Crossing Community Church

Today, our newest Elder, Kevin Reilly, shares about the power of "the Word" -- as the Son of God who reveals the Father to us and spoke creation into being as well as the written Word of God that refreshes us and cleanses us in our daily life. 

Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. To those who first Jesus say this, such things were mind boggling. That meant they were expected to love Gentiles, tax collectors and their Roman oppressors. For us in 2022, we don't have the same caliber enemies here in the USA, but we do have plenty of people that we don't like or find hard to love and based on Jesus' teaching on hate in our hearts, we are still found lacking. Christ closes this passage with the admonition to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. The only way we can attain such perfection is to allow Jesus to do it on our behalf!

Jesus opens our text today by reciting Old Testament laws that the Pharisees had perverted for their own good. In only a way that Jesus could do, in five verses He challenges all the rights we cling to and when we look at His teaching later in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus affirms we have to set aside our rights to follow Him, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he will deny himself," (Luke 9:23). 

As Jesus keeps pulling down the man-made righteousness of the Pharisees, he comes to the issue of honesty. After attacking the loopholes used to excuse their dishonesty, he goes straight to the point - just say what you mean and do -- let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Pastor Tim speaks about how this applies in the local church, specifically how we esteem being nice over being honest. 

This week Pastor Tim speaks from Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus calls the weak and heavy laden to come to him for rest. If we look through the gospels, we find that Jesus repeatedly is calling out to those who are forgotten, isolated, ostracized and invisible, those who are invisible in plain sight.  Pastor Tim encourages us to continue to see these same people in our daily lives and extend the love of Christ to them -- just as Jesus did. 

Changes are commonplace. Some are welcomed. Some are not. But it's not uncommon for us to make plans and for God to interrupt and change them. And when He does, God always infuses those changes with His purpose! Trust God despite the interruptions. Keep your faith in Him no matter what happens!

Do you wish it was Christmas every day of the year? Tonight, Dr. Michael Breece suggests that the appeal of Christmas is the wonder of it all. But he explores the wonder of Christmas not from our perspective as we usually do, but from the perspective of the angels who are so involved in the Christmas story. Finally, Dr. Breece concludes that for most people the wonder of Christmas fades -- the decorations are put away and there are no more gifts. But that is not the case for those who follow Christ, for them the miracle of Christmas is that God became our Saviour. In Christ, the wonder of Christmas is every day.

Teaching from Isaiah 9:6, Nathan speaks about the anticipation of the child Messiah referenced in the verse and asks us to consider whether we have as much anticipation for the return of Christ as we do for the things of this world. 

The Bible is full of names of people that we know little about, but they are spoken of as important in the work of the Gospel. Their name is probably only mentioned once, but the fact that they are mentioned means they must have played an important role in the ministry at that time. All of us have people that have been important to our spiritual life and probably will never get little recognition for the role they played this side of heaven. But aren't we grateful for those people! Now ask yourself this question -- are you one of those people in someone else's life? Have you played in an important role in helping someone else come to faith or grow in their faith? Very few will ever know your name as being important in the way the world counts importance, but that person that you loved and helped will know your name and forever be grateful for you!

Christmas is that odd time of year when people who never think about Jesus all year long, sing about Him for an entire month! This Sunday, Pastor Tim strongly encourages us to redeem the opportunities that Christmas brings for spiritual discussions and especially for invitations to Christmas related events. But ultimately, this sermon is a challenge to those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, but never talk about Him to others. 

Today, Kevin Reilly shared his story of how he grew to understand who Jesus was and that the claims he made were true and intended to change his life. 

While adultery is wrong, Jesus doesn't allow us to consider our lust as an innocent activity. Instead he places the blame for adultery on the heart that allows lust to run go unchecked. 

Christ's challenge to the disciples about how they worshiped and what constituted right and holy worship that was acceptable to God still stands as a challenge to us today. Being right with each other before God requires a 'contrite and broken' heart which is the very thing God wants from us. 

Naomi describes her upbringing in a Christian home as being one where Jesus was like a celebrity -- someone you know a lot about but don't know personally. She had learned confusing things about God that left her doubting her salvation and spirituality. But there came a time when she was confronted with her need to dive into God and make Him a friend more than a distant celebrity. That change in the way she desired God brought real and genuine change in her life. One of the elements of her story is the need for all of us to be in a church environment that allows and even encourages us to ask questions. Enjoy Naomi's story of transformation!

Today is our annual Members Meeting and to coincide with that meeting, Pastor Tim highlighted several areas of growth in our church and how we've seen God at work. It was an encouraging service that gave us a great overview of God's work in our midst over the past year. 

This week marks the month long campaign to bring attention to the persecution that much of the global church endures. Pastor Tim used Acts 4 to speak about how the Apostles suffered persecution and what we can learn from that. 

The Pharisees believed they were righteous, in part, because they had never broken the commandment to not commit murder. But the righteousness God demands goes beyond taking the life of another. God looks into our heart and finds us guilty because the seeds of murder lie in our heart in the form of hate. Therefore, all of us are guilty of murder!

The most common way to gain God's approval around the world is to be good or to do good. But the inability of man to keep God's law and "be good" proves man isn't capable of meeting God's standard of righteousness -- only Christ can do that. He fulfills the law making it possible for all of mankind to have a relationship with God and gain his favor without ever doing a good deed -- "for it is by grace that you are saved, not by works so that no man can boast." Ephesians 4:6

Debbie Domke shares how God was someone that was invited into her life when she thought it was appropriate for Him to be there. But in college, she had an encounter with Jesus that brought her into a personal relationship with Him. From that time on, Jesus went from being invited into her life sometimes to being a part of her life on a daily basis. Enjoy her story of God's faithfulness for the past 40 years. 

Jesus says we ARE salt and light. It comes with being transformed into His image. This week in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Tim encourages us to consider that as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to give up our reputation and comfort, we have to stop hanging on to everything in this world, for the sake of His name and His reputation.