South Creek Messages

South Creek Church of God- Kokomo, IN

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Christianity
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Listen to our Sunday Morning Messages below

Sep 27

Distortions

Distortions: Nobody Cares About My Pain Genesis 16-13 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Hey South Creek Family, This past Sunday we continued our series Distortions: Naming the Things That Keep People From the Real Jesus, and this week we named one of the most common ones: Nobody cares about my pain. Here's the truth underneath it: at our core, everyone wants to be seen, heard, and cared for. When we're not, it doesn't just wound us, it distorts how we see God. He becomes distant, mean, or not real. We talked about how, good or bad, people's experiences will often inform their outlook more than information. When someone has been let down, abandoned, or rejected by people, it can feel like they've been let down, abandoned, or rejected by God. And when it's Christians who didn't show up, that distortion only compounds. We looked at John 11, where Jesus deliberately waits two days after hearing his friend Lazarus is sick. When he arrives, Martha and then Mary each say the same thing to him: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." Jesus doesn't correct them or defend himself. He already knows he's about to raise Lazarus, and still, the shortest verse in the Bible says it all: "Jesus wept." Those tears aren't weakness. They're what his care looks like. This is the same God Hagar called "the God who sees me," and the same Jesus who cried out from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He doesn't stand at a distance from our pain. He enters it. So what do we do with our own pain? We talked about three simple steps: name it, reframe it, and reclaim it. Your feelings are always valid, but they're not always true, and reframing isn't rewriting what happened. It's refusing to let what happened write the story of who God is. Then we invite God to reclaim it, trusting him to use even our sorrows for good so that we can be the comfort to someone else that we've received. We closed with the story of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" in the middle of a national war and his own devastating loss. His poem admits real despair, and then answers it not with an explanation, but with who God is: not dead, not asleep, and not done. That answer doesn't stay in the room. Whether you're carrying a wound from someone who didn't show up for you, or you realize you may have been that person for someone else, the real Jesus is still here, still weeping with us, and still not done. -Pastor Aaron Perry
Sep 20

Distortions

Distortions: Christians Are Hypocrites Matthew 7:3-5 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Hey South Creek Family, This past Sunday we continued our series Distortions: Naming the Things That Keep People From the Real Jesus, and this week we named one of the most common ones: Christians are hypocrites. Here's the truth underneath it: hypocrisy is receiving grace and refusing to give it. We talked about two kinds. There's obvious hypocrisy — when we know exactly what's right and choose the opposite anyway. And there's oblivious hypocrisy, the kind we don't even see, because it's just what we've always known and no one's ever shown us otherwise. Either way, the result is the same: people are told one thing about Jesus — grace, love, mercy, a seat at the table — and then experience something else entirely from us. We looked at Mark 2, where Jesus sits down to eat with tax collectors and sinners — the very people everyone else had decided didn't belong. When the religious leaders objected, Jesus answered simply: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Jesus never ranked people by how acceptable their sin looked from the outside. We often do — and when people notice that gap, it doesn't just disappoint them, it disorients them. It makes them wonder if anything they've heard about Jesus is even true. We closed with the story of a servant who was forgiven an impossible debt and then refused to forgive someone who owed him almost nothing. The king's question is the one we are left with: "Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?" That question doesn't stay in the room. Whether you've been the one withholding grace — on purpose or without even realizing it — or you're carrying a wound from someone else's hypocrisy, the real Jesus is still at the table, still extending mercy he doesn't owe, still inviting you to come as you are. May this week you choose to remove the planks from your eyes so that you and others can see Him more clearly. -Pastor Aaron Perry
Sep 13

Distortions

Distortions: Distortions and Doubt Mark 9:24 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Hey South Creek family, This past Sunday we kicked off a new series called Distortions: Naming the Things That Keep People From the Real Jesus. Here's the idea we'll come back to again and again over the next six weeks: A distorted picture of Jesus leads to a distorted response to Jesus. But a real encounter with the real Jesus invites us to real life. So many of us didn't meet Jesus first, we met a version of him that had already passed through other people's hands: a church, a parent, a headline, an argument online. Somewhere along the way, the message got distorted. And what we've responded to isn't always actually him. Our goal at South Creek isn't to add to that static, it's to be a community that helps people see the real Jesus. We opened the series with one of the most honest distortions there is: doubt. And we were grateful to have a guest voice, Pastor Dave Perry open it up for us. He reminded us that doubt isn't something to be ashamed of — even Abraham, Moses, Peter, and Thomas wrestled with it. As he put it, quoting Mark 9:24, our honest cry can simply be: "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief." A relationship with God matters more than having every question answered. You don't have to have it all figured out to follow Jesus — and that's an invitation, not a requirement. Over the next several weeks, we'll keep naming these distortions honestly and looking to be Jesus followers how to not add to the distortions but rather help people find and follow the real Jesus. We'd love to have you with us for the rest of the series. Come along for the ride of faith. Pastor Aaron Perry
Sep 6

