Jesusgreek

“You can’t buy me love” All people are religious, which means they think they can justify themselves in one of three ways: 1) Loosely religious people assume they are living a good enough life so that no spiritual devotion or extra effort is required on their behalf for God to be pleased with them when they stand before him at the end of this life. 2) Secular religious people work very hard at some social cause because they think that they are good people and need to overcome the evil of bad people who are ruining the world. 3) Devoutly religious people work very hard at keeping the rules of a particular religion in an effort to justify themselves as good and obedient people in the sight of God.” Religion, in any of these forms, is utterly bankrupt and totally dependent upon our behavior. Jesus explained this to the rich young ruler in His day. “As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall ...

Beginning this week we have started a brand new message series entitled, "Love's Greatest Hits". Each week we'll be looking at a different challenge of love by using a popular love song as our launching point. This past week our MSBC band rocked the monster love ballad, "I want to know what love is" by Foreigner to kick off the sermon. In case you have forgotten the song, check it out here before moving on to my sermon notes. “I want to know what love is” It’s Feb. 13th so we’re told by advertisers everywhere that love is in the air. Big red hearts are everywhere we turn and we’re told over and over that everyone must have someone to love on the 14th or else…. But if you're human then you know the desire to love and the need to be loved doesn’t begin and end on Valentines day. All of us, no matter of age, sex, religious beliefs, background, education - everyone has deep seeded desire to be loved. Ex. We are born with the need for love - Hard sci...

Jesus and the Disciples on the Emmaus Road Luke 24:13-35 • What has happened leading up to the story: Jesus death and resurrection. • Walk through Luke 24:13-24 • 16 - Jesus was the original undercover boss • 19-24 The men simply explain what they feel happened to Jesus and how they fell about it. They're open and honest. • Feelings include: hopelessness, lack of patience, discouragement, doubt, overwhelmed, and is God really in control. • Vs. 25-26: Jesus connects the dots, reminder of promises found in scripture • Was what happened to Jesus a mystery? Should it have taken anyone by surprise? NO. Not if they had remembered the scriptures. • I wonder how many times we are at a loss as to what God is up to when the answer(s) could be looking us right in the face if we’d only open our Bibles. • How many times do we doubt, get discouraged, beat ourselves up, get depressed, frustrated, and lose patients with God when most or all of that could have been avoided if we had onl...

We operate under the assumption that every one is like you. The problem is not everyone is. All people fall into one of three types of behaviors... 1) Wise - may not be smartest - when the truth shows up they adjust themselves to the truth - accept feedback - accepts responsibility - thankful for feedback - adjust behavior accordingly - what do we do with the wise: invest, pour into, coach, mentor 2) Fools - maybe the smartest & that's the problem - when the truth shows up they will not accept it and will try to adjust the truth - always making excuses for problems - hate feedback - same conversations just different content - must deal with them with limits and consequences 3) Evil - Can only deal with evil with: lawyers, Guns, and money = protection - wolves - divisive and like it when things aren't good - must protect from evil/wolves

On Friday I attended the Charlotte Leadership Experience conference featuring Dr. Henry Cloud, Steven Furtick, and Joel Manvee. Below are the notes from the first session with Dr. Cloud. The topic was "Necessary Endings". Dr. Henry Cloud "Necessary Endings" The Middle space is where you show up and pull off leadership This is where our issues can get in the way The problem isn't a lack of ideas, it's getting me and my team to do it Everything has a Season or life cycle "Today may be the biggest enemy of my tomorrow" Read Ecclesiastes 3 Ending doesn't feel normal Pruning - 3 reasons plants and companies (ie churches) need pruning 1) produces more buds then the soil/plant can feed/contain - to many ministries? - what needs to end? - are there ministries that need to end because we can't sustain them? - even profitable things can/ should in - 80% vs 20% theory: stop 80% of what you're doing and focus on he remaining 20% ...

This past Sunday we took a look at John 11. Mary and Martha were grieving over the loss of their brother and Jesus grieved over the loss of His friend. We examined what our response to death is and what Jesus' response is not only to death but also to us as we grieve. I showed the following Rob Bell Nooma video to set up the message and then took the next 15-20 minutes just to share from my heart about my thoughts on death and grieving in the context of John 11. So no sermon notes this week. It was an "ad lib" week for me. On a side note the band performed two amazing cover songs. "He's my son" by Mark Schultz and 'The valley Song' by Jars of Clay. I suggest you "YouTube" both along with watching the following Nooma film, "Matthew". Matthew 012 - Nooma - Rob Bell - Legendado from there. on Vimeo .

When I first became a full time youth pastor way back in the Fall of '97, I had a guy that volunteered for me at the time named Charles who always brought his then 8 year old son along on just about every youth outing we went on. I never really cared because a) Charles was such an amazing youth volunteer and b) Ryan was never any trouble. I always figured Charles brought Ryan along because he couldn't find a baby sitter. This past weekend I discovered why Charles always made it a point to bring Ryan. Saturday night our youth went out for an adventurous game of Laser Tag at Lazer-X in Archdale. Originally I hadn't planned on going. But then someone asked if I AND Jacob were going to come. Take Jacob on a youth trip? I had brought him along on a few things before but that was when I had to be there and there was no other choice. But now I could bring him along because I WANTED to. So at 6pm, Jacob and I loaded up with the rest of the youth to head of for a few hours of shoot...