The Sanctuary Fellowship Podcast

Faith is one of the most misunderstood topics related to Christianity. And how faith goes together with works has been a hotly debated topic for centuries. What can't be denied is that James views faith and works as being intricately and eternally linked to each other. James wants to see a claimed faith that is clearly seen in what one does. He presents a faith that perseveres through trials and temptations. Though our enemy would tempt us and we have been ruled by our passions in the past, James encourages us to persevere through all of that for a life that endures and that is approved by God and is rewarded with life.

Faith is not a feeling, a warm disposition toward God, or a vague notion of religion. Faith is a relationship with God through Christ that radically changes our everyday choices. Once this faith is present in our lives and enables this kind of relationship with God, it always produces choices and deeds that honor God. As we walk through this life, our faith is constantly assailed on all sides by doubters, sin and difficult circumstances. In the midst of this, a working faith seeks God's way to face trials and to overcome them. It consistently looks for ways persevere and endure through trials. Is your faith working, enduring through trials?

Are you looking for any and every opportunity to be a catalyst of God-honoring change in all areas of life for those in need? Are you All In? Listen as Pastor Matt Prine shares on the topic of being All-In for others.

What kind of life are you all in for? What are you giving your life, resources, hopes and dreams to in order to have joy and hope? We will be all in for something. We will give are all to someone. And its generally to the thing or person that seems to guarantee us the life we want most. God tells us that he has life for us, life that is incredible now and lasts forever. Life that brings us things what this world cannot take away or destroy. Sometimes, to experience the life that God has for us, we need to exercise “20 seconds of insane courage.” You could be one decision away from a totally different life- will you take the necessary steps to be all in for the life God has for you?

Listen as Bennett Murff shares on the topic of God's extravagant grace.

Have you ever been all in for something? For some of us its been for our family, for a school, for a sports team, for our kids, for a charity or cause: we've been all in for things that have become very important to us. If most of us were honest, we would say that we're only kind of 50/50 with God. We're sort of committed to him when we feel like- or when we need something! How would our lives be radically different if we weren't a fan of Jesus Christ but we were all in for the God-sized life the Lord intends for us? There's one way that he's calling us to live, and that's to be all in!

Knowing what is good can be very difficult sometimes. Knowing what is good and choosing to do good can be even more difficult. Why do we struggle so badly with these issues? Why is it often so hard to choose to do good? At the very outset of Jesus' ministry time on earth, he goes to a wedding and produces the miracle of turning water into wine. This seems like such a strange event in so many ways and many of the details in the story seem odd. But it turns out to be a pivotal account that changes our view of Jesus and his radical work in our lives. He changes us and makes us good so we can serve others with him in God's mission for the world.

Listen as guest speaker, Jim Bradford shares on the Names of God and how it relates to believers.

Listen as guest speaker, Terry Cokenour shares on what missional living looks like for Christians.

When many people think about Christianity or defining Christianity, they think primarily in terms of its personal aspects, like conversion, relationship with God, and a personal heaven. What most of us in the West have lost is the fact that, while those things are true, they are submissive to God's work in the church/Church and to God's mission. Understanding what it means to be missional and on mission with God has gotten to be very difficult even as it has gained much popularity over the last decade. For the church in the West to survive, we must understand that we have been planted in a culture that is increasingly ignorant of Christianity and we must learn to relate to that culture in ways that are meaningful and engaging. Our world needs a missional church, not just an evangelical one. Will we be missional? Our answer likely dictates our survival and definitely dictates our effectiveness.

The book of Isaiah is full of some of the most wonderful and well-known Sctiptures in the whole Bible. Passages from this book are quoted more than 80 times in the New Testament and Jesus used verses from Isaiah to announce his ministry. The book tells us about salvation, grace, God's love, God's plans and sovereignty, and so many more fantastic truths about God. But do we need more info, even if its encouraging? Do we need to know more about God, even if its astounding? Isaiah offers us more than info, it offers a glimpse into the life of a man who's core was shaken, who's world was rocked, and who's love for God was shaped by smoke, angles, and trembling foundations. We need the real God to step into our world and shape us like that so we can worship him at all times, in all ways!