Who We Are

Who We Are - Kingdom First - Matthew 6:33 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Dear Church Family, This week we closed out our "Who We Are" series with a message called Focused on the Kingdom — and it might be the one that ties everything else together. We started with a story about hiking the Narrows in Zion National Park — walking upstream, against the current, the whole way. Here's the thing: you don't get to see the beauty of that canyon without fighting that current. There's no shortcut. The reward is upstream, not downstream. That's what following Jesus feels like too. Every day, we're pulled toward comfort, control, and whatever's easiest — our own little kingdoms. But Jesus calls us to something bigger: His Kingdom, not ours. Here's the truth we sat with this week: When we fully surrender to and pursue His Kingdom, we will not be able to build our own. We looked at what the Kingdom actually is — God's people, in God's place, under God's rule — and then asked how we actually seek it, both vertically (surrendered to the King, trusting Him instead of gripping tightly to control and worry) and horizontally (loving our neighbor, living out "on earth as it is in heaven" right where we are). And we were reminded: this isn't just a personal call. As a church, we want to help seek and build His Kingdom — not merely our own castle. That's why partnerships, church planting, and missions matter to us. That's part of why we're moving to two services on November 1. It's all the same posture — making room, giving ourselves away, because His Kingdom is worth more than our comfort. We never fully "arrive" at total surrender in this life. But like that hike — you don't stop just because the current's still pushing back. You keep walking. Because His Kingdom is still moving, and we get to move with it. A few questions to sit with this week: What are you white-knuckling right now instead of trusting God with? Who's one person near you that His Kingdom needs to reach — through you? Grateful to walk this out together. -Pastor Aaron Perry
Aug 30

Who We Are

Who We Are - Open Hands - 2 Corinthians 9:8 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Dear Church Family, This past Sunday we continued our Who We Are series by looking at two more of our core values: Radical in Generosity and Eager to Serve. We started with the story of the Toledo War — when Michigan gave up the city of Toledo to Ohio and received the "worthless" Upper Peninsula in return. At the time, everyone thought Michigan lost. Nearly 200 years later, that "consolation prize" has produced far more than Toledo ever would have. The world's math was wrong the whole time — and that's exactly how generosity and service look from the outside, too. We looked at the widow who gave two small coins — everything she had (Mark 12) — and the man who found treasure so valuable he joyfully sold everything to get it (Matthew 13:44). Then we watched Jesus himself kneel and wash His disciples' feet (John 13), the lowest task of a servant, given freely by the greatest among us. The big idea: generosity and service aren't how we get loved — they're how loved people respond, because loved people, love people. We also shared some exciting news: starting November 1, South Creek is moving to two Sunday services. We ran out of chairs this season, and we don't want that to be a barrier for anyone walking through our doors. This isn't about building something bigger for us — it's about making room for more people to encounter Jesus here. We'll share the full vision and details next week. Where is God inviting you to open your hands? Who is He calling you to serve? -Pastor Aaron Perry
Aug 23

Who We Are

Who We Are - Praying With Purpose Luke 11:5-8 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Dear Church Family, We continued our "Who We Are" series this week, moving from being rooted in Jesus into what that rootedness actually looks like in practice: persistent prayer. We opened with the story of Colonel Sanders of KFC — pitching his fried chicken recipe to restaurant after restaurant, hearing "no" over a thousand times before one finally said yes. There's power and purpose in persistence — and Jesus told us to bring that same refusal-to-quit into our life of prayer: "Keep on asking... keep on seeking... keep on knocking" (Luke 11:9-10). We defined prayer simply: communion and communication with God — not a monologue we perform, but a dialogue we enter into. We speak, and we listen. And in fact, prayer is often the very first spiritual practice of anyone who follows Jesus — how we got in, and how we stay in. We looked honestly at what gets in the way of praying (we get distracted, discouraged, demotivated, disconnected), then walked through three things persistent prayer can change: Circumstances — through the stories of the friend at midnight (Luke 11) and the persistent widow (Luke 18), we saw that we serve a God who can, and sometimes does, move our circumstances. But even when he doesn't, prayer always changes our hearts. Others — Paul's prayer for the Colossians reminded us that persistent, specific intercession for the people we love matters (Colossians 1:9-12; James 5:16). We also talked about what this looks like not just individually, but as a church — praying together, persistently, for one another and for what God is doing among us. Us — ultimately, the point of prayer isn't to get things from God, it's to get more of God (Matthew 6; Philippians 4:6-7; 1 John 5:14-15). We closed with a question worth carrying into this week: What's the prayer you feel like God wants you to not give up on? Don't stop knocking. -Pastor Aaron Perry
Aug 23

