Greenville Oaks Church Message Podcast

In Matthew 5, Jesus begins his famous Sermon on the Mount with a series of blessings and promises known as The Beatitudes. While the beatitudes are more descriptions than commands, they do have a way of inviting us to live differently in a world Jesus is turning upside down.

When Jesus recruits four fishermen to help him share his message with the world, they immediately follow him. Their decisive response to his call is one of the last positive things we see them do in their time with Jesus. We’ll explore why on Sunday.

Wade Hodges will deliver the message about how Greenville Oaks can participate in God’s mission right here in Collin County.

Our guest speakers will be Charles Pierson & Eric Moore.  Charles is the president of the board of directors for Mission Alive, a North American church planting ministry.  Eric serves on the board as well.  They will speak about God’s mission in North America and the ministry of Mission Alive which trained Greenville Oaks missionaries Kevin and Lisa Vance.

This is the time of year when resolutions are popular.  But Jesus calls us to an abundant life through transformation that comes from training, not just trying harder.

There's only one person who witnessed Jesus' birth, life, and death. She was numbered among the disciples after Jesus' resurrection. This Sunday we'll explore her story and let her show us what it means to live a "blessed" life.

Sometimes, as in the case with Zechariah and Elizabeth, God answers our prayer and takes away our disgrace. Sometimes God calls us to do something that disgraces us in the eyes of our peers. Join us this Sunday as we explore the Christmas story from Joseph's perspective.

During the season of Advent, it's customary to revisit the story of John the Baptist, whose primary purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus. This Sunday we'll imagine what John might say to us as we prepare for the coming of Christ.

This Sunday Wade will launch his new Advent series focusing on the cast of characters who encounter the baby Jesus before or after his birth. This week we’ll meet an elderly couple who embody a question essential to understanding the meaning of Christmas. 

This Sunday we'll explore why it's essential for Christians in our context to recover and own our identity as missionaries. There are many good reasons to think and act like a missionary. Wade will share an oft overlooked one revealed in Acts 10.

In Acts 8, an angel tells Philip to go to a deserted city on a seldom travelled road. This strange command leads to an encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch who desperately needs to hear some good news. The story ends with the eunuch continuing on his way rejoicing. After we explore this story on Sunday, I hope you leave rejoicing too.

In Acts 7, Stephen preaches a sermon that gets him stoned. This week Wade will explain why Stephen's sermon made his audience so angry, while trying to avoid the same fate as Stephen. Should be fun, but please leave your rocks at home.

Near the end of Acts 4, Luke describes a church of which I'm sure we'd all like to be a part. But I wonder how many of us would like to belong to the church he describes in Acts 5:1-11? This week we'll approach the story of Ananias and Sapphira with emotional and intellectual honesty and perhaps discover why it may be the most relevant story for us in Acts.

In Acts 4, we see the followers of Jesus responding to challenges in powerful ways. What is it that enabled them to experience such an amazing life of faith and how do we allow God to work among us in similar ways today?

In the economy of Jesus, followers of Christ invest money and possessions in the community as a demonstration of God's love for all creation. A people with met needs point the world to a God whose love exceeds.

In Acts 3, Peter miraculously heals a man who had been lame for over forty years. When reading stories like this, it's tempting to fixate on the miracle, which can cause us to miss the larger point of story. This week we’ll see how this story about a miracle points us to something much bigger.

Every hero (and villain) has an origin story. So does every church. This week we’ll dig into the early church’s origin story, which, as it turns out, is not all that different from ours.

We Christians love to read, talk, and sing, about Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and eventual return. But his ascension is often overlooked. This Sunday we'll focus on questions like: What happened when Jesus ascended? What does the ascension mean? What practical difference does make it in our lives?

Join us this Sunday for a new series from the book of Acts. We’ll be digging into some familiar stories that still have the ability to surprise. You can prepare for the first message by reading through Acts and noting the many different obstacles the gospel overcomes on the way from Jerusalem to Rome and beyond.

We are created for community. We can’t survive or flourish without it. Yet so often it proves to be elusive. This Sunday we’ll highlight some specific ways we are combatting isolation at Greenville Oaks.

Christians gather and Christians scatter. While both are necessary, the majority of the work the church does to fulfill its mission occurs while scattered. This Sunday Wade will share a simple vision for how every scattered Christian can participate in God's mission.

"Worship was good this morning!" How many times have you said this after a worship gathering? But what exactly makes worship “good”? Send your answer to wade@greenvilleoaks.org. Wade shares his answer in this Sermon.

The goal of the Christian life is to become more like Christ. While most agree on the goal, there is some confusion about how to achieve it. How do we grow in Christ-likeness?  What is God's role in the process? What is ours? What keeps us from making progress toward the goal? These are some of the questions we'll tackle on Sunday.

Every time the gospel story is told, it calls for a response from those who hear it. This Sunday we'll explore how our response to the gospel is both a one-time event and a lifelong process.