Vintage Grace's Podcast

Why behind the what of Prayer If you lose your WHY then you lose your WAY The depth of your WHY determines the length of your WHAT WHO > How

Worldly Hope: desire for something- wishing on a star, crossing fingers, sending up empty prayers Biblical Hope: trusting & waiting expectantly and with certainty We experience hope by looking for God in our gaps, giving God the entirety of our gaps, and trusting Jesus as the solution to our gaps.

The message of hope in Zechariah is not just for the people of God in antiquity, it means hope for us today. We have hope in the Messiah, God helps us make sense of our past and see him in it, and God gives us a picture of the future that helps us hold onto hope, even in the darkest times.

When we lose our why, we will faithfully lose our way; this is true of Israel and true of me and you. God's grace does not give up on Israel then, or us now and it is His mercy that gives us HOPE.  We are all in the middle of the greatest redemption story of ALL time, and we get the privilege of being used by Him to bring the Kingdom to Sacramento as it is in Heaven.

Israelites regathered and rebuilt after a season of exile. Though we weren’t exiled, we have regathered the past couple years and can learn from the lessons of the Israelites. May we, like them, remember God’s past faithfulness, and may it motivate us to press on in overwhelming seasons. Hold fast to the the truth that He is going to rebuild. The final product is not only worth it, but the process...

God’s justice and His love collide in the cross. God’s righteous demand that sin be punished runs straight into His love for us.  The inevitable result of this collision is the death of Jesus, and unity with God for us!  Paul gives us 3 implications of what this great love does for us: humility, unification and righteous living.

The righteousness of God, that we heard about in the Old Testament, is now on full display in the person and work of Jesus. None of us are better than any of us and all of us fail to measure up to God's perfect standard. The good news is that God has made us right with Him through Jesus, so that everyone would know that our standing with God depends on faith alone.

No one is able to earn God’s love on their own. No one is able to find salvation and joy in the Kingdom of God through their own effort.  Rather, our sin and mistakes are a mirror that reveal the depth of our desperate dependence, our brokenness, & our never-ending need for Christ every single moment of every single day.

Paul is telling the Jewish listeners that though they have been “chosen”, they are still in need of Christ. Even when the chosen people of God are faithless, God remains faithful. God’s righteousness and holiness are based upon who God is, not based upon anything His creation does. We will only find joy when we recognize our desperate and dependent need for Christ.

Being chosen seems to inevitably breed a sense of entitlement, of being better than. This sense of being “good” or “better than” versus others is extremely spiritually dangerous, because the standard is Christ. Paul continues to build his case that ALL of us are guilty of sinning against God, no matter our background and no matter what we think the external signs show. In today’s text, Paul goes o...

In Romans 2 Paul has laid a trap for anyone who thinks that the list of sins in chapter 1 isn't about them–reality is we are ALL on the hook for our choices & sin against God. Paul is attempting to deepen our understanding & experience of God’s Gospel which is what unites all of us out of our sin and into Him! In 2:12-16 he continues to develop the essential truth that God is not leni...

God’s Rubric for Life 1) God cares about what we actually do 2) God cares about our motives 3) God will evaluate everyone by the same standard 4) The Gospel

Our society has trained us to think that being a “good person” is pleasing to God. That our “good” actions like attending church or serving the poor gain us favor and forgiveness. However, the hypocrisy that leaks from our life is actually causing a righteous anger in our patient God. We are storing up the WRONG treasure (God’s wrath), and this has massive implications. 

Paul is writing to a multi-faceted Church to prove that at the foot of the cross they’re all equal: sinners who have rejected Christ, exchanged absolute truths for a lie, and settled for lesser joys. Sin is the “fruit” of His truth being exchanged for what we feel is right. It starts in the head, penetrates the heart and flows through the hands in a myriad of actions (hands) that show who really s...

3 TRUTHS ABOUT THE GOSPEL 1) We don’t need to be ashamed of the Gospel. 2) The Gospel is the only viable solution to life’s greatest problems. 3) We need to know the Gospel to live the Gospel.

Paul calls the Church of Rome to be united by the Gospel. The benefit of this will literally change their neighborhoods, Rome, Spain & the Ends of the Earth. It is no wonder Paul desired to GO to Rome and one day be SENT by them too. May we faithfully and collectively be united by the Gospel to do and be the same—here and to the ends of the earth.

1. We are SENT (UnitedToGod +ToGether) 2. Paul got the Gospel, but really it’s the GOSPEL that GOT a hold of HIM. #RighteousnessRevealed #UnitedBYtheGospel #Communitas #SendingStation #Sent

The Church operates like a battleship where every believer is called to recognize their role and live on mission for Christ. We carry out this mission by being disciples who make disciples as we devote ourselves to 3 key relationships in our lives (R3). When each of these relationships is lived out, we grow as disciples who make disciples (E1H1). Weekly we gather, in order to be scattered and live...

"We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission"

The Church is God’s Plan A for glorifying His name and spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Each person who is a part of the body has a unique and important role in order for the Church to carry out its mission. Through the body we experience Communitas as we share in a special community together on mission. This Communitas sharpens, transforms, and helps us grow deeper in our relationsh...

Jesus died so we would experience life in His kingdom. We must surrender our lives not only to the King, but also to the SPIRIT, as He guides us in exploring and experiencing (#JoyInJesus) Kingdom/Garden living.

The cross deals with our sin and reconciles us to God, which means we are new creations in Christ.  Now with a new perspective, we live out of the overflow of His Spirit on a mission to reach the world with the Gospel.

Jesus Christ came incarnate as the perfect image of God, both fully God and fully man. His invitation to us is to get off the throne of our hearts, surrender, and follow Him. Jesus offers us the good life that is found only in Him. When we surrender to Christ, we experience His life-giving power and our new mission and purpose to live SENT for His Kingdom.

God speaks to us, trains us, and makes us capable through His word.

Sin is ALWAYS destructive and ultimately results in death and separation from God. We live in a world that tells us to trust, believe and rely on ourselves. However, God’s Word tells us we are inherently Desperate & Dependent at our deepest core. Recognition of our weakness and the sickness of sin inside of us leads us to joyfully get off the throne of our hearts.