Stories of Impact: The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Living with an Open Hand

Matthew 18:21-35 

Forgiveness is an amazing gift. It’s humbling to receive something so beautiful that you could never earn, but that you can only receive as a gift. In the gospel we are told that God went to great expense to provide for us this amazing gift. Jesus told a story about a guy who received from a sovereign the gift of pardon, but failed to recognize how the privilege of receiving the gift related to the way he interacted with others. How can we meaningfully steward the powerful dynamic of forgiveness? A whole lot is at stake in the way we answer that question.

Pastor Tim Haugen

 

 

Stories of Impact: The Parable of the Rich Fool

Bottom Line
Luke 12:13-21

Money can have a curious grip on us. A craving for stuff can distort priorities and leave us with an insatiable desire for more. It happened to a guy in a story that Jesus told. He was an entrepreneur who planned carefully and focused his attention on increasing his accumulation. But he failed to plan for the one eventuality that touches all of us. What was it that he failed to recognize? Jesus said a LOT about money in His teaching. Through this parable, Jesus makes it clear that in the Kingdom of God, the “bottom line” is substantially distinct from Wall Street’s bottom line. Through His life and teaching, Jesus mercifully warns us about subtle captivity to stuff, and points us instead to true riches.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Stories of Impact: Refined Rebellion

Luke 15:11-32

Refined Rebellion

The parable of the prodigal son gives us great insight into the gospel, and how the gospel of Jesus stands in contrast to much of what we know about ‘religion.’ Rebellion can take on different forms.  In a hard-hitting fashion, Jesus helps us to see that aiming to be “good enough” can actually be a form of rebellion.  In fact, the notion that we must be “good enough” can not only lead to distance from God, but it can lead to anger and disconnection from God.  This is so counter-intuitive. The gospel is radical in the sense that it confounds many of our assumptions.  In Jesus story about a prodigal son, there is an older brother who we discover is also out of fellowship with the father – but for a very different reason than the younger son at the beginning of the story.  This week we consider the portion of the story related to the older son.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Stories of Impact: Restoration

Luke 15:11-32

In the Parable of the Prodigal Son Jesus includes three primary characters story – a younger son, and older son, and a father.  We will see that each of the characters represents someone.  This week we are going to look at the part of the story that focuses on the younger son.  As we look at the parable we are going to hear what Jesus has to say, through story, regarding the question, “What is God like?”

Pastor Tim Haugen

Legacy: Jonah and a Merciful God

Jonah 2-4

People matter to God.  All kinds of people matter to God – including people that we may be reluctant to love.  In this message, we are going to see how God in remarkable ways worked through even a reluctant prophet to unexplainably and powerfully transform a city.  Sadly, the prophet found no joy in it. Jonah hated the people in the city God loved.   Jonah’s legacy is enigmatic at best and maddening at worst.  Our desire is to take warning and learn what we can from Jonah’s hesitant faith and curious rebellion, because like Jonah, we are vulnerable to putting our preferences ahead of God’s desire.  In the end, God’s mercy prevails.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Legacy: Jonah and a Divine Interruption

 

Jonah 1:1-17

God loves us and wants to involve us in His redemptive objectives.  But what if God’s objectives and our preferences clash?  In the life of the Old Testament character, Jonah, that clash prompted him to run from God.  Even in his running, God was merciful as He pursued Jonah.  But there were some miserable days and nights as Jonah ran from God.  What can we learn from Jonah’s story about God, and about our own propensity to run from God when we don’t get our way?

Pastor Tim Haugen

Legacy: Daniel – Trusting God in the Place Where You Are

Daniel 6:1-23

Daniel started well, and Daniel finished well.  He was a man who lived the great majority of his life as an exile in a distant land.  He did not waver in his allegiance to God.  Daniel’s integrity had staying power.  When Daniel was thrown in the lion’s den, he was likely in his 80’s.  And yet in that undesirable place, he not only trusted God, but he experienced in rich measure the saving power of God.  Some of us may find ourselves today in life situations that are far from what we had hoped for in an earlier day.  God is ready to meet us right there – and to show us displays of His glory that we might otherwise miss.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Legacy: Daniel – God is Greater Than the Challenge You Face

Daniel 1:1-21

Few characters in the Bible lived as consistently with integrity as did Daniel.  From the time of his teens, he lived with a respectful, high view of God.  Though he could have been sulking through the disappointment of being exiled from his homeland, he instead lived with amazing resolve to honor God.  In Daniel 1, Daniel is a teenager.  On the stage of history, in his teen years, he was making choices to honor God that had huge implications.  He just was not going to be governed by fear.  He lived as though God was greater than the challenge he faced. On this Sunday, prior to coming to the communion table, we are going to watch a teenager boldly honor God – and we are also going to watch how God responded.  I am so hopeful that our middle school and high school students can be with us on this morning.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Prayer First – Only By Prayer

Mark 9:14-29

On this Father’s Day, we want to consider the story of a dad who was seeking help for his son.  The disciples were perplexed as to why they were so ineffective in responding to this dad’s appeal for help.  Jesus intervened and had a meaningful interchange with the dad, and then completely delivered the needy teenage son.  Afterward, the disciples had a debrief with Jesus.  In that debrief, Jesus shared a critically important axiom for life and for fruitful ministry in a world where there is spiritual battle going on.  Join us as we lean in and pay attention to what Jesus shared with his disciples.

Pastor Tim Haugen

Blessings Out of Brokenness: Brokenness Cultivates Great Faith

Matthew 15:21-28

Surprise gets our attention.  Jesus had a conversation with an unnamed Canaanite woman that was surprising.  This woman had come to Jesus on the behalf of her suffering daughter.  And the initial response of Jesus to the woman seems rather distant and even a bit dismissive.  Yet He was purposefully drawing out of the woman an expression of faith that was stunning.  Jesus called it, “great faith.”  In this passage we are going to see how the disposition of healthy internal brokenness cultivates “great faith.”  Though the term, brokenness, is not explicitly mentioned in this episode, the qualities of healthy brokenness are magnificently evident in this woman.  The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6), and that it is through the instrument of faith that we access the grace God wants us to receive and enjoy (Ephesians 2:8).  So in this passage, we want to give attention to the link between biblical “brokenness” and faith.

Pastor Tim Haugen