Grace Central Coast

The world looks one way from ground level. But it looks very different when we get up above it. In 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, the Apostle Paul takes us higher and invites us to see the earth-shaking, life-changing, future-shaping impact of Jesus' resurrection.

Just like some of the Christians in Corinth, we are those who fight for our personal rights and freedoms. Paul here in 1 Corinthians 8 teaches that for those who love God, Gospel love trumps and must shape the exercise of our rights freedoms.

Like the Corinthians, we are a MESSY CHURCH filled with messy people who are living messy lives. We, like them, need clear Biblical instruction on the messy issues around marriage and divorce. 1 Corinthians 7 provides a guide!

In Luke 15, Jesus tells stories to teach hard-hearted religious people how much God values lost people. Jesus' teaching here challenges each of us to ask, "How much do I value the lost?"

Why does Paul celebrate singleness? Why does he call it a gift when many see it as a curse? Paul elevates the singles in the church by pulling back our focus to see that devotion to God matters more than any relationship status.

After warning about the dangers of sexual immorality in chapter 6, Paul now highlights several principles for marriage in the first part of chapter 7.

Today, we step back from the tough details of 1 Corinthians 5 & 6 to provide some pastoral reflections, clarification, encouragement, and application from these chapters for our church family living and loving in the mess.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Paul returns to the delicate and dangers area of sexual immorality and, again, grounds his teaching in the Gospel, all that God has done for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus!

The Christians in the Corinthian church are suing one another in civil courts!  Its another area where they aren't living or applying the Gospel together.Here we see how Paul challenges them with the Gospel to live differently.  

1 Corinthians 5 highlights both the seriousness of sexual immorality in our own lives and seriousness of sexual immorality in the church.  This passage provides guidelines for how a church is to deal with ongoing, habitual, unconfessed, public sin.  

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul begins to confront and correct some MESSY sexual sin in the Corinthian church. As we dive into this vulnerable subject, the place to start is to explain what "sexual immorality" is and why it's so serious in the sight of God.

In one last effort to call the Corinthian church to humble unity centered on the gospel, Paul exposes how their love of worldly honor is completely at odds with the way of Jesus. He then calls them to imitate his example for the sake of their unity together.

Everywhere we look, we see a crisis in leadership: selfish leaders, harsh leaders, failing leaders. But leaders in God's kingdom and church are called to be different. What do leaders shaped by and centered on the Gospel look like? Paul models it and teaches us in 1 Corinthians 4.

The first Sunday of the new year here at Grace Central Coast, we call Covenant Renewal Sunday.  It's a Sunday where we take time to renew our covenant commitment to the Lord and our covenant commitment to one another.  This year, our challenge comes from 1 Samuel 7.  

We are living in a world that has been radically and profoundly changed by the Gift of Jesus, but most of us don't know it! As we conclude our INDESCRIBABLE series, we consider how Jesus is a world-changing gift.

Have you ever noticed how every character in the Christmas story shares the Gift of Jesus with someone? It's reminder to us that the Good News of Jesus is a gift to be shared. So let's think together about why we don't share the gift of Jesus and explore how we can.

Have you opened a gift only to discover it contained lots of other gifts? That's Jesus! And one more reason why Paul calls him God's INDESCRIBABLE gift.

One of the reasons Jesus is God's INDESCRIBABLE gift is because Jesus is the most surprising gift in all history. No one saw God's Savior coming the way he did. But our familiarity with the Christmas story means we often miss it's surprises.

Christmas is not a random event on a timeline. It is the epicenter of all human longing, seeking, and meaning! The interwoven tapestry of all scripture, history, and spirituality have all promised the coming of our King.

How do you see the local church? How does God see the local church? How we see the local church is vitally important, because our view of the church will determine our commitment to the church and to one another. Paul continues his fight to unite God's people in the local by teaching us who we are and all that is ours in Christ.