2019 Messages
What Did You Get For Christmas?
December 29, 2019 • David Hammerslag
Christmas has come and gone. We may have overlooked the true value of God's gift of Love. God's gift of love through his Son has incredible value in its own right, but it is not meant for us to keep for ourselves. It is meant to transform us so that we can be transformed by it and love others with the same outrageous extravagant love given to us.
The Supernatural & the Scent of Rain
December 22, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
The scent of rain and Advent itself are impossible to understand apart from the reality of the supernatural. Scent of rain doesn’t just happen — it is caused by Someone, caused supernaturally. Two supernatural aspects of the Jesus' birth narrative integral and normative to the Christian life are prophecy and angelic activity, and both them can bring the scent of rain. Once you start looking for it, the supernatural is almost impossible to miss in the Christmas story – it’s everywhere: dreams, words, angels, visions, prophecy.
The Girl Who Caught the Scent of Rain
December 15, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
Mary is the girl who caught the scent of rain. And she changed the world as a result. Before anyone else, she sees and announces Jesus’ mission. If any person ever fit the description of being the dangerous kind, Mary does; she’s dangerous because she knows the identity of her son and because she begins to tell his story—and no one is more dangerous than those who tell his story.
The Scent of Rain in a Time of Famine
December 8, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
God’s whisper of promise is not given to those who are big, flashy, or impressive. The scent of rain comes to those in obscurity. It comes to those who are dead, dry, dying – a mere stump, a gnarled fist of brittle roots. For those in a time of famine, who feel like a gnarled fist of brittle roots, to whom God is sending the scent of rain but are struggling to believe, God’s starting to break through—know this: love is on the way!
The Scent of Rain
December 1, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
Only love can save us, and here’s the Good News of both the gospel and 2nd Coming: love is on the way! The things that will be fully experienced at the end of the age—intimate worship, peace, embracing God’s best life for us—these are appearing even now as the transforming love of Christ gets a hold of us. The message of the second advent and the first sing in harmony: people get ready—love is on the way, life is on the way, hope is on the way, help is on the way!
He's Not A Tame Lion
November 24, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
The One described by Paul in Colossians 1:15-20 certainly sounds like a magnificent King who reigns over all things at all times. And He sounds suspiciously little like the Jesus we talk about because, well, the Jesus we talk about generally sounds more like us than the Jesus the Bible knows. Who is Jesus, really, and why would anyone give up everything to follow a Jesus who’s just a slightly elevated version of us and our personal desires, projections, and convictions?
Jesus Is The Seventh Man
November 17, 2019 • Lindsay Elizabeth
Are you lacking...something? Much of humanity lives with this internal sense that something about their life is incomplete. God created this world and He created us. When the created is not connected to the Creator there is something missing. The more we seek to fill that sense of lack or deficiency with relationships and things, the more the feeling perpetuates. Jesus is complete--He is full, He lacks nothing, He has no deficiency. He's what we've been looking for!
How Does It Look to You?
November 10, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
We need to stop complaining about and cursing the place of our assignment. Instead, we need to get God’s perspective on our present assignment and circumstances. How do we know that the place we’re at isn’t in fact a gate of heaven? We cannot trust our own eyes or perceptions. This is why God asks, “How does it look to you?” It is an invitation to look again, from heaven’s point of view. We don't know what we think we know! God’s estimate of things is very different from ours.
The Night I Had a Beer with Elvis
November 3, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
In the New Testament lost does not mean damned or doomed. It simply means in the wrong place. This is what happens with Zacchaeus, whose name means “righteous one” or “pure.” The chief tax collector was not living up to his name. He was in the wrong place, not aligned with his true name or identity. But when Jesus finds him, Zacchaeus goes from being in the wrong place to being in the right place: a son in the household and the family of his Father.
From Pharisee to Tax Collector
October 27, 2019 • David Hammerslag
It is the state of our souls, not our words or actions that justify us before God, and in Jesus' famous parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the Pharisee’s central problem is that he does not know his own heart. He trusts in his own righteousness and is too easily critical of others. How do we know ourselves truly? We can only really know ourselves in community. But as long as we don't risk relationship, we can sell ourselves all kinds of false ideas of what we're really like while ignoring the magnitude of our narcissism.
The Possibilities of Offensively Bold Prayer
October 20, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
What might God be up to in calling Wonderful Mercy to be a house of prayer? One answer: to be a church and a people who pray through our problems straight into his purposes and promises. Praying through our problems means praying through delay, disappointment, and disillusionment. Consider the prophetic word God gave us for the year: deeper. Praying like that can’t help but take us deeper into Father’s heart!
God’s Welfare Program
October 13, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
When the church comes together in unity and begins to pray for the kingdom to come and God’s will to be done, and when we pray intentionally and specifically for what we are believing for, there are mighty answers that happen. Thus, the question: what should we pray for together? Here’s one possibility: our city. We believe the Father wants us to embrace this invitation to corporate prayer as an aspect of our calling as a house of prayer.
The Love of God
October 6, 2019 • Danny Mullins
A Hebrew poet summarized the excellence and sweetness of life with God this way: "Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life." (Ps. 23:6, Message) In today's message we hear a fascinating story of one man's firsthand experience with the love of God.
Money—What’s the Problem?
September 29, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
Anglican bishop N.T. Wright contends, “Never before have so many people tripped over one another in their eagerness to get rich and thereby impaled themselves on the consequences of their own greed.” There is absolutely nothing wrong with having more money, being able to pay off debt and meeting reasonable financial obligations. The Bible doesn’t have a low view of money; neither does it have as high a view of it as we do. The Bible would simply tell us this: if you look to money as the big fix, you will be disappointed. Why? Because it’s not eternal and you were made for eternity.
The Power of Questions
September 22, 2019 • Graeme Sellers
As a society, we tend to focus a lot on answers—after all, answers are solutions to problems. Questions are less prestigious, perhaps because everyone has them. In that sense they’re easy; it’s the answers that are http://hard...not everyone has those! We tend to overlook the value of questions and overrate the importance of answers. In fact, all sorts of possibilities open up in doing life together when authentic questions are met with generous listening.