Life Reimagined
Life Reimagined: A Thank Offering
November 20, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Romans 12:1–2
In this message, we wrap up our series on what it means to live a Life Reimagined. This is a life where, as stewards of the King, we are trusting in the promises of God, to deploy the resources of God, and to accomplish the mission of God for the glory of God. There is much more to a Life Reimagined than this stewardship definition we have been repeating for the past 8 weeks. A Life Reimagined is a life transformed that is radically different from how it was before. There is a cost to living a Life Reimagined. It doesn’t just happen, because ultimately, we have the decision to make to give a Thank Offering. A Thank Offering decision is a sacrifice given to God in thanksgiving for God’s faithfulness for the wonderful things God has done. Thank Offerings keep on giving thanks with your entire life, not just with words. Thank Offerings are also embodied in deeds, vows, promises, and subsequent actions.
Life Reimagined: My Faith My Life
November 6, 2022 • Minister Ashley Watson • Genesis 50:19–21
Our Director of Youth Ministry Pastor Ashley Watson continues our series on Life Reimagined with a personal story from her experience as a basketball trainer for an after-school program for elementary and middle school students. One of her students shoots the basketball with an unconventional underhanded shot, while still following the basic mechanics essential to basketball shooting. This is an example of how individuals even on their spiritual journey, have different ways to exercise their faith, different trials they go through, and different decisions they make. As a result, the journey toward realizing God’s calling on each of our lives is often different. There are some instances where you need to let a person live their life the way they need to and trust that God is still directing their path even though you may not like it. We need to trust God in the different processes God has for us.
Life Reimagined: Stewarding God's Truth
November 15, 2022 • Reverend Harry Cox • Mark 7:6–13
We continue our journey for a Life Reimagined because we are created for a good, beautiful, and exceedingly abundant life as stewards in God’s Kingdom. In this message, we are looking at another resource God has entrusted to us: sharing the truth of God’s Word. This is a hot topic for today because Christian Nationalism in the United States has been highlighted in media coverage of recent events. The messages of some Christian Nationalists have been prominent in supporting, participating in, or enabling several troubling current events responding to a fear of a decline in Protestant power in the government. Examples of such events have included the violent Washington D.C. attack on January 6th, and most recently, the attack on the husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The list goes on. Protestant Nationalism in its connection with such events has not presented the biblical truth from the Words and Life of Jesus Christ. The Nationalism Movement has co-opted Christianity in the service of ethnic-cultural national power. They call themselves Christian and have religious fervor, but erroneously through their traditions distort the truth of God’s Word. The remnant people of God, who follow the truth of God’s Word, must correct distortions of God’s commands, even from those with religious fervor.
Life Reimagined: Caring for our Bodies
October 30, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • 1 Corinthians 6:19–20
In this series on Life Reimagined, we have seen how our resources, relationships, and caring for the earth can accomplish God’s mission to reconcile, reunite, and restore the brokenness of this world. As Pastor Stan Long shared with us last week, we are to be the embodiment of the Kingdom of God. God has given us all the resources we need to fulfill God’s mission. We live a life reimagined in alignment with God’s vision for us. In worship, we move our bodies. In this message, we will focus on the resources of our bodies in three parts. First, we will meditate on our scriptural text to listen to what God says about our bodies. Then, we will consider an interview with a fitness trainer to help us become better doers of the Word. Lastly, we will have a special time of prayer for anyone in need of healing in their bodies.
Life Reimagined: Previews
October 23, 2022 • Reverend Stanley Long • Matthew 4:17
Today, we are celebrating our anniversary of 37 years of ministry. Anniversaries are special. They help us remember, the what, and the why, that we need to celebrate. People choose different ways to celebrate special occasions, anniversaries, and birthdays, but many have found that these occasions are great moments for evaluation. On their wedding anniversary, a married couple watches video of their wedding and evaluate their adherence to the vows they made to one another. Similarly, our 37th anniversary might be a perfect moment for us to evaluate how we are doing as a church. We came together as Christ’s followers not just to be another institution in the San Francisco Bay Area, but to give the Bay Area a different picture of what Jesus was about. What was Jesus about? Some would tell you Jesus is about saving souls, and Jesus died to make that possible; others will say Jesus was about modeling the life God wants all of us to live. We raise another perspective that Jesus was and is about bringing all creation back under the Father’s authority, and He called the vehicle through which He would do that the Kingdom of God or its synonym, the Kingdom of Heaven. “From that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘You must change your hearts – for the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived’” (Matthew 4:17 Phillips New Testament).
