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When you struggle, there's a reason. When somebody else struggles, it's their fault. Most of us carry a little of that. And some of us carry something much heavier: a real wound from a real person, and a name that came with it. In week two of Identity Theft, Pastor David goes to a man in 1 Chronicles 4 whose own mother named him Pain, and walks through three things Jabez did to get out from under that name: Choose what name you answer to. Jabez's mother named him based on her experience, not his. God calls him honorable in the same verse. Whatever name you answer to, that's the direction your life goes. Choose whose word you live under. The text tells us what his mother said and nothing about his father. Jabez grew up under a word that was spoken and a word that never was. People can say whatever they want about you. They can't change what God has already said. Choose your response. Jabez prays to be kept from harm so that he won't cause pain. The thing that was done to you starts coming out of you, and a wound you keep becomes a wound you give. What they did isn't your fault. What it's turning you into is your responsibility. The message lands on Jesus, the one person with the best case for calling himself a victim, who chose the cross instead. Scriptures: 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, Isaiah 43:1, Numbers 23:20, Isaiah 61:7, Hebrews 12:15, Romans 12:21 #BelieverChurch #IdentityTheft #IAmNotAVictim #JabezThanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Most of us have a sentence we say about ourselves. "I'm just an anxious person." "I'm just bad with money." "That's just how I'm wired." And after enough years, we feel like that's just who we are, and there's no way to change it. In week one of Identity Theft, Pastor David goes to the pool in John 5, where Jesus asks a man who has been stuck for thirty-eight years, "Do you want to get well?" He gives four things to hold onto: God wants to help me change. Jesus sees the man, knows how long he's been there, and goes to him. Nobody asked him to. He's not waiting for you to get it together. He longs to help you. Nothing is too hard for God. The greatest lie we believe is that things are permanent. It's been a long time, but it's not permanent. In Christ, the old has gone and the new is here. I won't make excuses. The man had a real reason he couldn't get in the water. But there will always be a reason to stay where you are, and we cannot improve what we will not own. I can get up. Jesus isn't asking you to do anything he hasn't done. He got up out of a grave. It's one thing to believe you can change. It's another thing to start acting like it. The message ends with the question Jesus asked that man, and an invitation to follow him. Scriptures: John 10:10, John 5:1-8, John 5:11, Isaiah 30:18, Jeremiah 32:17, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 6:4 Facebook: / believerchurchabq Instagram: / believerscenter YouTube: / @BelieverChurchABQ Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerchurch First Time: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 #BelieverChurch #IdentityTheft #ICanChange #John5Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Most of us hear the word "generous" and think money. And most of us have heard the voice after we give something away that says, "That was a waste." In the final week of the Believer series, Pastor David walks through a dinner in John 12, where Mary pours a year's wages of perfume on Jesus' feet, and three reasons we're generous: We're generous because of our past. Mary's brother had been four days dead, and now he was eating dinner across the table. She didn't give to make Jesus do anything. She gave to thank him for everything he'd already done. How God has treated us is how we treat everybody else. We're generous because of our present. Some Bible scholars think that perfume was bought for Lazarus's burial, and Jesus messed up that funeral. Money gets complicated fast, but kindness, compassion, and dignity have no limit. What you have might not feel like enough. It's enough to honor Jesus. Judas says waste. Jesus says worth it. We're generous because of our future. Nobody at that dinner understood what her gift meant, and we're still telling her story two thousand years later. You never know what a small sacrifice will do, and how it can change the course of someone else's future. The message ends with the first reading of Believer Church's new creed and an invitation to follow Jesus. Scriptures: Matthew 10:8, John 12:1-8, John 11:43-44, Mark 14:9 Facebook: / believerchurchabq Instagram: / believerscenter YouTube: / @BelieverChurchABQ Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerchurch First Time: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 #BelieverChurch #Generosity #John12 #ItsWorthItThanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Albuquerque is the butt of a lot of jokes. So what does God see when he