Evergreen Christian Community

The Big Idea: Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. Mark 4:1-20 Two Difficult Realities One Powerful Truth Three Constant Enemies One Simple Job Two Difficult Realities 1. Some people get it and some people don’t 2. To them that have, even more will be given but to them that have not, even what they do have will be taken away. One Powerful Truth: The forgiveness of God is extended t...

The Big Idea: The Messenger IS the message. Hebrews 1:1-4 John 1:1-5, 9-14 The Privileges of the King Philippians 2:5-11 The Power of the King Paradoxical power: Power that looks for all the world like weakness, intervention that seems indistinguishable from nonintervention. More than that, it is guaranteed to stop no determined evildoers whatsoever. “The New Testament proclaims an unlikely Savior...

The Big Idea: The Father’s blessing satisfies the deepest cry of the human heart. Matthew 3:16-17 Matthew 17:1-5 Fatherlessness is the most destructive pandemic in our world. The enormous impact of fatherlessness in the world: • 90% of all homeless and runaway children are fatherless • 71% of all adolescent substance abusers are fatherless • 80% of adolescents in psychiatric hospitals come from fa...

Romans 15:1-13 Big Idea: The Body of Christ is defined by the overflow of hope and love. Acts 10:11-15 We are called to be like-minded, with Christ because the world needs a united Body of Christ.  Philippians 2:3-11  Be Like Christ: 1. Unconditional Love 1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and si...

Big Idea: The unity experienced through the Gospel triumphs any disagreements of human conviction. Romans 14:1-23 So what are disputable matters? Matters of conviction - things that your conscience has deemed right or wrong for you. FOOD Romans 14:2 DAYS Romans 14:5 Romans 14:6 The importance to God lies in our UNITY, not our like mindedness on non-essential matters. “In essentials, unity; in non-...

Romans 13:11-14 Practical Wisdom for Today: Understand the Time Understand the Forces at Play Choose the Greater Yes Understand the Time: Kairos / kī räs/ “an opportune time for action.” “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” The Big Idea: Times of cultural chaos are times of incredible opportunity. Understand the Forces at Play: (They are as different as Night and Day) ● Aslee...

Romans 13:8-10 Leviticus 19:18 The Big Idea: We have one debt that drives our entire social strategy and practice. ● To whom do we have a debt? ● What is the debt? ● How do we pay the debt? ● What is the power of honoring this debt? “Debt” - An obligation to make a payment as the result of having received something of value. To whom do we have a debt? To God Himself. This debt never goes away beca...

“Revival is no more a miracle than a crop of wheat.” - Charles G. Finney Romans 13:1-7 The Big Idea: A refusal to submit to those in authority is a refusal to submit to and trust God. FOUR CRITICAL TRUTHS ABOUT GOD, AUTHORITIES, AND YOU: 1. Authority is a God idea. John‬ 19:10-11‬ 2. Submission to authority is a godly decision. Ephesians 5:21 3. Rebellion against authority is rebellion against God...

Big Idea: The Christian Life is best lived with an appreciation and awareness that God exists WITH US. “To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.” - Saint Augustine Emmanuel Hebrew “God is with us.” Combination of the Hebrew expression “with us” and the word for God (El) from Elohim. God WITH US in the garden....

Romans 12:9-21 The Big Idea: You love God best by how you treat people. Love the fulfillment of God’s WHOLE law. Matthew 5:17-18 Galatians 5:13-15 Your engine: JOYFUL in HOPE, PATIENT in AFFLICTION, FAITHFUL in PRAYER. How do I avoid being overcome by evil? Overcome evil by good. 6 Laws of enemy love: 1. Don’t curse people – ever. 2. Make blessing your only response to cursing. 3. Harmonize with t...

Romans 12:3-8 The problem with ME How Jesus sets me free from ME How the free me contributes to WE “People with high self-esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low self-esteem and feeling bad about yourself is not the source of our country’s biggest, most expensive social problems.” - Lauren Slater, The Trouble With Self-Esteem, The New York Times magazine, Feb 3, 2002...

“God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing—or should we say “seeing”? there are no tenses in God—the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the bod...

The Big Idea: We can’t always know God’s ways, but we can absolutely know and trust His heart. Romans 11:25-36 Three Outlandish Claims: 1. All Israel will be saved (v26) Jeremiah 31:31-34 1 Peter 3:18-22 2. God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. (v29) ● Irrevocable: “without repentance” “no regrets from the giver.” ● Gifts: charismata- Grace Gifts Genesis 8:21 ● Calling: Invite to a task and a...

