Trinity Fremont

Last week we heard that we are empty vessels filled with Jesus. This weekend we ask: What does a life look like when that vessel is full, oozing out? In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus declares, “You are the light of the world” and commands us, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” This is not abou...

This week, Jesus continues the Beatitudes and shows us what happens when He gives His kingdom to empty-handed people. He fills His people with His Spirit, and what He gives begins to come out in mercy, purity, and peace. These gifts are not a reward we earn or a possession we keep for ourselves. They are gifts from Jesus, worked in us by His Spirit, for the sake of our neighbor. And even when othe...

This week, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” In a world broken by sin and death, mourning is real. But Jesus does not leave His people with grief as the final word. He enters our brokenness, dies and rises, and promises the day when death will be swallowed up forever, every tear will be wiped away, and all things will be made new. Isaiah 25:6–9 Revelation 21:1...

On our own, we are not capable of giving anything to God.  Our works don’t cut it.  Can NOT cut it.  God blesses us with gifts that don’t involve doing but receiving, receiving his goodness, grace and His promises.  Promises to never leave or forsake us.  Promises to cover us with the robe of His Son’s righteousness.   We are blessed not because good things are happening to us, we are blessed beca...

This week, we celebrated Vacation Bible School at Trinty. The kids spent the week hearing five big truths: God is our Creator. God knows everything. God is our safe place. God is love. God is forever. Those truths are not just for kids. God created us for life with Him and love for one another. Sin bends that love inward, but God shows His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Jesus di...

All Jesus is the end of Matthew.  It is fitting as Jesus is such a theme for Matthew throughout his gospel.  At the end of this gospel Jesus reminds or emphasizes he has ALL authority and it has been given to him by the Father.  He instructs his disciples to make disciples of ALL nations, in other words, ALL people. Disciples are to obey ALL Jesus has commanded them.  That’s a lot of ALL’s.   But...

What a gift.  A gift that is meant to be shared.  The Living Waters that Jesus refers to sharing with others in John 7 is the Holy Spirit that has been placed inside of us at our baptisms.  Again, what a gift, but a gift not to keep to ourselves.  In verse 38 Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘ Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” These Living Waters a...

In this final week of our Living Hope series, Peter calls God’s people to keep loving one another, show hospitality without grumbling, and use the gifts we have received as good stewards of God’s varied grace. This is not one more burden to carry. It begins with what Jesus has already done for us. He has welcomed us, loved us, served us, and made room for us. Now we love, welcome, and serve with t...

In this week’s Living Hope series, Peter reminds us that Jesus suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. Our troubles, fears, and frustrations are real, but they do not get the last word. When our eyes are fixed on Jesus, we begin to see our suffering, our Baptism, our forgiveness, and our hope through His death, resurrection, and reign. Acts 17:16–31 1 Peter 3...

In this week’s Living Hope series, Peter tells us to “long for the pure spiritual milk” so that by it we may grow up into salvation. This is not a message about becoming more saved or graduating from God’s gifts. In Baptism, God gives life by His Spirit. Through His Word and Supper, He continues to feed and sustain that life. Whether we are newly baptized, newly confirmed, or have confessed the fa...

Dying to sin and living to righteousness is not without its challenges.  It isn’t and won’t be easy.  Living in the world is one thing.  Living of the world is quite another.  Christians are not to appear as normal.  The Living Hope message Peter brings to these new Christians also comes with a price tag of which endurance will be needed.  Enduring what comes with not being of the world is seen as...

In this week’s Living Hope series, Peter calls us to “be holy,” but what does this mean? For some, those words sound like a crushing burden. For others, they sound like a reminder of how stuck they are. For others, they sound like a word for somebody else. But because Jesus is risen, we hear these words through the Holy One who ransomed us with His precious blood, made us His own, and set us free...

Peter’s letter to new Christian churches and new believers is straightforward but wonderfully powerful and most of all, his letter is full of hope, a living hope.  This hope includes an inheritance.  In other words, we just receive it, regardless of what we have done or not done to deserve it.  It is ours for the keeping.   The inheritance is quite the inheritance.  Peter describes it as imperisha...

