Gracepoint Community Church Surrey

‘Why God?' we wonder as our pain continues. Our text today reminds us that we can be close to God and still be in pain. God sends Zechariah and unexpected messenger with an unexpected message. We need to be ready for God's intervention at any time.

Joseph had a life plan. He had goals. God came and messed those up. He faced a dilemma. Will he surrender his plan to God's greater plan? We too are called by God and face a choice if we will hear and obey what He is calling us to.

Surprises. On the first Christmas, Mary was surprised as the angel Gabriel appeared to her with an astonishing announcement. This would forever alter her life. We too need to recover a theology of the mystery of God and be ready for God to break into...

The angels came to the shepherds and announced they had good news for everyone. People didn't need to be afraid because of this message of peace was for all people. God offers us His peace today.

The Bible is full of angel encounters. We see them in the life of Jesus as they adore Him in glory and angels show up at His resurrection. And angels were also present at his birth. Angels are messengers sent from God. This Christmas season let's open...

The battle in this world is real and the church was made to win. We win not by self-reliant strategies but rather through more surrender to the living Christ. We live the naturally supernatural lives by resting in our identity in Christ and moving...

What will bring hope to our region? Some would suggest more programs. Programs as good as they can be, won't necessarily bring the fullness of Jesus into every sphere of society. Ephesians 5 tells us we are a mosaic of missionaries, each with a unique...

What is the church? An institution? A stadium of spectators? Ephesians 4 presents a picture of the people of God as ones growing in maturity (v. 1-16) and living out this new God-given identity (v. 17-32). We live as missionaries where we live, work...

We are disciples who make disciples. We are to be disciples who do disciple-making where-ever we go. What is our motivation? Ephesians 3 tells us that we are to marinate ourselves in God's love and His love will overflow through us.

Ephesians 2 presents us as a people who have been saved. We were dead but Jesus has made us alive (v. 1-7). We were far off from God but He has brought us near (v. 11-18). However, we are not just saved from something, we are saved for something...

Like water in a fish tank where the water permeates everything, Ephesians 1 presents Jesus as the Lord of all. As followers of Jesus we illuminate the fullness of Jesus in a lifestyle of worship and mission where we live, work, study and play.

When we have an interior reality of simple abundance, it will result in an exterior practice of simplicity. Simple living set us free from anxiety (Matthew 6:25-34) as we discover God is enough and we live lives of gratitude in response.

Our culture often splits bodies and souls. This affects how we view sexuality. The religious often repress sexuality whereas the non-religious often reduce it down to just an act of the body. Genesis 1-2 offers a fuller vision of a sexuality that is...

We often think of mission as something we do. We go on a missions trip. But what about if we thought about it more in terms of who we are? We follow the pattern that Jesus modeled and taught in that we retreat with the Father and engage our world...

What do most people do when they have nothing to do? They check their phone. What if we don't have our phones? We become anxious. God invites us into a freeing relationship with Him that's not based on demands or noise. God is always watching us and...

We have a hurry problem in our society. And as a result, we have an identity problem. We believe we are what we produce. God calls us to step away in Exodus 20:8-11 and slow down so He can transform us. We don't keep the Sabbath, it keeps us.

Work. The word evokes a variety of negative and positive emotions. Many people find themselves wishing for a ‘calling' to something that that really made a difference. The first person in the Bible who is described as being filled with God's spirit is...

We see in the friendship of David and Jonathon a commitment to life with God and one another that was mutually encouraging. Friends help friends grow closer to the Lord (1 Sam. 23:15-18).

The fall is often a frenzy of back to school and children's activities. During this time, how can we live as followers of Jesus with his ‘easy yoke' upon us. It's not about more ‘shoulds' or ‘guilt' for what we're not doing as much as being...

The last 18 months have been a blur of loss and grief. The temptation now is to rush through what has happened and “return to normal.” What is God saying to us at this time? Jesus reminds us (John 12:24) that God is birthing something new right now in...

We all grow spiritually in different ways. Spiritual growth is hand-crafted by God not mass produced. We are God's individual workmanship not assembly line appliances. Today's Scripture (Luke 10:38-42) shows us a ‘contemplative' and a ‘doer'. As we...

The unexamined life is not worth living. Yet the world tries to prevent us from looking within. It attempts to seduce us to a surface level spirituality. To experience transformation, we need to look at the iceberg of our spirituality, 90% of which is...

The overarching theme of Philippians is joy. So what do you do if you get to the end of a sermon series like this and you still feel like you can't simply flip a switch in your mind and 'choose joy.' Today we will explore three...

Discontentment. It can eat away at our souls. The Apostle Paul in our text today gives to us the secret to being content. It is something we learn through avoiding comparison (v. 11), being flexible (v. 12) and finding our ultimate confidence in...

Anxiety. Anger. Broken relationships. There are all sorts of things in our world and in our lives that steal our peace. In today's passage Paul offers us the cure to experience peace with others (v. 1-3), with God (v. 4-7) and within ourselves (v. 8-9).

