Soma Spokane Sermons

The Apostle Paul was the world’s greatest evangelist and church planter, and one of his strongest churches was in Ephesus. He spent 3 years there, preaching, making disciples, and establishing leaders. When he later wrote his letter to the Ephesians, he laid out the glory of the gospel and the grand purpose of God in the church, and gave them almost no challenges or correctives. This was a strong church with a disciple-making presence in their region! Unfortunately, the church at Ephesus quickly found themselves divided and drifting after Paul’s departure, losing grip on both the gospel doctrine and gospel culture Paul had set in place. So Paul sent his protege, Timothy, to set things in order and bring the church back in line. This week we’ll do an overview of 1 Timothy, and look at the 4 Strategic Priorities Paul gives Timothy. Our study in the Pastoral Epistles - 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus - will equip us to be a church with strong gospel conviction, deeply shaped gospel character, and a gracious gospel cultu

We use this image, called 3 Trees, to represent how real growth and change happens. We can't just decide to change and automatically jump from a thorn-producing tree to a fruit-bearing tree. Instead, we have to trace our thoughts and behaviors down to their roots and bring them in need, confession and repentance to the Cross. When we allow Jesus' truth, love, and grace to change the deep, unreached areas of our hearts, something radically different comes out of us. God is at work, in the heat (situations of life) and wants to reveal the roots of our thorn ridden responses, not to shame us, but to set us free. This week we wrap up the series with one final look at the 3 Trees.

The person who wants to know God and live fully in Him must give God space and time. Space and time in a world that is constantly grasping for our attention. Our affection and desires continue to drift from God. When God justifies us through the cross, he also gives us his ongoing presence the Spirit to be our guide and our helper. There are also everyday practices that remind of us this good news, and help bring us back into connection with our Savior. These practices are not chores and they are not the goal. Spiritual disciplines are means to know and enjoy Him.

When it comes to growth and change in the Christian life, we face a significant tension. On one hand, Peter tells us we’ve been given everything we need to live a life of deep faithfulness, effectiveness, and fruitfulness. On the other hand, he tells us we have to be diligent and make every effort to mature and grow. It is incredibly important that we know how these twin truths fit together, or we risk missing God’s heart and intention for us. What Peter urges us toward is grace-based effort, where we fill our hearts and minds with all that Jesus is, all that he has done on our behalf, and all that we are now in him. Our primary work is to “preach the gospel to ourselves,” learning to really believe all that is true in the gospel. As we rehearse the gospel, repenting and believing in all God has done for us in Jesus, we’re empowered to live more into the image of Jesus. The answer is always more Jesus!

Throughout the history of God’s working with people to partner with them to redeem and bless the world, there has been a pattern of whenever the people made space for God’s Presence, He fills it. It happened in the tabernacle in the desert in Exodus, it happened with Solomon and the Temple, and then again even in Acts with the first Christians. God’s Spirit descended in power and fills His temple and empowers His mission. We are going to look at 2 Peter to see what this letter suggests we do in order to create space for God’s presence. How do we prepare our lives for the presence and power of God?

We use this image, called 3 Trees, to represent how real growth and change happens. We can't just decide to change and automatically jump from a thorn-producing tree to a fruit-bearing tree. Instead, we have to trace our thoughts and behaviors down to their roots and bring them in need, confession and repentance to the Cross. When we allow Jesus' truth, love, and grace to change the deep, unreached areas of our hearts, something radically different comes out of us. God is at work, in the heat (situations of life) and wants to reveal the roots of our thorn ridden responses, not to shame us, but to set us free.

January is always a time of reevaluating life and making changes - or at least intending to make changes! Personally, I look forward to it because of the opportunity it affords for a clean sheet and a fresh start, even though I know nothing really changes on January 1st. In fact, year after year I’m reminded of the simple (and haunting!) truth: Whatever I am on the outside, in my best and worst moments, reflects whatever I am on the inside. I simply can’t wake up on January 1st and choose to be more attentive in my relationships, less self-reliant and more dependent on the Spirit, and finally be a man of deep prayer and courageous witness. I can want to do all those good things, but wanting - and even trying hard! - is insufficient (or else we’d all be the best versions of ourselves all the time!). I need more than good intentions and resolutions; I need a process and pathway for real growth and change that leads to me becoming a new kind of person, from the inside out. So what does that look like?! Over the

The Christian Story - the good news about Jesus - uniquely involves thinking, doing, and feeling. Faith involves our whole person, and is never just mental assent to doctrinal truths or just a set of practices or morals for life. Real Faith moves the soul and requires emotional engagement - we feel its truth, often before we even fully understand it. This is particularly true when we focus on Advent, the arrival of Jesus into our busted up world as a baby some 2000 years ago. Why would God come into the world? What is he doing by writing himself into the story, putting on the weaknesses of human flesh, and dwelling among us? Nothing less than a total remaking of the world, putting all things to right, and ruling and reigning in justice and peace forevermore! This week we explore the emotion of Hope, and how the story of Jesus give the kind of hope we really need.

