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So what if someone knew everything? Everything. Would they hate you? Reject you? The truth is Someone does know everything. And He loves you. The question is, how do you respond? BIG IDEA: Completely loved people completely love people.

Because of our sin, so many of us spend our time isolated from God and from others. We run. We run because we believe the lie that we can’t be fully known and fully loved. And yet as we run from God, we discover something utterly astonishing. That while we were running from God, he was running to us. BIG IDEA: When you were running away from God, God was running to you.

Have you ever had a dream, plans, and vision crushed so swiftly that you didn’t know if you would ever be able to recover? Psalm 13 shows us how to “see a victory” when everything seems like it’s against us. BIG IDEA: Honesty and community position us for victory.

What do you do when you make a mistake? You want to do what almost every politician and leader does when they make a mistake—you try to cover it up. In the process of covering up our mistakes, we cover up something else. Something far more significant, and something far more tragic. Big Idea: In an attempt to hide your sin, you hid yourself.

78% of people who don’t attend church are open to a conversation with a Christian about what they believe. At the same time, on average, Christians share what they believe with less than one person a year. There seems to be a disconnect between what God calls all of us to be—“His witnesses, telling about Jesus to everyone”—and our reality. BIG IDEA: The Good news does no good if it stays here.

Waiting is something we aren’t typically very good at. And sadly, 2020 and 2021 has felt like one giant waiting room. When we look at the Bible, one of the longest seasons of waiting happened when God’s people waited for the fulfillment of the promise of a coming Messiah. The story of Christmas shows us that just because we find ourselves waiting doesn’t mean that God isn’t working. God always ful...

The Bible talks about prayer often. Have you ever felt confused about prayer? Maybe you can relate to the crushing feeling of guilt that you don’t pray enough. Or, maybe you think prayer is completely illogical. Or conversely, you have seen prayer bring you a measure of comfort that is unexplainable. What if prayer was actually the most important and powerful aspect of a relationship with Jesus? B...

JIM CLASS PT 5: GOOD POSTURE The Bible talks about good posture often: “Pride goes before destruction. A haughty spirit before a fall. Humble yourselves under God's mighty hand that He may lift you up. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Be joyful always. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Trust in the Lord. Do not lean o...

Like a small spark that has the potential to scorch an entire green forest, our tongues are untamable, with the power to control our whole bodies. We have a tool that can be used to build up those around us or tear them down in just a few words. What do we do with that kind of power? We can’t lock it away. But we can, by God’s grace, learn to control it. BIG IDEA: The tongue controls the course of...

The Bible says a lot about the importance of acquiring wisdom, knowledge, and discernment. However, knowing is half the battle. Sometimes, if we aren’t intentional, if we aren’t careful, we can get stuck in the knowledge trap. We can know a lot, and do very little. Strengthening our faith involve smore than just knowledge. BIG IDEA: Knowing without doing will keep you from growing.

Life isn’t easy. We’ve all faced troubles, and if we’re not careful, they can derail us and derail our faith. James knows this, so for his first Jim Class, James is going to challenge how we think about troubles and how the resistance of adversity stretches our faith muscles. BIG IDEA: Your pain is not where God is absent but where He is most present.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, his followers couldn’t re-embrace a temple religion. They were left with Jesus’ odd assortment of commandments—impossible to imagine before the resurrection but made possible by the resurrection. These commandments would fuel a movement that changed the world. Perhaps the most popular commandment among those who don’t follow Jesus is “judge not.” It’s the one C...

God is good, all the time. That proclamation is an unquestioned answer not because it is theologically suspect—it isn’t—but because it risks sounding naive and at the very moment when life tells us the exact opposite. What do you do when you don’t doubt God’s God-ness, but you question His goodness? Our problem might be that our perspective is too narrow. We’re only looking at what’s right in fron...

A lot of people stall out or quit their faith journey because they get discouraged. Some just grow disillusioned because as hard as they try to get close to God, they still don't feel connected. Isn't it true that the more you grow in your faith, the more you'll feel God's presence? But what if your spiritual connection isn't always reflected in your emotional condition? BIG IDEA: You can't equate...

He had brains, he had brawn. But he had one weakness and it eventually cost him everything. The mighty Samson was destined to be the next leader of Israel. But as his gaze drifted, so he eventually drifted far away from God. How did this drift happen? Did it happen overnight, or was it a slow erosion? Today, we will discover that most of us don’t take huge leaps away from God and our morals. Most...

There are some things that we can control and a lot of things that we have no control over. That’s what makes emotional management so tricky. Whenever we find ourselves in tough situations, the tendency is to try to control what we can’t control. We pile on worry, we cram in anxiety, we stuff in some stress, we make our mess messier and in the end, everything falls apart. What if it didn’t have to...

Think you’re strong? Even our best intentions can falter when we face temptation & distraction. Don’t believe me? Just ask Samson. He had every advantage as a boy. His birth was predicted by an angel. He had godly parents who loved him. Samson was dedicated to God, and he experienced the power of God's Spirit as a young man. Despite all these favorable factors? Samson failed to embrace his God-giv...

Cancel culture seems to be on the rise in our society. When we consider the heart of it, we see that some of it has to do with the one doing the canceling. When we look deep inside, often our desire to point out others’ faults has to do with ourselves. Our most critical voice is frequently reserved for our inner dialogue. Pointing out others’ faults often makes us feel better about ourselves. What...

It’s hard to treat people with love and respect on a regular basis, especially in today’s culture of trolling, roasting, and cancelling. When we’ve been mistreated, it may feel more appropriate to punish, ignore, or just avoid the other person. Perhaps you’ve been hurt, cheated, or victimized by someone in your life. Surely you aren’t expected just to treat that person with love and ignore what th...

In our culture, our access to power, influence, and judgment is faster than our access to knowledge and relationship. It’s easy for us to jump on the bandwagon and cancel someone without truly knowing all the facts. As we look to influence people with the platform of our lives, how do we navigate our polarized world? What does it look like to engage a culture that cancels individuals so quickly? H...

It seems like our culture is growing increasingly frustrated, contentious, and hostile. Social media is always ready to pounce on its next victim. If you are honest, under the pressure of our world, you’ve privately torn down, gossiped about, ghosted, or blamed someone this year. Culture can tell you it’s okay to hurt someone--even cancel them--in the name of truth. Jesus has a radically different...

Growth, accountability, belonging and care happen in community groups—in circles, not rows. It's easy to stumble away from faith when you are a nameless person sitting in a row on a Sunday morning. But it's almost impossible to stumble away—or to stay away—when you're in community, doing life with a group of people. BIG IDEA: It’s easier to stumble out of church & away from God than it is to stumb...