The Big Idea: Pay attention to the goodness and severity of God as He builds a people for Himself. Romans 11:1-24 The Goodness of God: “God’s mercy especially towards those who are singularly unworthy” The Severity of God: “The exercise of His goodness and holiness, which leads Him to sever from His mystical Body whatever would injure, corrupt, or destroy it” The Four Subjects: 1. The Jews 2. The...

The Big Idea: Trust in Jesus is the only essential and it is impossible to fake. Romans 9:33, 10:1-15 People approach God in one of two ways: 1. Establishing a righteousness of your own 2. Submitting to the righteousness of God ● Christ is the culmination of the Law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 The essential good news: “The one who believes in...

The Big Idea: God exercises His sovereignty to redeem all who trust Him. Romans 9:19-33 1. Paul’s summary of the matter: (v30-32) Gentiles vs. Jews and obtaining righteousness: THEIR PURSUIT is the point. “Pursue” or “strive” = follow with urgency and intensity of effort. God’s process of hardening some and having mercy on others is not arbitrary. Romans 11:22-23 2. The Potter and the Clay Jeremia...

Romans 9:1-18 Big Idea: God has sovereignly decided that all who relate to Him by faith shall be saved. A Deterministic View: All things, including human action, are decided by and determined by God, with nothing to do with our own will. 1. EVERYTHING points to Jesus and the ABSOLUTE POWER of GOD’S LOVE. What is the heart of Jesus? That all would come to faith in Christ Jesus, and be saved! John 3...

The Big Idea: The Holy Spirit can transform our suffering through the certainty of our hope. Romans 8:18-30 “One of the really interesting aspects of this incredible capacity for making up missing information is that it usually comes with a great subjective sense of certainty, and when we act on that certainty we can get ourselves into trouble—by sideswiping a cyclist we just didn’t see but were q...

Big Idea: Through the Spirit of Life, we are free from death and condemnation. Romans 8:1-16 FLESH VS SPIRIT Death is not simply a physical occurrence, but an all-encompassing state of being. The Spirit of Life brings us into the kingdom of God as true adopted children. Roman law of adoption: Rejection of old life - new identity Entire debt has been wiped out - forgiven There is no condemnation fo...

The Big Idea: Moral rules can tell you you're sick, but they cannot cure you. Romans 7:1-25 Psalm 119:165 Psalms‬ 19:7 But… Acts 15:10 Freedom from sin and freedom from the Law go closely together. The Point of the Matter: Romans 7:4-6 ● We die to the Law so we can belong to another - to Him who was raised from the dead. ● SO THAT we might bear fruit for God. ● In the realm of the flesh, we bore t...

The Big Idea: Freedom from sin is a birthright for Christians Romans 6:1-23 Two Logic Questions: 1. Since grace abounds, can’t we just go on sinning? LEGALISM is not the answer to LIBERTINISM. PAUL TEACHES A BETTER WAY: Radical TRANSFORMATION IN CHRIST, through THE SPIRIT. 2. Can those who DIED TO SIN, continue to live in it? Clarity for the Confusion Comes From 3 Ideas: 1. Baptism 2. Crucifixion...

The Big Idea: Knowing the whole story changes how you understand the current chapter. Romans 5:12-21 The Origin Story: ● Humans are the PINNACLE AND PURPOSE of everything God made. Genesis 1:26-28; 2:72:7 ● We wanted MORE and LOST IT ALL. Genesis 2:15-17 ● God REFUSED to accept the reign of death. (Romans 5:14; 17) Romans 5:14-15 The Current Chapter: ● Two kingdoms REIGN SIMULTANEOUSLY. Romans 5:1...

Romans 5:1-11 Romans 4:23-25 The Big Idea: Whether you know it or not, the Hero of your life is Jesus. Through faith we have: ● PEACE with God Through faith we have access to: ● The GOOD FAVOR of God ● The ability to KISS OUR CROSSES Why Suffering is my Servant: ● Suffering produces PERSEVERANCE > Produces CHARACTER (knowing the genuineness of something by examination or testing) > Produces HOPE (...

How does one achieve a proper relationship with God? And having become right with God, how do I stay right? The Big Idea: You can work very hard to try and make something real with God or you can live trusting that it is already real and live your life in the power of it. Romans 3:21-24 Romans 4:1-13 Why do we struggle to accept this? What does Abraham teach us? How should we view our path going f...

Into the Wild, 3 - Escaping the Rabbit Hole of Depravity Jim Ladd, Jan 16, 2022 Romans 1:24-32 The Big Idea: The universal pathway of depravity must be intercepted, interrupted, and overcome. People who want no god “enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved.”  - C. S. Lewis This depravity spiral is a universal problem! Romans 3:9-20 "The sins of the fle...