There are many times in Scripture that we are encourage to remember God, his works, his ways. While we tend to wander from God and forget his ways, we often go through seasons of life when God seems far off and distant, like he's forgotten us somewhere in a dusty bin of half-completed projects. We want to remind God that we are here, that we want him in our lives, that we need his power and presence in our lives. When we get to this point of desperately crying out for him, he again reminds us of our need for forgiveness and how our sin and rebellion can hinder his work in our lives and can lead us into the very things that cause us pain. We must yearn for God and call out on a daily basis for him to tear open the heavens and to come down into our lives!

Most of us struggle with issues regarding our memory. Whether its a momentary lapse or a long-term struggle with remembering key items in life, remembering the right things at the right times can mean the difference between success and failure. As our life experiences are littered with painful events that can dominate our memories, God wants us to remember the right things so we can face the difficult times with faith and joy and life. God gives us loyal love and grace and he is close to us at all times! Will you remember to remember the right things?

Mother's Day is kind of a big deal- and that might be an understatement! It is celebrated by billions of people all over the world and billions of dollars are spent on moms on Mother's Day weekend. As Christians, we have to retain a proper perspective on this important day- honoring our moms while being thankful to God above all. To help us know how to rightly love our moms and show respect to God, Isaiah uses the imagery of a mother as life giver, sustainer, comforter, nurturer, and more. Through our moms we get a clearer picture of who God is and what he does- and gain more amazing insights into both!

Teaching is a noble undertaking and is especially prized in the Bible and throughout Biblical history. Those who teach are held to a higher level of accountability by God and have a massive list of responsibilities on their plate as they serve to shape and mold impressionable minds and hearts. In the Church, we are all teachers and we must remember that more than any lesson or information that we could pass on, we ourselves are the lesson. We are passing on values and seeking to equip people to be the most effective image of Christ that they could possibly be. Christ was the Master Teacher and the best example of holistic character and spiritual teacher that could ever be imitated. So let's look our Master and be teachers who pass on much more than math, english, or thinking skills- let's impart wisdom, character, and tools to deal with life in a Godly manner, no matter where our students are or what they do.

We often think that we bring a lot to the table in our relationships with God, like he got a great deal the day I came into the Kingdom. We spend a lot of time, energy and resources building up a case for ourselves, trying to prove to God or anyone who will listen that we are worthy, that we can bargain for what we want most in life. And we spend a lot of time looking for satisfaction in life, thinking that if we just have that thing or that person or that job, we'll be happy and satisfied. God made us to be satisfied and he wants us to be satisfied! That's why he says, “Come to me.” He offers everything we would ever need for satisfaction to us for free and offers it to us in abundance. And he simplifies it for us by saying, “Just come to me."

Ash Wednesday was about the fact that God promised to save us from our sinful nature. Good Friday was about learning to see God's faithfulness even when we have to wait and it seems like his promises have been broken. Easter morning is about the resurrection of Christ and how that event insures us that God keeps all of his promises to us. The Spring of 2014 has been one of reflecting on God, his wonderful and mysterious ways, and that he can be trusted in all things and at all times. Even though we are unfaithful and we waste our time worrying about the Lord's power and intentions, he proves himself faithful. And we can walk in a world of disappointment and loss and pain knowing that he will faithfully walk with us and empower us everyday for as long as it takes, whatever may come. God ALWAYS keeps his promises!

We have all gone through some disappointing times in life. Some have been relatively minor, but some have been major and they have challenged our basic understandings of life, God and faith. All disappointment should cause us to evaluate our motives and expectations, to question who and what we are hoping in and why we have placed our hope in that. As we experience life's disappointments, we want to grow in our faith and be wiser in our faith with a deepening confidence in God's love for us. When Christ arrived in Jerusalem on the week he would die, his arrival was the occasion for much celebration and much anxiety for different groups of people. His timing and method of arrival was disappointing to almost everyone, but he remained on course for his purposes. What will we do when we are disappointed, especially when that disappointment extends to our relationship with God?