Life Reimagined: Creation Care
October 16, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Psalm 24:1
We continue our journey for a life reimagined because we are created for a good, beautiful, and exceedingly abundant life as stewards in God’s Kingdom. In this message, we are looking at another resource God has entrusted to us: the Care of Creation. Environmental care, global warming, and saving the planet have become hot and sometimes controversial topics in our world. Caring for Creation from a Christian perspective has a different starting point, motivation, and end game from a worldly perspective. What needs to happen for a sustainable planet may look the same, but from the Christian perspective, we reimagine creation care with a different lens and mindset. For a follower of Jesus, Caring for Creation is not political and is not optional. Life Reimagined is a new way of thinking and being. God’s design is that the created world needs us, and we need the world. Let us live Lives Reimagined where Care for Creation is what we do as we love what God loves, in order to accomplish God’s mission for the glory of God.
Life Reimagined: Reimagine Relationships
October 9, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • 1 Peter 4:8–10
Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to bring to mind an incident when you felt angry, frustrated, ticked off, and maybe even hurt. Perhaps the situation or incident bubbled up into an argument or conflict, or perhaps the hurt was just in your spirit. Either way, there was a relational break. Once you have a situation in mind, hold it there because it will be your own personal illustration and application as we unpack God’s Word together today for a life reimagined. Our sermon text is: “Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:8-10). In this message, we are looking at the stewardship of reimagined relationships.
Life Reimagined: Financing the Mission
October 2, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Luke 12:13–34
We continue our series on our journey of life reimagined as stewards of God. Recall our definition of stewardship: Stewardship is trusting in the promises of God, to deploy the resources of God, to accomplish the mission of God, for the glory of God. So far, we have laid the foundation of trusting in the promises of God because the promises enable us to deploy resources for the mission with the assurance that if we take care of God’s business, God will take care of ours. We looked at our mission and how God invites us into partnership with God on a mission that reflects and restores God’s Kingdom of love, peace, justice, kindness, grace, and mercy until Jesus comes again to bring His Kingdom to earth in full glory. Last Sunday, the message by Sister Eunice Johnson encouraged us to keep living into the mission no matter our age; God is not done until God brings us home. In this message, we will explore funding God’s mission with the money and material resources God has given us. People are very private when it comes to money. Money experiences have shaped our relationship with our money and material resources. Jesus invites us to focus on God’s mission as our top priority, to invest our money and material resources to fund the mission, and to trust God to supply our needs.
Life Reimagined: Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept It
September 18, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • John 6:38, 2 Corinthians 2:15
We continue our series on our journey of life reimagined to a life of fruitfulness, abundance, joy, and peace as stewards of God. We don’t have to be stewards, but we get to be stewards. As stewards, we get to be sons and daughters to whom God has given us full authority with the responsibility to manage our part of God’s family business. We care for, nurture, expand, and multiply in fruitfulness in every aspect of creation and life. Yet, we don’t always experience that good, beautiful, and abundant life. Often, something seems missing in our lives; our lives are telling us we need to recalibrate, realign, reboot, and reimagine, in order to get back in step with who God is, who we are, and who God has made us to be as stewards. Recall our definition of stewardship: Stewardship is trusting in the promises of God, deploying the resources of God, to accomplish the mission of God, for the glory of God. Last week, Dr. Long laid the foundation that stewardship begins with trusting in the promises of God. God’s promises affirm God’s love, care, and commitment toward us. Trusting in the promises of God means we can relax and trust God’s faithfulness, and focus on being the stewards God invites us to be. In this message, we will focus on the next two parts of the stewardship definition: we deploy the resources of God to accomplish the mission of God.
Life Reimagined: The Promises of God
September 11, 2022 • Reverend Stanley Long • 2 Peter 1:3–4
Last week, Pastor Tammy Long introduced a new sermon series entitled “Life Reimagined.” From the beginning of human existence on the planet, God has wanted us humans to be Stewards. To broaden our thinking and envision what a reimagined life can look like, we define stewardship as: “to trust in the promises of God, to deploy the resources of God, to accomplish the mission of God for the glory of God.” This week, we unpack the first segment of this definition and wrestle with the implications of trusting in the promises of God. Then as now, early Christians struggled with learning how to work with God’s promises. During immense persecution and about to be executed, Peter wrote to Christians like us, who are going through difficult times, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them, you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2nd Peter 1:3). Peter is saying that the promises of God are supposed to do something. Through the promises of God, the character of God is produced in us. Promises are a big deal.
Life Reimagined: Part 1
September 4, 2022 • Pastor Tammy Long • Genesis 1:26–31
We were created for a good, beautiful, and exceedingly abundant life as stewards in God’s Kingdom. In our quiet lives of desperation, we may miss the abundant joy and beautiful life God offers. God invites every person into partnership as a steward in the Kingdom of God, with a life of abundance and joy. God can be trusted not only to have out best interest at heart, but also wants to offer the very best life imaginable. It doesn’t take much to remind us how short and how precious life really is. Each day is a gift to be cherished, enjoyed, and celebrated. Yet days come and go with little notice. Distracted by day-to-day details, we miss moments to love, to share, to encourage, and to worship. Are we living our lives the way we really want to live in the fullest way that God intended? God is inviting us to a life reimagined...