New Culture Church

New Culture Church
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CREATING THE CULTURE OF CHRIST IN MADISON, WI The New Culture Church podcast is packed full of great sermon content from New Culture Church in Madison, WI. Be part of a welcoming community that values real conversations, personal growth, and making a positive impact. Subscribe now to explore life's big questions and find meaningful connections.

  1. 3d ago

    A Moment Like This : Placed, Present, Positioned

    Week three in Esther, and Pastor Abbie gave the series its verbs. Placed, present, positioned. By chapter five Esther has been in the palace five years. Not five days. Some of us are standing somewhere we did not choose, asking God whether this is it. Then she puts on her royal robes and walks into the inner court uninvited, a move that could have ended her life. The scepter goes out. And she does not ask. She invites the king and Haman to a banquet, and there invites them to another. Esther is not only beauty. She has brains. She wants the king alone and Haman in the room. Haman leaves past Mordecai, who still will not rise. At home he lists his wealth, his sons, his promotions, his private invitation from the queen, and then says the line that undoes him. None of it satisfies him while that one man sits at the gate. God pours out blessing above and beyond, and the one thing we have not been given becomes the only thing we can see. He builds a gallows and goes to bed delighted. Then the king cannot sleep, calls for the chronicles, and the record lands on the night Mordecai saved his life. We call that a coincidence. See it in completion and make no mistake, God's presence was moving. Chapter seven is the turn, and Esther does not stop at her own safety. Spare my people. Haman hangs on the gallows he built for Mordecai. She risked an earthly palace, which is a small picture of Philippians 2 and of Jesus, who left heaven to join us in our suffering and died to save all people. For most of us risk will not look like moving away. It looks like knocking on an office door, or asking who could come to dinner. And none of it happens alone. The book is named Esther and it ends on Mordecai. We are not the main characters. She closed with her own ten years in Madison. One year was the plan. She barely unpacked, cried on the drive back for five years, and slept on an air mattress long enough that people still call her Air Mattress Abbie. Then a pandemic, and seasons where the place felt more bitter than blessed. Looking back over ten years, the sentence changes. God was here the whole time. So What: God is present in the place He has you. Right here, right now. Now What: Sit with three questions this week. Where am I placed. How can I stay present. Where do I need to get positioned. Scripture References: Esther 5:1-14 (The gold scepter, two banquets, and the gallows Haman builds)Esther 4:15-17 (Fast for me, and if I perish, I perish)Esther 6:1-11 (A sleepless king, the chronicles, and Haman honoring Mordecai)Esther 7:1-10 (Spare my people; Haman hanged on his own gallows)Esther 9:1-5 (The tables are turned)Esther 10:1-3 (The book ends on the greatness of Mordecai)Philippians 2:6-11 (He made Himself nothing, obedient to death on a cross)Luke 3:21-22 (Father, Son, and Spirit together at the baptism of Jesus)Luke 9:1-6 (Take nothing for the journey, and learn to receive)