The events on the cross and at the resurrection 2000 years ago have forever changed our destinies. We know with a certain confidence that when our bodies die, those who have by faith believed in Christ will spend eternity with him. But what about now? What does the cross have to do with our lives now, before we die, in all of the years that we have left to live on earth? As God has shown throughout history, his mission is to enable people to have a relationship with him. He has spoken plainly about himself and has sent the message of hope and life to us through various people and means, primarily in Jesus and the cross. And now, he has given us his mission and invited us to tell others how to have a relationship with God! His purpose of relationship has been fulfilled in us so that it can be fulfilled through us!

We live in a culture that is fascinated with death and life. Maybe more specifically, there's a preoccupation with how to beat death, how to live forever, how to come back from death, etc. Of course, even within Christianity these are huge themes; the person that we follow and that he have dedicated our lives to claims to have come back from the dead. So much of the New Testament contains language to describe who we are as we follow Christ- dead, alive, living forever, dying; it even uses the word “crucified” to describe us. What does all of this mean? How do we reconcile words and ideas that seem so far apart and so incompatible? The Bible says that we are dead and yet we live- there's a fullness of life that comes from being crucified with Christ!

The cross is the symbol of Christianity, which can strike some people as odd because a cross carries so many conflicting implications: life, joy, death, pain, hope, freedom, suffering. As Christians and churches have investigated and studied the idea of the cross, and in particular the actions of Christ on the cross, one of the themes that repeated itself was that of redemption. Christians have seen in the cross the key to their redemption. As we grapple with our problems and suffering and distance from God, it becomes clearer and clearer that we need someone to redeem us- to bring us back into a family and to purchase us from the slavery we find ourselves in. God has seen our struggle, he has loved us and responded to our hopeless battle with sin, and he himself has come to do something about it. He is our Redeemer!

Maybe unbelievably, the cross of Christ can be one of those things that we get over-familiar with. We talk about it so much and sing about it so often that we can over-simplify it and miss the beautiful complexity in its simplicity. As Easter approaches each year, we can truly lose sight of the cross. We can easily trade it for family and egg hunts and children and Easter pageants and lunch with family. Easter can include all of those things, but what is it all about? More than that, Christianity is about church and worship and life and joy and overcoming, but what is it all about? We go through life thinking about all that we think we “need” and concocting plans to get those things. But most of the time we are confusing wants and needs and are just generally confused! The cross is the central point of history, Easter and Christianity. It is necessary to bring us out of death and sin and to bring us into life. Focus on the cross and all of our other wants and needs come into clearer focus!

CBS Academic Dean, Joe Parle speaks on the topic of spiritual gifts in the life of the church.

Have you noticed how the things we complain about reveal so much about us? We often have things that we complain about in church- we even complain about the Gospel! The Gospel is too hard, the Gospel is exclusive, the Gospel is unkind, the Gospel is weird. And then we complain about what we're asked to do with the Gospel. Sharing it is hard, people will think I'm a radical, love is more important than words. But there are people dying. Millions with no hope and no relationship with God. God wants the Gospel to go to all. What are we doing about that? What are you doing about that? What keeps us from going, doing, giving and telling?

Lead pastor, Joe Sanders, preaches on the topic of communion.

A lot of people come to church, to God, and approach the Bible with questions. Questions about God, the meaning of life, sin, eternity, dinosaurs, evil. So many things we don't know and want to know about! Surprisingly, when we come to the Bible for some of those answers we are actually faced with many questions directed at us…from God! God repeatedly asks us questions not to gain information (like he doesn't know something), but to reveal something to us about ourselves or about himself. In this text, God confronts us with questions about his abilities, our faith, our degree of commitment to who he is and if we are asking the right people the right questions. How will you answer God when he asks you questions?

