Weekly Sermon Audio from Mosaic Boston Jamaica Plain. Mosaic Boston is a new church in Boston / Jamaica Plain. We are a vibrant and diverse Christian community with a deep love for God, the Bible, and the city. At Mosaic, we believe God is Father; therefore the church is family.
We all want to be happy, but did you know the more advertisements you see the less happy you are? Ads show us all the things we're missing and they promise us happiness if we get the thing. The problem is, they can't deliver on the happiness promised. If acquiring more stuff won't make us happy, what will? Jesus gives us an unintuitive truth: “It's more blessed to give that receive.” This week pastor Ivey shows us why we'll find happiness in giving rather than getting.
We dedicate our time to the things we care about most. It makes sense for Christians to dedicate our time to God. How many hours do you dedicate to your relationship with God? Many Christians dedicate an hour a week on Sundays. Which is a good start, but a relationship needs more than that. Life is busy already! How can we give more time? If you need help in your relationship with God, watch this week's message.
This week we look at a spiritual discipline that can turn your life around. Those that have a thriving life live out this discipline on a daily basis. What is it? Consistency. This week Pastor Ivey takes to Daniel, one of the most faithful and consistent people in the Scriptures. We'll learn how being a consistent person can change our lives. Then we'll get three ideas to help us be consistent God honoring people.
In week two of Pre-Decide we turn to temptation. All of us are tempted daily, and some days we're more successful at fighting it than others. Succumbing to our worst temptations not only hurts us, but can hurt the people we love the most, and ultimately hurt the heart of God. How can we be better equipped and stronger against our struggles? This week, Pastor Ivey looks into the Scriptures to teach us three helpful methods to resist our most difficult temptations.
This week we begin a new series on making better decisions. Pastor Ivey talks about the idea of pre-deciding some of life's biggest choices before they every happen. We'll examine how this technique can help save us from making some really destructive decisions. This may not be an idea you've heard before, but it's one found all over the the ancient wisdom of the Bible. Listen in this week for part one of our six part series Pre-Decide, “Take Back Your Life.”
This week we look at one of the most significant stories in all of Scripture: The Triumphal Entry. Pastor Ivey takes us through Matthew's account of Palm Sunday where Jesus rides into Jerusalem with crowds shouting “Hosanna!” This is the moment where he declares to the whole world that he is not just a prophet or good teacher, but he is king. This story illustrates that Jesus is king over everything. Not one thing that happens in this moment that was on accident.
Haggai is a little book that we don't talk a lot about, but that doesn't diminish its power. These two chapters are filled to brim with important ancient wisdom that is applicable to our modern lives. For the follower of Christ, Haggai shows the secret ways we don't put God first. Pastor Ivey challenges us to place Christ as number one in every area of our lives.
Join us as guest speaker Philip Blackett shows us the way that Jesus led how we should have the same desire for servant leadership.
This week, join us as guest speaker Fady Ghobrial shows us from God's Word how we can have a Biblical perspective on work.
Zephaniah isn't a book that we talk about often, but it's message that we all need to hear. This week Pastor Ivey looks at the prophet from the royal line of the great reformer king Hezekiah. Zephaniah sees his people on a crash course for God's judgment, and he proclaims a message of repentance. He hopes that a young new king named Josiah will listen, repent, reform God's people, and find safety in the Lord. Listen this week and learn where safety can be found.
This week we look at Nahum. Nahum is a little different than the other minor prophets. Where most of them focus on the sin of God's people, Nahum focuses on how God's people had been sinned against. This week pastor Ivey shows us the importance of being an advocate for those in need.
This week we start season 2 of our Minor Prophet series “Outspoken.” In this series is about 12 faithful men who changed the world, not because the were popular, had the biggest platform, or made a good living. These men preached radical renewal to God's people, before Christ was born, and many of them faced great hardship because they did. This week Pastor Ivey dives into the book of Micah to see the miracle God was going to do for his lost people.
