Denver Community Church

April 12, 2017: What Life Really Is – Michael Hidalgo

April 9, 2017: What Life Really Is – Michael Hidalgo

“Behold, I make all things new …” This is the promise that we cling to, uttered from the mouth of God. The question is will our life be found in Jesus? You see there are two realities we can cling to. The reality of God – that is happening right here and right now. One that transcends being proven and can only be trusted. Or we can default to the reality we can create. 

And honestly, when we look at our world we have to ask, how well has humanity done in creating our reality? Our new world? This was what was at stake during the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Some wanted Jesus to be this or that – they made him in their image to suit their vision of the world. They trusted in themselves. Yet Jesus came to invite others to trust in the world he has created and sustained. 

April 2, 2017: The Law of Love – Scott Oppliger

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.

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