Who We Are

Who We Are - Together In Love Luke 5:17-20 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Dear Church Family, This weekend we continued our "Who We Are" series, moving into two more of our core values that are deeply connected: Gracious in Love and Committed to Community. We opened with a personal story — a season right after college that started in the warmth of real, consistent friendship, and then shifted into a new church and a new season where that same kind of community wasn't there in the way we expected. It's a familiar ache: feeling alone even while being "plugged in" somewhere. But toward the end of that season, something shifted — not because the community became what we wanted, but because we realized it was already full of people showing us gracious, kind love all along. As Bonhoeffer put it, loving our dream of community more than the real community in front of us can actually keep us from experiencing it. God, in His kindness, often gives us what we need rather than what we want. From there we looked at two truths that hold this whole message together: we were made in community, by community, and for community (Genesis 2:18) — and yet nearly 1 in 5 American adults report having no close friends today, a number that's roughly doubled since the early 1990s. We were built for connection, and as a culture, we're starving for it. We saw what that looks like lived out in Luke 5 — a group of friends so determined to get a paralyzed man to Jesus that they tore open a roof to lower him into a packed room. Jesus "saw their faith" — not just the man's — a reminder that sometimes God moves in our lives because of the faith and prayers of the people carrying us, not just our own. We need to be committed to community because we need friends who will carry us to Jesus. Then we turned to Exodus 34, where God reveals His own character as "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness" — long before Jesus ever walked the earth. That's who God said He was. And in John 8, we saw that God in the flesh: Jesus meeting a woman dragged before a crowd, alone and exposed, and extending grace to her face-to-face, unearned and unconditional. Condemnation and shame cannot survive where there is grace and love. We closed with Colossians 3:12-14 — "clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness... and over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together" — and this reminder: loved people, love people. We only have love to give because we were loved first. Two questions worth carrying into this week: Who are the people in your life that you would carry — and who would carry you? Who is the one person you feel God has placed in your life that He wants you to show that gracious love to? We weren't made to do this alone — and we weren't made to earn our way into love. Both are gifts, given in relationship. -Pastor Aaron Perry
Aug 9

Who We Are

Who We Are - Rooted In Jesus Luke 6:43-45 Pastor Aaron Perry Download Dear Church Family, If you were with us Sunday, you know we kicked off our new series, Who We Are — a look at the seven core values that shape South Creek — starting with the one everything else depends on: Rooted in Jesus. We talked about our mission (to love people and lead them to new life in Christ) and our vision as a church community rooted in Jesus, persistent in prayer, gracious in love, radical in generosity, eager to serve, committed to community, and focused on His Kingdom. But we started with the first value on purpose — because if we're not rooted in Jesus, the rest are doomed to fail. If we miss Jesus, we miss everything. A few things we sat with together: Everyone is being shaped by something, whether we realize it or not. The only real choice we get isn't whether we're rooted — it's what we're rooted in. Comparison, achievement, others' approval, shame — they all produce real fruit, just not the kind that lasts. Jesus said a tree is known by its fruit (Luke 6:43-45). You can call yourself rooted in Jesus all you want, but eventually what's actually rooted in you will show. Show me the root, and I'll tell you the fruit. In John 15, Jesus doesn't just call us to be rooted — he calls us to abide, to remain, connected to him like a branch to a vine. "Apart from me you can do nothing." That's not a value alongside the others; it's the source everything else grows from. Paul tells us in Colossians 2 to let our roots grow down into Christ and our lives be built on him — not so we don't get pulled off course by empty philosophies, but because in Christ we are already complete. Knowing who we are isn't the finish line; it's what makes real, intentional action possible. Here's where we landed: root yourself in Jesus. Know who you are. Practice the way. That's what this whole series is going to be about — but it starts with one question we didn't try to answer for you Sunday, because it's one only you can answer: Where is your life rooted? -Pastor Aaron Perry

Listen to our Sunday Morning Messages below

Creator

South Creek Church of God- Kokomo, IN
Years Active

2018 - 2026
Episodes

77
Rating

Clean
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© 2018 South Creek Church of God
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South Creek Messages