Passion City Church DC Podcast

Pastor Ben Stuart // The best change is not a change in circumstances but a change in perspective. — In week two of our Worthy series, Pastor Ben Stuart walks us through the second half of Ephesians 1. Here, Paul prays for the Church in Ephesus with a notable approach. Paul doesn’t ask God to do something new for His people. Instead, he asks that our eyes be opened to the beauty of who God is and what he’s done for us. — The more we know who God is, the more we know who we are. There is purpose, peace, and confidence in those who know Him. From there, true life change begins. Do you know what you have? Do you know who you are?

Pastor Ben Stuart // Partakers become proclaimers. When we taste and see that The Lord is good, the most natural thing to do is celebrate Him! — To kick off our new series, Worthy, Pastor Ben Stuart walks us through the spiritual blessings we’ve been given in Christ (Ephesians 1). These gifts are offered freely to us. All we have to do is say yes! — As we begin to understand the gifts we have in Christ, our most natural response will be to worship Him! We are made to worship the things that have value and God is the most valuable thing. He is worthy!

Pastor Ben Stuart // Because the world of information can be tapped into at any moment, it has invaded every moment. — What do we run to when we’re in pain? What do we do when we’re uncomfortable? The truth is, many of us tend to look for ways to distract ourselves from what’s really going on within us, usually through technology. — This week Pastor Ben Stuart challenges us to turn away from diversions and toward intimacy with Jesus. What if we sat with our Creator in moments of discomfort rather than numbing our pain with distraction? If we stopped to listen, we might find that God is trying to speak to us.

Pastor Ben Stuart // There’s a tendency in us to run from the leadership of God, and there’s a tendency in God to chase after us. We love that about Him when it involves us or people we like, but what about when that same grace is extended to our enemies? — In Jonah chapter 4, Jonah is angry with God for offering grace to his enemies. Jonah’s problem is with love. This week Pastor Ben Stuart challenges us with this question: Do we have a problem with love like Jonah does? Are we able to extend the same grace to others that God has extended to us? — While we were Jesus’s enemies, He died for us. Having experienced this great love, may we share the same love to everyone in our lives! After all, those who know grace show grace.

Pastor Ben Stuart // The grace of God is powerful enough to save anyone. The heart of God is compassionate enough to want to. — If your heart is going to beat in rhythm with God’s, you need to know what His heart is like. God never counts people out. In compassion, He moves toward the hurting. He dives into the depths and rescues the lost, and He doesn’t stop there! He uses our pain as a platform to invite us into His rescue mission. — God used Jonah’s biggest embarrassment for his biggest ministry, and He can do the same with us. We don’t have to have mountains of wisdom, we just have to need God share how His grace met us in our mess.

Pastor Ben Stuart // There’s a tendency in God to chase us and give us life, not because of something beautiful in us; because of something beautiful in Him. — That's the thing about a gift. Whether you feel worthy or not doesn’t matter. God's love is not motivated by or contingent upon your worthiness, after all, grace is when undeserving people receive an unbelievable gift from an unobligated giver. — Grace is a gift, and to honor the Giver we have to not only accept, but enjoy the gift.

Pastor Ben Stuart // Washington D.C. In 1981 Steve Callahan's 21-foot sailboat was holed beyond repair sometime in the middle of the night. For the next 76 days he drifted in nothing but a life raft. Having lost a third of his body weight, dehydrated and starving, Steve Callahan fashioned three pencils into a device that allowed him to gather his bearings from two fixed points in the sky, steer himself into a current, and survive. — Fixed points are the only things that we can really use to find our bearings, and in this message from Pastor Ben Stuart we look at the journey of Jonah to find two fixed realities that we can use to know the direction God is wanting us to head, and we must, for the storms are coming and without the proper directions we will not make it through.

Pastor Ben Stuart // We all love stories; tales of good and evil, legends of heroes and tragedies of villains. It's why we flood into bookstores and theatres, to escape into stories we believe could never be our own. — But here's the thing, many of us will walk through life without realizing that we are actually a part of the greatest story that has ever unfolded. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus isn't isolated to scriptures and sermons, it's the moment where all of our stories went from hopeless to filled with possibility. — Afterall we are all guilty, separated from God by our sinful nature. A cursory glance around proves to you no matter what your thoughts on God that there is something broken in humanity. But Easter, Easter is the realization of the greatest Hero of all time. A Savior who took on the Cross for each of us; declaring the death of death and the beginning of Life for all who put their faith in Him.