What a great tragedy it would be for any of us to live out our days an never connect with a purpose in life. How frustrating and senseless it would be to go through this entire life without discovering God's purposes. Most of us wonder from time to time about God's purpose for our lives- does he have one; what is it; am I living in it now; can I even know it? God is eternally and powerfully committed to bringing us into the fullness of his purposes, and he has designed a purpose for us from before we were born. He is specially preparing us for his plans and at the right time he will shoot us straight and true so that we experience the fullness of his purposes for our lives.

We all have such great high expectations when we start a new year, some of the best intentions to make things better for the future. But then life hits, we fail once or twice, our schedule gets flipped upside down, and we find ourselves far away from what we set out to do. Almost everyone would like a closer relationship with God, but despite what we set out to do we often wander far away from God. Lots of things contribute to this and it can leave us feeling hopeless and powerless in our desire to know God and to live with him. The good news is that God is fighting for us, moving heaven and earth to be with us and to empower us to be with him!

God's creative works are amazing- in nature, in fashioning babies, in the creation of all life. Somehow we have lost our amazement at the creative works of our Lord and we have become enamored with our own works toward happiness and fulfillment. As Christians, we have lost the ability to think clearly and critically about the issue of life and all of the attending issues. We are in need of a total heart and head change when it comes to issues of life. We must stop sacrificing everything on the altar of me, the altar of man, the altar of self. We are called to hold back those who are headed to slaughter. What will we do to choose life for those who can't choose for herself?

Life brings painful times. That pain is not always a direct result of your sin or the sins of others. Sometimes, life and circumstances bring tough things to us. When that happens and we begin to try and reconcile the idea of a good, powerful God and our pain we can find our faith shaken and our commitment challenged. Pain is inevitable; it cannot be avoided. But what it does to us and what we do with it can be influenced by our choices and responses. Before pain comes our way, we have to decide that the next time it comes we will not waste our pain, we will not get lost in bitterness or despondency, and we will draw near to the Lord through it all.

Any time you talk to a friend, family member, acquaintance, etc, about going to church, you are likely to get a lot of uncomfortable excuses and you might get several adamantly “no” responses. You might even be talking to an ex-churchgoer who has stopped attending church, again for a variety of reasons. Over the last decade, there's been an uprising against the church, church attendance, and people who go to church. But if we do even a cursory look at the New Testament we see that the church/Church is not an optional accessory to the committed Christian's life. The church/Church is the Bride of Christ, is the object of God's loving actions, and is the vehicle for change and salvation in a broken world. Wherever you are and wherever you attend church; if you live near a church, have been invited and have never been; if you used to go to church and have quit for some reason- Don't Waste Your Church! Take full advantage of all of the benefits and opportunities of a great church near you!

There are so many things that remind us of time- schedules, calendars, watches, clocks, cell phones. All of them cry out to us that time is passing. We tend to be a time-consumed culture even singing songs about time (Turn, Turn, Turn; Time after Time; Yesterday; Clocks). In addition to the fleeting nature of time and the speed with which time is passing by, we have also come up with some pretty inventive ways to waste time, with everything from the internet to the television to our children's activities to cell phones, and more. As we turn the page on the calendar for 2014, we want to make sure we don't waste our time. This look into Samson's life and how he spent his time is a great lesson on the best things to avoid if we want to make the most of the time that we have.

There are a lot of things that we all want in life that are either unrealistic for us to get or would be so silly for us to spend our money on that we change our minds. We are constantly surrounded by reminders that we have these wants and if we don't we are told that we should want. And once we are wanting, they usually tell us what and how much we should want. We all want, and often we want things that are not good for us and quite often can harm us. One of the great messages of Christmas is that God know we have broken "wanters" and that he can change that part of us, too. Part of the miracle of Christmas is that we can experience a radical reorientation of why and what we want. God knows what we want, why we want, and what we need- and in Jesus he has worked to change or answer each of them!

