New Story Church Paul D. Anderson

If you think that life is a problem that you can solve, you're in trouble. In Psalm 2, we're faced with the reality that if it's up to us to fix ourselves or save our world, we are hopeless. But we're not hopeless. It's not all up to us. The hope of God's people is that the God's King would do what we cannot do. In this Psalm, we explore how surrendering control of our lives is not a barrier to the life we want, but it is the way into life with God.

The editors of the Psalms knew how hard it is to pray. They felt it too. So, when we open up the Book of Psalms, we find that they don’t force us to jump right into prayer as though that’s an easy leap to make. Instead, they give us two Psalms to help us enter into prayer: Psalm 1 & 2. These two Psalms do not shy away from the difficulties we will face. It won't be easy. But it will be blessed. We might not be where we want to be. But God will meet us there too. This week, Psalm 1 gives us the secret to a prayer life that can flourish no matter what: prayer begins with listening.

If you ask Christians down through the ages: "How do I move forward in my walk with God?" They will say (over & over & over again): "The Psalms. You need to pray the Psalms." And this feels like a reasonable answer... until you start praying those Psalms about hating people or about the coronation of a king or the one about smashing the teeth of mine enemies. Yeah. Awkward. In this message, we're going to try to figure out what's going on in the Psalms... and why everyone down through the ages seems to think that if we want to move forward on our journey with God, then we really need to learn how to pray these prayers.

Today, we celebrate the greatest day in history, Resurrection Sunday! Today's Message: An Easter Story about Doubt. John 20:24-31 We’re not the type of church to have a patron saint, but, if we were, ours would have to be "Doubting Thomas." We live in an age of unrelenting doubt. It infects and affects us all. This Easter, we will look at the story of Thomas, the disciple who heard the resurrection story and then declared: "I will not believe." This is a story that confronts us with some deeply personal questions: Where do my doubts come from? What do I do with my doubts? How do my doubts fit into my journey with God?

Sometimes you can get it all right, and still get it all wrong. One of the occupational hazards of discipleship is doing the right things for the wrong reasons. In this second Lenten meditation from the Gospel of Luke, guest speaker, Duffy Robbins helps us to consider how easy it is to completely miss the point of the discipleship relationship with Jesus.

What does it mean to be Jesus' disciple? Is it about church membership? Sunday attendance? Being in a small group? Wearing Christian shirts and bracelets? In a special two-week Lenten study from the Gospel of Luke, guest preacher, Duffy Robbins will help us "define the relationship".