Element Christian Church of Santa Maria

The Good News of the gospel is NOT that God stops us from making dumb decisions, or that He will fix what we break; it is that He has promised to continue to work for our eternal good no matter how many short-sighted choices we make along the way.

The essence of the Christian faith is not moral people, but people who are connected to God. A conscience is good, but is insufficient for a relationship with God.

The Cinema. Today's modern day pulpit... telling today's story through the digital story form. We'll watch these popular movies and follow up with an expository exploration of the narrative themes and spiritual parallels of these movies.

Jesus alone is worthy of being our overwhelming passion, and we will only know the TRUE truth when He is more important in our life than US.

Live with a vision of God’s renewed creation in Christ.

Timothy Keller says we learn 3 things from almost every Genesis narrative. 1. How people were ruined 2. The Culture of Death 3. The Future city of Grace

It’s important to see Jesus in 2 forms • The humility of His incarnation (became a man). • The glory of His exaltation.

The Cinema. Today's modern day pulpit... telling today's story through the digital story form. We'll watch these popular movies and follow up with an expository exploration of the narrative themes and spiritual parallels of these movies.

God redeems us and gives us the strength to change. He has already blessed us more than we can ever imagine…

We do not use the cross as a way to wallpaper over our unrepentant heart to temporarily feel good. We earnestly seek Christ knowing He has forgiven us at the Cross.

God calls us to become the kind of people through whom His blessings flow. Bless the people you work with, bless whoever God sends you through the day, bless the next generation; just bless everyone.

God gives us permission to live and have a plan. We don’t need to live as the rest of our culture does living week to week with no eye towards our legacy. Jesus did not get out of the grave for us to be like everyone else. He called us to be a blessing.

Being a mom is NOT an easy job. Being a parent is hard, being a Christian parent in our culture in even harder so I have asked 3 of my friends to join us on Mother's Day. These ladies are from three different walks of life, but they are all Mothers (hopefully one of them will resonate with where you are at). Jessa, Pam & Amanda share some of their story of being a Christian Mother.

Joseph’s brothers were redeemed to once again share life as a family, the Israelites were redeemed to eat with God on the mountain, and we are redeemed to forever eat meals in Christian community and with Christ Himself.

In the Genesis story God has been working on everybody. When everyone actually knows and follows God everything will work out because the closer they grow to Jesus, the closer they will grow together.

We have all been like Judah at some point. • We have been separated from God (like Joseph and His family) and Jesus died in our place to bring us together, • We should have been punished like Simeon and the brothers, but Jesus was punished in our place • We should have DIED, but what we have received, by trusting in Jesus, is His harvest of righteousness.

We are to be dependent on Jesus, but not in a passive way. We’re active, but not in an independent way. It’s active dependence on Jesus.

“…We believe that the central meaning of the Resurrection is victory. Thus our traditional image is more vibrant and noisy, and it rings with a victorious shout. The Resurrection is a victory over sin, death, and the devil, and a victory over the dark forces that enslave us, despise us, and wish to destroy us.” Resurrection says, He is not here, but has risen which means that tomorrow doesn’t have...

The great gift of the Christian life is that Jesus connects us to God through the Holy Spirit. The World needs Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in us, and we need to come humbly and serve and bless those around us so they will learn about God.

Why does God not answer prayers with a “yes” whenever we ask? 1) You are praying, but the request may be off, and in those times, and God says, “No.” 2) Sometimes the request may not be a bad one in itself, but timing may be off. 3) Sometimes people ask for really good things with really good hearts, and that prayer does not get answered, and there is not a human answer “why”.

This story shows that there is room in God’s family for the worst of us.

Providence is understating that God made everything and everyone, and He is still involved. Not only is He still involved, He also rules over history.

Better than the gift is the giver of the gifts. Better than the things He gives is the person He is. We need to love not just what God gave, but who He is.

In the book City of God, Augustine says we need a well ordered heart. His definition of well ordered was “Loving the right thing, to the right degree, in the right way, with the right kind of love.”

What do we learn through Jacob’s reorienting his life? 1. We are no one 2. We can change the world 3. This gets done by the power of the God’s Spirit. Jacob was no one, but God changed the world through him.