Reach Church - Everett

This week, we look at Matthew 9:1-13, documenting a variety of interactions Jesus has with religious leaders and “sinners” alike, all having very different encounters with him along the way. We see a couple controversies, but the controversy that this story ultimately points us to is the reality of where OUR story intersects with those with whom Jesus encountered.

It's so important that we maintain a healthy posture within the family of God because it's ultimately the greatest testimony we'll have as a collective community. Sadly, Christians are often infected with a critical spirit. If the onlooking world sees us carrying a "cancel culture" attitude just like they do, then how are we any different? James says there's no room for this.

When Jesus comes to the other side of hearts, He deals with the darkness as a Savior, kindly and gently, so we can have what is always being challenged in this spiritual war - the presence of God in hearts.

At Reach, the Elders carry the responsibility of overseeing the mission, vision, life, and doctrine of the church. These men carry the responsibility and authority of leading the church side-by-side, while humbly following Jesus, the Chief Shepherd of the Church.A primary way the Elder Team fulfills its role is by empowering and caring for the men and women who serve as Reach’s Staff — those who lead the day-to-day ministries of the church.Reach’s Staff Team — including men and women who have been assigned as pastors, preachers, and/or ministry leaders — all serve under the authority and care of the Elder Team to lead ministries and equip the people of Reach to do the work of the ministry.We are thrilled to have officially installed two new Elders this past Sunday! Our 3 Elders at Reach are now Jeff Price, Russ Perron, and Sean Gasperetti (Lead Pastor)!

The storms will keep coming, but the hope we have today is that we are not alone even for a moment as we face them, if Jesus is in the boat of our lives.

There are many things in this world that beg for our attention, but the disciple of Jesus must choose to put Jesus before all else.

This Sunday, we got a taste of Alpha as a church family! Alpha is a fun dinner series followed by group conversations centered around exploring some of the big questions of life and the Christian faith. As we get ready to launch Alpha on September 20th, Pastor Sean shared a brief message on what it looks like to live on mission and share the life-changing message of Jesus. To see what it is we'll be inviting our friends, family, and neighbors into, we also watched the Alpha film "Is There More to Life Than This?" which we'll be showing on Alpha Launch Night.

In a world filled with suffering, we're invited to come humbly before Jesus, trusting in His power and wisdom. Sometimes healing comes immediately, sometimes it doesn't, but in all cases, we're met with His compassion and, ultimately, the promise of healing that is ours when we meet Him in glory.

There is no shortcut to sharing our faith or reaching a city. It’s relational + it’s time consuming, but it's worth it.On Vision Sunday, Sean explained what Reach's role in our city has looked liked, current looks like, + hopefully will look like in the next few years to come. Now we get to decide what part we will play in being the Church + reaching our city.

As we wrapped up our "Big Family" series, we were able to hear from Pastor Sean's friend + mentor, Bob Stone. He showed us that Paul pointed Timothy to five stones of faith + explained the significant value in each one.

This week, as we continued on in our "Big Family" series, we had the privilege of hearing from our very own Mary Butler on the importance of growing in spiritual maturity. She shared with us her own personal journey through learning this lesson and how God's faithfulness has grown her into an even more faithful follower.

This week, we had the joy of hearing from Jon DeYonker, our Youth / Tech Lead on the concepts of humility, spiritual gifts, and the interconnectedness of believers within the body of Christ.

This week, we had the honor of hearing from Taylor Murray, Lead Pastor of Real Life Church (Covington, WA), sharing about the goodness of God and how he's freed us, fed us, and not forgotten about us.

At every stage of life, we are provided with opportunities to either build on the shifting sands, or to build our life on a firm foundation. God is after our head and our heart; our understanding and our passion. It’s not enough just to comprehend the love of God. It’s not enough to hear the words, we must also do something with them.

While there are areas of our life in which we may be able to masquerade as something or someone we're not, we cannot fool God. You cannot fake your way into the kingdom. You can't flash your "Good person" badge to enter God's presence, or eternity.There is only one way we obtain salvation and that is through the person and work of JesusChrist - crucified on our behalf.

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus calls us to a kingdom way of living by valuing what God values instead of living by the values of the world.

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus compares the external righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees to the expression of true and authentic worship that favors the heart of God. Jesus is retraining his disciples on what it means to truly pray and fast. He cautions us against the hypocrisy of praying so that we will be admired, or looking sad so others will notice that we are fasting. Instead, he advises praying in solitude and not not making our fasting obvious. He also gives us guidelines on how to structure our prayers with the Lord’s Prayer found in Mathew 6:9-14.

This week, we were blessed to hear from Jeff Price who shared from Matthew 6 on what it looks like to live a life of generosity.

It's easy to get comfortable in our own little kingdoms and neglect those who don't fit into our paradigms. But that's not what Jesus taught or modeled for us. As citizens of his kingdom, our job is to follow in his footsteps, which includes aligning our hearts with his in regards to our neighbor - regardless of who they are or where they're at in life.If you truly love God, then you will see the value of your neighbor and acknowledge that, like you, they were created by God, for God, and in his image. There are zero exceptions.

While it's not effort that saves us, the effort we put into our faith is one of the indicators that we have a genuine faith at all. God is values-driven, which means that his commands are meant to reinforce something of his character and priorities, not just his preferences. What we need to realize is that, for the follower of Jesus, we're being instructed not only to fulfill certain moral obligations, rather to recognize that God is calling us to a high standard of living.