City Church Long Beach Sermons

6 Kinds of Friends We Need Right Now: The Friend In the Fight – Ecclesiastes 4:12 – October 26, 2025 One of the kinds of friends we need right now is a friend in the fight. We need someone who stands next to us as we push back against the injustices in the world. If we go it alone, we'll wear out and break down and crack under all the sadness and pressure and frustration. That's why we need this kind of friend. Join us as scripture and real life stories give us wisdom on how to be friends in the fight.

If you find yourself feeling lonely more often than you would like, you are not alone! Social scientists tell us that around 60% of Americans feel that way regularly, and those numbers are only going up. Let's honor the fact that God has wired us for love and meaningful connection, and spend the next few months seeing what God might have to say to us through some famous stories of friendship in Scripture. Jesus is up first this coming Sunday - yes, even Jesus, the Human One, needed friends! Come ponder and be encouraged.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the evil and suffering, the meanness (big and small) we see all around us and especially on our social media feeds. Where are the glimmers of hope we need to sustain us? How do we re-focus on these things and why do we need to? Join us as we explore Jesus's invitation to commit ourselves to the way of hope.

Stories of Hope – Luke 16:1-9 – Sept 28, 2025 These are intense days in our country. So many of us have struggled to find equilibrium as news story after news story comes out about our nation moving away from democracy. What must it have been like for Jesus to face the uncertainty of his own political climate, and what teaching did he give us that might help us find hope today?

Stories of Hope: Luke 18:1-8 – Sept 21, 2025 Emily Dickinson famously said that hope is a thing with feathers... Do you ever feel like these days hope needs a little more grit, a little more muscle, a song just as strong and forceful as it is sweet? This Sunday we'll let an unusual example of faith Jesus described for us speak into the places of our souls that are both hopeful and angry. Because hope isn't always polite. Join us!

Stories of Hope: Matthew 13:31-32 – Sept 14, 2025 In a world full of cruelty and darkness, hope can feel hard to come by. But what if hope wasn't a bright shiny thing, but rather more like a little old lady who keeps stopping to talk with beggars and then one day you realize she's Mother Teresa and she's changing the world? How does real change happen and how does hope play into it and how do we plant and water that hope in dry seasons? Join us Sunday to learn along with us.

This Sunday we're talking about grief, which may sound strange because usually churches do a big, energetic kick off on this Sunday each year. And in fact, we're having TACOs for lunch! So why grief? We're talking about grief because it's so sneaky and always weasels its way into new seasons of life, especially when there is change. So if we don't look at it directly (and gently), it'll slip into the shadows and haunt out lives, even in the good times. Come celebrate tacos with us - and grieve with us as well. It'll be a fully human Sunday.

What do you do when people put you in a box? We all love to oversimplify others - it's sometimes called being a 'cognitive miser' - because we don't want to take the energy to be curious, to complicate the narratives we tell ourselves and to relate to people as they are as opposed to how we think they are. But Jesus loves to explode boxes, both the ones people put you and the ones you put others in. Along the way he teaches us some practical tools on when to fight against other people's assumptions about us and when to let it slide.

There are two women in the Old Testament that have precious little in terms of money, influence, or connections. But what they have they use for the sake of pushing against the forces in their world that oppose the ways of God. Join us to build community connections and to be strengthened in vision and resolve for these hard times.

Untold Stories – 2 King 5:1-19 – June 22, 2025 There are so many stories in the Bible that we've never heard. Some have been skipped by preachers because they are too edgy or uncomfortable. We're going to spend time looking at some of those stories this Summer. This Sunday we'll be looking at how to relate to other religions and what it means to be faithful in our work context when it is explicitly not Christian.

Esther And The Big Flip Series – Esther 8 - June 8, 2025 No, but really... what does Jesus mean, what does he expect, when he asks us to love our enemies? This Sunday we're exploring that question, and all of its real world implications, along with Esther and Mordecai, who now find themselves with the authority to save their people from the imminent threat of empire and genocide. How do they hold that power, and what can we learn from their choices? Join us as we near the end of this epic story.

Esther And The Big Flip Series – Esther 4:9-17 – May 11, 2025 The book of Esther is best known for some really inspiring one liners, which could give us the sense of that one brave person taking a stand. That reading fits so many of our cultural tropes about the shape of heroism! But this Sunday we want to explore the complicated, dynamic relationship that's actually behind "for such a time as this" and "if I perish, I perish." This kind of courage  -  courage we really need these days - builds from connection. We'd love for you to join us.

When is the right time to resist the forces of empire, and what are the right ways to do so? When do we march, when do we boycott, when do we use non-violent means to shut down the machinery of an unjust government? These are real questions, and unfortunately, very real ones these days. We'll continue to explore these and related questions in the book of Esther this week.

City Church of Long Beach Sermon from March 30, 2025

Week one of our Bread of Life series | Matthew 4:1-11 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week two of our Bread of Life series | John 6:25-40 | Bill White & Kristyn Komarnicki

Week seven of our Into the Mess series | John 15:1-10 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week six of our Into the Mess series | Matthew 13:1-13 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week five of our Into the Mess series | Luke 15:1-10 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week four of our Into the Mess series | Luke 10:25-37 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week three of our Into the Mess series | Matthew 5:1-10 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week six of our Advent series | Luke 3:7-14 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week four of our Words for the Beginning series | Matthew 2:1-12 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week four or our Words for the Beginning: Advent series | Isaiah 9:2, 6-7 | Bill White

Week three of our Words for the Beginning: Advent series: Matthew 1:18-25 | Larry Dove

Week two of our Words of the Beginning: Advent series | Matthew 1:18-25 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week four of our Soul Care series | Matthew 11:28-30 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week three of our Soul Care series | 1 Samuel 17:33-40 | Erna Kim Hackett

Week two of our Soul Care series | Matthew 25:40 | Kay Higuera Smith

Week one of our Soul Care series | Psalm 30:4-5 | Zoe Towler

Week four of our Love & Power series | 1 Timothy 2 : 1-2 | Bill White & Panel

Week three of our Love & Power series | Matthew 6:11 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week one of our Love & Power series | Matthew 6:10 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week ten of our Juicy Life series | Matthew 11:28-30 | Bill White & Brenna Rubio

Week nine of our Juicy Life series | Matthew 5:9 | Brenna Rubio