Reading City Church

No matter how long we have been a Christian, we are always beginners. But wrong thinking often gets in the way of the our spiritual growth. In "chapters" 3 & 4 of our book, Vince and Sarah looks at demystifying the Bible and prayer.

No matter how long we have been a Christian, we are always beginners. But wrong thinking often gets in the way of the our spiritual growth. In the first two "chapters" of our book, Vince & Sarah look at demystifying our spirituality and demystifying sin.

In today's scripture we see Jesus's embrace of an "unfinished symphony" as He prioritizing the freedom of people, is vulnerable in His desire, and is unwavering in His love. And we learn how His example relates to our purposes. For the past few years, we continue to return to the book of Luke for an in-depth study. You can find all sermons since chapter one under the sermon series marked "Luke." T...

We're looking at a very familiar passage from Luke this week, but with a slightly different interpretation than sometimes it is taught from. Entering the way of the narrow door means letting go of this deeply rooted idea that we can somehow achieve godliness. It is the way of greater humility; it is the way of greater freedom. It is an effort born out of great love for others and for God’s life-gi...

We continue our study of Luke in Luke 14 when Jesus begins to unravel what it means to be His disciple. Real disciples develop complete commitment, a commitment that is unyielding, unrelenting, and unshakeable. God’s invitation is the most important event in life, no matter how inconveniently it may be timed. For the past few years, we continue to return to the book of Luke for an in-depth study....

Simple things are important to Jesus. Throughout his time on Earth, most of his instructions and teachings were about the simple things in life: how we related to each other, how we pray, how we listen, etc. Often, we are tempted to add to what Jesus asks us to do, we almost want to add complications to his teachings. In this next passage of Luke, Jesus highlights being smaller, slower, more patie...

Early in the chapter of Luke 13, Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath and is criticized for it. We could quickly analyze this as a horrible reaction by religious leaders who are too stuck in their own self-righteousness to recognize a miracle. Instead of pointing fingers, let's instead hold up a mirror to ourselves to see how we also fall into the trap of missing the point of what Jesus is teaching...

We're starting chapter 13 of Luke with a new miniseries to examine the ways Jesus calls us to act which may be countercultural or force us out of our comfortable spaces. What we have in these first few verses is so quintessential Jesus: comforting those who are suffering, filled with shame, and on the outs of religious thought and community. At the same time, he is confronting those who were entre...

We finish chapter 12 of Luke with a deep dive into discernment and how Jesus speaks to us in small and large ways. Discernment is important because if we cannot truly discern the heart and the desire of God in our lives, then make no mistake, we will be pulled like the wind by every cultural high and low and every wind of doctrine. Our tendency to fill our minds with fears and control undermines o...

We're continuing our study of Luke with a look at only four verses: Luke 12:49-53. These verses are often confused or used to condemn, but the strong language Jesus is using is for a different purpose than we may perceive it. Jesus had a deep compassion for the ways that sin was ripping people's lives apart. He went to the most sinful to offer then wholeness and acceptance. His strongest language...

In this section of Luke, we're looking at Jesus' instructions to be watchful and to be full of integrity. If we become careless about what we let into our hearts, we will allow the thief to steal what is most important to the heart of God and we will have no guard against being robbed of it from our character. We determine the level to which we keep watch over the house God has given us and whethe...

In this next section of Luke 12, we read about the care that God has for us. The child of God is meant to be different from the world, primarily because we are rooted in this knowledge that the Creator of all things sees us, knows us, understands us, and loves us. We struggle to live in that reality though - we often want for things we don't need, fall into the temptation of greed, hoard possessio...

We're continuing to study this section of Luke by examining Jesus' warning to not fall into the temptation of greed. Jesus cautions against greed because the motivations of greed are not often obvious right away. Greed, at its core, is often driven by fear. We then remove ourselves from dependence on God and rely on our self. Greed motivates a person to exploit others, to forget the plight of the...

We're starting Luke chapter 12 with a section of scripture that can be confusing. Jesus asks us to reject hypocrisy and release fear of people or ideas that are threatening. The heart behind it is what matters. Hypocrisy is presenting ourselves as God-lovers and worshipers while judging, despising, and even conspiring against the very ones for which He would sacrifice His Son. He aimed at taking o...

We're finishing chapter 11 of Luke by understanding Jesus' invitation to the religious leaders and how we accept what He offers as an invitation without restriction. Jesus carried within Him the full desire of God for us, to know us, to love us, to BE WITH us, to heal us, to open us to kindness, goodness, and mercy and for us to carry that same fire so that we would want the same for others. For t...

We return to the book of Luke for another mini series, this time called "Stand Firm." We're picking up where we left off in Luke 11:33. In this passage, Jesus is instructing us how to share His light with the world and what it looks like to actually be light in the darkness. What does the world see in our eyes? God's desire is to fill our bodies with His light so that we can live it out in our rel...

We are concluding this mini-series by focusing on the way of grace. The way of grace is peace in the midst of chaos, peace in unknowing, freedom in the midst of doubt, space in the place of cynicism, invitation in the opening. We give grace to others, but we must also be aware of our own need for grace. Rescue requires nothing of the one needing to be rescued, it requires only that they keep calli...

The Bible often describes the Holy Spirit as wisdom and mystery. Listening to the voice of God the Father means being attuned to His Spirit. We seek to understand what’s underneath our desires, our knee-jerk reactions, our fears. We aim to stay curious, not judgmental, and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal what needs to be revealed, redeem what needs to be redeemed, prune what needs to be pruned, an...

Conversion is the process of changing or causing something to change from one form to another. One of the greatest measures of how we’re growing in Christ is how we relate to ourselves, to God, and to other people. Our greatest measure of the wealth of the abundant life that God promises, life to the full, is not a measure of our material wealth or possessions, but rather the deepest, love, peace...

The Gospel is the story of Jesus bringing God’s Kingdom to all and the renewing all things. Today we finish the Supernatural series by looking at Heaven, Earth, and Hell and what we can understand about the heart of God by looking at these eternal realities.

The Bible is far less clear about Hell than what you may have grown up hearing. Complex and eternal realities cannot be talked about with complete certainty. Instead, we can approach these topics with great humility and trust that God will bring clarity in the end. Today, we're looking at the historic and cultural references that are often translated to "Hell," and what the Bible says Hell is inte...

The focus of darkness in spiritual warfare is to pull us into ourselves and doubt God's love - this happens when we believe lies over the Truth of God. When we choose to live out the words of Jesus to "love others as [He] has loved us," we defeat darkness. There isn't a magic formula, it's simply loving others in the same love that has transformed us. Today, we continue to define how to live out t...

There can be a disconnect between our daily lives and the internal realities of what the death and resurrection of Jesus did for us. We will all experience difficult times in our lives, but we don't always feel the reality that Jesus has overcome that difficulty. In these seasons, we can find some relevant parallels to what the disciples experienced in the moments immediately after Jesus' death/re...

The victory of Jesus doesn't just impact our future, it affects who we are NOW. His suffering and his death and his resurrection was a work that remakes us into people of God whose shame is banished, where death does not have the final word, where we are in deep communion with God again, and where we learn to love others as God has loved us. We often spend our time trying really hard to BE differe...

We're continuing our series about the supernatural themes and ideas of the Bible and what it tells us about God. This week we start to examine the idea of spiritual warfare and what God actually asks us to do. Having a personal doctrine of spiritual warfare in which we feel we must battle Satan is a dangerous game to play. It can often end up putting people exactly where Satan wants them - which i...