looks at this city? In week three of the Believer series, Pastor David walks through the book of Jonah and three things that shape how Believer Church sees Albuquerque: God loves Albuquerque. Jonah might be the worst prophet in the Bible. God sends him to Nineveh, the city everybody had decided was terrible, and every time God names it he calls it “the great city.” Jonah looked at it and saw an enemy. God saw a hundred and twenty thousand people he made. You don’t have to go anywhere to change the world with the gospel. This city should be glad we’re here. God told his people in exile to seek the peace and prosperity of the city he carried them to. We’re not a church that happens to be in Albuquerque. We were placed here, by God, on purpose, and this church exists to help heal this city. That’s what LoveABQ and our five partners are about. God has a plan for this city, and it involves you. Jonah sat outside the city and waited to see what would happen to it. Jesus tells a man he just set free to go home and tell his own people what happened. You’re a witness, not an attorney. The message ends with Jesus, who stood outside a city that was about to kill him, wept over it, and walked in anyway. Scriptures: Jonah 1:1-3, Jonah 2:10, Jonah 3:2-10, Jonah 4:1-11, Jeremiah 29:7, Mark 5:19 Facebook: / believerchurchabq Instagram: / believerscenter YouTube: / @BelieverChurchABQ Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerchurch First Time: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 #BelieverChurch #Albuquerque #Jonah #LoveYourCity Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Every church says “we’re a family.” So does Olive Garden. What does it actually mean when Jesus says it? In week two of the Believer series, Pastor David walks through three things that make a church a family and a home: Jesus makes us family. In 2 Samuel 9, a king goes looking for the grandson of the man who tried to kill him, calls him by name, and sits him at the table like a son. That’s a preview of Jesus. You didn’t find him. He came and got you. And you can’t say yes to the King and no to his family. We share the joy and the weight. Most of us are better at the funeral than the party, because mourning with somebody costs you a casserole and rejoicing costs you your ego. Paul says carry each other’s burdens, and carry your own load. You carry your backpack. We carry the boulder together. And “let me know if you need anything” is where help goes to die. We don’t quit on each other. It’s easy to treat people like stores. The minute one stops paying off, you go to Sam’s. Paul says bear with each other and forgive as the Lord forgave you. Not as much as they deserve, as much as you got. Most friendships don’t end with a fight. They fade. Family sends the uncomfortable text instead. It lands on one ask: make room in your life for the family Jesus gave you. Scriptures: Matthew 12:48-50, 2 Samuel 9:1-11, Romans 12:15, Galatians 6:2, 5, Colossians 3:12-14 Facebook: / believerchurchabq Instagram: / believerscenter YouTube: / @BelieverChurchABQ Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerscenter First Time: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Nobody sat you down and told you to pick somebody to follow. You did it anyway, and in ten years you’ll arrive wherever they’re going. The question is who’s got your ear right now. Believer Church turns 46 this month, and Pastor David opens our four-week series on the culture of this church with the first two words Jesus ever said to a follower: follow me. He walks through three things: Everybody follows somebody. You didn’t decide to. It’s how you’re built. God made you to take your cues from somebody, and that’s the design, not a defect. The problem is that you don’t just go where they go. You become what they are. Who you follow determines where your life goes. A young man didn’t leave the faith because of a crisis or a church hurt. A friend sent him a podcast, he pressed play, and then he pressed play again. You don’t drift into a destination. You follow your way there. So, follow Jesus. A lot of Christians live at the end of the leash asking “Do I have to?” The Christian life isn’t how close you can get to the edge. It’s how close you can get to Jesus. He saves you, and he also leads you, and the closer you get to the master, the easier the walk becomes. The message lands with communion and an invitation: you don’t have to clean yourself up first. He comes to you. You respond. Scriptures: Acts 4:32, Matthew 4:19, Jeremiah 2:5, Deuteronomy 28:47-48, Romans 6:16, John 12:26, Joshua 14:9 #BelieverChurch #FollowJesus #Discipleship #WhoAreYouFollowing Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

