Generations Community Church Max Vanderpool

This sermon is not an admonishment to “be like Nehemiah.” However, LIKE Nehemiah, when you name what is broken and insist on changing it – you’re going to face PUSHBACK. Count on it. Expect it. It’s going to happen. But know that God deals with the truth (way things ARE) – and it’s much easier to fix or address anything in the light. In this message, Max Vanderpool continues our summer series on the Book of Nehemiah - and the idea that you can never go home again.

Often, you find yourself in circumstances you did NOT choose. And, for Americans (who LOVE choice and freedom), this is tough. Because there is so much to your life you do NOT get to choose. Nehemiah faced that. But what if you find yourself in circumstances you didn't choose and that don't feel like they are taking you anywhere? What then? What do you do when it feels like nothing is happening? You wait. In this message, Max Vanderpool talks about the waiting we ALL experience in life - and what to expect from God when you're waiting.

At some point in our adult lives, we develop a strong desire, a longing, to "go home again." It's a desire for safety and comfort, a desire to know and be known, a desire to things to be right and as they should be. Unfortunately, none of us can EVER go home again. So what's a person to do? What do you do with the gap between the way things are and the way things should be? Max Vanderpools starts off this study of Nehemiah and the desire we all develop (over our lives) to return home.

Historian Noah Harari says that "nations are built on stories." As Americans, we know this to be true. Think of George Washington and the cherry tree or Paul Revere and his ride through towns shouting, "The British are coming." And just as nations are built on stories, so are God's people (Israel and now the Church) and so are we as individuals. So what is the dominant story of YOUR life? What story do you live under? And what kinds of emotions does this story tend to evoke out of you? In this message, Max Vanderpool traces the ways in which Jesus reframes the story his disciples were telling in the wake of Jesus's death - from Luke 24 - and we have a better (and TRUE) story to tell.

You are going to have MOMENTS and SEASONS of your life when you are on the Road to Emmaus, when you don’t SEE Jesus on the road you're traveling. And you're going to be tempted to say that faith no longer works or that God isn't who you thought (loving, involved, etc.). So what do you? What do you do when you can’t see (or recognize) Jesus on the road? In this message, Max Vanderpool shares his journey of early 2024 - and what NOT to do when you can't see Jesus.

There are often small ways in which we physically reflect one or both of our parents. Hair color. Freckles. The way we smile (or laugh at a joke). Mannerisms, too, can put us in territory where someone will say to us, "Boy, do you remind me of your father." Part of what it means to be human is to reflect - or image - our Creator. But, as Scripture and experience teach us, we often choose to reflect other things - and those things and those reflections often bring about ruin and death. In this message, Josh Lanier unpacks why confession matters - and how honesty with one another can help us relect our Heavenly Father to each other and the world around us.