Storyline Adventist Church

Loneliness is pandemic. Even when surrounded by people we can fail to connect in meaningful ways. This message shows not only the blessings wrapped up in human connection, but the choices that lead to it.

Everyone’s talking about trauma these days. The increased understanding of its impact upon human functioning has been largely helpful, with one caveat–it can sometimes leave us feeling permanently damaged. This is why in this message we will turn to a body of biblical and scientific data showing the benefits that can come through trauma. Bitter or better? The choice is ours.

God really does want us to be happy. But there’s a rub. If He prioritized our temporal happiness over all else, He could never address the big-picture exigencies of the cosmic conflict. This message will help us reset our priorities to align with God’s purposes and promises.

Can we live conscientious, careful lives without being bogged down with overwhelming guilt and shame? Yes, we can. God gave us the conscience as a blessing, not a curse. The point of the gospel is that God's grace takes away our sin. Who, then is rubbing our faces in it? Certainly not Him!

We want to live by principle, so we regard emotions as obstacles to righteousness. But could our feelings be reframed? How about raw power to be channeled, and colorful experiences to be appreciated? This message helps us rediscover the wonder of being made in the image of a deep-feeling God.

We want to be cheerful, but not delusional. Are positive feelings in the midst of human brokenness warranted? Is there a positivity that is fully grounded in reality? This message walks us through the biblical reasons for joy.

Jesus closes His Sermon on the Mount with a parable that encapsulates the contrast between the two structures of life we can build. The wise man built his house on the rock and the fool on sand. What are these two foundations? And which one am I building on?

The straight path and the narrow gate of which Jesus speaks, according to His own context, is the way of non-judgmental love, non-violent response to evil, love of neighbor, and love of enemy.

According to Jesus, judging people is a bad thing. But why is it bad? Well, according to Jesus, judging others is bad because it blinds us to our own condition and prevents us from engaging in spiritual growth. In the end, all judgment backfires on ourselves.

Jesus talked a lot about money, but not in the way many religious leaders talk about money. Jesus wasn't trying to get people to give Him money but rather to get people to understand that the way they handle money reveals what's going on in their hearts. As a general rule, your life will follow the trajectory of your financial pursuits.

Jesus acknowledged the presence of evil as real, but He didn’t see it as a depersonalized force or balancing principle of the universe, running alongside goodness. He prayed that we would be delivered from the evil one. Evil, suffering, and temptation do not come from God, Jesus taught, but are traceable to a satanic being, the devil. We are promised though that one day, God will resolve evil and suffering for good, for His is “the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Jesus warns His followers away from pretentious and performative religion, which He says is motivated by a desire to be “seen by men.” True righteousness, He insists, is motivated by love and springs from “the heart.”

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reenacted the giving of the Law by Moses on Mount Sinai. The religious leaders imagined He was destroying the Law, but the fact is they were destroying the Law by reducing it to a legalistic list of rules that must be kept to earn God’s favor. Jesus came to “fulfill” the Law by showing that it applies to the inner motives as well as the outer deeds, which means all of us are guilty, even those who imagine they are keeping the Law by obeying it outwardly. Therefore, we all need God’s mercy.

Our world is characterized by retaliatory violence. If you do something evil to me, I’m going to do something evil to you. Jesus comes along and completely overturns retaliatory violence in favor of a far superior relational ethic: respond to evil with good and love your enemies.

With the beatitudes, Jesus pronounced His covenant blessing upon the most unlikely people. Those who found themselves on the outside of the religious system looking in suddenly found themselves invited to the front row. Suddenly and unexpectedly, those at the lowest level of the social hierarchy were acknowledged by none other than God Himself as the very ones who would turn the world upside down with the gospel.

The Sermon on the Mount is not a one-off sermon, one topic in a lineup of topics, an interesting subject among other subjects. No, it is the announcement of a revolutionary new kingdom. In Christ, the whole history of Israel was reenacted with covenantal faithfulness and the sermon on the mount is the entire message of the Old Testament restated.

The Bible says our life is short, like a mist that passes through the air and vanishes away. Then what? In this session we will allow the Bible to paint the most beautiful picture imaginable of the new heavens and new earth that God has planned for us.

Some people believe that millions if not billions of people will be tortured in flames for all eternity. Does this idea line up with the idea that “God is love”? In this session we will discover what the Bible teaches regarding hell and make the surprising discovery that even this topic persuades us that God is good and beautiful.

Hardly a day goes by that we don't hear about some horrifically evil thing happening in the world. If God is good, why does evil exist in the first place? In this session we will explore the origin of evil and in the process discover that a lot more is going on in the world than meets the eye.

Sin at first looks like freedom but gradually leads to greater and greater restriction. God’s law at first looks like restriction and gradually leads to greater and greater freedom. What does the Bible actually teach us about these two important topics?