Denver Community Church

April 2, 2017: The Law of Love – Dave Neuhausel

Our universe, many say, is governed by laws. From scientific laws like gravity or the speed of light or philosophical laws like karma or attraction … we are reared to believe in certain realities that are immutable. We grow up living according to these laws and understand there is a cause and effect to all we do in relation to them. Not to be overcome however, humans learn not only to understand these laws but also how to use them for our benefit. We become masters of our fate, control outcomes and give direction to our lives.

 

But this way of living and seeing the world falls short, for we often import this way of thinking and living into our faith in God. We miss the massive difference between laws and love, which is this: laws cannot love you, nor can you love laws. The same cannot be said of God who is love. God loves us and we can love God, and are invited to do so. The struggle for us in this is that we have no control whatsoever – and that is the Law of Love.

March 26, 2017: Bearing This Together – Landon Lynch

Grief. It is something we often do not want to engage because it is result of pain. So we deny, push away and reject the idea out of hand. We do all we can to focus on something else, anything else so we do not have to hold the pain and therefore walk through grief. However, what we learn in Christ is of a God who was “acquainted with grief” (NASB). We can be those who then dive headlong into our grief and pain, rather than run from it. For it is in that pain that we somehow find the God who has been there the whole time.

March 26, 2017: Bearing This Together – Amanda Pennington

Grief. It is something we often do not want to engage because it is result of pain. So we deny, push away and reject the idea out of hand. We do all we can to focus on something else, anything else so we do not have to hold the pain and therefore walk through grief. However, what we learn in Christ is of a God who was “acquainted with grief” (NASB). We can be those who then dive headlong into our grief and pain, rather than run from it. For it is in that pain that we somehow find the God who has been there the whole time.

March 19, 2017: Guilt and Innocence – Michael Hidalgo

Some claim that the starting point for introducing people to the gospel is that we are guilty. The problem with that is we see guilt as something that will end up condemning us unless we get rid of it all together. We might say, “We must prove our innocence.” So we spend an enormous amount of energy is making ourselves acceptable to God by rendering ourselves not guilty.

 

But there is the possibility that the wrong starting point may well take you the wrong place. What if we began by saying, “You are not guilty.” What if that was our starting point? And what if the invitation was to believe that story? You see, most everyone recognizes their sin, shortcomings, faults and foibles … but the real struggle is believing that’s all been done and taken care of by Jesus on the cross. God got rid of our guilt – free of charge – and he did this for all people. God, in Jesus, has declared a blanket presumption of innocence over every one of us. A presumption based on the fact that he has gone ahead and made us innocent already in his beloved Son.

 

What a mystery.

March 12, 2017: Justice, Forgiveness and Death – Landon Lynch

We are people who hold tightly to a justice. What we often overlook is that justice in the hand’s of anyone who is not willing “to lay down his life for his friends” … or his enemies – well that sense of justice often leads to blood shed. It leads to the death of the other, and in the end, may well lead to the death of everyone we know because everyone does things to upset us at some time or another. But there is another way of understanding justice … and that is through the lens of forgiveness. This is the story restorative justice tells.

 

The trouble with this perspective however is that we, the offended, are the ones whose blood is shed. We are the ones, who like God who forgave all in Christ, die to and die for the injustice committed against us. We can’t imagine ever doing such a thing! And this is perhaps due to how we unconsciously think of God. We can’t imagine that God really dropped all our sin in death – so how can we ever expect to do the same thing?

March 5, 2017: Every Last Particle of the Universe – Michael Hidalgo

 

It is not just that the Incarnation happened, but that it is happening everywhere and always. And this is important, for it means that all things have been in Christ since the beginning, and still are. Now I know this immediately raises questions for all of us. If everyone is in Christ, then does everyone get in? Isn’t that just plain ol’ universalism? No, not at all. But it does raise the question for us of what we believe about the God revealed in Jesus. 