  2. Aug 9

    A Moment Like This : For Such a Time as This

    Week two in Esther, and Pastor Abbie went straight at the verse everyone quotes. Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. It is a beautiful verse. It gets tricky the moment we decide it means one moment. Because when that moment passes, we no longer know how to live or who we are. Two traps sit on either side of it. We spend our lives worried we will miss the moment, or we spend our lives worshiping the one we already had. Esther 3 and 4 turn dark fast. Mordecai will not bow. Haman is enraged and decides that killing one man is not enough, so he plots to destroy every Jew in the empire. Pastor Abbie sat with Haman longer than most preachers do, and the reason matters. Offense left unchecked is dangerous. Our feelings are not bad and they are not to be dismissed, but as we listen we have to tell them where to go. Haman never asked why Mordecai had such a hold on him. We are formed by what we fixate on. He was not yet the villain in chapter three. He got there by choosing the same direction over and over. Then the good news: we are constantly being formed and we are not finished. A diagnosis is not an identity. Circumstances do not define us. Pastor Abbie told her own stories of rooms that were not built for her, of crying in front of a man who told her the trip was for men only, of being 23 and saying she would take whatever leftovers she could get. The exact things she was trying to hide are the things God used. Esther buried her Jewish identity, and that identity became the doorway to deliverance for her whole people. Mordecai never gets a verse named after him and the story does not happen without him. You do not have to be the main character. None of us are. The main character is Jesus. So What: God is forming you through every moment, not only the moments that feel important. Now What: Notice God in your story. Pay attention to the ordinary moments, people, and opportunities He might be using to make you more like Jesus. Scripture References: Esther 3:1-6 (Haman is elevated; Mordecai refuses to kneel; Haman plots to destroy all the Jews)Esther 4:1-17 (Mordecai in sackcloth; the golden scepter and the thirty days; for such a time as this; fast for me, and if I perish, I perish)1 Samuel 17 (Saul’s armor does not fit David; God finds another way to win the battle)Genesis 1:27 (Created in the image of God to bear His image)1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (One body, many members, different roles and the same mission)

  3. Aug 2

    A Moment Like This : What Was I Made For

    We opened a new series in Esther, and Pastor Abbie started where most of us live. What was I made for? Billie Eilish put it in a song and the whole world sang it back. Kelly Clarkson wrote that people wait a lifetime for a moment like this. A celebrity who has arrived by every measure is still asking whether she arrived. So are we. Is this the career I was made for, the marriage, this stage of parenting, this calling? Or is there one day I finally get there? Esther 1 and 2 give us a scandalous palace, a king who discards his queen for disobeying him, and a young Jewish woman swept into twelve months of preparation for a beauty contest she never chose. Pastor Abbie named the harm plainly. Esther is a historical book describing a story, not a prescription. There are things we walk through that God did not ordain and does not want for us. He redeems them anyway. And that is where the thread of Jesus shows up. Jesus never said come and follow this purpose. He never said come to this specific place. He said come and follow Me. Our purpose is less about a moment, a destination, or a place. It is about a person. Esther is the one book that never names God, and that silence is the point. It trains us to look for Him in every detail. For thirty years Jesus was preparing for three years of ministry, hidden and unnoticed. Pastor Abbie only saw her own formation looking backward, in meals around a table and a mom who paid her to read the Bible in a year. The so what is this: Jesus is present with us in the preparation, because He is the person we are preparing for. So What: Jesus is present with us in the preparation, because He is the person we are preparing for. Now What: Look for Jesus in every moment. Practice the Examen this week: replay, reflect, repent, rejoice. Scripture References: Esther 1 (Xerxes’ 180-day banquet in Susa; Queen Vashti refuses to come and is removed; the decree that every man rule his own household)Esther 2:1-18 (The search for a new queen; Mordecai adopts Esther; twelve months of beauty treatments; Esther hides her nationality and is made queen)Matthew 4:19 (Come and follow Me)Luke 2:41-52 (Jesus at twelve in the temple; the hidden years before His ministry)John 2:19-21 (Jesus speaks of the temple of His body)1 Corinthians 6:19 (Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit)

