Central Church Podcast

In the creation narrative, God extensively gives life and beauty to the world that we know over the course of 6 days, and on the 7th day, He rests. Life in the garden was complete: there was no chaos, no disorder, no sin, until the rebellion of mankind in chapter 3. Pastor Jon Nelson opens up this series with a message from Genesis 1-3.

Pastor Jon concludes our sermon series on the 7 deadly sins with a sermon on lust, sharing on the temptations of King David and Bathsheba and Joseph with Potiphar's wife

Food and drink have been given to us by God as a way to enjoy Him and His goodness. As the story has continued on, we have detoured from using it as a way to enjoy God and have turned it into a god itself. The gluttonous person is driven by appetite, and it's not just in the quantity of what's consumed, but also in the quality of preference. Jac Munson reads from Philippians 3 and John 6 on the co...

Central Youth director Griffen Molenburg gives a sermon on the deadly sin of greed.

A large component of the human life is work. Too much, too little; over-accomplished, under-accomplished. When talking about the sin of slothfulness, we tend to equate it with laziness, but it's much broader than that. We can become lazy and miss out on the greater good in front of us, but we can also be so consumed by over-working that we also miss the greater good that is in front of us.

We often times have expectations of how we want things to go or a certain way that we want people to act, but what happens when those expectations aren't met? We become angry. Anger is no longer just about the expression, but it's about the feeling. Jesus, when talking about anger, equates it to committing murder. What causes us to be angry, and how do we deal with it?

Envy can easily turn good things into bad things. Whether it's a possession that someone else has, or a reason to celebrate that we don't, it can cause competition between us and others and spiral us down into feelings of bitterness and resentment. After all, envy is what caused Cain to kill his brother Abel. Pastor Jon preaches from Genesis and Matthew on the issue of envy.

When the Bible talks about pride, it doesn't have good things to say. Of the "7 deadly sins," pride is regarded as the chief of the vices, influentially undermining all of the others. Pride is the complete absorption of the self, and there's a profound example of how pride infects us through the story of Haman and Mordecai.

Griffen Molenburg, our Central Youth leader, gives a message from 1 Samuel 18 when Saul stirs with jealousy over the praise that David is receiving. Our human nature leans towards competition, and it can be hard to celebrate good things when someone else receives the praise that we think we deserve.

In the final chapter of John, we see Jesus with His disciples, and it's here that He reinstates Peter through the question, "do you love me?" What are we devoted to, and how do we show that devotion? Pastor Jon concludes the series on the book of John through the lens of devotion.

In the final hours of Jesus' life, He lifts His eyes to heaven and prays to the Father for three specific things: Himself, His disciples, and those who would come to believe in Him.

Through John 16, Jesus uses the word "will" several times, signifying that there multiple guarantees that He makes us. Guarantees that we will experience hardship, that we will mourn, but that we will also receive a joy from Him, and that He will give us a joy that will be complete. Jac Munson teaches from John 16 and, while we see the promise of hardship, we also see the fulfilled promise that we...

Jesus uses this imagery of a vine as the source of life and sustainability for the branches that stem from it. Just as it's true for the plant, it's also true of us; He is the vine, we are the branches, and for us to experience true life that is offered, we must remain in Him. Pastor Jon teaches from John 15 on the importance of being attached to Jesus, the great vine.

On this Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate Christ's victory over death and the life that He has been resurrected to. Pastor Jon reads from John 20, the account of the disciples going to the empty tomb to find the stone rolled away, seeing with their own eyes the risen Lord.

Emily Orr, a congregation member here at Central, gives an in-depth look at the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, sharing different historical artifacts that and perspectives about what the last night of Jesus' life looked like.

Jesus promises that, when He is going to leave to go back to the Father, that He is going to remain with us through the giving of His Holy Spirit. This Spirit will be our helper, our advocate, and our encourager in times of trouble and great need. Because He has given us the Spirit, we can trust Him to take care of our every need

On the final night of His life, Jesus gathers with His disciples in the upper room for the Passover meal. As they argue who among them is the greatest, Jesus gets up from His seat and begins washing their feet, an act of humility so profound, it shows them how the greatest is to live. Jesus didn't come to be served but to serve, and we are to live by following that great example.

John 11 presents two remarkable events of Jesus' ministry: He claims to be the resurrection and the life, and He goes and resurrects Lazarus from the dead. In this passage, we see a different perspective of Jesus' love, one that's furious and stern, yet compassionate.

In John 10, Jesus gives us this image of a shepherd and the role it has over its sheep. The shepherd watches over the sheep, cares for the sheep, and the sheep intimately know this shepherd. Jesus declares Himself to be the Good Shepherd as He loves us, cares for us, and protects us.

In John 9, we see the miracle of the blind man receiving sight from Jesus. When he's pressed about who healed him and if Jesus was a sinner, the man replied, "what I do know is that I was blind but now I see." Why was this man healed, but so many people that we see suffer aren't? Pastor Jon Nelson explores that question through the lens of Jesus' grace and compassion.

Just after the Feast of Booths, Jesus finds Himself teaching in the temple courts, telling the listeners that He is the light of the world, and that by following Him, no one would walk in darkness, but they would have the light of life. Jesus boldly claims Himself to be the 'I Am' when talking to the religious leaders, which asks two questions of us: what does it look like to follow Jesus, and why...

During the Feast of Booths, Jesus stands up in the midst of the celebration and declares that He is the source of living water. This passage asks three very unique questions: who do the people say that Jesus is, who does Jesus say that He is, and who do we say that He is?

In this passage, we see three key moments in Jesus' ministry: feeding the five thousand, walking on water, and Jesus's claim to be the bread of life. To the wandering Israelites, bread was the symbol of God's presence and provision; that He gives us each day our daily bread. Jesus' claim here ensures us that He alone is the source of satisfaction, that everything that we need, we can find in Him a...

In John 5, we see Jesus interact with this invalid man at the Pool of Bethesda. The man expected the pool to heal him, even after waiting for nearly 40 years. Jesus, to this man, was a complete stranger, but he was also the source of healing this man had spent his entire life looking for. In this life, how do we expect our lives to go, and what do we expect from God?

Pastor Jon Nelson continues our series reading from John 4, when Jesus famously meets the woman at the well.