Relevant Sermon Audio

You don’t know if integrity guides you until maintaining it costs you.

We all have a sense of things we “ought to do” that come from inside us. The feeling of “ought to” points to someone outside of you, who is working in you, to lead you. You take the next steps to follow Jesus by doing the ought to that the Holy Spirit prompts you to even though it may cost you

Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave to set us free, but experiencing that freedom is a choice.

 We are not self-defined, but God defined. One of the ways that God defines us is as “redeemed”. Jesus came and paid the ultimate price to enable your adoption into His kingdom. There is nothing you can do to outspend the redeeming power of Jesus.

We are not self-defined, but God defined. One of the ways that God defines us is as adopted as a child of God. As a Child of God, we have a Father that wants intimacy with you and to give you the power that He provides.   

We are not self-defined, but God defined. One of the ways that God defines us is as a New Creation. Becoming a New Creation is not that you become a better version of who you already are, but you become who you were created to be. Part of becoming a new creation is we get a new heart, soul, and mind. When we become a new creation through faith in Jesus, we are described as ministers of reconciliation and Christ Ambassadors.  

We are not self-defined, but God defined. One of the ways that God defines us is “justified”. Justified means that when God looks at us, he sees us as blameless, righteous, and holy. You cannot be justified by your heritage, and you can't earn your justification. Justification is a gift from God and nothing more.

Identity goes far deeper than what can be created by us and observed from the outside. Identity is something bestowed upon us by our Creator. You were never meant to form your own identity; you are not self-defined you are God Defined.

One perception that people about followers of Christ is that they are AGAINST people. This should never be perceived about Followers of Christ because God is FOR people. The only way people will know God is FOR them is if followers of Christ are know for that too.

One perception that people have of Christ-followers is that they are judgmental. The reason we are perceived as being judgmental is because so often we are being judgmental. To embody the kindness of God, that has the potential to lead people to faith in Jesus, we must walk in the fulness of grace AND truth.

People who were nothing like Jesus liked Jesus, and He like them too, but do people like his followers? One perception is that followers of Jesus are hypocrites. A hypocrite is someone who says one thing and does another and acts like they aren't. The best way to change the perception of being a hypocrite is by not being one.

People who were nothing like Jesus liked Jesus, and He like them too, but do people like his followers? Many people who would say they're not followers of Christ perceive His followers is unlikable. To change this perspective we must think differently, not about what your positions are but about where you are standing. You don't have to compromise what you believe to impact people for Jesus, but you do need to change your approach by thinking differently about where you are standing and saying YES to the relationship.

Where we believe God is leading us in 2023 and beyond

Many people have endured something severe, some kind of trial, some kind of abuse or some kind of heartbreak that has caused trauma. Trauma is often not fair because you weren't responsible for what happened to you, but you are left to deal with it. Until you heal your hurt, your hurt is going to continue hold you hostage. You may not be responsible for your trauma but pursuing God for healing is your responsibility.

The struggle with mental health is real and anxiety is one of the most common struggles, two out of three people said they were anxious or extremely anxious. People have anxious thoughts over uncertainty of the future, jobs, our financial future, and relationships among others. The way that we can cure anxious thoughts is by replacing them with thoughts of gratitude.

Depression is one of the most common mental health struggles, in fact, many studies are now saying that depression is the #1 Mental Health struggle in the world today. It is ok to not be ok but don't be not okay alone. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness but a sign of wisdom. Depression is closely related to toxic thought process call rumination, which is repetitively dwelling on negative thoughts and feelings. To break the cycle, you must focus on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely admirable and whatever is praiseworthy think about these things.  

Mental health is not a static, meaning you can be healthy for a long time then something circumstantial changes and your mental wellbeing is under attack. We will all deal with mental health issues at some point in our life. A root cause of for so many of our mental health struggles is thoughts and feelings of hopelessness. Thoughts of despair characterized by a belief that things will never get better will get us all at point and time. As followers of Christ, we must trust in the certainty that God will fulfill all his promises in His time and way.  We do this by starting our day with hope, worshipping until hope find us and by being still and knowing hope. When we do this, we can rest in the promises of God.  

Christmas is a reminder that God came to be with us, wants to be with us, and can be with us.

There will be times when we all suffer from hearts that are broken, cynical, hard, and discouraged. Because life is hard and what we experience affects our hearts. The condition of your heart will affect our life, relationships, choices, and faith. God wants you to live a life that is free and full, He wants to heal your heart. We all need a Heart Healer because God uses heart healers to heal our hearts. God puts people in our lives that play an important role in bringing healing where we desperately need it. People who can help us live that free and full life that God wants for us.

Those you hang around with matter and those you hang around with will impact our lives whether good or bad. They will either push you toward God or away from God. Your circle of friends will be a major factor on who you become. God wants to transform you from the inside out, but here's the thing, this will not be comfortable. But His goal for your life on earth is not comfort, it's character development. Soul Sharpeners help point you to Jesus so you can become more like Him.  

