Cities Church Exhortations

In Luke 14 we’re given the picture of a man standing at the entrance of a grand banquet hall. It’s been filled row upon row of finely dressed tables — each one overflowing with roasted meat, fine wine, and freshly baked bread. And around those tables are many, many chairs — most of which have yet to be occupied. This man’s servants, those who’d been sent out to spread the message that everything w...

Jesus forgives sinners. This is the good news that we call the Gospel. And it is good news! But, the Gospel isn’t just that Jesus forgives sinners, but that he changes sinners. In other words, Jesus doesn’t just forgive us of our sins and leave us as we are, but he changes us, so that we may walk in the newness of life and not in our old patterns that were producing death in us. This is grace upon...

We have been going through the letters to the 7 churches in Revelation for our sermon series and one pattern you might have noticed is that some of the churches faced different types of persecution. As Christians there is sometimes talk about different forms of persecution in America as orthodox Christian beliefs get met with increasing antagonism and hostility. And sometimes we use church history...

What I want to do in the next few moments is to remind us of another subtle but dangerous enemy of our souls. An enemy we often overlook. An enemy that robs some of us of sleep. An enemy that can paralyze us, and keep us from making important decisions. An enemy that spoils friendships, and plagues relationships, and sabotages ministry. An enemy that corrupts motives and inflames insecurities. An...

Political extremists are vying to control the center of the country. Protests sparked by calls for justice devolve into riots across the nation’s cities. Cultural and counter- cultural forces are pulling in opposite directions. Racial tensions are thick in the air and American life is fractured, assuming it was ever whole. Early in the tumult of the decade, a pastor stood on the National Mall in W...

Happy Epiphany! Watch this short video from Pastor Jonathan about this past Sunday’s sermon.

Happy New Year! Figured I would start this morning talking about Twitter. It’s my favorite social media platform. Well, I sometimes take mental notes about what’s trending on the platform. I was on Twitter a few months ago and I saw a lot of Christians complaining about their churches. People were complaining about masks, and mandates, and vaccines, and whether their church was open or not open, a...

Prince Rillian had seen the night sky bursting with stars. He’d seen the morning sun rise in brilliant light and warmth. He’d been there, felt the wind of that place on his skin, felt the ground beneath his feet… but that was ten years before — ten years before he’d fallen down into the darkness of Underland, fallen where few return to the sunlit lands. “There is no overworld,” the queen whispered...

This is the second week of Advent. And for this years advent season, we are doing exhortations drawn from Revelation 19-22. These chapters contain a series of visions that were given to John about events of history. Last week we heard the vision of the one riding on the white horse, who is called the Word of God, and on whose robe is written “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords”. This week Pastor Kev...

Rejoice! The one who is called faithful is coming to right all wrongs. The one who is called the Word of God has come to make all suffering and sorrow cease, and to bring us back to God—and he will come again. May we look toward his second coming as often as we look back at his first.

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing,” Paul says, “that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.” Church, have we ever had more reasons to grumble than we have this year? The tremors of grumbling have been rising and rising, and we are not immune. Grumbling about the vi...

We all know this has been a trying year in our city, in our country, and around the world. 2020 so far has been a year filled with a once-in-a-generation pandemic, protests, and political uproar. And now, here in Minnesota, we’re entering the dark days of an increasingly cold & snowy winter. Everyone seems to be waiting for something. Waiting for science to save us with an effective vaccine. Waiti...

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