“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end” (Luke 1:32-33). Such were the words of Gabriel to Mary regarding the coming of Jesus. These were words promising that Jesus would be the Messiah, the one who would reign over the earth, bringing peace and victory.So what does it mean for Jesus to reign today or “for everything to placed under his feet” as Paul writes in Eph 1:22? Where is the victory? Read More
Stina Busman preached this morning on grief. She offered this question for reflection: What do we do when we have to live with and after disappointment and defeat? As we all know, some things in this world go profoundly wrong. For Stina, it was the loss of Scott, her fiancé. Stina closed with a challenge: who will write the end of this chapter: Jesus or the enemy? We may grieve deeply, but we do so with great expectation! Read More
Greg described his journey during his sabbatical as one that was focused on a simple and important question: “What is real?” And he talked about how every now and then we all need to ask ourselves this with regard to every area in our lives. He challenged us to think like Job, who lost all of his securities and worldly relations but who still knew that his redeemer lived and that he would see him someday face to face. That’s what Job REALLY believed. What do we REALLY believe? Read More
Cecilia, visiting from The Sanctuary Covenant Church, challenged Woodland Hills to look back in order to gain insight about what might lie ahead for us. Are our best days behind us, or is our best yet to come? She argued the latter by referring to a passage in Haggai that deals with rebuilding Solomon’s temple. The new temple was far less grand than the original, yet the promise of God remained: this temple’s glory would exceed that of Solomon’s. Its best was yet to come, but the remnant, like Woodland Hills, could only believe this by faith—trusting that God would accomplish the promise. Read More
Kevin, our Community Pastor, spoke about Christ’s calling of Simon, Andrew, James and John to be his disciples. As fishermen, their families’ livelihood depended on this trade, yet they simply dropped what they were doing and followed Jesus. Why? What was it about Jesus that caused people to leave their families and livelihood to follow him, and what was Jesus tapping into in these four early disciples? Read More
