Last week we defined the term “justification by faith.” Justification means to be counted righteous by God, or to be declared to be in a right relationship with God. You’d think we’d earn right standing with God by our hard work, good deeds, or religious participation. But Paul makes a completely different argument. He says that we are declared to be right with God through our faith in Jesus. Crazy, right? We’re saved by faith alone.

Last Sunday we also saw that justification by faith produces something - we are at peace with God. We have a settled and secure relationship with God because we have been declared to be in the right with God based on Jesus’s work, not our work. No more looking over our shoulders wondering if God is against us.

This Sunday we continued in Romans 5 and see another attribute of justification, a resilient hope.

Last week’s joint service with Comunidad de Fe was incredible. I was personally encouraged by being able to worship alongside our Spanish speaking brothers and sisters and by Pastor Abner’s message from 1 Peter.

This Sunday we are back on track with our journey through the storyline of the Bible. There is tension in the church in Rome between Jewish and Gentile believers. In his letter to the Romans, Paul addresses the tension by showing that both groups have the same deep need for a savior and points to the only means to salvation, faith alone in Christ alone. As we will continue to see right doctrine (which just means teaching) practically impacts our lives and our relationships.

The 2024 presidential election is just around the corner. Political ads are at a fever pitch. We cannot turn on the tv, listen to the radio, or surf the internet without a bombardment of political propaganda. Each ad seemingly indicating that either a candidate is the savior we need or that their opponent will bring destruction to our nation. This campaign rhetoric is not new though, it seems for at least the last decade or so this is the new standard. That every four years our country faces a new existential crisis. In reality, things have not changed that much. Yes, prices may be higher, and the culture is shifting, but these are regular occurrences that happen every decade or so. If we are honest, for most, life is not that much different. Yet, we are being sold political saviors to rescue us from the coming storm. Scripture tells a different story though. The story of a broken world, one where the only true savior is Christ alone. Join us this Sunday as Pastor Mike reminds us how we can rest in our faith in Christ alone.

Join us as Pastor Brandon talks through the original church sharing the Gospel and how that should create a zeal in our hearts.

In Acts 11, disciples of Jesus who fled persecution in Jerusalem, share the good news of Jesus with people in a city called Antioch. This is groundbreaking! Now the good news of Jesus is spreading to non-Jews far outside of Jerusalem. Listen in as we see how God uses unexpected ways to further his kingdom.

The beginning of the book of Acts is a whirlwind. While a crowd of people are in town for a festival called Pentecost, the Holy Spirit begins to work and the group of disciples grows from 120 to over 3000 in a single day . What do you do when your church grows that drastically? Luke records for us exactly what the first church did in Acts 2:42-47.

Can you look back on a moment in your life that you now know changed everything? Maybe it was meeting your spouse, choosing a college, or changing jobs. The events of Acts 2 are such a moment. But this moment has implications greater than we could imagine - it was a moment had echoes in the past, in the Apostles’ present, and in our time as well.

In 2024 we’ve been reading through the big picture story of the Bible. We’ve now arrived at Jesus’s resurrection in Luke 24 and now we are getting to the center point of the story. Or maybe the better way to say it is: the resurrection is like a key that unlocks the entire story of the Scripture. It effects every part of the story. The resurrection helps us see what this story has actually been about the entire time.

But there’s more! The claim of the Scripture is that Jesus’s resurrection from the dead is also the key to unlocking the meaning of our own lives. This story we’ve been reading actually has massive implications in our everyday lives. I’d love for you to join us this Sunday as we see how Jesus’s resurrection helps us understand the Bible and, more importantly, understand our own lives.