In this inspiring section of Scripture, we are encouraged to forget the past, not living by looking through our rearview mirror. We are instead to focus upon the future, reaching for the hope that's found in Jesus Christ. As we journey towards Him we...

Religion has to do with achievement, gaining one's sense of identity from accomplishments. It is often concerned with external actions. The apostle Paul gives his testimony in this section as he contrasts his former life with a new life found living...

‘Want a friend, be a friend'; so goes the old saying. In our Bible passage today, Paul reveals two friends of his: Timothy and Epaphroditus. He shows the character qualities these men had that made them invaluable to Paul. Likewise, God wants to...

Complaining has become a national past time in our society. And it's easy to get caught up in it as the pandemic has intensified our emotions. Today's Scripture encourages us to conquer complaining with the result being that we will shine like stars...

Let go and let God. If it's meant to be it's up to me. How do we balance the tension between those two statements? Today's Bible passage reminds us that God changes us as we cooperate with Him. He will do what He promises to do but we need to respond...

We are called to follow Jesus' example of selfless humility and obedience to the Father's mission. Following this common mission together and living out selfless humility will lead to great community.

Adversity can come from circumstances and other people. The Apostle Paul encountered this and he gives us a mindset that conquers. It’s an attitude filled with confidence in spite of adversity and joy in spite of what other people are saying or doing...

If we are to experience joy during difficult times, it means focusing on the people in our lives. We read in the opening verses in the letter to the church at Philippi, how Paul focused on the good memories with them. He prayed for them and most of...

God loves us with an unfailing love. As people created in His image, our attempts at unfailing love are often messy and complicated at best. Dialing in on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians as the gold standard, Kim shares from deeply...

Our bodies grow physically from the time we are born until the time we die. Likewise, the Bible presents stages of spiritual growth. We are called infants, children, young adults and parents. We reach maturity as spiritual parents when we are...

Discipleship. Every church says that is their goal. But the Bible doesn’t say discipleship is the end goal as much as becoming a disciple-making movement of disciples who make disciples. Our method of relational discipling is described in 2 Timothy...

The church in North America has generally been good at proclaiming the message of Jesus. What we have not been good at is following the methodology of Jesus. Jesus chose intentional investment in a few people as his main strategy. As we follow the...

Jesus is the leader and He calls us to follow. He’s calling us to follow Him as we shift towards greater relational discipleship. He promises to do a good work in our lives of transforming us to be like Him. This calling also involves us joining Jesus...

Jesus has risen from the dead. So what? The apostle Peter was an eyewitness to the resurrection and he writes in his letter about the life-changing impact of this event. The resurrection brings us both here-and-now and life after death benefits that...

We have questions about God and life: whether about the world’s brokenness, human sexuality, evil, hell, Covid-19, etc. Jesus’ first disciples also had questions. He promises them a different sort of joy in the midst of their questioning and that some...

It seems like almost every month we hear a new story about a Christian leader who has been living a double life. The effect is always painful and for some it can lead to an enhanced sense of doubt: if this leader was a fraud, was their message as...

The church has often postured itself as "us and them" in regards to family and friends in the LGBTQ+ community. This tends to polarize and create arguments. People are not an issue. Rather than a binary lens of false dichotomy, Romans 1-3...

Why does God not offer more proof of his existence? He seems so…absent. Is believing in God like a 4 year-old believing she has an invisible friend? What if the silence of God is like a thirst in our souls, creating a longing for the transcendent.

When it comes to addressing doubt or tough questions, Christ-followers often retort, “You just have to have faith for we live by faith not sight.” But is that helpful, or reasonable? Is the Bible anti-facts and evidence? Perhaps, skeptics are right...

Some people suggest the opposite of faith is doubt. But is it? Is doubt the same as unbelief or could some doubt not be dangerous? In Mark 9:14-24 we see a struggling dad who cries out to Jesus. May we do the same in our mix of faith and doubt.

This week of St. Valentine's Day we thought it would be highly appropriate to add a message to our current series on God's plan for our marriages. Join Ron Marshall, who leads our Marriage Mentoring Ministry with his wife Judy, as he holds...

Ever know a church that was bound by rules and regulations that determined who was "in" and who was "out"? These communities tend to be full of grace-less religion, conditional acceptance, and fear. But the alternative of simply...

In our pluralistic society, it seems hard to imagine that an all-loving God would prevent any of his creations from entering heaven, let alone send them to hell, so how do we reconcile this? Do I really need to be saved and what does this even mean?...

Wonder. Questions. Doubts. Are these healthy? Although God won’t abandon us in our doubts, we may end up leaving Him. Doubt gone bad can lead us to unbelief but doubt gone good can lead to worship like in the life of “doubting Thomas.” Text your...

“Defund Police” is a rallying cry among some in our society. “We need more law and order” others argue. Today we’ll examine the Old Testament concepts of ‘hue and cry’ (Deuteronomy 22:23-27) as well as the Kinsmen-Redeemer (Ruth 4). We’ll see the call...

Doubts. We all have our questions around God’s existence and absence; the relationship between Christianity and other religions. Uncertainty, we’ve all had to live with it these last 10 months and continue to do so. Why does God seem silent during...