Rice Community Church

That very first Christmas morning an angel of the Lord made an announcement 'But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be "for all the people"; ' Luke 2:10 Today we are going to look at how God through Christmas was showing His love for us.

Today we look at 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, God doesn’t expect you to be grateful for everything in your life. Because there’s a lot of bad in your life. I don’t know what you’re going through right now as we go into the Thanksgiving holiday but I do know that there are five things you can always be grateful for.

Today we hit the half way mark of Ephesians, first 3 chapters were showing us how God sees us through Christ now he turns his attention to how others should see us in Christ. Paul wants us to know that being a Christian is not merely a way of believing… but a way of living… Knowing the truth will lead to living the truth! We get saved and then we get transformed.

The spiritual condition of our hearts is more important than whether or not we go to the finest college whether we find the right job or even the right spouse. As important as those things are, our friends, family and neighbors have a never-dying soul, and the real need is a spiritual one. Whatever else happens; we need to pray for true and genuine growth and strength and faith in Christ. As we look today at the second prayer of Paul to the Ephesians in chapter 3:14-21 we see him pray for the spiritual condition of the believers, being a prayer "warrior" not a prayer "worrier."

Today we go into Ephesians 3 looking at verses 1-12 as Paul starts out saying "for this reason." Today we see how the grace given to us God wants to use for His glory for other people. Its not about what we can do, but what Jesus has already done for us.

Conflict is one of the most ordinary spaces in which we live as human beings, you don’t have to go too far to discover walls of hostility that divide people. Today as we continue through Ephesians 2:11-22 we are going to look at how we can take those walls down brick by brick and live in the freedom that Jesus bought for us at the cross.

Today Aliyah shares with you her passion to help those who are lost to help them see freedom and to be set free.

Have you ever felt like you are not good enough, you have to try harder. In Ephesians Paul talks to us today about how religion may make you a nicer person, but only Christ can make you new. It is by faith we don't do the renewing, Jesus does, so let's put on our new nature and become who God created us to be.

If we only understood how precious we are to Christ, we would never think of ourselves in the same old way again! And Paul prays that we would have our eyes opened to understand this - to know "what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints"!

*Something special happens when we break bread together.* We aren't designed for isolation we're wired for connections, and one of the best ways to experience that is over a meal. Today as we look in Luke 7 we see the story of a broken woman in pain, a Pharisee and how Jesus teaches us that when you share your pain, you can gain perspective, and in the context of those godly relationships, when the storms of life come, you can still experience peace. Community is key!

We are called to love those who are different than we are, today we have all come together for a common purpose to hear from God, to be united in worship, not the style, but the Who we are worshipping, wanting to hear from God, to build us up into His Church without spot or wrinkle so that we may come to the Father to become more like His Son. We are called to celebrate diversity. God has given us all different and unique gifts to fit into His Body and when we come to together in the unity of Christ those pieces fit together and bring glory to His Name.

We once were a society that valued togetherness, it centered around family, whether that was at home have family dinners, or getting together with neighbors or other friends and just hanging out. We were created for community, to do life together. Today we see how God is a God of connections and togetherness.

There are many Christians who live defeated lives. Burdened down by guilt and shame over long-forgiven sins, they are disabled. They do not live in the joy and freedom that is rightfully theirs because of Calvary. It is not that they have not been set free, it is that they have never grown to understand what freedom really is. When we understand our freedom and what that brings to us we see that the power of the “love of Jesus” can push out our past to love others and become the new creation He wants us to be.

Today we have Pastor Jim Filbeck with us, sharing stories and life experiences, about how God still does miracles today and how each and every one of us is a miracle. Listen to be encouraged and strengthened from his personal story.

In Galatians Chapter 5 we see what could be called the theme verse for our lives and all of the book, Paul gets right to the point this verse it could probably be said this verse is the crescendo of the whole book the theme for the letter and we find it in verse 1 today. 'It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. ' Galatians 5:1 NASB We are set free through Jesus for freedom, set free from our past, set free from the bondage of legalism, set free for Him, to live and love others.

We are in week 4 of our Freedom series as we walk through the book of Galatians. We all have a desire to be known and to know others, but when we are known by God we begin to live powerful lives, responsible for a powerful Gospel, we no longer live a victim mentality that it is someone else’s job to do it, it is ours. When we are known by God we give our lives to God to be set apart for the work He has designed us for, walking into our destiny.

Today we walk through Galatians 3 and see how to often in our Christian walk we think there is always something else we can do to earn God's love, but that was accomplished at the cross. We see today (The Purpose) of Galatians 3 was to help us understand our Christian life is based on faith, (The Problem) is that works, things and religion cannot save us, (The Promise) that God sent His Son to take our place, and (The Payoff) Christ has set us free.

Have you ever noticed that in order for God to do the supernatural more often than not He asks us to do the natural. Today we talk about the story of Elisha.

Today we talk about how if we want to realize unborn tomorrows we have to bury dead yesterday’s, we have to “cut the proverbial rope” to the past, our past mistakes, past hurts, unforgiveness and offense stop us from moving forward. If you want to move forward you have to let go and cut the rope of the past. We look at Mark 4:35-39 and see when we put our eyes on whose we are and not let our past define us, we can take risks and see God do great things through us.