So many Christians have a deep desire to study the Bible, but find themselves confused or frustrated along the way.
In this episode, Tanner Smith, Aaron Chester, and Tiffany Ravedutti get practical about if its really possible to understand the Bible, and if so, how to do it.
Jesus has risen from the grave, he’s alive!
But….where is he and what is he doing now?
When will he be back?
In this episode, Rachel Chester discusses these questions and more with Jenna Kraft and Aaron Chester.
Is God an always affirming easy-going Santa in the sky?
Or is he an always angry vindictive monster in the sky?
On this episode, Tanner Smith talks with Aaron and Rachel Chester about a biblical understanding of the character of God and our desperate need for justice.
On this episode, Tiffany Ravedutti talks with Yancey Arrington and Jenna Kraft about what prophecy looks like in the Bible, if there are any modern day prophets, and how we can think biblically about prophecy today.
Is the resurrection of Jesus fact or fiction?
Does it even matter?
In this episode, Tiffany Ravedutti sits down with Jenna Kraft and Yancey Arrington to discuss the resurrection of Jesus, the evidence to support it, and its impact on the daily lives of Christians today.
Seventy-three percent of evangelicals believe Jesus was created by God.
Forty-four percent of evangelicals believe Jesus was a great teacher, but not God.
Is this right? Or is Jesus really God?
Is there any biblical evidence for claiming the divinity of Jesus and does this even affect our faith?
In this episode, Lance Lawson asks Greg Poore and Aaron Chester these questions and more.
It’s a question so many well-intentioned Christians ask: “How can I do more for God?”
You experience the love of God and the goodness of the Gospel, and your natural, automatic response is, God did something significant for me, so I want to do something significant for Him! How can I pay him back?
The problem is nothing we could do for God could ever repay him for the grace he has shown us in the Gospel. In fact, God isn’t sitting around waiting for someone to offer their assistance so he can finally get something done around here. And there’s really nothing we can offer to God that he doesn’t already have.
So… what can we do for God, we wonder.
To find the answer, we start trying things like serving in the church, reaching out to neighbors, and being better stewards and employees and husbands and mothers and friends. But at some point, serving stops being convenient. It starts creating tension, conflicts with our goals, becomes overwhelming, and, little by little, we drop the plow we excitedly picked up in an effort to perform for the God who loves us unconditionally. The problem for many of us is we have the wrong idea of what it means to serve. It’s not about what we can do for God out of obligation or recompense, and more about how we can partner with him in love.
To help illustrate the difference, I want to give you two different pictures of Jesus and the way he served the Father during his earthly ministry. These are beautifully illustrated in the book The Burden is Light by Jon Tyson.
AMERICAN JESUS
If we were to write the Gospels today, they would be infused with this winner script. They would probably go something like this:
“Jesus was born of a virgin (a great start), and as a teenager, he was passionate about his Father’s house. He started his ministry with a prophetic declaration about the kingdom of God, fulfilling truth in a new and spectacular way. He then called disciples, gathered momentum, confronted hypocrisy, healed the sick, raised the dead, and challenged Herod. Then he voluntarily died to become the savior of the world. He rose again in victory, proving to everyone that he was alive, then ascended into heaven. Right before he arrived, the heavens opened and the Father announced, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’ The angels stood to their feet, the disciples raised their hands in victory, and all of heaven rejoiced.”
For generations we have been trying to earn our Father’s applause by following this script. But of course, that’s not how Jesus’s life was ordered at all.
AUTHENTIC JESUS
The actual Gospels are not ordered like this. They show Jesus spending almost thirty years in relative obscurity. Before he healed a sick person, raised the dead, confronted hypocrisy, made disciples, preached to the crowds, and died and rose again, he was baptized. And at Jesus’s baptism, his Father declared, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”* Jesus hadn’t done anything public or important yet, so what could the Father have been pleased with? It’s simple. Relationship. Jesus spent thirty years abiding in his Father’s love, and that was enough. What pleased the Father was not Jesus’s accomplishments but his intimacy. This is the same thing that pleases him in our lives today.