There's lots of times in life when we feel used up, ready to be thrown away, like we don't have anything left to give. The pains and suffering that many of us endure in this life sap the strength from us, leaving us with little or no evidence of a sovereign (much less good) God- but Scripture continues to tell us to believe. This is the world that Christ entered into when he was born. Not just to live beside or with it, but to be born into it and to live in it and to redeem it. He came into a world full of broken and messed up people in order to renew and remake them. He is taking our pain and suffering and recycling them for a beautiful purpose. Our response to his recycling work is to say, “I will not let go!"

Most of us, when asked what Christmas reminds us of or what we think of when we think of Christmas, would say that Christmas is about family. Most of our prominent memories of this time of the year revolve around or include family. Its ironic that much of what we do at this time of the year- the holiday that is centered on Christ, the holiday that actually has his name in it!- draws our attention away from him. How do we balance family and Christmas? Finding ways to show grace and Gospel to our most challenging family members can make Christmas a drag. Discovering how to keep Christ the center of Christmas is vital if our families are going to join God in his mission this Christmas and all year long.

While Israel's disobedience brought discipline, the Lord was superintending the whole process. He would place His chosen people under the rule and captivity of Babylon for their discipline - and their good. While Babylon gloated over their captivity and ruled over them with extreme force, the Lord was not willing to allow His tool of discipline to become a tool of destruction. He does this in our own life as well. He allows us to go through tough times for our own good - our own holiness. But as our Redeemer, He must save us, He is able to save us, and He does so as our Father!

There are many experiences in life that leave us unsatisfied, and they lead us have a fuller understanding that there really isn't anything in this world that can ultimately fill us up. We begin to realize that our needs, desires and wants fear outstrip the ability of the things and people in our lives to satisfy us. We have counted on all of these things and people to carry us, but we end up carrying them. We invest so much into these things and relationships that when we realize they only fail, we fall along with them because we were counting on them to carry us. Human hands or hearts can never make something that is adequate and able to carry us. Only God can carry us- in our sins, struggles, uncertainties, and fears and needs.

God doesn't want us to fear, he wants us to leave our idols and he wants us to know he is great and able. In order to know his greatness, he shows us his great plans and his great works in us. God has a unique plan for each of us, a plan that includes our good in his purposes. God is ordaining kings and moving history in order to refine and shape his Church. That can mean chapters of our lives spent in darkness, but there are treasures that he has for us, even in our darkest times! We must look to Christ and put our hope in the hands of the Potter if we are ever to find satisfaction in what he's shaping us to be.

There are always choices to be made, options to discern between. Every day we face multiple opportunities to go left or right, up or down, the slow path or the quick path, the convenient way or the scenic way. There's a broad way and an easy way, a way we are all familiar with that looks so easy and so appealing. Its the way that doesn't require much faith, doesn't require much sacrifice, that looks so inviting and fulfilling. And as life hurls difficulties and trials at us, which way will we go? When fires and floods come into our lives (and they will!), we can choose to walk our own path or with God. What we must never doubt or forget is that God is with us in every circumstance and we can he will empower us to walk through it all.

There are so many different motives that cause us to live the way we do, to choose the way we do. Some have said that we only truly experience 2 motivators and everything else springs from those- fear and love. When we live from fear, when fear is our primary motivator, we run from God and toward idols. When we have no relationship with God, even if we were to come close to him we would be afraid and we would draw away from him. God, in his immense and inexplicable love for us, calls us to himself and empowers us to not live in fear. God commands us to not fear- and he upholds us with his great works and presence to live in love!

What brings you comfort, especially when life is bad, relationships are broken, and the effects of sin are hitting you with full force? Life often confronts us with difficulties that seem insurmountable and that can lead us to hopelessness and despair. We can be worn down and quickly come to the end of ourselves and have no strength to continue. But we can live passionately for God's glory as God fills us up with new strength, new power, and comforts us while we soar in a broken world.

