King's Cross Church South Bay

In our series on Priorities, we come to “Equip the Saints.” Lots of passages in Scripture talk about the many different gifts Jesus gives to the body of Christ, emphasizing God’s design in the diversity of the body and our need for one another. However, that invites some questions: How does God train us to use those gifts? What is the church’s role in that? And to what degree – if any – is that eq...

As we continue our series on the priorities of our church, we come to “Giving Away Our Abundance.” While many immediately hear a financial overtone with any discussion of ‘giving,’ Jesus called for a much more comprehensive currency – life. With frequent phrases such as “lay down your life” or “take up your cross and follow me,” it is clear Jesus intended life-giving as a trait for all of life, no...

As we continue our series on the priorities of our church, this Sunday we come to the Sacraments. How you hear that term probably depends on your background. Some find the term abrasive and off-putting, others see it as empty, and yet others regard it as austere and distant. Ironically, the sacraments – baptism and the Lord’s Supper – are gifts Jesus gave us that we might know him more deeply and...

We are focusing on our second “Priority” as a church: Prayer. Jesus clearly knows we will struggle with "losing heart" when it comes to prayer (Lk.18:1). He also warns his followers against praying as hypocrites or with "empty words" (Mt.6:5f). In response, his own disciples beg him to teach them how to pray (Lk.11:1). Why is "talking to God" such a struggle for so many of us? If this is meant to...

Over the next six weeks as we look at our 'Priorities' as a church. We will begin 2023 talking about 'why we exist' and especially 'what we do' as a result of our 'why.' This week we consider together what God’s Word is meant to do in our lives: as a church, as individuals, as people created in his image. The Word is how we know Him, but what does God intend for us to do with his Word? And what is...

We turn to the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears. As Jesus responds graciously to her, despite a room full of judging eyes, let’s think about how judgment, punishment, and forgiveness show up in our own lives.

We will continue our series "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus," with this week's focus on how we all long for the ultimate Priest (Luke 17:11-19).

We begin our Advent series: “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.” As that old hymn correctly highlights, the New Testament - especially the Gospel accounts - are teeming with people yearning for the Old Testament promises of God to be fulfilled. In the face of their daily problems, they longed for God to keep his promises to them tangibly. For many of us as adults, that sort of anticipation has rolled...

We conclude our series in the book of James. He finishes his letter with the call to pursue those who wander off. Considering all the hard ways he has pressed us in this letter, it is no small thing that he ends with such a demonstration of grace. It is not just a reminder that we all struggle with wandering in some form. Rather, when you remember James' own story -- how he was a brother who wande...

This week James leads us into a discussion of patience. It's a trait most express a desire to have, but almost no one wants to have to use it with regularity. We hope others will be patient with us, but hope not to have to be patient with others. No wonder James immediately starts talking about grumbling. Why is patience so arduous for us? Well, if the examples James cites are any indication, we p...

This week we begin the last chapter in James, and we come to one of his hardest punches. Does our work - especially how we operate daily - reflect the Good News we have received? In particular, he calls out wealthy employers, but it's the underlying theme that reverberates through the American church: how can we live a life of excess amidst a starving world? What is the disconnect in our lives tha...

This week in our series on James we come to a discussion on boasting. Whether it be something as obvious as shameless self-promotion or something as subtle as inwardly judging others, why do we feel such a need to tear others down and inflate ourselves? What does it reveal about our heart's broken instincts? And how can we actively try to change that? Let's talk about “Eating Crow" (James 4:10-17)...

This week in our series on James we have rounded the corner into the back half of the book. James is now well into pressing his point. Why do we fight so much? And over the wrong things? Because we've gotten too cozy with things less than God - if not outright opposite from him. James flat-out calls us "adulteresses" (v.4). How can it be that bad? Well, because - according to James - we have rever...

We come to the topic of wisdom. Considering James challenged us about our tongues last week, this topic naturally follows. But this is not merely the pragmatist's insight of "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." That's a 'wisdom' that just stays on the surface. Worrying about consequences might change our outward behavior for a short time, bu...

This week as we continue our series in the book of James we come to the taming of the tongue. James directly confronts us with how our tongues can burn others and reveal our own hearts. More than that, our tongues direct us like a ship's rudder or a horse's bridle. There are few faster ways to be humbled than to think back through the things that have come out of our own mouths toward others. Cons...

As we continue our series in the book of James, this week we come to that famous passage where he writes that “Faith without works is dead.” This much-debated phrase is there to make us think long and hard about our own faith and also about how salvation really works. If we’re all about grace -- and we are! -- what does this verse mean? Quietly we ask ourselves: "Is James describing me? Is my fait...

As we continue our series in the book of James, this week we come to the topic of favoritism. James actually puts that word in the plural: "favoritisms." And while he is certainly calling out our prejudices, he's after what is underneath them. Why does humanity continually battle and lose to prejudice? It's not just a matter of saying "don't be prejudiced," but rather the hard admission that it is...

After the opening salvo on suffering, James turned our attention to temptation last week. And now he invites us to consider a problem as basic as looking in the mirror: how do we forget who we are daily? How do followers of Christ hear his words, yet go away and live at odds with them? Like a man who looks at his reflection, but walks away and forgets... that's the danger of being "hearers only."...

We continue our sermon series from the book of James. In this first chapter, James is showing us a spiritual fork in the road, and he even tells us what’s at the end of both paths. We face these types of choices on a weekly basis, if not daily - especially when the pressures of life test our faith. But the potential to ‘win the prize’ is not up to chance, skill, tricks, or uncovering some veiled s...

We are continuing our sermon series in the Book of James. Last week we dove into the arduous reality of suffering that no one wants. This week James surprises us with the opposite: "The Suffering We All Want" (Jas.1:9-12). Wealth. Prosperity. Why would the biblical authors thematically see this as a dangerous and challenging thing? After all, money itself is not evil. Rather, it is "the love of mo...

Last Sunday, along with our Fall Kick-Off, we began a new sermon series in the Book of James. All we did was look at the life of James as context for his letter. Now we begin the body of the letter, and James doesn't waste any time getting into it. "Count it all joy when you meet trials..." Joy in suffering? Is James a masochist? No, he takes it as a given that you will suffer. Yet most Americans...

We will begin a new sermon series in the Book of James. A good friend of mine likes to call this "the Monday morning letter," since James writes this letter to the church assuming you heard the Good News about Jesus on Sunday, and now he is ardently calling for us to live that out throughout the rest of the week. It's a letter largely about embodying what it means to be a Christian in everyday lif...

We will complete our mini-series in Daniel with the most famous passage of the book: Daniel in the lion's den. Sixty years after the fiery furnace, an elderly Daniel has a very similar experience - but this time it is Daniel's prayer life that brings the trouble. Why is prayer so critical... and so controversial? It's not just the astounding thought that we get to talk with God, but the vision and...

We continue our mini-series in the book of Daniel, we come to the famous story of the fiery furnace. The king builds a huge statue to his own culture and requires that everyone bow to it... or else. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse. So, furnace time. I find myself wondering what this event would look like in the South Bay today. What would a statue for our culture look like? And how are...

We begin a new mini-series in the book of Daniel: "Living Missionally." Last week we finished our previous series on God's attributes by highlighting the missional heart of God. So, for the next three weeks, we'll be looking at a few key passages in Daniel which demonstrate how to live out God's missional heart in a culture often at odds with our faith. The book of Daniel is set in Babylon, as the...