Gateway Church - MO

When we hear “Away in a manger” we think of a little baby, asleep with his mother and father in a stable. But the lyrics to this carol point out something we often miss about the baby Jesus, something critical. He is the little LORD Jesus. When someone is Lord, that means they are ruler, and it means we are called to surrender and submit to them. As we celebrate Christmas this year, let’s take the...

‘There’s something about a new day. Things feel fresh. We feel like we have a chance to start over. We feel new. But too often our days quickly descend into frustration, chaos, fear or hurt. Christmas reminds us that Jesus came to overcome our fear and hurt and to give us a new life, a life worth living. This carol reminds us that each new day with Jesus provides exactly what we need to overcome a...

 ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ may be the most iconic of all the Christmas carols. It’s the one song most of us think of when we think of Christmas songs. But what is it really about? This song is an invitation to come and worship the God who loved us so much that he accepted us just as we are but loved us too much to leave us that way.

Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters.” Many of us claim we follow Jesus, but we want to maintain allegiance our nation, our party, our tribe, or ourselves. But to follow Jesus means we die to ourselves, surrender fully and serve Jesus without reservation. As much as we may struggle to accept it, following Jesus means submitting to him to the exclusion of all other allegiances.

As Americans, we love our independence. We want to make it on our own. We want the right to choose what’s best for us. And we certainly don’t want to submit to someone else. And for most of us, we exercise our faith with that same level of independence. But the kingdom of Jesus has always been collective in nature. In fact, it’s impossible to fully live out your faith in isolation from others. The...

Empires grow through force. The strong rule and the weak serve. That’s how kingdoms work. But Jesus is a king who turned things upside down. In his kingdom, the humble are lifted up and the greatest serve the least. It’s a kingdom that upsets the established order and changes the world. The kingdom of Jesus is an upside-down kingdom where serving rather than ruling brings transformation.

Typical rulers, regardless of how they came into power, like to wield power and display their strength. That’s how the kingdoms and empires of our world work. And we like to think that if our side can rule, we’ll get things figured out. But time after time our leaders fail because the rule from a position of power. The truth is it doesn’t matter which party is in power. It doesn’t matter who sits...

A little salt can make a bland meal delicious A little bit of light can take the fear out of a dark room. In the same way, when the church grows and multiplies in our world, things change. God’s Kingdom brings light and hope to a world that his dark and hurting. When we grow the Kingdom, we transform the world.

Famous last words. Those are the words we share when we know we aren’t going to see someone for a long time and we want to make sure we tell them what really matters. Jesus’ last words to his disciples before he returned to the father were a command to go and make disciples. As followers of Jesus, making disciples is how we co-mission with Jesus.

God has blessed each of us with different kinds and amounts of resources. But he didn’t bless us to we can spend those blessings on ourselves. He blessed us so that we can partner with him in building His Kingdom. When we refuse to be generous, we limit the reach of God’s Kingdom. When we share what we have, God does amazing things. Our generosity helps build God’s Kingdom.

Jesus followers are supposed to be all about advancing the Kingdom of God. And many, if not most of us are willing to work ourselves to exhaustion to build that kingdom. However, even at our best, we are limited. But if we will focus more on praying for God’s Kingdom to come than we do on figuring out how to make it happen, God will show up and carry the load. When we work, we work. But when we pr...

Too many of us expect too little out of life. We choose to live lives that seem insignificant or lives that don’t make an impact. But that has never been God’s plan for us. God wants more from us and more for us. God wants us to live an exclamation point life!

God’s plan, from the very beginning, was to partner with us to be his imagers in our world. Our job is to build a kingdom that represent God. We are to build a kingdom full of mercy and justice. However, his people have tended to build kingdoms that focus on comfort and self. We must choose which kingdom we will build. Choosing to follow Jesus means choosing wisely.

Followers of Jesus believe he is coming back. Popular Christian culture in America is filled with stories and images that are disturbing, confusing and frightening. However, unlike what many would have us believe, the return of Jesus is not something to fear. Scripture paints a picture of his return being like that of a king who has returned to rescue his people from slavery. For Jesus followers,...

We’ve all been a part of a restoration project that took longer, cost more and was way more involved than we ever thought it would be. But in the end, it was worth it. The hardest part of most restoration projects is starting. Restoring relationships is no different. It’s hard, but the hardest part is starting. In relationships, the process of restoration begins the moment we forgive. It’s hard, i...

Peace. It’s not merely the absence of conflict, it’s the presence of wholeness. Peace seems to allude so many of us and most of us would pay almost any price to know real peace in our lives. Jesus, the King of Peace, offers his peace to us if we will simply surrender and let him lead. It’s not easy, it’s incredibly demanding but the price of peace, surrender, is worth the cost.

Life gets heavy. Stress, worry, anxiety, keeping up the Joneses and keeping up appearances begins to weigh us down. When we add to that our tendency to try to perform well enough to make God like us, the whole thing is just too heavy to carry. But Jesus offers to take that load from us. If we will come to him and lay down our burden, we will find the rest our weary souls need.

Most of us have no problem showing grace to others who are like us. We may not like what they’ve done, but we assume the best and offer them a form of grace. But the grace of Jesus is much wider than that. The grace of Jesus extended to those who were like him but also to different and to those who were opposed to him. It’s surprising, even shocking, but the grace of Jesus is wider than we expect...

Greatness. We all want it. We may have different ideas of what makes us great, most of them involve popularity, wealth, power and prestige. Movie stars are great. Presidents are great. CEOs are great. But Jesus had a different perspective. Jesus said that if we want to know what true greatness is then we have to become like children; insignificant, lacking power, and unassuming. It's completely ba...

Most of us like to do things ourselves. We like to be independent. We like to think that we can manage things just fine on our own. But the truth is, we can't. Even on our best days, whether we admit it or not, we need a little help. This is especially true when it comes to our connection with God. We can't do enough, say enough or be good enough to make things right with God. We can't get right w...

Jesus offers an open invitation for everyone to come and worship him and experience a genuinely transformed life. But sometimes we get in the way others accepting that invitation. Whether intentional or not, our actions, words and attitudes can become a roadblock to others experiencing a life-changing encounter with Jesus. But Jesus doesn't let us leave those roadblocks in place. He calls us to re...

Sometimes we forget that the small stuff matters. And sometimes what feel like small stuff to us is not the small stuff to someone else. Jesus never forgot that. When they ran out of wine at the wedding in Canna, it may not have been a big deal to some, but to the hosts it mattered. A lot. But Jesus isn’t concerned about how big or small our problem is. He chooses to love us and step into our need...

Jesus frequently asked questions. One of the most powerful questions he asked people was, “What do you want?” When he asks that question, it isn’t because he doesn’t know what we need but because he wants to know if we want more of us or if we really want him. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “What do I want?”

Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose to be baptized. He hadn’t sinned. He didn’t need to repent; he wasn’t starting a new life. So why did he get baptized. Jesus chose to be baptized in order to identify with sinful, broken humanity. And he calls us to do the same. We need to learn to connect with our culture without becoming stained by our culture if we are going to reach others with the love o...

Most of us tend to be independent. We want to exercise our rights and we don't want anyone telling us what to do. Submission doesn't come naturally to us. But if we are going to imitate Jesus with our lives, then we need to learn how to humbly submit to others. Jesus, the Son of God and creator of the universe, show us what humble submission looks like. When we watch Jesus, we learn to honor him b...