  4. Jul 19

    James : The Prayer of Faith

    In the final week of James, Pastor Abbie brought us to James 5:13-20, the passage her Bible titles the Prayer of Faith. Happy? Sing. Hurting? Pray. Sick? Call the elders and be anointed with oil. James removes every excuse to stop asking God. But verse 15 is not a formula that forces healing on demand. Paul pleaded three times for God to remove the thorn, and the answer was not healing. My grace is sufficient for you, My power is made perfect in weakness. Sometimes the specific prayer is answered now, and sometimes it is not answered until we see Jesus face to face. We live in the in-between, and we keep praying in faith, trusting He is near. The oil points somewhere. Messiah means the Anointed One, so to anoint the sick in Jesus’ name is to come under His lordship and the presence of the Holy Spirit, who heals and binds us together. Confession follows the same grace, because forgiveness comes first. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven lands before confess your sins to each other, so we come to God already held, with no shame. And prayer was never meant to be a secret solo last resort. It is a communal lifeline. Be honest enough to name the need. Be humble enough to ask. You do not have to carry it alone. Scripture References: James 5:13-20 (The Prayer of Faith: sing when happy, call the elders and anoint the sick with oil, the prayer offered in faith, confess your sins to each other, the prayer of a righteous person, Elijah and the rain, bring back the wanderer)Exodus 30:22-33 (The recipe for the sacred anointing oil; consecrate the tent, the ark, and the people)2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (Paul’s thorn in the flesh; My grace is sufficient for you, My power is made perfect in weakness)Matthew 26:36-39 (Jesus in the garden; Father, take this cup from Me)1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances)James 1:22-25 (The doer of the word; the mirror that we walk away from and forget)Ephesians 4:11 (Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers)1 Kings 17-18 (Elijah prays and the rain stops, then returns)

  5. Jul 13

    James : Jesus Is Near

    James 5:7-12 reads like a string of familiar words. Patience. Perseverance. Suffering. The prophets. Job. Pastor Abbie walked us through it verse by verse, and the message underneath the vocabulary is one sentence. Life is more than avoiding pain. It is trusting God enough to stay. Start with who James is talking to. Nathan showed us two weeks ago that James 5 opens with a prophetic warning against rich oppressors. Now the letter turns to the people being oppressed. These are not people with minor inconveniences. They are truly suffering. And James tells them to be patient, the way a farmer waits for the autumn and spring rains. The Greek word for patient here means to be of a long spirit. Slow to anger. Slow to punish. Patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others. And notice where patience gets tested. Not alone. In relationship. You cannot control another person or the timing of the rain. You can control what you surrender to Jesus. That is what waiting forms in us: people of surrender and trust. Then comes perseverance. The word means to remain. Do not flee the hard, painful thing. Hold fast. And the definition includes a word that stopped Pastor Abbie cold: calmly. Nobody walks through oppression calmly on their own strength. That calm comes from Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. His breath is in our lungs so we can persevere. Pastor Abbie was honest about the kinds of suffering we carry. Some is unjust, caused by someone else’s hands. Some is unexplained, like Job’s. Her cousin wrote an entire dissertation on Job, and after eight years of study her answer to what it means is still, we don’t know. And some suffering, like praying for healing one mile into a 5K you never trained for, is self-induced. God hands us the tools before the race. Spend time with Me. Get to know My voice. Be in community. James picked the prophets as his example on purpose. They stayed true to God’s word and suffered for it. They confronted kings and empires at the risk of their lives. That is the pull Pastor Abbie named: from a balanced life, which arranges itself so we never have to see injustice, to a kingdom life, which moves toward broken things to bring wholeness. The Lord is full of compassion, a desire to help. When we enter someone else’s pain, we become like Jesus, who left heaven to join us in ours. Even the strange ending fits. Do not swear. All you need is a simple yes or no. Under unresolved pain, we are tempted to manufacture explanations and inflate stories. James frees us to sit in the in-between and say, this happened, and I don’t know why. That answer is allowed. Because here is what we do know. Jesus is near. The pain is temporary. Weeping stays for the night, and rejoicing comes in the morning. This week, stay. Be patient with the people who test you. Enter one person’s pain instead of managing your own comfort. And when you have no explanation, hold on to the one thing that is certain. Jesus is near. Scripture References: James 5:7-12 (Be patient until the Lord’s coming; the farmer and the rains; do not grumble; the prophets; Job’s perseverance; do not swear)Job 1 (Blameless Job loses everything in a day; suffering without explanation)Job 42 (God speaks; restoration and mercy at the end of the story)Matthew 5:12 (Rejoice and be glad; they persecuted the prophets before you)1 Kings 19:4 (Elijah flees for his life and asks to die)Hebrews 4:15 (A high priest who empathizes with our weaknesses)Psalm 30:1-5 (You lifted me out of the depths; rejoicing comes in the morning)