We all need people in our lives that will love us on different level. The problem with this is that love doesn't always feel loving. Sometimes love requires that we speak up, confront, and challenge each other. The truth is we want people in our lives who are willing to say what is uncomfortable and kick us in the tail because that is what love requires.

Finding a model we can emulate or an example we can follow helps us take something we wish was true about our life and see what it looks like in real life. When it comes to experiencing growth and change in your life, following a model makes personal transformation easier.

Transformation doesn't happen in isolation; meaning, we need relationships to be transformed into everything God created us to be. The first type of person you need can see beyond what you see for yourself and point you towards a preferred future. They can also call out of you what God put in you. But for them to be able to do this they have to know who you truly are. Until they know who you are they can't see who you can become.  

Growing in our trust in God doesn't happen by accident, when we choose to be rich our trust in God richly grows. One way to Be Rich is to love extravagantly by serving sacrificially. When we accept Jesus's invitation to do what we can and serve, we're are paving the way for our trust in God to grow, because it's the only way we'll ever see what he can do. When you feel the nudge to serve others and your follow through, not only will your trust in me grow, but people will see and experience God's love for them through you. 

When we choose to BE RICH in how we give, serve, and love our trust in God richly grows. The thing that exposes or stretches our trust in God more than anything is money, because what we're most tempted to trust in most for our future, hope, peace, and freedom is money. No amount of money can give all that Only God can, and he wants to teach us to trust him for it. Jesus's 1st century invitation was and his invitation for you and me today is simply “Follow me”. Follow Jesus by giving what He is leading you to give, and give it FIRST.

We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle. Prayer is where and how we daily prepare to stand firm. To not be devoured by our enemy we must daily be prepared to stand firm, but we can't stand firm on our own strength. We don't have to, through His death and resurrection, Jesus has already won it. All we need to do to stand firm is put on Jesus and his mighty power by putting on armor of God daily. Prayer is where we connect with Jesus, put on the armor of God and where God transforms us to enable us to stand firm.

We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle. To stand firm in this daily battle, we must daily use the sword of The Spirit to be ready to fight in this spiritual war with the weapons of The Word. To win the battle against the enemy we cannot remain passive. But to fight with the word of God we must know the word of God. With the word of God as our weapon we must fight to take strongholds back and take ground in the battle.

We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle. To stand firm in this daily battle, we must daily protect our minds by putting on the hope of salvation as our helmet. The helmet of salvation is one of the most important pieces, not to protect our head physically, but to protect our minds. The reason we must protect our mind is because it's the battle ground for hope. When Satan can affect your mind, he can steal your hope. We protect our minds by focusing our eyes on Jesus because true hope is found in him alone.

We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle. One of the ways we daily prepare to stand firm in this battle is arming ourselves with the shield of faith which can extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one. Satan wants you to feel guilty, experience regret and remorse through accusations. The Holy Spirit convicts to Draw you to the presence of God to experience grace. When we protect ourselves with the shield of faith, we can block the accusations that Satan sends our way. When we stand on the promises of God we can shield ourselves from the fiery darts from Satan.

We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle. One of the ways we daily prepare to stand firm in this battle is by daily putting on the shoes of readiness that comes with the gospel of peace. When we put on the shoes of PEACE daily then throughout the day we experience God's peace in our lives, regardless of what we're going through. You keep your shoes of peace on and experience the peace by remembering what Jesus did for us, following Jesus one next step at a time and continually talking to God throughout the day.

We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle. One of the ways we daily prepare to stand firm in this battle is by daily putting on the breastplate of righteousness to protect our hearts from enemy's attacks. We protect our hearts daily by daily choosing to trust and obey. The protection of your heart is vital because it is the core of your being, the center of everything you feel, think, are and do. If we don't want to be a war casualty, we must put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Each one of us has an enemy who is against you, and who is attacking you. One way the enemy attacks is through the distortion of what is truth. He has been using it since the garden and uses still to this day. We are in this battle daily so we must daily prepare for battle. We prepare by daily putting on the armor of God so when the enemy attacks we will be ready. One piece of the armor is the belt of Truth. Your ultimate authority will determine your truth. We must know God's principles, promises and ways only known through scripture and then we must apply those truths so we can detect the deception from the enemy.

We are in the midst of a battle every day. This battle is not against him, her, or us, but an unseen battle against someone who fights with the forces of hell to destroy everything and everyone God is for. You have an enemy who is against you and is going to attack you to either keep you from Jesus or as followers of Christ everything He has for us. We are in a battle daily, so we must daily prepare for battle.

Our body needs everybody to take extreme ownership of the faith of the next generation, in order for us to live as the body of Christ. If we are going to carry on Jesus's mission of being his hand and feet to reach the lost, we must be relentless about doing that with the next generation because 93% of people who put their faith in Jesus do that by the age of 18. The ways we can take extreme ownership of the next generation is by giving generously, sacrificing our preferences, prioritizing your relationship with Jesus and by serving the next generation. The faith of the next generation is worth everything!

