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Jesus was "taken up into heaven," but his work continues. The kingdom of God advances as the Holy Spirit empowers us to bear witness to Jesus. We are called out of complacency into a renewed life of expectancy, prayer, and boldness.

The risen Jesus transforms the disciples' fear into joy, a timeless message because we are a fearful people. Jesus' bodily resurrection speaks to our deepest questions about God, showing that God cares for us and can change our lives.

The road to Emmaus is in many ways a model of Christian experience. It’s a description of the journey of faith. We walk it again and again. And the risen Jesus draws near to us on the journey.

Greed is a disordered desire for more money and things that money can buy. The love of money deteriorates our love for God and others. We combat greed by cultivating the virtue of generosity. Jesus is our example: He gave himself completely for our good. 

The original understanding of sloth is much deeper than laziness. Sloth is a spiritual resistance to spiritual progress. It’s a loss of care about the things we should care about most and an avoidance of the very things we’re made for (loving God and loving others). That’s why it’s so dangerous.   

Gluttony is a disordered desire for food or drink that drives us to excess and self-indulgence. The problem is not that we have appetites, but that we are controlled by them. When we remember that our citizenship is in heaven, we are able to enjoy food as a gift and experience it as a foretaste of the great feast to come.

Wrath is anger gone wrong. It’s anger expressed in the wrong ways and it’s anger about the wrong things. When we hold onto this kind of anger, it is incredibly harmful. It’s harmful to us personally, harmful to others, and harmful to our relationship with God. How can we overcome this kind of anger and loosen its grip on our lives?  

Lust is sexual desire that can only be satisfied outside of God’s good design. Instead of honoring others, lust objectifies and uses them. The gospel sets us free from this enslaving vice and empowers us to pursue God’s vision of life and love. 

Envy is rivalry and comparison gone off the rails. Envy produces sorrow over your neighbor’s success and joy over their misfortune. It’s so common  it can be described as the oldest and most consistent source of relational strife in the Bible. The first sin out of are the garden is fueled by it. So, in this sermon we look at Cain’s story. What is envy? Why is it so deadly? How does Jesus free us from it?  

Vainglory is the excessive and disordered desire for recognition and approval from others. It’s such a common sin, even among the people of God, that Jesus confronts it directly in the Sermon on the Mount. Why is vainglory so deadly? And how does the gospel address it?

God wants the whole world to find life through faith in Jesus, and the way he gets the message out is through his people. How do we do it? Praying, walking, and talking.

The gospel doesn’t just reconcile us to God — it forms us into a new kind of community, one marked by the love of Christ, governed by the peace of Christ, and shaped by the word of Christ.

The gospel has the power to change us personally. It is the basis for our conversion and the means by which we continue in the Christian life.

We are a gospel-centered church because of our conviction and experience that wherever the gospel goes, it has the power to change everything. 

Psalm 63 is David praying in the wilderness. And the amazing thing is how he prays. He doesn’t ask God to get him out of the wilderness, but he simply seeks God himself. And David ends up finding satisfaction and security right there in the wilderness. What if we made this our prayer for the new year? What if it was our prayer for all of life?