God has entrusted us with so much; the Gospel, the truth of the Scriptures and the power to give that truth to others, relationships where we can impact others with the Gospel. One of the most personal and powerful things he's given us as we share his mission for the world is our personal stories. Our stories can be powerful, compelling, convincing and relatable. They can help make the true truth of the Gospel come together and make sense in every day terms. They can shed light on how someone else is living their story and turn them from self-destruction to God's salvation. What is your story? Has God radically changed your story? Who needs your story? Are you ready to give that great treasure away to someone who needs it?

Listen as Pastor Joe Sanders and Search Ministries' Paul Hicks discuss evangelism in the context of relationships.

There is a powerful ally that is on our side when we talk to people about our relationship with Christ. Though we might feel overwhelmed and afraid, unsure of what to say, we have a firm assurance that this will never fail and it will always empower us to tell others about the joy and life we have in Christ. The Gospel has been entrusted to us not just by experience or by a series of facts, but in the Bible. We have Scriptures that overtly share the truth of who God is and what he has done for us in Christ and what we can tell others about that. And we know that Scripture is powerful and able to do things we can't when we try to give the Gospel to others. What are you doing with the Gospel that's been entrusted to us in Scripture?

We are often entrusted with belongings, relationships, investments, money and many other things. We are given these things in order to use them for a particular purpose, for a goal, for a reason. And the person who gives it to us is expecting us to do what they wanted us to do with it. Being entrusted is a huge responsibility and is the mark of a loving, secure relationship. God has entrusted every believer with an amazing treasure- the Gospel, the good news, of Christ! How are you doing with what you've been entrusted?

Buckner Community Transformation Center Director, Ricardo Brambila, shares on missional living.

People who are living for the Lord and in his ways are often rocked by unforeseen difficulties, trials, losses. At the same time, they are flooded with conflicting ideas about God and his justice, rewards, blessings, and purposes. This often leads to a lot of confusion, despair, doubt and heart break, and can have the overall effect of crushing faith instead of bolstering it. When the times of desperation comes, we are left wondering what to do and what to say…and how to pray. God let's us know that we can turn to him in those darkest times with prayers that are open, honest, raw, and desperate.

Guest speaker, Joe Parle, speaks on what the journey of faith looks like for believers.

Human engineering has accomplished some amazing feats and many of us who are engineering-challenged stand in constant awe of those achievements. When we look at our lives, lives of instability and sin and pain and struggle, we are overwhelmed at how to overcome the ever-constant challenges that face us. We often can't imagine any hope of moving out of our experiences and current fatigue and exhaustion. But Isaiah tells us that God has designed a higher path for us, a life that can rise above the current mess of the here-and-now and enables us to have a life-changing relationship with him- one that lasts forever!

For most of us, endurance is what we think about when we have to go to a boring college class, sit through a long sermon, listen to another story from our in laws, watch someone else's vacation video, or go to a dance recital. And nobility, for most, is something of a by-gone era, a quaint idea that is not really relevant in our day of PEDs, adulterous politicians, and scandalous church leaders. But aren't these things that we want in our lives? We want these things for the long-haul- both endurance and nobility. To walk through life with an excellence of character that stands tall when life gets difficult. So often, we fail to pay attention to the things that matter, to the things that enable us to be those kinds of people who go through life with an enduring nobility. Our only hope is to cry out in repentance for the Spirit of God to be poured out on us- and then to live in the change that brings!

Christians travel all over the world "doing missions" as a part of the Great Commission. Africa, Asia, Mexico... There are many places that people go as a part of the call to make disciples of all nations. The Sanctuary just had a team return from Uganda, and they saw many amazing things happen! While this is a great thing to do, what if the Great Commission was meant to convey more?? What if the 11-day trip to Africa was meant only to whet your appetite for a missional lifestyle - lived out every day of your life? This is the point of the missional efforts at TSF and our desire is to step fully into John 20:21 both as a church body and for each individual in our church family.