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Coming December 2nd! The Fastest Christmas Ever is a 4 part holiday special for that will have your kids laughing this Christmas.
Tom is determined to become the fastest 8 year old ever and now he's got the bike to pull it off. He's just missing one thing... the race! Join Tom and his family as he pursues his quest for glory, and along the way he just might learn what it means to glorify God... no matter what speed bumps come along.
Over the course of 4 episodes, Tom will go on a pretty big adventure. Just as he is on the verge of glory, he suffers a pretty devastating loss. Will Tom learn what glory means in time for Christmas? Listen to The Fastest Christmas Ever beginning December 2nd!
Do You Want to Be Happy?
Everyone wants to be happy. We spend our money, time, and energy chasing our version of the good life. And on the way, we run ourselves into physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. But what if the happiness we’re all striving for isn’t the happiness we were created for?
Pastor and author Dr. Derwin L. Gray believes there is a better road to happiness, and it is found in the Beatitudes of Jesus. In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus revealed the shocking, countercultural path to true flourishing. It comes not through wealth, fame, or laughter but through poverty, obscurity, and mourning.
True happiness comes from a heart directed toward the kingdom of God and satisfied in Jesus the King. This 8-session small-group study demonstrates how Jesus taught us to search for, find, and hold on to the good life.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Welcome back. We are in quest of the good life and we're learning what Jesus teaches about true happiness. Uh, this says is entitled Happy Are the • • Merciful. Uh, what we're going to discover is that Jesus ties our happiness into us • • • being merciful. And what better story • • than the story of not the good Samaritan, but the merciful Samaritan to show us how our happiness and being merciful are two sides of the same coin. So let's go back 2000 years, • • let's go back to the first century, second Temple, Jewish world. And Jesus shares a story that would have made his Jewish audience • • • • take a deep breath. As a matter of fact, they probably would have flipped out. And in this story, this is a story of a Jewish man traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho. • • • It's a 17 miles journey that descends 3000ft. Uh, the ancient Jewish people called it the Bloody Way because people tended to be robbed on this route. And so Jesus's audience would have known. • So the story goes like this. The man is traveling down from Jerusalem to Jericho and a band of robbers beat him and rob him and steal from him, and he's left half dead. Then all of a sudden, the hero of the story, or supposedly the hero of the story, a priest • comes down and he sees the man on the road half dead. And a priest, instead of helping the man that's half dead, avoids him. • • Now, if you know something about Jewish law, • • • if someone were to touch a dead body, they would be considered unclean. • • However, the priest was coming down from Jerusalem, which meant that he most likely had already practiced his temple sacrifices. So the idea of being unclean is no longer a reality. He just chose to walk past him. • • • The next, • • a Levite comes down. And in ancient Israel, a, uh, Levite was kind of like a worship leader. So the worship leader now comes down from Jerusalem and he too would have already been in the temple and done his sacrifices. So there was no danger of being considered unclean. But he too avoids the man that's half dead on the road. Now, let's pause here. • • Imagine that, that's you and you see someone hurting and in need and you walk past them. • • • • So next Jesus does something that flips the entire script. • • He says, and then, uh, a Samaritan comes down the road. So let's pause here. Here's the context. • • For 400 years, the Jewish people and the Samaritans had been at impneti. They did not like each other. • • The Samaritans were a mixed breed. They were Jewish and Gentile. Uh, they didn't worship the way the Jews did. And there was just so much animosity. There was ethnic prejudice, • there was • • religious, uh, • • • prejudice. They just didn't like each other. And so the idea of a Samaritan coming down the road, the audience would have thought, well, perhaps the Samaritan is going to go ahead and just finish this guy off. Maybe it was the Samaritan • who robbed this guy. • • But then Jesus, like the master teacher he is, shows us the power of mercy. The, uh, • Samaritan walks by, and instead of passing the Jewish man, who's half dead, he goes over to him • • • and he pours oil on his wound. He pours wine on the wound. The oil softens the wound. The wine kills the bacteria. He puts the man on his mule, • • • and then he takes him to an end, and he tells the innkeeper, listen, I want you to take care of him, and I'm going to pay all of the expenses. Jesus's audience would have just gasped. How can a Samaritan show this kind of love? Because God's kingdom, • • our happiness, • the good life is a life in which because we've experienced the mercy of God and Jesus on the cross, we become merciful is mercy is not afraid to touch human suffering. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • For us, as followers of Jesus, it's important that we pray prayers, but prayer always leads to • • action. So as we look at areas in your life and my life, • • in areas around us, what are areas that God is saying, I want your mercy to move you to action? • • What are areas of human suffering that we can touch? Because oftentimes what people need is our presence. And what the Samaritan was able to do was to be present with this Jewish man in his darkest, • • • • • most painful • hour. Who is God asking you to be mercifully present with? • • Samaritan teaches us that mercy is not afraid • to break down ethnic barriers. • • • • • Uh, when you look at the Good Samaritan, 400 years of ethnic tensions and prejudice and bigotry, and the Samaritan says, you know what? What matters is • • this person. What matters is love. And the context of the story of the good Samaritan is this is what loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself looks like. Loving your neighbor as you love yourself looks like. Ethnic barriers and tensions do not limit the grace of God. And so you have a Samaritan going to the other who's the other that God is calling you to go to? Who's the other that God is calling you to advocate on? Uh, so as we look at the church in America, the most segregated hour in America is Sunday morning. • • The Early Church, the Christian church in Jerusalem, and all throughout the ancient world was a multiethnic church comprised of Jews and Gentiles. The blood of Jesus is like Super Glue that brings others together. • • • And here's a little insight. What is a Samaritan, a Jew, and a Gentile in one body? And what's the church supposed to be? Jews and Gentiles in one body. The Samaritan shows us a picture of what the church is to be. • • The Samaritan shows us this is what love looks like. It is merciful to the other. • • • Mercy shows us that • • mercy spends money on human suffering. • • • • If you ever want to know what someone believes, don't ask them. Just look at where they spend their financial resources. The Samaritan said, in essence, if you want to know what matters to me, love and mercy matters to me so much that I write checks. He literally spent two weeks of wages to care for a person who was supposed to be an, uh, enemy. You see, that's what mercy does. • • • May you and I be, • • uh, responsive to God's sin. This is what mercy is. And why are we responsive? Because we experience God's mercy on the cross, as the Apostle Paul says. But God, • • who is rich and mercy • • • • with great love, made, uh, • • us alive together with Christ. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • And that's what mercy does. Mercy says it doesn't matter a person's ethnicity. • • It doesn't matter who they are. If there is a need, I'm going to meet that need. But ultimately, the story of the Good Samaritan is a story about you and me. The reality is that sin and death and evil has beat us and robbed us. The enemy comes to still kill and destroy, but Jesus came to give life. We are on the side of the road, and Jesus doesn't walk by. • • Jesus walks to the cross. • • Jesus dies the death that we should have died for. Our sin liberating us from the power of sin, • • the clutches of evil. And in his resurrection, he defeats death to give us a new life. You see, blessed are the merciful. Happy are the merciful because they will receive mercy. • • • Uh, may we be merciful. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Speaker B
In this session, I want you to think about two questions. • • • First is this the Good Samaritan can also be called the Merciful Samaritan. How was he merciful? • • • Two, how does God want you to be merciful to the other? • • • And I want you to marinate on this thought. We're merciful because God showed us mercy first. • • •
Speaker A
Peace.
Speaker B
I'm, um out. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •