Paradigm

Do you have the gift of singleness? Well … if you’re single, you’ve got it. And it’s not like that bad Christmas gift from your aunt: It’s an opportunity to say yes to the invitation of a lifetime. Guest speaker Jason Fenton story-tells through why singleness is gift and how you can leverage it by accepting it, investing it, and risking it. Because a relationship with Christ is the only one that p...

Has fear ever caused you to make a decision that you weren’t ready to make or shouldn’t have made at all? Jordan and Sasha Marcotte did — and in this special evening at Paradigm, they share their music and their story of how God brought them to live in the light of truth in their relationship with Him — and restored their relationship with each other. Notes: https://my.bible.com/events/48921570 Pa...

Disappointments can lead to deconstructing belief in God. And deconstruction can be healthy — taking apart our practices and beliefs to determine their truthfulness, usefulness, and impact. But where do we bring our doubts, and then what happens next? In Matthew 11, we find John the Baptist wrestling with his own disappointments and doubt, and he brought them straight to the source. Jesus responde...

Are you a fan of fables? You know, nice stories that help us understand basic moral lessons? Some view the Bible that way, but a fable most certainly isn’t worth living for — or dying for. And if we’re going to count the Bible as our foundation for faith, then we must know it’s reliable history based on eyewitness accounts. We’ve got to know if it’s really God’s Word, recording His plan and His pe...

If we believe in the God of the Bible, then we must believe that He is good. But if He's good, how can He allow suffering? In Romans 8, we find that suffering is not a result of God’s action, but our own choice to sin. And our sin has not only cursed ourselves but also all of creation. So where does a good God come in? With a grand redemption plan that will one day result in so much good, it won’t...

Deconstruction ... all the cool kids are doing it. If you’ve got doubts, too, don’t demonize them; DO something with them. Examine what you believe. Then reconstruct what you’ve deconstructed on the truth! In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul does this: he examined the Resurrection of Christ, because he knew that if we don’t get this one thing right, then the building blocks of our beliefs won’t matter. The...

If your life has been intersected by the Gospel, then you can never be the same. This is Paul's message as he concludes his letter to the people of Galatia, warning them against fleshly living and calling them to Spirit-led relationships, activity, and confidence — only possible by salvation through Jesus Christ. Through the Gospel, we rely not on what we can do or must do, but on what Christ has...

How do you know if someone is really a Christian? And are you? There’s a way to find out. In Galatians, Paul says that the character of a person will showcase whether they truly know Christ or not. And he challenges us to evaluate our own lives to see if we are connected with Christ — and if we are, then remove the weeds, watch for the fruit, and wait to see God do the work of growing your faith....

We’re all good at grace. Needing it, that is! But when it comes to receiving God’s grace, we’re a mess and we can’t leave it alone. We end up either adding to it with a bunch of rules (called legalism) or taking from it because we’re disregarding all the rules (called licentiousness). And a little bit of either of those will ruin the entire batch of grace … like a toenail in your salsa. Instead, i...

Work hard and everything will work out fine. That’s the American dream. But it doesn’t work for what’s most important in life: our relationship with God. Because the main message of the Bible is that the only way to get right and stay right with God is by faith in Jesus Christ. If you’re stuck in a performance trap and you’re not enjoying Jesus, something Is off. Galatians pinpoints what — and how...

We’re all born orphans, spiritually: conceived in crisis, born into bondage, and hopelessly lost in the orphanage called the world. But in Galatians, we find that if we are in Christ, we are chosen by the God of the universe to be His children — with all the privileges and joys and security of adoption. And with that adoption comes a responsibility: Will we be a witness to the adoption of others?...

Are you perfectly happy? If not ... what's the one thing you think could get you there? In John 4, we find Jesus intentionally pursuing a woman who is so unsatisfied with her life, it's been her full-time job to keep seeking the one more thing that could help. But one-more-thing hasn't helped. And the answer Jesus brings her is what we need, too: a new purpose in life of knowing the Messiah and sh...

 Are you a speed limit follower or breaker? Yeah, us too. Traffic laws regulate us to keep us safe, but we all know the speed limit signs don't magically make us better drivers. Eventually we all break those limits, and in slow zones it feels like the limit is there just to trip us up. Sometimes the law of God can feel like that too, as if all 600 laws in the entire Bible were written just for us...

