Word of Life Church Podcast

If you've ever struggled to trust God, you are not alone. The story of the people of God has been a long story of learning to trust that God cares. In a world where we feel bombarded with anxiety, uncertainty, and injustice, we often ask "Who cares?" Jesus reminds us that God is more just than we could have ever imagined. He is a God who cares and will act to set all things right.

For generations, even before humans were literate, father and mothers have sat fireside with sons and daughters, night after night, telling stories. These Stories, both new and old, are the stories that have become our scriptures. Storytelling is the way we pass on our history and our own experience, inviting others into our story. When our story intersects with the Jesus story, our response should be to go and tell this story. Telling our story may be the very way that someone else is able to find hope and healing in their own story.

The death of Jesus on the cross is central to the gospel story and it is central to our faith. The cross was scandalous for first-century Jews and silly for first-century Romans. It is ignored by modern people, but for those of us who believe, the cross changes everything. It is the day a revolution began. The cross is only revolutionary if we get the end game right. If the end is disembodied Christians living in heaven for all eternity then the cross becomes the central figure of a new religion, nothing more. But if the end of our story is new creation, the restoration of all things, the salvation of the world, then we see again the revolutionary nature of the cross.

The gospel isn’t a plan or a theory. The gospel isn’t good advice or moral instructions. The gospel is not a collection of God-facts. The gospel is a story. It is the story of Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection.Salvation occurs at the intersection of your story and the Gospel story.

Through the storms in life, Christians since the beginning have held on to an anchor of the hope in Christ. Storms are not something we can avoid in life. So how can we make it through the storm? Looking at the gospel story of Jesus as he calms the storm, we find that we are not alone and we can ask for help in the midst of the storm.

Every life is a story unfolding. We live in a world where bad stories are told and in need of good stories. How might our life tell a good story? This sermon explores how life hinges on the details and how the God of the grand sweeping narrative of the universe is also the God of the details of every human life.

The Book of Ephesians is a densely packed letter busting at the seams with so much: the gospel, the love of God, the mystery of God revealed in the life of the church, family life, and spiritual warfare. The opening of the book, verses 3-14 of chapter 1, is a prayer of thanks and praise to God, written not to isolated individuals, but to the church. We learn that it is not so much that I am blessed, loved, and chosen. Rather it is that I belong to the people of God who are blessed, loved, and chosen.