Christ Community Church - Leawood Campus - SUNDAY MESSAGES

Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/48977448 Prayer Requests: https://ccefc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2509/responses/new22.11.20

The bible has often been called the “good book” for it indeed is that. It is the masterpiece of masterpieces.  But the good book can be misused for deceptive aims, abusive purposes and nefarious ends.  The bible can be wrongly taught to say what it does not say, to support deceptive plausibilities that perpetuate anything, but truth, goodness and beauty in the world, but rather legitimize abuse, domination, evil, and suffering. Our hearts break at this, but it is a sober reminder for us of the importance of teaching what the Holy Scripture actually teaches, of teaching the whole counsel of God and embracing the moral clarity it brings to our broken world.We are not our own. We belong to Jesus. We learn from Jesus as yoked apprentices who understand and steward power radically different from the world. re–what a glorious place we live, love and work before an Audience of One.Prayer Requests: https://ccefc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2509/responses/newSermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4897744122.11.13

For most of us, we just have to learn to dance. Occasionally, that means stepping on each other’s toes. The marriages that do this best, sacrificing and submitting, loving and respecting, they don’t even know they’re doing it. They aren’t focused on the steps. They are focused on their partner. Your marriage is not about you and that is the best news in the world. Because the truly best things in life are not about us. They are about Jesus. The greatest story of all time. God as our husband. And even when we run from him, hide from him, hurt him, betray him…He never stops pursuing us. Sacrificing for us. Cherishing us. Loving us. Never ever ever. You in this room are God’s beloved.Sermon Notes:  https://www.bible.com/events/48977429Prayer Requests: https://ccefc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2509/responses/new

Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4897395622.10.30

When we are at our worst, it is often because something has deeply hurt us. Hurt people hurt people. But what if the opposite is also true? What if loved people love people? This is the point the apostle Paul is trying to make in Ephesians 5. Paul knows we will never love each other, our neighbors as ourselves, until we know how loved we are. He calls the church, those who follow Jesus, beloved children of God. For those of you who have children in your lives, you know the look on a child’s face when they know they are loved. There is a delight, an ease when a person feels like someone takes a genuine interest in them. A safety that you are in the love and care of someone else. Loved people love people. Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4897058422.10.23

I meet people who their entire lives have never been taught that God cares about their work, but actually he has called you to serve Him there. More than that, he actually put you there to do something only you can do. As we have been learning in Ephesians, as Christians, we are called to take off our old self and put on our new self to live out our calling in all areas of our lives, not just church on Sunday. Whether paid or unpaid, our honest work produces something good. God is a worker, and he created us to work, and Jesus redeems us to work, not only as a means to provide for ourselves, but of worshiping Him and serving our neighbors. He not only calls us to work, but He is in our work with us. All work that produces good things not only honors God, but serves others. Our faith matters in our work.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4896701622.10.16

I think it is fair to say that our contemporary culture is one marked by an identity crisis. We don’t know who we are anymore. In our modern quest to know ourselves, we have become more anxious, confused, isolated and despairing. As members of God’s family and the Christian faith, we are knit together in community. Like changing our clothes, we are called to put off our old self and put on our new self. We are not to live as we used to live because we are not who we used to be. We are a new family with a communal code of ethics tied to the relational outworkings of joyful Christian love. Paul points out three distinctives of our new family, the new us, the true us. We must be wise with our words, good at anger, and radically forgive others. These disciplines are not only about experiencing God’s power to change, but more to deeply encounter his abiding presence with us moment by moment.Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4896328822.10.09

As a church, we are the body of Jesus. When people see us individually or collectively, they should see Jesus. We should be able to say to people, if you want to see Jesus, look at us. We are His body. Often though, we do not look like Him but instead look like the rest of the world in our values, behaviors, and attitudes. As the church, we are called by God to oneness; that is one Body of Jesus. To make oneness possible, we must be humble, gentle, and patient with one another. We all need each other. We can’t grow up alone. We can only become the fullness of Christ together with God’s help. It’s not always easy, or pretty if we’re honest. But we are growing up into something glorious, something eternal, something more like Jesus. Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4895963922.10.02

Paul describes the local church as a holy temple, a dwelling place for the Triune God by (in) the Spirit. If we are followers of Christ our very individual bodies and collectively as the body of Christ, are a people, a place where God’s presence dwells. The Holy Spirit is the one who somehow brings that reality into time and space. God’s divine presence and supernatural power of Trinitarian love is experienced in time and space, both individually and collectively. To in joyful submission, heartfelt obedience, and contagious hope allow our embodied lives to be increasingly empowered and controlled by the Holy Spirit. To be spirit-filled individual apprentices of Jesus, to be a spirit-filled local church where the fruits of the spirit are manifested in our relationships and experienced in our relationships. The fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The local church is not only a prayerful community, it is also a supernatural community, created, empowered, and sustained by the Holy Spirit.Sermon Notes: https://bible.com/events/4895580922.09.25

As modern westerners, we live in a pretty materialistic culture. We tend only to trust what we can see with our own eyes. That is actually a pretty unusual way to look at the world historically. But in a biblical worldview, there are powers that have influence in our world for good and evil. When you consider the depth of evil we see in the world, and the unexpected moments of healing, joy, or grace, it’s not hard to imagine that there are powers we cannot see who nudge our experience this way or that. These powers speak of God’s ultimate wisdom, brilliance, and magnificence. When God looks at us, he sees his most brilliant work of art. We are the victory of God. We must not lose heart because Jesus has overcome the world.22.09.18