What bigger story explains reality and informs your daily life?
Today, we're in a culture in search of meaning, from new age crystals to political talk shows, we’re filtering through a cloud of ideologies The ancient city of Colossae had a culture like that. They were a people enticed to embrace a concoction of superstitious ideas. Dig into Colossians with us. Let it cut through the confusion toward clarity in Christ.
The Garden is a church for skeptics and saints, a church where your bartender could get baptized, where broken marriages are restored, and the last person you'd see in church being lit on fire by the hope of the Gospel. A church that's not bashful about truth, enthusiastic about sound theology but that equally envisions the whole city renewed by the beauty of the Gospel.
For thousands of years Christians have clung to, studied, presented, preached, and even died for the Gospel. So, what makes the Gospel so very valuable to so many billions of people through history? What is it about this story that has stirred hearts, started wars, and flipped the world upside down? And if it's that valuable, don't you and I need it? In this message Nolan Tjaden walks through the beauty and the urgency of the Gospel.
How do you grow as a Christian? Are their tools? What does the Bible teach about increasing depth and maturity? In Colossians 2:1-5 Paul describes his desire to affirm, anchor, alert, and assure the believers in the Gospel. So, in this teaching, Justin Doyle who leads many of our teams at The Garden, will affirm, anchor, alert, and assure you in the Gospel of Jesus.
You live in a world demanding allegiance to ideas that, if what the bible teaches is true, followers of Jesus simply cannot affirm. Like it or not, walking closely with Jesus requires resisting un-biblical thinking. Christians are called to stay rooted in a world progressing into insanity.
Religion minimizes God to a mere cosmic vending machine and cheapens the christian life to a game of rule following creating in us either pride or despair. But knowing Jesus is something quite the opposite. It's being captured by the love of God who is loyal to the unfaithful. Listen to this teaching by Nolan Tjaden to learn about the difference between the Gospel and Religion from Colossians 2:11-23
If you got a second chance at life life, how would you live differently? Salvation--or becoming a Christian--is being given a new life. It's is an even more profound shift than being raised from physical death. In a real and spiritual way, when you become a Christian, you receive a brand new life. You have been raised from the dead with Christ. So, you've become a Christian, now what? Nolan Tjaden unpacks what Paul teaches in Colossians 3:1-17 about living a resurrected life.
Society looks like it’s falling apart around us. But that started with the disintegration of home first. Strong marriages are the stability of a society. In fact, the most powerful witness to Jesus we could offer to the West Valley is redeemed marriages that reflect Jesus.
At the end of the book of Colossians 4:2-18 we see Paul charge the church to fulfill their ministry. We too need to fulfill our call to advance the Kingdom. But how? He shares two things that can help us as we do: 01. The Power of Kingdom Prayer 02. The People who advanced God's Plan