  6. Jun 21

    James : See The One

    James 5 opens with a hard word. Now listen, you rich people. Weep and wail. Your wealth has rotted. The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. It reads like a tonal break from the rest of the letter, and Nathan sat in that tension out loud. This is a prophetic warning against oppressive wealth, and the word that kept rising off the page was the first word of verse four. Behold. Look. So the message is not first about money. It is about sight. When we see God rightly, we see ourselves rightly. And when we see ourselves rightly, we finally see the people around us. Start with God. Every injustice begins with a wrong view of God. He made us in His image, and we keep trying to return the favor, building a god out of our fears and our history until he blesses whatever we already wanted. The rich oppressor in James did not have a true picture of God. So Nathan offered three. God sees. The first person in Scripture to give God a name is Hagar, a servant woman driven into the desert to die. She calls Him the God who sees me. Yahweh sees the people society overlooks. God hears. The cries of the harvesters reached the ears of the Lord Almighty, and the blind man on the Jericho road who would not stop shouting got heard. God comes after. The Lord of hosts, the God who commands heaven’s armies, refuses to leave us. He came, and He will come again. If that is our God, who does that make us? You are loved. Loved so much that He calls you His child, loved with the same measure of love the Father has for His own Son. In the worst moment of your life, the worst thing you have ever done, you were loved over the top in that moment. And the love does not stop at affection. Our posture is sons and daughters. Our position is co-laborers, invited to partner with God against the enemies of sickness, hatred, and racism, and to bring His kingdom. People who know they are loved start to see. The rich saw their fields, their harvest, their profits. They never saw the workers. Neighbors became opportunities. Image bearers became tools in someone else’s story. That is the tragedy James exposes. Our calling is the opposite. Love your neighbor as yourself. Slow your pace enough to see the one in front of you. The pace of the rabbi is usually slow, because you have to have time to see people. If your whole life is a frenzy of work, ask the Lord if that is what He has for you. Then James lands on hope. When the world feels broken and God feels still, be patient and stand firm, the way a farmer waits for the autumn and spring rains. The Lord’s coming is near. There is not a single wrong that Jesus will not right. This week, see the One who sees you. Then go see the one in front of you. Scripture References: James 5:1-8 (Warning to oppressive wealth; behold; the cries of the harvesters; be patient until the Lord’s coming)Genesis 16 (Hagar in the desert; the God who sees me)John 4 (The woman at the well; Jesus sees the outsider)John 14:9 (Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father)Mark 10:46-52 (Blind Bartimaeus; Jesus stops and hears)Romans 6:23 (The wages of sin is death; the gift of God is eternal life)John 17:22-23 (Loved even as You have loved Me)Romans 8:38-39 (Nothing can separate us from the love of God)1 John 3:1 (See what great love the Father has lavished on us)1 Corinthians 3:7-9 (We are co-workers in God’s service)Genesis 1:28 (Created to rule and steward)Matthew 22:34-40 (Love God; love your neighbor as yourself)Mark 12:41-44 (The widow’s two coins)

