Gateway Church - MO

The old covenant never really took care of our sin. It was a first step in connecting us with God, but there needed to be something better. Jesus offered something better. His death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead dealt with sin once and for all. And because of his better sacrifice, we have so much to be thankful for.

As much as we want to, we can't see into the future. However, we can trust God with our future. Rather than worry and stress about what tomorrow holds, we should focus on and worship the God who holds tomorrow. Jesus tells us “Do not worry.” Instead, we need to faithfully trust Him. When we do, we find life and hope to move forward.

While we can't go back and change the past, our past has a huge impact on our current reality. Some of us need to look back into our past and seek forgiveness where we have wronged others and some of us need offer forgiveness where we have been wronged. But pushing rewind isn’t just about us. Ultimately, it’s about moving the kingdom of Jesus forward.

We are not mean to live life as a 'rat race.' We are not meant to live the hurried, busy, over-scheduled, 24/7 lifestyle that our society pushes on us. Jesus wants us to slow down and simply BE WITH HIM. God gave us the sabbath so that we could push pause on our 24/7 world.

What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Not only do we need to DO what Jesus called us to do, but we also need to STOP doing those things that hinder us from following Jesus and expressing His love to our community. Anything I do or allow that prevents me from living out my faith or representing Jesus to my community is sin. For some of us it’s time to repent and be made new.

Some of us need to get busy DOING what Jesus called us to do. We spend a lot of time talking about what we believe, but many of us don’t actually live it out. Talk is cheap. We need to obey Jesus and engage our world with His love, grace, and mercy as we go and make disciples.

Once upon a time, a tiny, marginalized group of people who followed an obscure Jewish rabbi changed the world. This small band was so different that the society around them couldn't help but take notice and be drawn in. This irresistible group conquered an empire and transformed the world because they were so irresistible. So, what happened? Why is the church today so resistible? Maybe it's becaus...

We want to be 'law abiding citizens' until we feel like the law is in conflict with what we believe, or more accurately until the law is in conflict with what we WANT. We don’t always want to follow the law, but we want to make sure others do. Maybe it’s time we stop worrying about making others follow our laws, rules and regulations for the Kingdom of Jesus and instead focus on the one thing that...

It is true that the Kingdom of Jesus is at odds with the kingdoms of the world. The church has taken sides culture wars and, honestly, we've been indiscriminate in who we aim at. We spend a lot of time and energy 'shooting' at those who are on the other side of the culture war. But, as Paul said, our struggle is not with flesh and blood. We are not at war WITH our world, we are at war FOR our worl...

A part of our problem as Jesus followers in America is that we are focused on "what's in it for us?" We demand our rights. We have the right to worship, we have the right to free speech, we have the right to… whatever. But when we focus on our rights and getting our way, we are really looking for what our world, or culture, or political parties can do for us. But Jesus said he didn't come to be se...

The American church is divided. We have taken sides in the culture wars and worse than that, we have taken sides in the political divide in our nation. We have developed an Us vs Them mindset. On our best days it's The Church vs. The World. On our worst days it's The Church vs. The Church. This 'great divide' has sidelined the church in our culture and made us ineffective in sharing the Gospel bui...

“Most important of all, love each other deeply, because love makes you willing to forgive many sins. Open your homes to each other and share your food without complaining. God has shown you his grace in many different ways. So be good servants and use whatever gift he has given you in a way that will best serve each other. I Peter 4:8-10

Often, we as follower of Jesus, can’t seem to get anyone to listen to our message of hope, joy and life. We assume others just don’t want to hear the message or we assume the message is offensive in our world. Maybe it is, but the reason the world doesn’t listen the message is because often, as messengers, we can be offensive. We need to learn to walk the truth in love and gentleness before we try...

Sometimes we are offended by how other people live their lives. We want to judge those living 'sinful' lives that offend us. When we realize that we are not called to judge the world, but to help transform it we stop viewing others as offensive and see them as people who need to experience the love of Jesus just as we have.

Part of the reason we are so offended is that we are having an identity crisis. When someone attacks or simply disagrees with the group or career or lifestyle or whatever that we identify with, we feel as though our identity has been attacked. But what if we are finding our identity in the wrong places. John tells us that our identity should be found in the fact that we have been adopted as childr...

Anger keeps me offended and it only produces more offense. Often we think we have a 'right' to be angry. But do we? When we recognize that we are servants of Jesus and that our only right is to be obedient to him, we don't get offended when someone violates 'our rights.' When someone is offensive, I can be right or I can be righteous. Being unoffendable helps be me righteous.

Being offended is a choice we make. We cannot control what others do or say, but we can always control how we respond. Godly wisdom enables us to overlook those things that offend us. When you are easily offended, you don’t point others to Jesus. When you choose to overlook an offense, your life is more attractive and points others to the God who loves them.

When we focus on ourselves and on our problems, we tend to lose perspective. Our problems seem so big and so unmanageable. When we focus on ourselves we tend to follow our own path and that often causes us to wander away from the God who love us. But, when we make our lives about the worship of that God, our perspective changes, our problems seem to downsize and we are drawn ever closer to the God...

Sometimes life hurts. Really hurts. When life hurts and the world doesn’t make sense, will your faith hold up? When we build our faith on the wrong foundation, it cannot stand up to the storms we will face in life. But when our faith is built on the foundation of Jesus found in Scripture, it may shake when the storms come, but it will never fail.

Join us this week as we listen to Pastor Kim dive deep into the classic hymn Holy Holy Holy.

Whether we admit it or not, we all have a past. We have all said words, been places and done things that we wish we hadn’t. We all have things in our past that we are ashamed of. For many of us, the shame in our past is a barrier to loving and living for God in the present. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can have a blessed assurance to connect with Go...

Dr. Devon Smith comes and teaches about the power of the word, affirming the stances and beliefs the church backed up by scripture.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we have nothing to offer God. We have messed up time and time again. If we had to defend ourselves against God, we would have no defense. The good news is that Jesus stands before God on our behalf. He defends us and covers us with His righteousness.

We all need friends to help us when life gets heavy. But there is one friend who doesn’t just help us carry the load, he will carry the load for us. When we take our fears, worries, stresses and anxieties to Jesus, he sets us free from the fear that so often disrupts our lives.