Because Jesus was aware of his Father’s approval before starting his ministry, he didn’t have to compete with others during his ministry. The Father’s approval gave Jesus the security to avoid an addiction to success and scandalously give his life away in love. [1]
You see, Jesus lived a life of ministry out of love. He loved the Father and knew he was loved by the Father, regardless of his performance or success. There was no trying to pay the Father back for his love; his life was simply an expression of the love he had already received in his relationship with the Father.
When we go to serve God, whether it be in the local church, in the community, in our families or workplaces, we must adjust our motivation and remember this: God already loves you and accepts you because of Jesus. There is nothing that you can do to earn his love or repay him for it. So, when you serve, let it be out of an abundance of love and devotion.
Will it be difficult? Sometimes.
Will it be inconvenient? Often, yes.
But a life lived partnering with Jesus in love is a life lived as a son and daughter – not simply a servant.
If you’d like to find ways to get connected serving in this local expression of the church, click here. We’d love to help you find a place to serve that suits your gifts and talents and serves the body of Christ effectively.
[1] Jon Tyson, The Burden Is Light: Liberating Your Life from the Tyranny of Performance and Success (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah, 2018), 52-53.
In this episode, Tanner Smith interviews Lead Pastor, Bruce Wesley and Teaching Pastor, Yancey Arrington about this week’s sermon, “Real Faith, Apostasy, and Community”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
In this episode, Tanner Smith interviews Associate Pastor, Greg Poore and 528 Campus Pastor, Chris Alston about this week’s sermon, “Being Prayerful”.
They discuss questions like: How does this sermon fit within the Biblical story of redemption? How did this message convict them, personally?
“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”
David Ausberger
One of the first gifts Jesus gave to the downtrodden and marginalized people he met was the kindness of hearing them. That is why he asked so many questions. That is why he answered so many questions. That is what made him stand out from the other religious and civic leaders of his day — the important and very busy leaders of his day.
Jesus noticed.
Jesus stopped and asked.
Jesus listened to the answer and asked more questions.
Jesus didn’t confuse a person’s status with their significance, but sought to understand that particular individual.
Personally, if I could snap my fingers and be different in one specific way, it would be that I consistently took the time Jesus took to truly hear people, because I believe it is true that being heard is so close to being loved that most people can’t tell the difference.
You could fill Galveston Bay with all the material that has been written on good listening practices and I imagine the majority of it is helpful. But the way of Jesus had and has less to do with technique and more to do with intent.
Do you ever ask yourself, Why am I speaking with this person right now?
Why am I speaking with this person right now?
I can tell you that many times my answer would be one of the following: “Because I have to.” Or, “Because I can fix that for them.” Or, “Because I want to give them a piece of my mind.”
I can also tell you that it is rarely, at least initially, “Because I want to understand why they feel the way they feel. Because I want to understand who they are, and not just what their problem is.”
But Jesus’ consistent practice was to seek out the person. To borrow a phrase from Paul Tripp, Jesus “looked for the person in the middle of the problem.” Jesus knew that a person’s problems can teach us a lot about who they are, so he sought to meet and engage the person who was struggling with the problem.
What is convicting about Jesus’ kind of listening is that it is not really that hard to do. I can do it. It’s just that I often don’t, because, too often, I am much more like the religious and civic leaders of Jesus’ day than I am Jesus — important and busy. So, too often, I don’t engage the person, I just offer my brilliant solution to the problem I haven’t taken the time to understand, because it’s easier to solve problems than to hear people.
Not long ago I heard a phrase that I have been thinking about since. I don’t know who said it, but I think this gets to the heart of the issue.
“Communication depends on the humility to speak in a way that the other person can hear.”
(Source unknown)
I am convicted that my listening problem is a pride problem.
How can I speak in a way the other person can hear if I don’t know anything about them? How can I speak in a way the other person can hear if I don’t take the time to ask, to seek, to reflect, to get clarity, to build trust?
I can’t.
We don’t need humility to give superficial or trite answers. We don’t need humility to give simplistic solutions to complex problems. We don’t need humility to brush people off because we don’t want to take time to get involved. We don’t need humility to hand out Bible verses like they are medicine.
Jesus is the definition of humility. We need to follow his way with others. He already knew everything about the people he met and the problems they had. He didn’t have to ask questions, but he did. And what Jesus did — with centurions, gentile women, Pharisees, crippled people, and even the demon possessed — was teach people one thing: he cared about them.
“Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”