make the transition in the Lord’s Prayer from talking about God the Father to talking about ourselves. But the prayer is a wonderful model of relationship. It starts with relationship building (Our Father), moves to character (Hallowed be your name) and progresses towards need (Give us daily bread). To seek God for daily bread is an act of trust. He doesn’t promise us weekly bread or monthly bread, but daily bread, so as to keep us cultivated relationship with Him. But the secret of this request is that bread is broader than bread. He is ultimately allowing us to bring our request for any need for provision. Whether food or relational or work. But at the end of the day He is a God who meets both physical and spiritual need. And he does so through the bread of life, not just a scrap that fills our belly. We invite you to seek God in this practical way along with us as we digest the middle portion of the prayer.

The prayer "thy kingdom come” is not a prayer we pray and then wait for things to happen. It’s a prayer that demands our own repentance, demands faith, and demands that we live out the actions of Christ. But the actions of Christ are counter culture to the ways that we have seen power abused throughout history. His kingdom is about service and justice and grace. When we pray that his name would be great and pray that his kingdom would come, we must continue the Lord’s prayer to the next line. Because those two things are accomplished when we live out, “Thy will be done.” And when we do, we see heaven come to earth moments. Join us as we continue our series on the Lord’s prayer.

As we enter the season of Lent, we begin a focused season of prayer. We pray to a God who gives us the proximity of a father and the perspective of the heavens.

When you put what is in your hands into the hands of God, 5 + 2 no longer equals 7. When you add God to the equation, 5 + 2 = 5000 R12. It’s Kingdom Calculus. By definition, a God-sized dream is beyond your ability and beyond your resources. In other words, you cannot do it. But God can. And that’s how God gets the glory! He does things we can’t take credit for.

John wants us to believe what he found to be true! Trust the Jesus he trusted and experience what he experienced. John is saying “Look at what happens when you BELIEVE! Look at the result of TRUST!”

A reboot is to make a change in something in order to establish a new beginning. Zig Ziglar said, “No one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start now and make a brand new ending." Our prayer over this series has been to help people go from the old to the new. From an old way of thinking, from an old habit, from an old mindset to a new mindset through Christ. To get a new mindset, we’ve got to peel back the bad habits and uproot those wrong ideas and replace them with God-inspired vision. Today’s message is a set up to practicing prayer in which we allow God to do His work in our soul, so we encourage you to do the same on your own after this brief message. Take a few minutes to seek God through reflection, forgiveness, fellowship, honor, and celebration.

In our quest to reboot at the beginning of the year. There is no doubt that there are goals and resolutions we want to pursue. There is nothing wrong with that. But often, the difference between success and failure in our lives has nothing to do with accomplishing these goals. It has everything to do with basic spiritual disciplines, to which EVERYTHING is connected. When it is all said and done, maximizing the capacity and potential of our lives comes back to the basics.

Winston Churchill said "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give". Being generous changes everything. Brad talks to us about moving from awareness to action.

The way we reboot spiritually is God’s mercy and grace. Mercy is NOT GETTING what we deserve. Grace is getting what we DO NOT deserve. The good news? The Mercy Shop is never closed.