Relationship pro-tip: The way you attract someone is how you'll keep them. Same goes for your relationship with God. If you think you can do enough good to earn a relationship with Him, then you'll be in constant danger of one bad mess-up ruining everything. But in Galatians, we learn that God is the initiator, the sustainer, and the completer of our salvation. The good news? You can never lose Go...

Christians are a bunch of hypocrites. That's what everyone says ... and they're not wrong. Most likely you're a pro, just like the rest of us, acting out a lie every time we say something that doesn't match up with what we do. And in Galatians, Paul is calling out people who are living this lie — and then he lays out how to be healed. Because there is freedom from the burden of hypocrisy, and it's...

Are you wearing a cheap version of faith? We tend towards a faith that is trendy, comfy & casual ... or traditional, rigid & rules. But cheap faith is a knockoff. It will never accomplish the glorious goal of the Gospel that God master planned: to unite us with Christ and with each other. Paul lays out this Gospel in Galatians and reminds us that it's not about us, but it's for us, and when we exp...

Ever had allergies so bad your eyes crusted over? It's painful and gross, plus, obviously, you just can't see well. In Galatians, we find Paul writing to a group of churches to point out something also obvious: They can't see the Gospel clearly because there's gunk they've been adding to it, making it crusty and ruined. But Paul experienced the radical power of the clear Gospel; it changed him fro...

A spiritual high, followed by stress, is a recipe for depression. Ever been there? Elijah, a prophet in ancient Israel, experienced God moving in an out-of-this-world way, but then fell into isolation and doubt. He desperately needed to hear God’s voice. And like Elijah, if we want to be used by God, grow in faith, and find hope, we need to hear God's voice, know His word, and know the Shepherd.  ...

What are your labels? The words that define you? You’ll wear the labels of the voices you listen to — but there’s only One who has the right to label you. It’s not who you are (or who you hope to be) that matters, but Whose you are. If you’re a child of God, you can claim the label God gives you of freedom (John 8:36) instead of being stuck to what others have slapped on you. Notes: https://my.bib...

Satan is the OG scam artist — making the same plays on us since Genesis 3 by questioning God’s authority. When we’re tempted to think happiness lies just on the other side of a “little” sin — and we take the bait for it — we end up finding ourselves trashed by a load of guilt and despair. But there’s a way out: Instead of listening to the voice of temptation and the accuser, learn to talk to yours...

The voices you listen to determine the version of life that you live. In John 10, we learn how what we’re hearing can either be our downfall into depression and pride or our greatest weapon against them. We can learn to recognize God’s voice through creation and His Word, flee strange voices, and find an abundant, rich life by following Christ. Notes : https://my.bible.com/events/48849160 Paradigm...

As young adults, the pressure is on to perform: there's a long list of what we've got to do to feel good about ourselves in our careers, our relationships, and with God. But we never really hit the mark and the load just keeps getting heavier. In Matthew 11, Jesus invites us to join His way of life, where we can can exchange all the weight of our own trying hard for the freedom of rest that He off...

Are you rushed? Irritable? Sloppy? Apathetic? Isolated? If so … you just might have a case of pathological “rushedness,” addicted to activity and connectivity, and it won’t end well for you. The good news? God has a prescription for this, already written into the way He created the world. It’s called Sabbath, and in the books of Deuteronomy and Exodus, we learn why to keep it, how to remember it,...

Sometimes work is hard. In Luke 5, we see some guys doing hard work with less than stellar results. Ready to call it a day, they're joined by Jesus and instructed to go back to work when it seems pointless. These men find that when Jesus joins them in the struggle, everything changes. And the same principle holds true today: whether you love your work or are itching to change, ask Jesus to go to w...

Life is a tension of work and rest. If we’re driven to work in pursuit of significance, we’ll burn out, and if we seek satisfaction in rest, we’ll end up lazy … and disappointed. But if we can manage the tension between the two by reflecting God’s example from Genesis 1, we can find significance and success that is rooted in the Gospel.   Notes: https://my.bible.com/events/48834057   Paradigm is a...