Highland Church Podcast

Our lesson today comes from Psalm 73. This is the story of someone for whom life has become really hard. In the meantime, this person looks around at others who do not serve God and it seems like they their lives are smooth and get better and better. This person finally says, “What’s the use?” He eventually discovers God when he enters the sanctuary of God (73:17). He comes away remembering four precious gifts that God has given him and each one of us.

Aaron Jones leads us in a lesson from Matthew 4 about where we find our identity. Each day we wake up, we get to celebrate a God who loves us and cares about us. A God who we get to call, Abba, father and find our identity in him.

In this world, we’re told you can’t be a person of conviction and a person of grace—it’s one or the other. Either you’re judgmental and closed-minded, or you don’t take sin seriously. Either you are committed to God’s holiness, or you’re an advocate for God’s love. You can’t do both. Or can you? Let's look at this passage in Mark 9:38-50 and see what Jesus says about it.

What happens when we die? In Mark 12, Jesus addresses a part of that question. I don’t preach about heaven a lot. We used to talk about heaven more when I was growing up in church. Sing about heaven more. But only thinking about heaven can sometimes make us overlook God’s plans for earth. So maybe we talk it about it less than we used to. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it. It’s a big deal. Its forever. And its such good news.

Moments of pain in our lives help shape who we are. In this lesson Aaron leads us through Romans 8 and how God works in our lives, and how he works for the good.

June 27, 2021 Sunday Sermon- There are stories we don’t like, until we do. There are stories we don’t want to be part of, until we do. When Jesus says he is going to be delivered into human hands, killed, and then three days later rise again, he’s telling a story. Not surprisingly, the disciples dont want that story for him…and they don’t want it for them. This story in Mark 9: 30-37 speaks to one defining aspects of the character of God and to one of the deepest truths of the good news of Jesus. Its sometimes called the Great Reversal—God’s commitment to turning the world’s standards, values, and beliefs upside down.

Sunday Sermon- June 20, 2021. Mark 9:14-29 Todays passage is not a story of unflinching faith, but of struggling faith. Which is to say, real faith. This story in Mark—if it says one thing—it says believing is hard. In this passage comes the phrase, I believe, help my unbelief. I don’t think any sentence in all of scripture fully captures the dilemma of the human situation like this one. The dilemma of life lived in the valley.

Sunday Sermon- June 13, 2021. Mark 9:1-10 Mountaintops are synonymous with the highs of spiritual life. If you could, you’d stay there forever. It’s the mountain-top you don’t want to come down from. And Jesus takes these guys in Mark 9 up onto the mountaintop, and God shows them how glorious Jesus is on the mountaintop, and then speaks to them, all so that they will listen to Jesus and do what He says. What good thing is Jesus telling you to do? Are you listening?

Sunday Morning Sermon- June 6, 2021 In Mark 8:22-9:1, Jesus is letting us know something so important here. Discipleship is the process through which Jesus helps us to see more clearly. First him, and through him, everything else. We’ll see sacrifice more clearly. Suffering more clearly. Life more clearly. Shame more clearly. The point—we’ll see it all like he wants us too, once we see him for who he is.

May 30, 2021 Sunday Sermon We are loved by a God who sees us. This truth can begin the journey of healing from our woundedness, when we experience the one who sees us. From this experience, we are encouraged to reengage a healing community.

In this Wednesday Night Class recording, David Jackson leads us in a study of Psalms.

Sunday Morning Sermon- May 23, 2021 Today's lesson is from Mark 8, when Jesus feeds the 4,000. This story is very similar to the feeding of the 5,000 in Mark 6. Apparently these miraculous meals were really important to Jesus. And he expected his disciples to understand and savor what these miracles meant, specifically what they meant about him. Here is what I am convinced of: Anytime Jesus Christ takes the little we offer and multiplies it beyond our expectations, he is trying to tell us that he wants to do more. And that he can. Because he is the kind of king who not only has the desire but the power to do exponentially more in and through us.