Did Jesus reveal that God is for all people, forgave all sins and proclaimed everyone innocent? Or was it just for a select few? Throughout Scripture we continually see that God’s salvation is for all people – no qualifications. Which means God’s forgiveness in Christ is present for all people, in all places here and now. It is like sunlight … it bathes us in its glow on a sunny afternoon. If someone claims it is dark, it may only be because his or her eyes are closed, not because the sun is shining. Perhaps we only need to open our eyes to see that Christ has been everywhere present in every last particle of the universe since before time … and maybe then we will understand we are all in Christ. 

February 26, 2017: Unloading the Camel – Kent Dobson

February 26, 2017: Redeemed For a Life of Worship – Landon Lynch

Paul is writing to a group of people, who, when he arrived, had not ever heard of the Spirit’s coming and are finding out that following Jesus is more than what they imagined. What we find out early in Acts 19 is that receiving the Spirit is really the essence of participation in the Christian life. Something about Spirit identifies this group of people as unique. The understanding is that to participate in true practice of faith and life with God is more than head knowledge, and more than ritual practice. It is more than just a shifting of religious allegiances. In the Greco-Roman world, where rituals were widely seen as the essence or definitive aspects of religion, this quite unique. The point isn’t an ecstatic moment brought on by the right ritual, but a life that’s caught up "in Christ” (sacrificial healing love, embrace of the death to life pattern of renewal), that includes and transcends right thoughts, actions and rituals.

So how does one know that this kind of life has and is taking hold of them? The Spirit’s work is redemption, and you begin to see it in your life. Redemption refers to the idea of being “bought back.” Back to what? Back to the original, blessed, delighted-in you that still is the most present thing about you, even when sitting beneath the crud and the rubble that seems so evident many days. After this work of the Spirit begins in us many moments in life will cause us to question whether we will ever be full free, fully redeemed, fully cleared of the crud and rubble, BUT there is no scenario in which the Spirit is present where full redemption is not the eventual result (Phil 1.6).

Paul says this arrival of a redeemed life is “to the praise of his glory,” high and lofty language to describe what we might call “a life of worship.”  And a life of worship, the great destination of the Spirit’s work in us, is being “so fully who you are that there is no thought of yourself” (Dan Allender). The Spirit’s work buys back the full you from the rubble. And being fully you is the greatest act of worship you will ever offer. 

February 19, 2017: We Are Meant For This – Michael Hidalgo

There are some who choose to use verses like this to argue for predestination; it appears to be obvious from what Paul is writing here that God chose us and predestined us. Fair. But two questions surface in that: first, chose us for what? second, what does predestined mean exactly? Good questions; thanks for asking. 

First, chose. Too often we consider the idea of being chosen by God as an election to privilege. Perhaps this is why some claim God elects some for heaven, and some for hell. But Paul claims we are chosen to be holy. And holiness means to be set apart for a specific use by God. And we are elected to that … to be used by God for his purposes. To join him in his work!

Second, predestined. Have you ever said to someone, “You were meant to do this?” You say that because you have seen their life, their gifts, their passion, their interests, their heart and now see what they are doing with all of it? It’s as though everything comes together and it’s clear … this is what they were created for? Paul seems to point to God’s activity in this world as something that invites us into something bigger and into living out who we are. To join God in his pleasure and joy … by doing what we were created to do! Thank God!

February 12, 2017: Everything and I Mean Every Thing – Landon Lynch

Paul makes an astounding statement. First, God is a pleasure seeker? Paul states God enjoys what he is doing in and through Christ. And what he is doing through Christ involves everything. Or as Paul says it in Colossians 1, “… all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” Which is to say – this involves everything in existence. So now we know God enjoys what he is doing for everything in the universe; and the thing he is doing? 

Well that is the amazing part. He is bringing “unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” This is not just something Paul cooks up here. This is something Paul speaks about in Colossians, and Jesus speaks about in Matthew 19. It speaks toward the renewal, redemption and restoration of everything. Whether our most glorious moments or our great sadness; God’s joy is doing something new with all of it! Thank God!