Woodland Hills Church

Fear and Faith. Throughout much of the biblical narrative we encounter stories of people who danced between fear and faith. Stories such as the fear of the disciples on the stormy sea, to the townspeople after witnessing the healing of the Gerasene demoniac, to Jairus and his daughter. Yet, in the midst of these fears, we also encounter the Jesus who is bigger than our fears. The Jesus who tells us, “Do not fear. Instead, have faith.” In this weeks’ message our guest, Pastor Dennis Edwards from Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, MN, takes us on a journey through these stories and exhorts the church to live in love – for there is no fear in love.

In this final pre-election sermon, Greg reminds us that while the kingdoms of the world rise and fall and are ultimately doomed, the kingdom of God is everlasting and truly deserving of our hope.

In this third week of our Without Borders series and a week before the election we are reminded that Jesus' challenge to us in loving our enemies was designed to remind us that God has no human enemies. He has called us to be agents of peace, to find the commonality between us and to build on it. This practice will be exceedingly challenging during this election time. We are quick to blame and quick to judge. Jesus invited people on the polar opposites of the political controversy of his day to be brothers within his community of disciples.

Jesus calls us to be His ambassadors. Living as an ambassador of the Kingdom God instead of a citizen of the kingdom of the world requires an awareness and intentionality to not buy in to the “me first” culture of the world. Christians throughout history have usually migrated to one of two extremes in our relationship with the world. Either we withdraw and isolate ourselves from the culture to the point of irrelevance, or else we acquire as much power as possible in order to force or legislate Kingdom of God behavior in to the culture. Neither of these work, or are what we're called to. Instead we're called to a third way as an ambassador and missionary in a foreign land where we interact and show the people the Kingdom by how we live, love, and steward our talents and resources, and then invite others to join.

This weekend Greg taught about the difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. In the kingdom of God, Jesus is our King (and president) and followers are marked by their indiscriminate love and refusal to rule over others. During this election cycle believers are called to put their trust in Jesus alone and not be pulled into trusting in the rulers of this world.

In this final sermon of the Worth the Risk series, we look at how the cross offends our worldly values, and how we as followers, and the church as a whole, are called to respond to this confrontation.

We often craft together ideal images of of what a “good Christian” family ought to look like. Images of the idealistic post-war, bourgeois nuclear families are more frequently articulated as the “biblical” family. But, is that accurate? Greg provides for us a snapshot of the various families portrayed throughout the biblical narrative. From Adam and Eve to Solomon and his many wives and concubines, to Abraham and Sarah, we gather a sense that “biblical” families are just as messy and dysfunctional as what we may witness today. The hope of the family unit is Christ! The Christ who works within the mess of it all to make something beautiful.

In this third message of our Worth the Risk series, Greg talks about marriage relationships and explores the meaning of Ephesians 5:22, which says that wives must submit to their husbands.

Being made in the image of God means that we are created to make and keep commitments. In this second segment of our Worth the Risk series, Seth explores commitment’s role in our relationships. A kingdom relationship is a creation in and of itself, and that creation requires constant care in the form of honest conversations about the things that come between us. Our tendency is to avoid conflict, confrontation, and rebuke because we believe a lie. We believe we can’t be honest and keep our friendships, but like all forms of deception this lie leads to relational death.

Greg opens our new Worth The Risk series with a discussion of commitment, the constant desire to find something better, and argues that you can only know the Truth about anything by passionately committing to it.