He never left. He did everything right. And he’s the one standing outside the party. In the final week of The Ghost of Diotrephes, Pastor David goes to the brother in Luke 15 that almost nobody preaches, the son who stayed, and walks through three things his story shows us: You can be in the house and never be home. The older brother was standing on his own father’s land, and he was just as lost as the one in the pigpen. Because a house is a place. Home is a relationship. You can’t earn what’s already yours. “All these years I’ve been slaving for you.” That’s not a son talking to his dad, that’s an employee in an exit interview. The calf was in the barn the whole time. All he had to do was ask. Grace isn’t opposed to effort. It’s opposed to earning. Religion says “servant.” The Father says “son.” Both sons tried to talk their father down to hiring them as staff. He overruled both of them with the same word. God has never once hired anybody. He has only ever had children. Jesus never tells us if the brother went in. That’s because he’s asking you. The music is already playing. Come inside. Scriptures: Luke 15:1-2, Luke 15:11-32, John 13:5-9 Facebook: / believerscenter  Instagram: / believerscenter  Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerscenter  First Time: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 #BelieverChurch #ProdigalSon #Grace #FathersLove Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Nobody has ever sat across from a pastor and said, “My problem is I love to be first.” It doesn’t feel like a spiritual problem. It feels normal. That’s what makes it dangerous. In week one of The Ghost of Diotrephes, Pastor David opens the shortest book in the Bible to meet a man remembered for a single sentence, and walks through three truths about who gets to tell you who you are. You can’t tell yourself who you are. You’ve never once seen your own face, and you can’t judge your own qualities either. We all need a word from the outside, and we all have our places we go looking for it: work, kids, a parent’s approval that never comes. Attention is not love. King Saul had the crowd’s song until somebody else got a louder one, and the comparison poisoned him for life. The approval of people is great candy and terrible food. Build a life on it and you’ll starve with your mouth full. You are who the Father says you are. The Father has already spoken over you, lavished his love on you, and he sings over you. Your obedience can please the Father, but it can never produce the Father’s love. The message ends where Jesus lived: secure in the Father’s “This is my son,” with no need to be first. Scriptures: 3 John 1:9, Philippians 2:3, James 3:16, 1 Samuel 18:7, 1 John 3:1, Hebrews 13:16, Zephaniah 3:17 Facebook: / believerscenter Instagram: / believerscenter Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerscenter First Time: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 #BelieverChurch #Identity #FathersLove #TheGhostOfDiotrephes Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Most of us got our picture of hell from a movie, a cartoon, or an angry preacher, not from the Bible. So this week Pastor David opens the Bible on hell and reads it honestly, as much and as little as it actually says. “Hell” is one word in English, but four words in the Bible. Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna got flattened into one, and a thousand years of medieval imagery got poured in behind it. Jesus describes Gehenna in pictures, not floor plans. Whatever else hell is, he keeps calling it a place of real and terrible loss. Hell was made for the devil and his angels, not for people. The devil isn’t hell’s manager, he’s hell’s first inmate. Jesus defeated hell, so you don’t have to go. The keys of death and Hades are in nail-scarred hands. Every warning Jesus gave about hell, he gave on his way to a cross to make sure you’d never go there. Scriptures: Matthew 25:31-41; Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:31; Luke 16:22-23; Mark 9:47-48; Revelation 1:17-18; Revelation 20:12-15; Luke 23:42-43; John 3:16-17 Facebook: / believerscenter Instagram: / believerscenter Giving: https://pushpay.com/g/believerscenter First Time: https://believerscenter.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797243 Salvation / Rededication: https://believerscenter.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797600 #BelieversCenter #Hell #Grace #Jesus Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit

Thanks so much for listening to the Believer Church podcast! We're a church family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, learning what it looks like to follow Jesus and love our city. Every week we post the Sunday message here, so whether you're part of BC or just curious, you can listen in from anywhere. We'd love to have you join us in person too! Service Times: Sundays at 10AM (online + in-person) Tuesdays at 7PM (in-person only) Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube @BelieverChurchABQ To learn more about Believer Church, visit believerchurch.com To submit a prayer request, or to get connected with a pastor, visit believerchurch.churchcenter.com/people/forms/797629 Planning to join us? Let us know you're coming: believerchurch.com/plan-your-visit