Element Christian Church of Santa Maria

Tim Keller quotes Emma Goldman as saying that Christianity was, “The leveler of the human race, the breaker of man’s will to dare to do…an iron net, a straight-jacket which does not let him expand and grow.” Many people hold views like this of Christianity: that Christianity is straightjacket of sorts, and most Christians don’t know how to rationally answer them. Today we are going to talk about h...

Keller quotes Philosopher J.L. Mackie who said, “If a good and powerful God exists, he would not allow pointless evil, but because there is much unjustifiable, pointless evil in the world, the traditional good and powerful God could not exist. Some other god or no god may exist, but not the traditional God.” By “traditional God” he means the God that we proclaim on a given Sunday. The argument of...

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus’ statement is pretty exclusive and is considered to be one of the most controversial statements He made; even in the culture of His day. In Rome you were allowed to worship any God you wanted as long as you also worshipped Caesar; Christians and Jews said “No, we will worship God...

In the past few decades, faith in God has been presented as mere belief in something invisible that we have to muster up that over looks facts. Many religious people have said that faith is “believing in something you can’t see, it’s something you feel.” But the truth is that nowhere does the Bible describe faith like that. The word we translate in the bible as “faith” is the Greek word “pistis” a...

God wants us to enjoy Him... and through enjoyment of Him enjoy life. One of the best ways we as a people can be missional is by being people that find joy in life. Knowing who God is, and being satisfied with just that, is the only way to stop sinning; it is the love of God that changes our hearts. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

This Sunday’s message was about the idea of Contentment. Like the other things we are learning in Proverbs, this one is Counter Cultural, in that the culture around us discourages it, but God delights in it, and encourages us to be content with what we have. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

If you have to choose money or wisdom, choose wisdom. If we are wise we can always make money, but if we get more money and don’t have any wisdom, we will lose it all. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

This week we look at a topic that is very near to our hearts, the topic of money! Did you know that 10% of the Bible’s verses are about money and approximately 25% of what Jesus said is related to money one way or another? DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

If you are continuing to act foolish, please know that your foolishness does not separate you from God, but instead you are offered grace and invited to live in true wisdom with God. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

John Chrysostom, an early Christian preacher, summarized the biblical understanding of anger this way, “He that is angry without cause sins, but he who is not angry when there is cause sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices.” DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

This week we look at what counter-cultural friendships look like and how they are unique, how to discover a friend, how to forge a friendship once discovered, and where we get the power for friendship. The 4 marks of true friendship are: - Constancy - a friend has chosen you not to make you a means to an end, but an end in yourself. - Carefulness - friends give the gift of emotional connection vol...

Jesus was God in human flesh and as such He was the perfect human being, yet He was single. His lack of sexual activity in no way reduced his humanity. Jesus enjoyed friendships with single and married men and women and committed His life to the Father’s glory. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

King Solomon taught his sons to Be Wise, Be Humble, and Be Faithful. Yet, Solomon’s life contradicted his teaching because his heart was divided. We need an undivided heart to truly live as God intended, a heart that only God can cultivate in us. Only then can we live in wisdom and lead our children to live wisely. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

Today we are discussing the Fool. The best way to describe a Fool today would be someone who is out of touch with reality. When the Bible talks about a Fool, it is not speaking about one area of life alone (because a lot of people are ‘Fools’ in one area.) When the Bible talks about a Fool, it’s talking about someone who is out of touch with two basic fundamental facts about reality: • That there...

Today we cover the issue of our hearts because our hearts lead us into trouble. If we fail to understand our hearts we will continue follow them and not produce a God honoring culture. The word for heart and its derivatives are used over 900 different times in the Bible. Our hearts shape us and consequently we shape culture then culture completes the circle by shaping our hearts. We have to take r...

Last week we talked about what is meant when the Bible says to “fear the Lord.” There are two words for fear in the Old Testament, one means terror and the other one means reverence. In the New Testament the context of a passage will determine what is meant by the word and what type of fear it is. Tim Keller wrote, “The fear of God, the holy fear, is an inward condition of awe and amazement before...

There are different words used for fear in the scriptures, one type means terror and the other type means reverence. In the Old Testament it’s not that hard to tell the difference because the words are easily identified, but in the New Testament we always have to look at the context of how the words are used to understand it correctly. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

A Conversation with Jon & Michelle Gee of their first Mother's Day after the twins were born.

Collectively seeking God, trusting His grace, and living in His wisdom is how we will birth this new culture around us. We need to look beyond where we are as church, as a culture, and by God’s grace see where we need to be. DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

We are starting a new series today that takes a trek through the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is not a linear book that travels a straight path from A to B, it is a textual/topical book with wisdom shared from various sages who lived during the Old Testament time period. Proverbs is about wisdom that teaches us to live in true freedom. As followers of Jesus we aren’t against the culture in which we...

This week, we finish our series on the Gospel, the definitive news about what God has done to save us, by talking about our lives in terms of eternity. Part of what makes Christianity unique is its certainty of a material future that is God’s future for us. God made creation good and promises to restore it, and us, by His grace, love, and the work of Jesus. The certainty of Jesus coming for our sa...

This week, we talked about how the reality of both Jesus’ life and the Gospel are real and tangible for us living in the “real world.” So often we want God to come and remake our entire lives so all of our mistakes simply disappear, but Jesus comes and walks with us through our mistakes so that we learn and grow from them. God doesn’t take away our consequences for our sin; He takes away the etern...

This week, we talked about how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus was not the end, but the continuation of the Gospel. The Gospel is ongoing in how God works in the world. We are not a people who are missing out, or have missed out, on anything…we are a people who have all the riches of God in our hands, and we get to distribute freely and generously in terms of money, time, joy, hope, and...

This week in the church calendar is called Holy Week or Passion Week, and is celebrated as the time leading up to the cross and crucifixion of Jesus. The cross becomes the culmination of all salvific human history, because it is the moment, at least in human time, that the sin of all of us was laid upon Jesus. There is nothing more important than the death and resurrection of Jesus. Without Jesus,...

This week we looked at how Jesus, as God in the flesh, welcomed all people into His family. Many religious people, then and now, tend to view people with issues as beneath them or unworthy of their time or respect. In the ancient world, this could happen because someone was poor or even the wrong gender (female, in case you were wondering)…something most people had no control over. This Week's Gos...