the Cross Orlando

Continuing the Psalms series that closes out the church year, Ben works through the second half of Psalm 34, an acrostic that invites us to taste and see that the Lord is good. Drawing on Elijah in the ravine, the Holy Family in Egypt, and Jesus calming the storm, he describes taking refuge in God by fearing the Lord rather than relying on ourselves, and seeking a peace that doesn't remove hardshi...

Opening a six-week series in the Psalms to close out the church year, Ben works through Psalm 30, where the psalmist credits God for a secure mountain, is dismayed when God hides his face, and cries out from the edge of the pit. With Peter's 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' from John 6, he argues that since only God can rescue and restore, we can receive mountaintops with thanksgiving and call out for...

Closing the series on the network's four core values, Ben reads Luke 4:14-30, where Jesus begins his ministry in the Nazareth synagogue by reading Isaiah 61, and uses Job 5 to argue that we are the poor to whom he announces good news. He contrasts Nazareth's rejection with the widow of Zarephath and Naaman, who received God's provision in unexpected ways.

Guest speaker Blake Wright of Resurrection Church in Sanford closes the network values series with 'sincere,' contrasting the Pharisees' flattery in Matthew 22 with Jesus' call to love God and neighbor, a sincerity he lived out through every healing and conversation. Drawing on 1 Timothy 1:5 and the early church in Acts 2:42-47, he describes a sincere church as one that loves one another, serves b...

Ben works through Ephesians 2-4 to unpack 'focused,' the third of the network's four core values, following Paul's stacked argument that God moves first toward people while they are still dead in their sins, grafts them together into a dwelling place for God, and prays they would grasp a love that surpasses knowledge. That encounter with the gospel, rather than moral effort, is what propels a chur...

Guest speaker Russ Peterson continues the network values series with 'collaborative,' tracing the word to the Latin for working together and finding the pattern in Acts, where the temple-observant Jerusalem church and the multicultural Antioch church strengthen each other in both directions — Barnabas sent north, famine relief sent back. The Jerusalem Council then models how collaboration survives...

Opening a four-week series on the multi-site network's core values, this message takes up 'adventurous' through Hebrews 11 — the Hall of Faith, where at least half the examples are people who died without receiving what they were promised. Faith persists because the God of Abraham is broader and deeper than the grave, as the cross and resurrection show, and that conviction frees a church to take r...

A guest speaker works through Isaiah 5's song of the vineyard: God created, cultivated, and protected Israel as a vineyard meant to bear good fruit, yet it yielded rotten fruit — he looked for justice but saw bloodshed, for righteousness but heard cries of distress. Drawing on Micah 6:8 and John 15, it frames righteousness as right relationship with God that flows outward into justice, and Jesus a...

Opening a series on the church shared with two sister congregations in Lake Mary and Sanford, this message works through Paul's body analogy in 1 Corinthians 12:12-20, teaching that the church is a cohesive unit of distinct members with reciprocal need: you both belong and are needed.

Closing out the series in 2 Peter, this message works through chapter 3 and its answer to the scoffers who ask where the promise of Christ's coming has gone: God's delay is patience, not forgetfulness. Drawing on Isaiah 40-43 and Romans 2:4, it calls the church to wait for the new heavens and new earth with diligent, peaceful lives and hearts of repentance.

Continuing through Peter's second letter, chapter 2 catalogs the moments God has separated people out — the angels, Noah's generation, Sodom and Gomorrah — and warns of false prophets who play on our passions and promise a freedom that turns out to be bondage. The hinge is verse 9: the Lord knows how to rescue, and the freedom Christ calls us into is liberation rather than rule-keeping.

Opening a three-week look at Peter's second letter, this message walks through chapter 1: God's divine power has already granted everything needed for life and godliness through the knowledge of Christ. Peter's list of virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, and brotherly affection is not a to-do list but a set of dummy lights signaling where we have forgotten what is already tr...

The final message in the series on vocation looks at civic and neighborhood calling through the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25), urging us to get in the game with the gifts and resources God has entrusted to us, followed by a conversation with Paul about his work in commercial real estate and his involvement with the Coalition for the Homeless.

Continuing the series on vocation, this message turns to the second arena—church—working through 1 Peter 2, where Peter urges believers to put away malice and slander and be built together as living stones into a spiritual house, a sanctuary founded on Christ the cornerstone, justice, and righteousness. It closes with a conversation with Brandi-Michelle Rhodes on belonging and what members of a ch...

Continuing our series on vocation, we turn to Luke 3 — where John the Baptist tells the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers to do their everyday jobs justly rather than abandon them — and see how working fairly and well honors the image of God in the people our work touches. Ben is then joined by urban planner Eliza, who shares how her faith shapes the way she designs more walkable, neighborly co...

Wrapping up family and turning to the church arena of vocation, this message focuses on the Great Commission in Matthew 28, where the risen Jesus meets his disciples on a hill in Galilee and sends them to make disciples of all nations.

Continuing the vocation series on family, this message turns to John 19 and the crucifixion scene, where Jesus, seeing his mother Mary and the disciple he loved standing by the cross, entrusts them to one another's care.

Revisiting the three arenas of vocation (family, church, and neighborhood), this message focuses on family through Psalm 68, where God is father to the fatherless and sets the lonely in families, and includes Amy sharing her own story about family.

Concluding the three arenas of vocation, this message turns to neighborhood, examining the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 and the lawyer's question about how to inherit eternal life and who counts as one's neighbor.

Continuing the series on vocation, this Pentecost message turns to church as the second arena of vocation, focusing on Acts 1 and Jesus' ascension and promise of the Holy Spirit, sending his followers to be witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

Continuing the series on how to live in light of Scripture, this message introduces the idea of vocation, the three arenas (family, church, and neighborhood) in which people collaborate with God, and focuses on family, reflecting on the weighty, imperfect human work of raising children.

Having finished the chronological journey through Scripture, this message begins a new series on who we ought to be in light of that story, opening with Psalm 8 and its wonder that the God who made the cosmos is mindful of humanity and crowns people with glory and dominion.

The final week of the chronological Bible series reaches Revelation, focusing on John the disciple's vision in Revelation 21 of a new heaven and new earth and the new Jerusalem, where God dwells with his people and wipes away every tear, with background on John's life and authorship.

The penultimate week of the chronological Bible series follows Paul to the end of his life in Acts 28, under house arrest in Rome, where he gathers the local Jewish leaders and testifies to the kingdom of God and Jesus from the law of Moses and the prophets.

Nearing the end of the chronological Bible series, this message moves into Paul's letters, focusing on 1 Corinthians 15 and his teaching on the resurrection body and victory over death, dwelling on his call to be steadfast and immovable, knowing labor in the Lord is not in vain.