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Passover to Pass Over

27 Jun , 2016 No Comments

This weekend I preached the fourth installment of our Pixelated series at Central and looked specifically at the Passover. It’s fascinating that Jesus takes a tradition nearly 1500 years in the making (and practicing) and points the entire thing at Himself. It’s yet another example of how He views the entire Old Testament as a sign to Himself. (See: John 5:39-40). I unpacked how the blood reminds us we cannot save ourselves. Or said differently, you are not the solution to your problems.

“You are not the solution to your problems.”

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And you can click here to watch another Facebook Live video we did going through questions you guys asked about this week’s message.

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In All Things God

20 Jun , 2016 No Comments

This weekend I preached the third message in our summer series at Central called Pixelated. So far we’ve covered the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), the stairway to heaven (Genesis 28), and this week we hit the story of Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 50). Each of these stories illuminates Jesus for us in new ways. In the above video from this weekend I tackled a heavy topic but encouraged us all that when things look their worst, Jesus is at His best.

“When things look their worst, Jesus is at His best.”

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Stairway to Heaven

13 Jun , 2016 No Comments

We rolled out week 2 of our summer series called Pixelated at Central this weekend. This series is looking at different passages in the Old Testament and showing us how they better show us Jesus. In the video above I explore the image of Jacob’s Ladder from Genesis 28 and encourage us not to miss God’s work to reach us because of our work to reach Him.

“Don’t miss God’s work to reach you because of your work to reach Him.”

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Like last week, we held another Facebook live event on Sunday night to discuss questions and go deeper into these concepts. Below you can see that video.

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Pride and Cowardice from Central Christian AZ on Vimeo.

Pride and Cowardice

06 Jun , 2016 No Comments

This weekend we started our summer series at Central called “Pixelated.” We are taking a look at Old Testament passages each week and seeing how they help illuminate Jesus for us since Jesus told us that all scripture points to Him (see: John 5:39). The first week showed us how the cross focuses God’s goodness over the blur of pride and fear. I talked about how your pride and fear will always cause the world to look pixelated.

“Your pride and fear will always cause the world (and Jesus) to look pixelated.”

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Stop “Shoulding” Yourself

Stop “Shoulding” Yourself

03 Jun , 2016 No Comments

My wife and I are both type-A perfectionists. However, we both work full time and we are neck deep in raising five young kids. This means our desire for doing things perfectly clashes abruptly against the daily challenges we attempt to tackle. I bet you can relate. I noticed something this week in the words that we use to one another. We constantly talk about what we “should have” done differently.

As in, now that we’ve seen how this turns out, we should have done it a different way.

As in, let’s try harder to do it better next time.

As in, we failed in perfectly planning this.

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The Irony of Evil

The Irony of Evil

20 May , 2016 No Comments

If you’re anything like me, you quickly get overwhelmed and even physically exhausted by story after story of evil happening in our world today. Previous generations lived without knowing the extent of evil worldwide while today our social media feed brings every encounter to our doorstep. It’s too much. Michelle and I talk about this often because we have enough examples of evil just through the people directly connected with us in life and what happens to them. Let alone the evil done across the globe.

It’s easy to lose sight of the goodness of Jesus in the midst of this. It’s even easy to doubt God’s sovereignty, although we rarely give words to those thoughts. Instead, we wonder why God continues to allow stuff like that. I read through Psalm chapter seven this week and found encouragement in the way King David addresses evil.

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