NMC Audio Podcast

Jesus, the revolutionary, is advocating for a profound and transformative love! Through Jesus, we find a compelling example of embracing love for our enemies as the most compassionate way to live. In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus had something to say to the Pharisees of His days about this problem, and His words are specifically relevant to us today when God’s people have once again developed a reputatio...

Living in two worlds is challenging. Swimming upstream is difficult. Riding against the wind can be brutal. Jesus, in the Greatest Sermon Ever Preached, challenges His followers to do exactly that. In what’s known as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus lays out the tension between living in the world yet walking in His ways. It’s all about “Kingdoms In Conflict!” Which one will you choose?

It would be an understatement to say that Jesus radically shifted the way people think, not just in His time, but in every generation since. Do we have the right thinking when it comes to who God is, who we are, and what life is? On the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges people to change their minds, to think differently and rightly. Will you change your mind?

The Apostle Paul, kneeling before the Father, prays a prayer for the church, a prayer for all generations. May our prayer be the same for our brothers and sisters. May we be able to experience the surpassing love of Christ in such a dramatic way that it changes our lives and the way that we pray. 

Jesus shares this profound parable in response to a teacher of the law’s two questions. Jesus flips the script, and instead of being challenged by the teacher of the Law, He becomes the one who does the challenging. Jesus offers us insight into what the Kingdom of God is like and how we can experience His Kingdom.

Nearly all of us would agree that a marker of faithfulness to God is obedience to His Word. After all, James tells us that we should not merely listen to the Word, but we should do what it says. However, many of us are not quick to consider the attitude with which we “do” it. In Psalm 119, we are challenged to move beyond begrudging compliance to a joyful engagement. Today we’re challenged to thin...

May the church never lose sight of how great our God is in all the heavens and the earth. May the church never forget to consider the majesty, the magnitude, or the might of our God. O Lord, our Lord forgive us of making too much of ourselves and too little of You. O Lord, our Lord how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Today in our service we’ll be hearing of a miracle story of God’s grace. We hope that your heart will be blessed and challenged.

In this Father's Day message, Pastor Kevin Moore will help us dig past the surface and give us four foundational traits that we can build our life on. 

This morning, we'll honor and celebrate our 2023 high school graduates. As we honor these students, we also take time to look at the story of Apollos, Priscilla, and Aquila to see what it means to invest and to be invested into.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you….” It is wild that Jesus told His disciples that it was better that He leave them, so that He could send the Advocate. This Advocate must be pretty amazing for it to be better than having Christ in the flesh. An encounter with Jesus leads to an encounter with the Holy Spirit.

It’s amazing how our behavior changes when we realize the time clock is ticking down. Jesus wanted His disciples to live with a sense of urgency. There was a mission to accomplish. There was a message to be shared. There were disciples to be made, all while the time clock was ticking down. His final words to His disciples and to us are focused to live ON MISSION—His mission.

Jesus’ words to Peter are simple: “FOLLOW ME.” Yet, almost immediately, Peter gets sidetracked, unfocused, and off mission. Sometimes we have the tendency to make following Jesus harder than it needs to be. Let’s fix our focus on the Master and follow Him.

For a third time, we get a glimpse of Jesus encountering His disciples in John 21. Specifically in this passage, we're given access to an intimate moment between Christ and Peter. Peter has had quite the journey leading up to this encounter; he’s had a lot of high highs and low lows. This encounter with Jesus will, again, forever change his life. All it takes is one encounter with Christ. 

Do you believe? Is believing without seeing difficult for you? Thomas, commonly referred to as Doubting Thomas, may be unfairly nicknamed. We, today, are in a similar place as Thomas was before seeing the resurrected Christ. Do we believe, without seeing, that Jesus is in fact resurrected from the dead? All of Christian faith rests on this belief. 

We all have a story to tell. A story filled with pain, heartache, failures, mistakes, victories, joy, happiness, and the list can go on. What happens when Jesus steps in and rewrites our story? How do our lives change course and redefine our purpose? Mary Magdalene’s life was changed by Jesus, and this change propelled her onto mission. Encountering Jesus leads us to an empowered purpose. 

The road to Emmaus is an incredible story that only Luke shares at the end of his gospel. It serves as the perfect parallel to all our walks of faith. Coming to know Christ is walking down a path. Understanding Scripture is a life-long process. And communing with Christ is a gift of sight. May we be people of the path, the book, and the table.

Does what concerns God concern you? It’s easy to get caught up in urgent concerns. It’s quite normal to let small things consume and concern us while the biggest and most important things slip off our radar. The story of Jonah is about allowing God’s concerns to become our concerns. It’s about letting His heart become our heart. It’s all about a heart of compassion for the lost and the irreligious...

Imperfection is our reality. We all have struggles, messes, pains, and pasts. Thank God for His mercy! How good is He? How faithful is He to forgive? He is the God of second chances. No matter where you are in life or where you've been, God has and is mercifully calling you back to His presence and His purposes. When you hear His calling, how will you respond?

What is it that’s holding me back from being all that I could be? What barriers might exist to keep me from God’s best? Where are the blind spots in my life? What’s the hard battle that I must win? Jonah, in the belly of the large fish, faces a defining moment of absolute surrender to God’s best. Just as he faced that moment of truth, we face it, too. It’s the ultimate chess match.

It is a literary feat that the incredibly small book of Jonah contains such an extraordinary epic. There are many deep insights and themes to glean from the four short chapters. On the surface, Jonah is the story of a prophet who runs from God’s calling on his life, but in reality, this book is about a merciful God.

After all we've received this week at Fanning the Flame, where do we go from here? Let's take the power of the Gospel out into the world, sow the seed, and then watch how God increases it! --- David Gallimore is the lead pastor at Midland Valley Community Church in Graniteville, SC. He brings the unique gifting of an evangelist to the pulpit with a shepherd's heart, a God-sized vision for the loca...