Our church needs everybody to take extreme ownership of the health of our church, in order for us to live as the body of Christ. The relational health of our body impacts us living as a fully functioning body of Jesus Christ. You and me are responsible for the health of we.

Our body, Relevant Community Church, needs everybody to take extreme ownership of growing in our relationship with Jesus, in order for us to live as the body of Christ. One of the vital elements to continually be transformed is to grow in our relationship with Jesus because He is the only one who can transform our lives. If you are a person who has put your faith in Jesus, it's your responsibility to grow in that relationship with Jesus. To do that you have to pick up the fork and eat.

Our body, Relevant Community Church, needs everybody to take extreme ownership of the financial health of our body, in order for us to live as the body of Christ. There's a lot of things that can prevent us from giving generously, one big reason that will prevent us from living as a member of the body of Christ by giving generously is being a consumer. A consumer is when we treat the church as a commodity or product that can only be consumed. God's job is to work and move powerfully in ways only He can, AND our job is to give generously, they are not isolated. They are connected AND the latter comes before the former. When we do what only we can do, God has promised to do what only he can do, when we don't, God hasn't promised anything. We must take extreme ownership of the financial health of our body by asking God What he would have you do in regard to our generosity and then acting in the way God prompts.

Jesus Christ came, died, rose to be the hope of the world. Before he physically left, He established his church to be the physical embodiment of Him as His agent of hope in the world here and now until he physically returns. When a local church is living as the Body of Christ, they are experiencing divine unity despite disagreement, the love of Jesus is seen and felt, people are putting their faith in Him, and lives are being transformed. Unfortunately, this is most people experience inside the local church. For Relevant to operate as the body of Christ it requires each of us to take full responsibility for everything that impacts us living as a fully functioning body of Christ

We all wonder, question, and doubt and do so through a specific frame of reference. When our reasoning doesn't provide all answers, we wonder about deep stuff through a specific frame of reference. When it comes to Christ-followers, their frame of reference is not theology, philosophy, or a belief system. It's a person. Navigating through doubt begins and ends with fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Sometimes it's the Christians you know that are the biggest contributors to your doubt. You think “If they believe all this stuff to be true and still act the way they do then I don't know if I can believe it.” If your faith is determined by the actions of others than your faith is in people and not God. We navigate through this doubt by focusing on Jesus alone.

What happens when you are in the middle of a situation where you want God to act, you need God to move, and He hasn't fixed it yet?

Entering a relationship with Jesus is not a guarantee that you will never have any doubts. In fact, even those who saw Jesus in the flesh still struggled with doubt. Learning how to navigate our doubts in a way that strengthens our faith is a key factor in our ability to walk in relationship with Jesus.

When we parent with the end in mind two of the most important areas, we need to focus on are sex and technology as they are vital areas because sex impacts the heart, and technology impacts the mind…maybe more than any two other things. How you parent your children in these areas will directly affect who your child will become.

When we parent with the end in mind one area, we must focus on is Money & Finances. Money, what we do with money, our pursuit of money impacts our lives and faith more than anything else. The main thing preventing people from moving to a place of having complete trust in God is money. How you train your child in the area money will directly affect how they will handle money as an adult.

No one has the potential to influence your child more than you, but you are not the only influence in your child's life. Your children's friends are impacting the quality, direction, and destinations of their life. The older your child gets, the more impact their friends have in their lives, and the more impact they have in their friends.

It is the parents' primary responsibility to lead their kids toward a relationship with Jesus. When you raise children, you should parent them with the end in mind. You are not raising children, you are raising future adults. The most important thing to God for your children is for them to have a relationship with him through Jesus Christ, so he can transform them and so they can experience the life only he can give.

We all want to make a difference in the world, but where do we start? It's a big world with a lot of needs, and there's no shortage of opportunities. How do we know if we're making an impact? As a church, we're working together to transform a specific part of the world and you're invited to be a part of it.

Baptism is something that has caused enormous amounts of confusion, division, fear, uncertainty, family pressure, emotion, and tension. But why? The Catholic Church teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation while the Protestant Church teaches that baptism is simply an outward proclamation of one's profession of faith in Jesus. So, who's right?

During the Passover meal, Jesus broke bread and pass around a cup saying, this is my body and blood which is given for you. He then instructed his disciples to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of him. This account has become known as the Lord's Supper, Communion or the Eucharist, and has been a big source for disagreement in the church throughout history.

Before Jesus physically left this earth, he established a new covenant with a new group of people whom he called His Church. But when he ascended, who did he leave in charge? Who has the authority now?

“What must I do to be saved?” Protestants and Catholics have answered this differently which has created a lot of confusion, division, fear, and different views of God. Who's right? Is there a checklist?