Sunday Morning Message- May 16, 2021 We believe when we give to support missionaries and ministries in Memphis and around the world, we will give life to someone who needs it. The full life found in Christ. So, we’re now calling our Outreach Contribution our Life Giving Sunday. Our goal—needed to support the life-giving ministries of HopeWorks, Agape, missionaries in 4 countries, and more—is $160,000. Today we will hear from Thud Hill and Linda Bateman, representatives from Timothy Hill Children's Ranch.

May 9, 2021- Sunday Morning Sermon Our lesson, for Mothers Day, comes from Mark 7:24-30. Jesus is having a little conversation with this mom about a really big topic at a really big moment in history. So something happens in this little conversation with this mom, that signals to Jesus the time is now to move between God’s promise to one people and God’s plan for all people. There’s something about a mom, the thing that God has put inside her from himself, that makes her the right one to walk hand in hand with Jesus into a new world where God’s steadfast love expands to all.

Sunday Sermon- May 2, 2021 (Mark 6:45-52) We can learn a lot from this passage in Mark where the disciples are struggling at sea. No one likes a hardship. No one wants to be out on the chaotic waters, getting pushed backwards. Everyone of us would choose in the moment, for God to pluck us out of there. Or at least part the water, and let us walk through on dry ground. But no matter how hard it is, He is the Lord of the Sea onto which he has sent me. He walks on the water I am fighting, he can calm it, or he can show me his glory. Whichever he chooses, he is the Lord of the Sea onto which he has sent me.

Sunday Sermon April 25, 2021. Eric is joined by Highland Youth Ministers to share an encouraging word to our graduating seniors and our church as a whole. The world tells Christians, especially young Christians, that if you want to avoid being hungry, you better pack your own lunch, or you’ll have to leave and go find some somewhere else. That there will come a point at which Jesus will no longer satisfy the hunger inside. The pressure you’ll feel, or already feel, is not new. But it will press itself upon you, whispering into if you just try a little harder, work a little longer, make a little more money, you can be filled. But you cannot. Jesus will provide and fill you with purpose and meaning.

April 18, 2021 Sunday Sermon (Mark 6:6-13) We all are ambassadors for Christ. But we haven’t mastered this thing yet… right? Right! But I mean, doesn’t God want us to keep learning, keep growing? Yes? Before he sends me out? No. The myth—that we so often buy as Christians—is that once we master this faith thing, then we’ll be ready to go out on behalf of it. But the example—from the most faithful people the world has ever known—is that this is not something you master. And that if you’re waiting to master it, you’ll never share it. You’ll never go out. As a Christian—a follower of Jesus—I am always an apprentice of Christ and I am always an ambassador for Christ.

Sunday Sermon April 11, 2021 Mark 6:1-6 There’s no place like home. Except—for Jesus—it doesn’t go that way. He is not received when he comes home, he is rejected. He didn’t expect it. He thought he was coming home… to his home. To his people. There’s a saying that familiarity breeds contempt. And that seems to be what’s going on here in Nazareth. But you don’t have to hate Jesus to ignore him. To just take your eyes off of him. To drift. In this lesson we discuss what this story can teach us.

Sermon from Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021 There are a lot of impossibilities in our world but there is one that stands out and always has—people don’t live after they die. Resurrection makes for a nice legend, a good movie, but resurrection is not really possible. It was impossible that death could be beat. Death had the power. But God steals it away in Jesus Christ. Or rather proves death never had what we’ve always thought it did. It’s impossible for death to hold him anymore. That’s why he was raised. Cause death didn’t have the power to stop it.

We need an anchor, a hope on which to tether our whole lives, our souls, that is actually firm and secure. And that’s where we have the word I want to share with you today. It’s a word that’s only used in the New Testament in the context of the cross of Jesus. Nowhere else. Its one word in Greek, but in English it takes three to translate. The word is translated: “once for all”. Something happened at the cross that was “once for all.”