SMARTALK - hope for today

Daniel 3: Faith in the Furnace. This is the ultimate "bad day at work"! Huge pressure is heaped upon believers, overwhelming, destructive emotions dominate the story, yet deliverance comes through the suffering, not from it.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin...

Daniel 2. The Insecurities of Life. No matter how much power someone has in this life, to be human is to be insecure. Here we learn where our truest basis for security in this life and the next lies.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creativ...

Daniel 1. Thriving Under Pressure. Here, we meet four young believers who are under immense cultural pressure to conform to the surrounding culture, providing a powerful example of how followers of Christ can respond to such pressure.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin...

Pastor Sam Lago. Acts 4:23-31. Partnership in Prayer. As they move forward in mission, the early church faces fierce resistance - but instead of shrinking back, they pray. Grounded in Scripture, united in Christ, empowered by the Spirit, they show us how Jesus still partners with His people in prayer to advance His Kingdom. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4...

Pastor Sam Lago. Acts 1:1-8. Jesus and our Co-Mission. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 . 

1 Peter 2:1-12: Priesthood of all Believers. This is part of our Vision series, outlining core principles that should lie at the heart of the church. What is your place in the church? The answer to that depends upon how you understand your identity in Christ. Then you can see why it matters and the areas of your life that will be impacted by that.    Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or...

Psalm 19 : What Directs Your Life. If you ask what should be at the center of the life of a church, hopefully people would say Jesus! But how we know anything about Jesus is through God's Word. Psalm 19 celebrates the power of the Word to direct our lives. So we see that we need a whole Bible (Covenant Theology) for a whole Christ who transforms whole Iives.    Contact Pastor Smart from our C...

Pastor Sam Lago. Psalm 4: God's King and the Lost. In Psalm 4, David confronts the lost, calling them to turn from empty pursuits, acknowledge him as God's King, and trust the Lord for joy in His presence - foreshadowing Christ, who as King rules, as Prophet calls to repentance, as Priest intercedes for His people.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hop...

Pastor Sam Lago. Psalm 3: Strength in the Storm. In Psalm 3, David shows us how to find rest and courage when life falls apart - by remembering who God is, trusting what He does, and praying with bold faith in His promises.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is...

Pastor Sam Lago. Psalm 2: Blessings for a Rebellious World. God confronts a rebellious World - not to destroy, but to bless. Through His Son, the true King, He invites all people to refuge, repentance, and joy-filled submission to His Kingdom.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic...

Pastor Sam Lago. Psalm 1: An Invitation into Blessedness. In Psalm1, God invites us into true blessedness - found not in following the ways of this world, but rooted in His Word, sustained by His Spirit, and fulfilled in Christ. This blessed life can endure testing, bear fruit, and overflow in blessing to others. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/s...

John 12-1-11: Encounters With Jesus: The Scent of Devotion. There are two examples of devotion in this passage that show us the two ways humanity can live. Which one defines your life? Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attrib...

John 11-17:45: Encounters With Jesus: Living in a City without Walls. Death is a reality we all face throughout life, and one day personally. Society struggles to find an answer to it, but here Jesus declares his authority even over the grave.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic...

Pastor Sam Lago. John 9: Encounters With Jesus: Responding to the Light. In healing a man born blind, Jesus reshapes our understanding of suffering, reveals the urgency of God's redemptive work, and shows that true sight - faith - often leads us into testing that grows us in discipleship.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smart...

John 5:1-18: Encounters With Jesus: Who is the Healer? John reveals to us the touch of the one person who can heal humanity. Here, Jesus seeks out someone in the deepest need, and by the end of the story, his life is transformed. It reveals to us how the touch of the healer works in our lives today, freeing us from being stuck in a rut, revealing one who can ask us to do the impossible, but whose...

John 4:43:54: Encounters With Jesus: Double Vision. Life is hard. Many things happen to us that really challenge our faith. How can we trust God through suffering? Jesus shows us through the encounter with the Royal Official that there is always more than meets the eye in our suffering.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hop...

John 4:1-29: Encounters With Jesus: Reaching an Outsider. All people long for more in life. Jesus addresses that directly and personally in this moving story of his love, which reaches a social and religious outsider, overcoming all barriers to put her in contact with the source of life's deepest satisfaction.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.co...

John 3:1-21: Encounters With Jesus: Jesus challenges religion. Jesus' Encounter with Nicodemus reveals how the Kingdom of God confronts 'religion gone wrong'. Salvation can only be experienced through the sovereign work of God's Spirit and is for everyone who receives Jesus in true humility.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/sm...

John 1:35-51: Encounters With Jesus: The Skeptic. When talking to someone skeptical about Christianity, see how Jesus handled such situations. He reaches out to people through friendships and reveals who he is by showing what he knows about us.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic...

John 1:19-34: Encounters With Jesus: Great Expectations. What is the logic behind the universe? John points us to Jesus, who claims he can bring meaning to our lives.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license...

Isaiah 39: Handling Success Successfully! When things go well, they can often be followed by a crash, often because of our pride. Here we see the dangers of mishandling the achievements of life, processing the fallout and how to handle these moments with humility.   Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Ac...

Isaiah 38 Bad News From The Doctor! When bad news comes, Isaiah outlines how to handle it by calling us to rely upon God's power, not our own, to do so in prayer and then to process it creatively.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creat...

Isaiah 37:21-38 Pursuing Greatness. How can we pursue excellence in all things while not succumbing to the spiritual danger of pride? We need to learn that whatever we achieve in life is built upon the greatness of God and what he has done for us. Then we will see greatness in terms of what Jesus teaches us, which is true greatness.  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.  ...

Isaiah 37:1-20 Intimidation 101. God is more real than the most threatening of life's circumstances!  Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 . 

Isaiah 36: Trust Issues With God. We look at what it's like to trust God in the up and the downs of life, and when compelling voices are speaking into your life that undermine such trust. Contact Pastor Smart from our Church website or send an email.       hope4tampa.com/smartalk       smartalk@hope4tampa.com Music : Achaidh Cheide - Celtic by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Common...