Grace Baptist Santa Clarita: Service Podcast

Today, the truth of God’s creative design of humanity as male and female is being ruthlessly attacked through what is known as “Gender Theory.” At its basic level, this godless philosophy seeks to destroy what God created as “very good,” replacing it with yet another evidence of the sinful heart being prone to worship the creature rather than the Creator.

What do we mean when we say “life is sacred”? And what makes it sacred anyway? Finally, what are the dangers we face as a culture when life is no longer considered “sacred”? The answers to these questions, as are those raised by every social issue, depend on where you locate God in your worldview. As Christ-followers, our view of life is grounded in the existence God as revealed in the Bible and flows from what God’s Word says about life and death.

Does it matter that human life was created by God as the crowning work of creation? And if so, why? How do we, as Christ-followers, live out the sanctity of life in a culture where human life is increasingly minimized in importance? This weekend we take to the Scriptures for our answers and commit ourselves to seeing every individual in our world as personally granted life by our gracious heavenly Father.

At stake in the whole discussion of origins is the very existence and position of God. All arguments in defense of the biblical record bring us to conclude that God created all that exists and did so immediately. But the discussion must not stop there. We must get all the way to the Gospel through which the Spirit can bring us into eternal relationship with the God who created us.

This week we begin a seven-week mini-series, situated in our study through Colossians, examining the issues found in our Social Values Statement. Our desire is to be so “rooted” in the truth that we are not “uprooted” by the swirling error of our culture. We begin with our most important social value: The Love of God.

Paul has spent the first major section of his letter to the Colossian church extolling the wonders and preeminence of Jesus Christ, God the Son Incarnate. But now he reveals his real burden for the readers. They are in danger of being seduced by the “wisdom” of their culture and being “uprooted” from the truth of God.

Almost inadvertently, our lives tend to scream out the things that we think are truly worthwhile. We give our lives toward certain ends because we think that they are worth our time, our energy, and our resources. But the unifying passion of each individual Christian and of Grace Baptist Church must be that we understand, cherish, and proclaim Jesus Christ. Whatever else we are known for, whatever else we love, whatever else we pursue—the person who should capture our love and our lives more than anything else is Christ.

Colossians 1:15-20 is a powerful description of the supremacy of Christ. Here, Paul declares Christ to be the central organizing power that sustains all of creation, and all new creation, beginning with his church. This week we will be established in the nourishing truth of Christ’s preeminence and encouraged to know the power that roots us in him.

As we begin a journey through the book of Colossians, we see that Paul both encourages and exhorts those in Christ at Colossae. These Christ-followers are a young church that Paul has yet to visit, but he is encouraged by their faith and transformed living. However, due to the infiltration of false teaching, Paul also exhorts the saints at Colossae to continue in the gospel truth they have received so that they can walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

This weekend we end our series on “magnifying the glory of God.” All the character traits we have examined have one thing in common: They are hard to display consistently! Living in our broken, dangerous world makes obedience to Christ difficult, and too often we lack the courage to persevere. What we need is courage, built from a strong belief in the truth of God and trust in his promises. May the Lord grant us a persevering faith, an uncommon passion to courageously walk the narrow path of God-glorifying lives, turning neither to the right nor the left, but always focused on our Savior.

The forgiveness of God works in concert with his grace and mercy. In Matthew 18:21-35, Jesus tells a parable that sets the standard for how his followers should forgive one another. As Christ-followers, we enjoy the benefits of being forgiven by God, but how does that translate into how we forgive other people? What are the consequences of withholding forgiveness? This weekend we will explore what it means to be forgiven by God and how that informs our forgiveness of others.

Paul's presentation to the philosophers on Mars Hill stands as one of the greatest examples of bringing a Christian worldview to bear on a pluralistic society. Today, our pluralistic world chases after meaning down many paths, yet only one can deliver on promises of purpose, meaning and eternal salvation. As we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we also celebrate the worldview which stands proven and guaranteed by the empty tomb. He is risen ... He is risen indeed!

Jesus calls His church to unity, both corporately and individually. But what is the nature of this unity? This weekend we look at the crowds who cheered Jesus as He entered Jerusalem, who were united around what they hoped He would be. But when He emerged as the suffering servant rather than the conquering king they turned on Him rapidly. What we learn from this and other biblical exhortations is the stark difference between visible unity and vital unity. The vital unity Jesus calls us to, which reflects the essential unity of the Triune God Himself, rests on shared truth and expresses itself in a unity that is not broken by external circumstances, but demonstrates to a watching world the power of the Gospel in all circumstances.

This weekend we remind ourselves just where knowing, believing, and telling the truth fit into the life of the Christ-follower. Satan is the “father of lies.” When we lie, when we are deceitful for unrighteous purposes, and when we conceal or manipulate the truth, we are exalting him. But when we are people of truth, committed to truth in every situation, we magnify the glory of God as we mirror his attribute of truth.

When Jesus sent his disciples “into all the world,” he was embarking on an audacious mission: to gather together a multiethnic people to glorify his Name. This weekend, we take time to understand how our ethnic prejudices can keep us from “magnifying the glory of God” before a watching world.

Today contentment is rare. After all, our society prides itself in progress, in never being satisfied, always looking for the “new and improved.” We suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), and take every opportunity to check our mail and twitter accounts. Frankly, being content is now thought of as unengaged, uninformed, or uncaring. But maybe we’ve just lost the true meaning of this cardinal virtue. This weekend we travel to Rome, and learn from Paul the joy of being content.

As we saw last weekend, walking humbly in obedience to God, in imitation of Christ will not be easy in our broken world. What is called for – if we are to deny self and follow Christ – is the same trait we see in our Savior: Endurance! Like the marathon runner, we must continue running on the path of righteousness despite the obstacles. Endurance and perseverance presuppose there will be challenges, disappointments, obstacles, hardships, and trials that seem overwhelming. Yet as we “look to Jesus,” we find the strength to run the race set before us, and in so doing we “magnify the glory of God.”

As we have seen, so much of “magnifying the glory of God” is simply obeying God and imitating Jesus. Humility is a much maligned and misunderstood character trait. This weekend we understand it not so much as a denial of personal ability, but of personal importance.

Our view and vision of God is often too small. What is needed in our Christian lives is to think about our glorious Lord as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. When we properly know God, we do great things for God. We worship, pray, and live for Him. Our goal today is to remove our cloudy vision of the Lord and substitute it for the true and living triune God of Scripture.

There is a growing belief, even among Christ-followers, that hurtful, mean-spirited pronouncements are acceptable. We also are hearing more and more crude and foolish things coming out of our mouths. Sadly, we are blending in with the critical, cynical, and ungodly speech patterns of those who don’t claim Jesus as Lord. But we are called to magnify the glory of God both through what we say and what we do.