Renew Communities Teaching Podcast

We are living in a time of great despair and yet even now you can have Hope. Easter points us to that Hope – his name is Jesus. In Him, we find life in death, peace in worry, faith in doubt and salvation in suffering. This Easter we won’t just celebrate the resurrection as something that happened, but we will embrace the resurrected Jesus as the source of life, peace, faith, and salvation and learn how to take hold of Hope even now!

The direction Paul gives us is to take up “God’s armor” in order to fight the right fight. The first piece of armor we’re instructed to put on is the belt of truth. In this teaching we talk about why Truth matters so much in this fight and how to equip yourself with it.

There’s so much talk about having a war-time mentality which puts us in a mindset to fight. Paul encourages us as followers of Jesus to draw strength in the Lord and His power and reminds us that we are in a fight but it’s important that we fight the right fight and reminds us of the fights that we must avoid. This teaching will encourage and challenge you as you seek Jesus in the midst of our chaotic world.

In our first-ever online gathering we look In Joshua 1 where God has impressed upon Joshua that he needs to lead the people in strength and courage and so he approaches some of the men who will be making a way for Israel to move into the promised land. All RenewFM resources for kids are available at renewcommunities.com/news

In our final week of our Strength & Courage: Part 3 series we talk about ways to “practice the presence of God” in our everyday lives. We also talk about how to access the strength and courage he makes available to us through the Holy Spirit and we’ll spend some time practicing together through various forms of prayer and worship.

Have you ever wondered what gave the great men and women of God the strength to go and do all that God called them to do? The temptation is to think it had something to do with their abilities or giftings but if you look into the stories of these men and women you’ll find what made them strong and courageous is the time they spend in the presence of God and the connection they carried to Him as they moved forward. In week 2 of Strength & Courage, we talk about how the same thing the heroes of the faith did to enable them to follow God in strength and courage is available to us today.

Each of us has a great and important work to complete as part of God's Kingdom. The source of this strength and courage to fulfill the great and important work is found in prayer and the presence of God. In this week's teaching, we learn from Nehemiah what it takes to possess the qualities of an absolutely devoted and dependent servant of God.

All throughout the Bible you’ll find promises or guarantees about how reading, meditating and focusing on the Bible can impact your life. In week 3 of our focus on finding strength & courage in the Word of God we talk about why knowing and engaging the Bible can make you prosperous and successful and what that might look like in 2020. This is a challenging idea that should challenge you this week!

Mindfulness and meditation have become quite the trend in recent years in a way that’s capturing the imagination of our culture. This new trend is something that God has invited His people to participate in since the beginning and in Joshua 1 God tells this new leader that meditating on His Word will be a source of strength and courage. In this week's sermon, we talk about why this has such a powerful effect on our lives and how we can shift our attention from the things we’re naturally fixated on to focus our hearts and minds on Him.

God promises Joshua that by living according to His Word Joshua will find strength and courage as well as success and prospering. Even with this promise, there’s a temptation to go our own way or the way of the world and lose focus even when we think we’re doing things for God. In week 1 of our second movement of the Strength and Courage series, we discuss why we’re so easily tempted to go to the “right or the left” and how we can stay true to God’s Word by engaging it regularly.

In our final week focusing on the way the promises of God give us strength and courage we ask the question “how can we draw strength and courage by waiting on God?” Many of us are waiting for the fulfillment of a promise and in the waiting, we can be tempted to give up or give in. God himself is in the waiting with us, working on our heart and empowering us through it all. If you’re waiting on God for something this teaching will encourage you to not give up and let God work!

We spend much of our life looking for a purpose. We ask questions like “What’s my mission? Why am I here? What am I supposed to do?” One of the best insights we can gain from watching the life of Joshua is that through the relationship with the God of the Promise we find the mission He has made us for. Instead of having to manufacture something meaningful to live for we receive the opportunity to partner with God in what we know he’s already doing. This partnership instills strength and courage in even the most tentative of followers because when the mission is tied to the promise of God we can easily believe that the outcome is not dependant on me but on Him. Watch or listen as we introduce our partnership with Compassion International supporting a church led child development center in Oaxaca, Mexico.

There’s this old Christian statement that still gets said from time to time, “I may not know what the future holds but I know who holds the future.” We often say this when we need reassurance that some unknown circumstance is going to work out. The truth is our God does hold the future and while we may not know exactly how things are going to work out we have countless promises that we can depend on and countless examples of how God comes through on those promises.

When we truly understand who this hope bringer is we will fall on our knees. There are two reasons for a person to take this position. One is to worship and the other is to surrender. When we realize who this Jesus is we should do both. In our final week of our Thrill of Hope series, we’ll talk about how worship and surrender go hand in hand and how much hope there is in embracing the one who holds the future in His hands.

Jesus came to bring hope to the hopeless by breaking the chains that have so enslaved us. This hope isn’t just hope for us to experience but it’s a hope we get to share because anyone who’s been enslaved can relate to those who still are. Our job is to lift high the name of Jesus so that those who are overlooked and oppressed can be set free. In week 3 we talk about the role we play in this mission and the way to embrace our brothers and sisters who are still enslaved.

When you have hope after living without it for so long it feels like the whole world is new. With Jesus comes the birth of new possibilities is in every area of our life. In week two of our series, we talk about how our eternal hope can flood our present reality every single day.

The impact of sin on the world we live in is easy to miss. You may not think so because there’s so much around us that we see that’s broken but the very nature of our brokenness often causes us to think that the places we’re in error are actually how things are supposed to be. You never know how dark things are until the light shows up. The birth of Jesus reveals to us just how desperate our world - and we - are for a Savior to come and restore what we’ve broken.

The big question we’ve been asking for the last several weeks is “How are my finances shaping my heart?” The authors of True Riches say Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” He meant that wherever we send our money, our feelings and emotions will eventually go there too. In the final week of our series, we spend time talking about how we can partner with God in the things he cares about most and the impact it can have on our lives.

Most of our financial decisions are made out of fear of what might happen if we don’t have what we need. When we’re anxious about our financial future the only way we can view our finances is from a survival perspective but God has called us to see our finances as a way to make a difference in the world around us.

Do you know what is “enough for you?” What amount will make you truly happy or content? How much money is enough? How big of a house is enough? How nice of a car? How luxurious of a vacation? Or how much savings? In week 2 of our True Riches series, Matt Shetler of Lakewood Vineyard​ teaches that contentment isn't about what you have or own, it's about the posture of your heart.