Lost & Found: Cast From the Garden, Cursed Ground

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In this life, each of us has experienced loss: loss of relationship, innocence, loved ones, time, etc. In this first sermon of our new series “Lost & Found” which will lead up to Easter, we’ll be looking at how what we’ve lost in this life is recovered in the Kingdom of God. This week, Pastor Josh examines the first loss that people experienced when they were exiled from the Garden of Eden after allowing sin to enter in. But when we really sit with the scriptures in Genesis, what we discover is not just how much we lost, but how much God the Father lost.

Lost & Found: Cast Out of the Garden
Josh Pavel

First Fruits

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The First Fruits Festival celebrated in ancient Israel is a beautiful foreshadowing of the resurrected life of Jesus. Jesus, the first fruit of humankind, is the model of who we are created and destined to be. Like Jesus, we can rely on the Holy Spirit, and see God do amazing things through the gifts and abilities He gives us. Our responsibility is to take up those things the Father is doing in us and be obedient to get started on the work before us and offer the first of our blessings to him with thanks for the rest of the harvest we know He will bring to completion in His time.

First Fruits
Leah Pavel

Generosity, Giving and Financial Review

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Both as a church and as individuals and families, we need to set our values and priorities in regard to giving and have those be what informs our practices instead of having our giving ebb and flow as a reaction to our current financial situation. It’s important to our discipleship that we have hearts of gratitude, love and justice from which generosity flows instead of giving out of legalism, obligation or guilt. Hearts with a healthy attitude toward finances and giving will be able to be wise and purposeful even in times of abundance and generous even in times of scarcity. This teaching ends with a review of the current financial picture of the church.

Generosity, Giving and Financial Review
Leah Pavel

Imago Dei

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When the author of Genesis writes that we are made in God’s image, he is referring not to a physical likeless but one of function and purpose. This same idea is found in Romans and we see that the work of God over time conforms us. There are things in our lives that do not conform to the pattern of Jesus and those things must be left behind.

Imago Dei
Josh Pavel

Pursuing The Presence of God: The Practice

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When we want to *practice* the presence of God, we have to understand that the practice is much more about seeing, hearing and understanding, rather than earning or achieving. Developing these ways of perceiving the Presence of God may seem simple yet prove to be challenging to our normal ways of perceiving the world.

Pursuing the Presence of God: The Practice
Josh Pavel

Pursuing the Presence of God: The Passage

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This week in our Pursuing the Presence of God series, Pastor Josh discusses the passage, or the path to the presence of God. In contrast to the process, ritual, and restrictions associated with entering the temple in ancient Israel, the curtain was torn at Jesus’ death and the way in to God’s presence has been made clear and accessible to all who come through Jesus. However, it is not a path to be taken lightly. As explained in Hebrews, we must not trample the sacrifice of Christ but must honor Him and pursue holiness. We don’t “trample the Son of God underfoot” by continuing in our sin because grace and holiness go hand in hand.

Pursuing the Presence of God: The Passage
Josh Pavel

Christmas Presence: Joy

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You’ve probably heard the phrase “happiness depends on circumstances, joy does not”. Joy accentuates the pleasurable, good things of life. Joy shared in community brings something of the Kingdom of God. Joy with God is not one directional or transactional. The joy of the Lord is reciprocal in its nature - we give and He gives. In Advent, there is joy in God’s coming and closeness. The key to lasting joy isn’t in seeking joy itself, but in pursuing the joy bringer.

Christmas Presence: Joy
Josh Pavel

Christmas Presence: Hope

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Advent places the church, every year, in longing for the fullness of the throne of God to be realized. We need Advent, even if we never reach Christmas morning. What we long for is not a nostalgic look back or presents, what we’re longing for is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Hope is what grounds us now in the expectation and preparation for God’s future. In order to get from our past to God’s future, we must go through some pivot point, something that will connect those two disjointed realities: Jesus is the connection.

Christmas Presence: Hope
Josh Pavel

Identity in Christ: Saints

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Most of us probably don’t feel like we qualify to be called saints, but Paul wrote to the Corinthians, a church that had all sorts of problems, and told them that they were God’s saints. By the power of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we are indeed, made righteous - saints. And this type of sainthood isn’t something reserved as a posthumous honor, it’s meant to describe our lives on this earth as we reflect God’s glory and do the works He created for us to do.

The Names God Calls Us: Saints
Josh Pavel

Identity in Christ: His Handiwork

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This week, Pastor Josh begins a new series, The Names God Calls Us, by looking at how we are referred to as God’s handiwork in Ephesians. We often find ways to identify ourselves by so many factors that aren’t who we really are. Our identity comes from who God says we are. We have a specific identity and purpose in Christ that matter.

The Names God Calls Us: His Handiwork
Josh Pavel