This Easter, we hear the good news that the tomb is empty and Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!! But Easter is not only about what happened to Jesus back then. It's about what His resurrection means for you now, for your future, and for the good news you now have to share. Because Jesus is risen, that changes everything for you and for the whole world! Jeremiah 31:1–6 Colossians 3:1–4...

Jesus has made his triumphant return to Jerusalem.  Now what?  Well, he begins teaching again, except this time, he has quite an audience.  Jerusalem is filled with visitors for the upcoming Passover Feast.  It’s an annual celebration.  But since Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, things have ramped up.  People are paying close attention to what Jesus is saying, more than ever.  Some are listenin...

Jesus is not only a good guide, he is the GREATEST Guide.  He guides us from the darkness of sin into light.  He guides us through His Word.  He guides us because He loves us, a love that led Him all the way to the cross where He suffered, bled and died for us.   But our guide is alive.  He is not dead.  He rose to continue guiding us and saving us until He returns to overcome the darkness once an...

This week, we hear Israel grumble in the wilderness and ask the deeper question hiding underneath their thirst: “Is the Lord among us or not?” In Exodus 17, God answers not simply by changing their circumstances, but by standing on the rock and giving life to His people. We’ll see how that question still rises in us when life gets hard, and how God answers it fully in Jesus, who was struck for us...

After around 2,000 years, after the Fall in the Garden of Eden, there is a turn of grace by God by His calling of Abram.  God’s grace is not only given TO Abram it is given THROUGH Abram.  Through Abram and his offspring, ALL nations/people will be blessed.  And they were and we are.   But we tend to get caught up in celebrating OUR being blessed without sharing God’s grace.  There is plenty of gr...

What do we do with the guilt of sin?  Many times we don’t own it.  We tend to “pass the buck.”  We tend to rationalize “it’s not MY fault.”  It’s human nature.  It’s exactly what Adam and Eve did in the garden that fateful day when they gave into temptation.  What do you do when YOU give into temptation?  Do you take accountability or do you pass the buck? Unfortunately, because of our sinful cond...

In this week’s Kingdom Parables series, Jesus gives us a last day picture of His kingdom through the Parable of the Wedding Feast. This is not a moral lesson about proving we belong. It’s a kingdom story about what the King does for His people. The King not only invites. He provides what is needed to belong. We’ll see how Jesus makes us worthy by clothing us in His righteousness through His Word a...

In this week’s Kingdom Parables series, Jesus confronts our instinct to keep score and demand what feels fair. In the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, we see that the kingdom of God is not built on what we earn, but on the goodness of the King. Jesus calls people into His kingdom and gives the same salvation by grace through faith, no matter when He calls them. And when our hearts grumble,...

In this week’s Kingdom Parables series, we hear Jesus’ parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl of Great Price. These are not moral lessons about proving our devotion. They are Kingdom stories about what the King does for His people. We’ll see how the King, Jesus, gives up everything for sinners, calls us by name, and makes us His own. Because of Him, we’re freed from trying to earn our value...

In this parable, God’s extravagance is shown: His extravagant love, His extravagant forgiveness and His extravagant mercy.  God is the master who forgives the extravagant debt owed him by his servant.  But the servant’s selfish, sinful nature is shown when he doesn’t forgive or have mercy on a fellow servant who owes him a small portion of what he had owed his master.  His heart has not been chang...

This weekend in worship we continue our parable series with Jesus’ short, surprising pictures of the Kingdom of God. The mustard seed and the leaven look small and ordinary. Yet Jesus shows that His reign grows in ways we can’t always see and in ways that become unmistakable over time. The Kingdom does not depend on our strength or our scale. It depends on the King who is at work. We’ll also conne...

In this parable about the weeds and the wheat, the good seed being planted and the bad seed seed being planted, something happens that we all experience.  Good seeds grow up together with the bad seeds.  Good seeds mature with the bad seeds.  And it is hard to tell them apart. But it isn’t our job to tell them apart.  That is up to Jesus, who is patient beyond any type of patient we can imagine. H...