Watch/Listen
Topic: Forgiveness
The Great Exchange
Jesus was innocent but he died the death of the guilty. He stood in our place, taking on our life so that we might have his. There is no greater act in all of history. Read More
Prodigal God
Typically, we call the famous parable by Jesus “The Prodigal Son,” but that title is actually a bit misleading. The point of the parable is not the younger (Prodigal) son’s recklessly extravagant living. Instead, it’s about God’s recklessly extravagant love. Read More
Sehnsucht
In the story of the Prodigal Son, the son leaves home and experiences intensely that something is missing. Eventually he comes to his senses and goes home to his father. Greg connected this desire that the son felt to the German word sehnsucht which is a powerful form of longing that we all feel at times in our lives. Read More
Let it Go
Leave it to Jesus to challenge one of our most central cultural values – justifying violence by manipulating scripture. In this sermon, we discover what it means to practice non-violence both in our actions and our attitudes.
Forgiveness Is Personal
Rob spoke about forgiveness and one common challenge to it—revenge. When someone hurts us and we turn to revenge, we are essentially saying that we don’t like the way God is running the universe. Read More
Don’t be Like the Pharisees
In this section of Luke, Jesus gives four distinct teachings that on the surface seem unrelated. But when taken in context with each other, they highlight four different aspects of how we are to live in Christian community with one another.
The Porcupine Dance
Forgiveness is always easier to talk about than to actually do. But without it we are alone and isolated, and can be consumed by hurt. Jesus taught about how we should forgive each other through parables: because we experience God’s great forgiveness, we share the same with others who have wronged us. And as a result, we learn how to live our lives with each other and experience the freedom that God wants for us. Read More
Daily Bread, Daily Forgiveness
In the next part of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches that prayer is about daily dependence on God to meet our needs, even though most people in our self-sufficient world do not think this way. We also discover the crucial role that forgiveness plays in our lives and the surprising freedom it can bring. Read More
Extravagant Forgiveness, Extravagant Love
When we look at the fallen world around us, we often see division, separation, and seclusion. Whether it’s separation by family, country, ethnicity, religion, there is a tendency to sort ourselves into people groups by what we like or do not like. Though this may be natural in this world, it is completely opposite of what the Kingdom of God is about. Jesus came and demonstrated a radical willingness to associate with people of all walks of life with the love of God. Read More
A Gracious Mess
Judgment of other people is a vicious cycle that destroys human relationships. Only God has the wisdom, power and ability to be an accurate judge of a person’s life and character. Instead of creating self-centered little kingdoms for ourselves, we can follow the path of Jesus by living in perfect love. Read More
"Thank you all the way from Oregon. I deeply appreciate being shepherded by Pastor Greg and everyone else on the panels. You are a rare find in the church nowadays. Tackling tough questions with humility and a kingdom perspective. It has been life changing for me in such tumultuous times."
– Heather, from Oregon