Full-bodied faith is both intellectual and emotional, enlightening the mind and stirring the affections of the heart. This Advent we’re exploring the emotions of faith, looking at how the movements of God’s Story - Creation, Fall, Redemption - stir our hearts to feel deeply wonder, heartbreak, and hope. This week we look at the emotion of heartbreak, considering how the pain and strain of our lives, our relationships, and our world brings about a deep and abiding sorrow. What do you do with your own heartbreak? Do you minimize it? Look for someone or something to blame? Or do you just check out of reality, finding ways to numb and avoid really feeling anything? Advent invites us to feel deeply the sorrow of the world, and to own our responsibility in it, while also looking for rescue beyond us. Jesus came to save us from our sins and to be God with us, the perfect solution to the heartbreak we all deeply feel.

We’ve covered a lot of Biblical ground over the fall, tracing the Story of Redemption from Creation to New Creation every single week, and considering how we tell that Story in word and deed in everyday ways. For Advent, we’re going to slow way down, cover less content, and instead engage the emotional landscape of faith. What does faith in God’s Story feel like? What emotions does the Biblical storyline - Creation, Fall, and Redemption - invite us to discover? The Gospel Story is both intellectually credible and emotionally satisfying, making sense of our lived experience as humans. Over the month of December, I want to invite you to feel deeply the wonder of Creation, the heartbreak of the Fall, and the hope of Redemption. In a season when we’re all more prone to numbing and checking out, Advent 2020 invites us to press in, to fight the malaise, and to connect with God and one another in meaningful ways. This week, we’ll explore Mary’s Song in Luke 1.46-55 as we talk about the power of Wonder.

We end our Everyday Rhythms series this week, remembering both the cosmic and personal nature of God’s Story. On one hand, God’s Story is about God: from beginning to end, the Story is about the goodness of his creation, all he has lost through human rebellion, and his ongoing work to heal and restore the world, culminating in the incarnation, substitution, and resurrection of Jesus. On the other hand, God’s Story is about us: He created humanity so he could sharing his love and joy and glory with us, and though we’ve rebelled and run from him, he’s gracious pursued and rescued us, at the cost of his own Son. And because both of those are True, we’re not wrapped up into God’s Story, sent to tell our own stories of rescue as a way of demonstrating and proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus. In Galatians 1.11-24, Paul recounts exactly what happened to him when Jesus rescued him, how the script of his story was flipped, and how he was wrapped up into God’s Story.

While there are many reasons most average Christians don’t live missionary lives, there’s really only one main reason: we’re not happy enough! Seriously. If we could for a moment keep the Story of the Gospel in front of our eyes, the ridiculously good news of all that Jesus is and has done for sinners like us, lost and dead and alone, we’d have a hard time containing the joy! In Luke 15 Jesus tells 3 stories to illustrate the heart of God for those who need rescue, the extravagant lengths to which God has gone to seek out and find the lost, and the joy that God has at finding his lost ones and bringing them home. And he urges us to join in the party of grace, marveling at the goodness of God in his rescuing pursuit and calling us to share his joy in everyday mission!

For the Jews of Jesus’ day, there was nothing that set them apart from the secular culture quite like observance of the Sabbath - it was one of the key marks that they belonged to God as his special, chosen people. Unfortunately, they’d turned God’s good gift of rest into a ton of work, adding 39 additional rules and regulations to the command, making it all but impossible to keep, especially for the most vulnerable people. Jesus confronts their religiosity, removing the burden of the Sabbath and restoring its true nature. Most shockingly, Jesus claims that he alone defines the meaning and purpose of the Sabbath, stating that his mission is to give real, true rest. We join the mission of Jesus by learning to live in the unforced rhythms of work and rest and inviting others to join us.

