The 7th sign that Jesus performed to show us that He is God was the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It’s a story of love, life, friendship and freedom. In the final message of our Signposts series Benj unpacks this story in John 11 & 12 and helps us see 3 key transformations that Jesus has for us – death to life, bound to free and seatless to seated.
Jesus describes himself as Lord of the Sabbath and encourages us to find “rest for our souls” in Him. As we continue to learn how to outwork a Kingdom culture in our day-to-day lives, we look at what real rest looks like and how we can find a rhythm of rest. We live in a culture of restlessness but as we choose to walk like Jesus we can learn to resist restlessness and instead enjoy a rest for our souls.
We read in Hebrews 12 about a race that we are all running and we are encouraged to run this race with endurance, with our eyes fixed on Jesus. In this message we explore how we can run with endurance, using 6 disciplines from marathon training as examples of how we can run in God’s Kingdom. We look at: The Word of God, the Holy Spirit, rest, repentance, wisdom/experience of others, and running with friends.You can find more messages and other videos at youtube.com/livingrockchurch. You can also follow our Sunday Messages podcast on your preferred podcast platform. For more information about Living Rock Church visit www.livingrock.church.
In Ephesians 4:2-6 Paul encourages the church in Ephesus to ‘make every effort’ to be united with one another. In this message we look at what unity is, and how the covenant meal (comm-union) is an opportunity for Jesus’ body (the church) to demonstrate the powerful joining and unity that was made possible when He died on the cross.
In Ephesians 5:18-20 Paul gives an instruction to the Christians in the church in Ephesus – to be filled with the holy spirit, to sing praise and give thanks. In this interactive message we look at what these phrases mean, the difference between a psalm, hymn and spiritual song, and we look at why it’s so important that we sing praise together.
Towards the end of Ephesians 2 we read some familiar verses that describe Jesus as the cornerstone. In this message we unpack what this means and go through verses 19-22 phrase-by-phrase. We see how Jesus the Cornerstone is placed at the very centre of both the church and our lives individually, providing a strong and stable foundation that everything else can line up to.
In part 2 of this message we are introduced to God as the master architect, who has a master plan – for his Kingdom be be extended and established on earth. How does he choose to do this? Through his people, the Church. We therefore learn that God’s plan for our lives is never independent of the Church. Actually we can only fully outwork his plan for our life in the context of church, because it’s the church that is his master plan. When we realise what the church is (which we find in the book of Ephesians), and who fills it, it stops being something that we attend. It starts to become part of our everyday lives, as we see His Kingdom established.
Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are God’s ‘masterpiece’ – the pinnacle of creation, made in the image of God himself, declared to be “very good”. But this can sometimes be difficult to hear and believe. There are many lies that we hear about ourselves which are designed to stop us living in our true identity as God’s masterpieces. In this message we look at some of those lies and what the Word of God says about us instead.
As we continue to discover more about our identity as followers of Christ, now that we are new creations, we see that thankfulness is something that we can now have, and can see more of, in our lives. Colossians 2:6-7 tells us that thankfulness is actively grateful language, an act of worship, and something that can overflow in our lives, in order that we come into the fulness of Jesus! In this message Benj unpacks this and highlights 7 things that thankfulness does in our lives.
In Colossians 1:27 we read that God wants everyone to know an amazing secret – if we choose to follow Jesus, He comes to live inside us and comes to transform us so that we are more like him every day. In this message we look at what it means for Christ to live in us; the same Jesus Christ who was there at the very beginning of the bible, the Jesus who is God and desires to be with us! We look at how he raises us to life and how we can experience his presence, his purpose, his provision, his peace and his power.
When Jesus encountered the paralysed man in Mark 2, we read about the faith that was found in his friends, and the faith that was raised in the house. The man was saved and healed, and he walked out carrying his mat – a physical demonstration to all who were watching that Jesus did a miracle in his life. In this message we hear about how we can build a house of faith today; we hear stories of God’s goodness and we dream about what a church looks like where we regularly hear the phrase “we have never seen anything like this”.
As the Israelites journeyed through the wilderness on their way to Canaan they had the best local guide you could think of – The Presence of God. Although they went the long way round to reach their destination, their journey was an important experience for them to go through and a necessary preparation. As believers in 2020 we can know that the presence of God is no longer restricted to a tent, or even a grand temple, but now lives inside us – Transformed people. The presence of God leads us in the wilderness, causes us to worship and moves us to witness. Let’s be a church that is ready to move when The Lord commands and follows the leading of His presence.
Many of us loved to dress us when we were younger; it was so fun to pretend to be someone else… someone better, stronger and braver than ourselves. As we get older, we still dress up or put on a mask for others because we can feel unhappy or uncomfortable with who we really are. In this message Benj shares some simple truths about who we are now that we are born again Christians, comparing our new supernatural lives with the life of Superman!
When we read the account of the Israelites’ journey to the promised land, we see the tragic moment where they become too afraid to take what God has promised them; they’re faced with an opportunity to step out of their comfort zone, but instead ask if they could go back to Egypt where things were more familiar… more comfortable. But Joshua is a man who is willing to get out of the comfort zone, trust God, and ultimately inherits all the promises 40 years later. In today’s message we look at this account and how we can be a church who is willing to step out of their comfort zones in order to see all of God’s promises today and not in 40 years’ time.
The Holy Spirit is speaking all the time, and as the Supernatural Church we can hear Him speak to us. He is God and He lives in us! As we learn more about the Master’s voice, we see some of the reasons He speaks to us, the ways we can prepare ourselves in order to hear Him speak, the things He speaks to us about and what we are to do when we hear Him speak. Hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit isn’t complicated; it’s one of the most natural things that the Supernatural Church can do.
When we look at the great commission in Matthew 28, we read how Jesus told his disciples to “GO”. The church today also shares this commission. We take a look at three steps we can take to get to the ‘go’; we first get ready, by being filled with the Holy Spirit daily. Next we get set, by being filled with love, faith, zeal and boldness. Lastly, we go! We choose to respond to the Holy Spirit by saying yes and being men and women of action.
As we come to The Lord’s table together, we remind ourselves of the fullness of the cross of Christ; not just His death, not even just His resurrection, but everything that He…