Have you ever been in a situation where God was your only hope of survival? You're not alone. That was basically the life of King David. This week Pastor Ivey takes us to the 124 Psalm, where David shows us how he has made it through life's most difficult days. On his own, David would have been a dead man, but with the Lord's help David could make it through the impossible. Watch this week as we finish out series in the Psalms.
We need God every day, but there are times when we get in over our heads and confront God-sized problems. Problems where, if God doesn't pull through, we have no chance. This week we continue our series in the Psalms by seeing how David called out to God when he is in trouble. Pastor Ivey walks us through Psalm 54 so we can learn how to call to the Lord for aid on our most difficult days. Plus we work through how to understand passages of violence in the Bible.
We use prayer to communicate with God, but how does God communicate with us? God is infinitely transcendent, above us, is it even possible for God to speak our language? This week Pastor Ivey explores Psalm 19 and we'll discover the two languages God has used to communicate to us.
The Psalms are not just one type of thing. The represent the hymn book of the Jewish people. Just like we have different genres of music like pop, classical, hip hop, or emo, Psalms is similar. Those different genres will have a different ways of communicating. Last week we looked at a wisdom psalm and this week we jump to a royal psalm. Pastor Ivey explores how to live as a Christian in a world that is complex and chaotic.
At the beginning of this new year we are starting a new five-week series in the Psalms. This week Pastor Ivey takes us through Psalm 1. In this Psalm the writer reveals the secret to happiness. The way he does this is kind of backward. Rather than giving us all the steps to be happy, the Psalmist shows us three places we look for lasting happiness and never find it. His surprising revelation is that we need to be less like culture and more like a tree if we want to be happy.
Summary: Names can tell us so much about a person. So when God sent his Son he gave him four names to describe the type of Messiah he would be. This week we wonder at how Jesus is our Eternal Father. Which is strange, because Jesus is the Son of God. So, pastor Ivey unpacks how the Son can be a father to us. Whether your dad was good, bad, or complicated, we'll see all the ways that Jesus is the father we've all dreamed about. Then we see why that matters in our lives. Join us this week as we learn about Jesus, our Eternal Father.
This Sunday we explore what it means that Jesus is our Wonderful Counselor. Pastor Ivey helps us understand the miraculous nature of Jesus the Wonderful Counselor. It's more than a title, it was the way of Jesus while he walked earth. But even more than that, today he is still our wonderful counselor. He welcomes our problems without judgment and heals our deepest needs.
This week we begin our advent series "Wonder." In this first week, we turn to the book of Isaiah to learn about a child that would bring hope to the world. To call this child special would be an understatement. Isaiah gives us four names for the child: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace. This wasn't just any child, this was God. This week pastor Ivey shows us how this child born more than 2000 years ago makes a difference in our lives today.
In this final week of Devastation and Reform Pastor Ivey looks at being wrong. Is it ok for a Christian to be wrong? The argument can be made from the Scriptures that it's not only ok, but that recognizing we're wrong is essential to being a Christian. We'll look at two important people from Acts 9 who realized they are wrong and Jesus was right.
This week we see how knowledge is our friend when we are going through deconstruction. Pastor Ivey brings us to a passage where a well-known worship leader in Israel is doubting his faith. Though he doubted, he didn't lose his trust in God. Listen this week as we see four types of knowledge that can help us deconstruct our faith without losing it.
All of us put our trust in something even when we're not sure about everything. This week Pastor Ivey brings us to Mark 9 to see a blind man with incredible faith, but a man that was unsure about a a lot. We see that it's ok, not to know be unsure about many things in your faith as long as you trust in Jesus.
In our new series we are exploring faith deconstruction. In this first week we take a step back to look at what is meant by deconstruction. Then Pastor Ivey brings us to the book of Matthew to see how deconstructing our faith doesn't always have to be a bad thing. Faith deconstruction, if done the right way, can lead to a deeper faith on the other side.