What images come to mind when you think of missionaries? If Jesus is our model for what it means to be a missionary, then one image that ought to come to mind is a long, slow, shared meal. Jesus was actually accused of being a glutton and a drunkard because he ate so many meals, and often with notorious outsiders and sinners. From the very beginning of the Story, eating has a central place: Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating; God rescued his people from slavery by way of a meal; much of God’s promises and blessing revolved around abundant food; and many of the images of God’s final salvation are cast in terms of rich food and good wine. And when we get to the end of the Story in Revelation, we see that God is inviting us to an eternal marriage feast, where we’ll enjoy God and his good gifts forever. For followers of Jesus sent into the world as witnesses, some of the simplest and yet most powerful missionary work we can practice is to share meals, turning strangers into neighbors and neighbors into spiritua

From the “In the Beginning” of Genesis, God’s purpose and character has always been the same. He is a generously good God who loves the world and His creation and has begun a story that will bless and remake it. God is looking for people to partner with Him to trust the story and to bless the world. And He has done everything in Christ to be able to include us in this family and in this mission to generously bless the world. Our job is to trust in this person, Jesus, the rescuer of the story and our redeemer, and to then take on His image, being filled with His Spirit, and allow Him to bless the world through us.

In a season of so much uncertainty, we’re leaning into that which is certain: Jesus is Lord, and we are his witnesses. He was sent into the world; crucified for sin but raised to new life; the firstborn of the new creation; and is now exalted at the right hand of God Almighty. The church is his blood-bought family, rescued from sin and death and wrapped up into his mission to restore all things. To be a disciple is to be sent as Jesus was, to join his mission as a witness in word and deed. This week we look at Acts 2, the birth of the church, when Jesus filled his people with his Spirit to empower their witness in the world. Jesus is still empowering his people to be his witnesses by his Spirit, and the promise of the Spirit is just as available to us today as it was to his first disciples 2000 years ago.

Over October and November, we’re walking through a new series exploring both the Story of Mission in the Bible and the (crazy!) invitation Jesus gives to us in John 20.21: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” That's wild! The gospel is the news of the cosmic redemption of all things in and through Jesus, the Son of God who came to deal with Sin, to restore us to God, and to open the way to the Presence of God now, and eventually forever in a renewed world. And just as the Father sent the Son into the world to accomplish salvation, the Son now sends us (in the power of the Spirit!) to announce his salvation to the world and to call the world to repent and believe, to turn from false gods, empty hopes, and vain promises and to trust in the Son who is the once and future King of the world! We've been commissioned by the King, sent to bring the good news into our neighborhoods and relational networks, to embody, announce, and demonstrate the good news. Each Sunday we’ll unpack the various "missi

The Christian life is characterized by 3 fundamental priorities - being with Jesus in a transformational way, being connected with his people in a real-life, and following Jesus into the world as disciple-makers, from our neighborhoods to the nations. Every disciple of Jesus is called to these priorities, though we have a great deal of freedom to discern how to live them. As we conclude our Trellis series, we’re summing up these priorities, looking at how Jesus empowers us to be about his purposes in all of life. We’ll dig into our Trellis document, and offer practical suggestions for creatively living as disciples in the coming season.

We’re concluding our September series, looking at our priories - gospel formation, life in community, and everyday disciple-making mission - in John 15. In John 14-16, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his coming departure, and his main theme is the continuation of his mission and ministry through them. Jesus says that all who believe in him will do his works, and that he will give the Spirit to empower believers to fulfill the mission. In John 15, he commands the disciples to do the Father’s business, the same work they saw him doing. He promises to make them fruitful as they go about this mission, and that he will assist them by the Spirit and prayer. Ultimately, they will be fruitful in this mission because Jesus will make them so. Every disciple of Jesus is called to be a disciple-maker, and the church is called to be a disciple-making community. 1. Soma is strong in our gospel-centeredness and a in our practice of community, but we’re weaker in mission. To what degree would you say that is true for y

In John 13, Jesus washes his disciples' feet, a visceral picture of his servant-hearted, sacrificial love for them. In John 15, he tells his disciples to love one another in the same way he has loved them, a direct reference to his foot-washing in John 13. For Jesus, there is no such thing as being a disciple without being deeply connected to a community of disciples. The foot-washing imagery tells us that real Christian community is messy, intimate, mutual, and redemptive. It cannot be done from a distance, cannot be a product of our imagination, and cannot be done in our own power. Only as we come to Jesus as needy sinners - in full acknowledgment of the stinky mess of our own feet! - can we know his love in a way that frees us to build life-giving community together.