Capital City Christian Church | Podcast

God gives us the means to be generous, and the honor of being used by him. Generosity not only helps those we give to, but stretches our faith and helps us live outside ourselves. We climax the series with an offering that will be donated to RIP Medical Debt.

Normal is spend, repay debt, pay taxes, save if there’s any left and give if there’s anything left after that. Jesus followers flip that around: give, save, live on the rest. We will especially focus on the spiritual principals behind “saving.”

Decisions we made in the past limit our options in the present – with respect to our money, too. Too often, our choices led to the prison of debt. What can we do to start digging our way out?

Money isn’t fun to talk about. It seems like we’ve always got problems and more money could solve them. Today we’re talking about the number one secret to managing your money well.

We think “Judge Not” means "Never make any kind of judgments at all, ever!” We’ll take a closer look at what Jesus really meant.

Today’s culture doesn’t like the concept of “absolute truth.” That’s where we get the saying “It doesn’t matter what I believe.” It’s tempting to accept that - some people have their truth and we have ours. But that’s not the way Jesus explained things.

We hear, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” But God never promises that. What he does promise is to be with us and that his grace is sufficient.

We kick off a series on cultural myths which Christians buy into. We morph “I have a right to be happy,” into “God wants me to be happy.” Although there is truth in that, there are things God wants way more.

We wrap up the series on “Necessary Sins” by talking about lust - every good man’s battle. It’s a war with extremely high stakes, a war we often choose not to fight and a war we cannot win without God’s help.

Words do hurt; use them wisely when speaking of another person; we can leave long lasting scars with our words; we can actually murder the reputation of another. Gossip is unacceptable behavior within God’s culture.

Although we can be angry and not sin, we tend to sin in our anger. In this sermon, we examine the root causes of anger and God’s antidote.

There may be some kinds of “lies” which are innocent (as in humor), but too often we justify our lying. Lying is a failure to trust God, it corrupts our character, and it corrupts our relationships with people and with God.

We wrap up our “Love Handles” series with a focus on “Forsaking all others, till death do us part.” Although some question whether that is possible or a worthy goal, it does reflect GOd’s will and is part of his growing us into the “godlike” creatures he meant us to be. It’s a choice we make, to live outside ourselves.

We promise to love and to “cherish.” What’s the difference? And how do we do it?

As in our life with God, a healthy, God-honoring marriage requires “perseverance.” The “happily ever after” is on the other side of the better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health.

What does it mean to take someone as your spouse “to have and to hold?”

What is the faith of the next generation worth to you? What about the faith of everyone that you know?

If God gave you whatever you wanted - what you ask for? What wish would you have God grant you? You might be selfless with your response - but would it really be the best thing?

What if we recognized that God is in the room? What if we recognized that worship is a dialogue, not a monologue? What if people came expecting “church”, and “worship” broke out!

We wrap up our Making a Messiah series with God’s verdict on Jesus. The earliest Jesus followers were just as skeptical as anyone today after Jesus’ crucifixion, and none of them expected a resurrection. It was the resurrection that turned them around and launched the church.

Baptism is a picture of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus When we identify with Jesus in baptism, we come to grips with who we are, who He is and what stands in our way.

We walk through the trials of Jesus and see him rejected six times over the course of just a few hours. Their reasons for rejecting him are templates for some of our own. And in the end, our verdict on Jesus will determine God’s verdict on us.

Jesus didn’t come to add to the Old Covenant, he came to replace it. And the was to do life with God, for God, God’s way under this new covenant is encompassed by this one new “law”: Love one another, as I have loved you.

The temple was the center of Judaism, the path to doing life with God, for God, God’s way. When Jesus entered the temple and disrupted the buying and selling of Passover lambs, he was throwing down a gauntlet: “You can crown me or kill me - but you can’t ignore me.”

Until now, Jesus has been quelling public speculation that he was the Messiah. Now he goes public, in a remarkable fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecies. Now he forces our hand: crown me or kill me.