  7. Jun 14

    James : Steward Today

    You are a mist. James does not ease into the back half of chapter 4. He looks at our five-year plans, our savings accounts, our carefully mapped futures, and he says it plainly. You do not even know what will happen tomorrow. You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. The problem is not planning. Work hard. Make the plan. The problem is assuming we are the ones in control of the future. And here is the honest part. We do not reach for control because we are arrogant. We reach for it because we are afraid. We want certainty. We want predictability. We want safety. So we build the plan and we tell ourselves we are secure. Then something fails, because it will, and we no longer know how to live. Control is an illusion. And the things we cannot surrender are the things we are worshiping. An idol is anything we trust to save us. The savings we think will keep us from ever going without. The relationship we think will keep us from ever being alone. Whatever you cannot open your hands around, look there. Then James hands us a picture. The rich man in Luke 12 had a full harvest, and his first thought was to tear down his barns and build bigger ones. When abundance comes, our invitation is not to store it. It is to steward it. God, who can I give this to? Consider the ravens. They do not store, and He feeds them. Seek His kingdom, and the rest is added. Pastor Abbie pressed the line we love to hide behind. “If it is the Lord’s will.” That is not a cop-out for laziness. The Lord’s will is already plain. Love the people in front of you. Forgive. Feed the hungry. Share Jesus. You do not need a dramatic vision to obey. The world needs everyday people showing up to work, walking their block, treating the waitstaff a little bit different. Which lands on James 4:17. Anyone who knows the good they ought to do and does not do it, that is the miss. Knowledge alone does not transform us. We know we should forgive. We know we should pray. We do not do it. Transformation comes when truth moves from information into practice. You do not learn to ride a bike by reading about it. You get on the bike. So here is the invitation. Steward today. Trust God with tomorrow. You cannot control tomorrow, but you can control how you steward this day. Open your hands. Scripture References: James 4:13-17 (Boasting about tomorrow; you are a mist; if it is the Lord’s will; knowing the good and not doing it)Luke 12:13-31 (The parable of the rich fool; consider the ravens and the wildflowers; seek His kingdom)Matthew 6:19-34 (Store up treasures in heaven; do not worry; seek first the kingdom of God)John 15:5 (Apart from Me you can do nothing)

  8. Jun 7

    James : Draw Near

    James doesn’t open chapter 4 by pointing at your enemies. He points at you. What causes the fights? The quarrels? The resentment that won’t leave? James says it starts with the desires battling within you. Not your coworker. Not the person in your family who keeps showing up in your head. Within you. That is the harder answer. It is easier to name an enemy outside. But James presses us to look at the war within first. He takes it further. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. Wrong desires produce wrong prayers. What you bring to God in prayer reveals what you are actually chasing. That is worth sitting with. Then he uses language that shocked his original readers. He calls them adulterous people. Not because they had all literally committed adultery, but because throughout Scripture, God describes His relationship with His people as a covenant. Unfaithfulness to God is like unfaithfulness in marriage. When we pursue friendship with pride, status, and self-sufficiency, we are choosing against Him. James names three layers of division the enemy works to create. Division within us, conflict rooted in unchecked desire. Division from God, the quiet drift that happens when we start preferring the world’s values to His. Division between people, the slander, the gossip, the words used to shape how others see someone. Then James turns it. He gives us the antidote. Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. There is a period after that last sentence. Not an explanation. Not a condition. The promise stands on its own. You draw near. He draws near. But James is specific about how. He does not say believe harder. He says wash your hands. Purify your hearts. Grieve. Mourn. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up. That word grieve matters. Faith is not pretending. It is not performing happiness over real pain. It is bringing your whole self to God: the grief, the disappointment, the confusion, the regret. God can handle your honesty. The Psalms are full of it. After you resist, do not obsess. The devil wants your attention. We illuminate what we fixate on. James says resist, then run toward Jesus. That is repentance in its simplest form. Turn from. Turn toward. Jesus said it plainly in Matthew 11:28. Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Not come when you have got it together. Come now. Come weary. Come broken. The division is real, within you, from God, with others. But the antidote is already available. Draw near. And He comes closer. Scripture References: James 4:1-12 (Desires at war; submit to God; resist the devil; draw near to God; do not slander one another)Proverbs 4:23 (Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it)Proverbs 18:21 (The tongue has the power of life and death)Proverbs 12:18 (The tongue of the wise brings healing)Matthew 5:9 (Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God)Matthew 11:28 (Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest)

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CREATING THE CULTURE OF CHRIST IN MADISON, WI The New Culture Church podcast is packed full of great sermon content from New Culture Church in Madison, WI. Be part of a welcoming community that values real conversations, personal growth, and making a positive impact. Subscribe now to explore life's big questions and find meaningful connections.

Information

  • Creator
    New Culture Church
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    193
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © New Culture Church
  • Show Website
    New Culture Church