Word Of Life Church Podcast

John the Baptist called on Israel to repent in preparation for the Messiah. When people began asking what it was they should do, everything John said had to do with money. When you are willing to rethink what you do with your money... you've repented! John doesn't mention any other sins, but he continually stresses economic repentance. Why? Because he is trying to prepare a people who will follow Messiah into a new kingdom. The greatest obstacle to entering the kingdom of God is the tyranny of economic self-interest.

God did not suddenly appear on the earth in human form one day. He came just as every other human did: He was born to a mother as an infant, and grew through childhood and into an adult. But the Bible tells us very little about Jesus' childhood life. The only account of his life between infancy and age thirty is found in the book of Luke, in which a 12-year-old Jesus is "lost" at the Temple in Jerusalem. And when Mary and Joseph finally find Jesus safe in the Temple, it is there that we hear the first recorded words of Jesus, when he says "Why are you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" Although Jesus was speaking to his parents, he could very well be speaking to each one of us, "Why are you looking for me?" We seek after God in church buildings on Sundays, not because Jesus is lost, but because WE are lost. And we believe that Jesus knows the way!

When God became Man and came to the earth, he experienced the fullness of humanity. He didn't merely just appear as a man. He was born as a helpless baby, lived a life as a man in the Roman occupied territory of Israel, and died. Jesus became Immanual, God with us, so that he might give us a new way of being human. He came that he might lead us beyond the ways of death into life and resurrection. As humans, we are indeed a violent species. From Cain killing Abel, to Auschwitz, to Hiroshima, to Sandy Hook Elementary School, we have been born into violence. Born on the first Christmas, the Prince of Peace offers us a better way.

What kind of news would make you literally leap for joy, jump up and down, and throw your hat in the air? The end of a long war? The fall of the Berlin Wall? Winning the lottery jackpot? Being cured of cancer? When war ends and tyranny topples, when prosperity comes and sickness goes, that is good news! And this is the kind of good news that Mary and Elizabeth celebrate together. These two poor and oppressed Jewish women, living in an occupied land, are both pregnant with children that angels have prophesied great things over. They are overflowing with joy because they believe something is about to happen. They believe God is about to act and launch a revolution through their two sons. The coming revolution is the kingdom of God: God's way of running the world.

What a mystery the mother of Jesus is. Mary is the human, the woman, through whom God enters and takes on humanity. Mary is a mystery because she's intimately connected with the greatest mystery of all: The Incarnation. In Christ God became fully human and Jesus is fully human as you! The story of Jesus begins in earnest with the Annunciation, the angelic announcement to a young virgin that she would bare a son named Jesus, called the Son of God. Mary is poor and obscure. She is an utterly insignificant peasant in the nowhere of Nazareth. But now an angel is telling a peasant girl that the true Son of God is going to enter the world in poverty; it's not the economy that matters most, but the reign of God. When the angel Gabriel begins the Annunciation to Mary, he begins with the message "Rejoice!" We might say this is the proper beginning of the New Testament. The long, dark night is at last coming to an end and it's time to Rejoice! God is keeping his promise to bless the world though the seed of Abraham, Re

We shouldn't ever think that Jesus just popped into history 2,000 years ago out of nowhere. Jesus is the continuation of a story that began a very long time ago with Abraham & Israel. With the birth of Jesus God is not starting over. God is keeping his promise to bless the world with the seed of Abraham and to rule the world with the Son of David. And in Luke's Gospel, he is telling the story of how Israel's Messiah became the king of the world. In Jesus Christ we are offered the forgiveness of sins, the promise of everlasting life, and the way of peace. This is the salvation of the Lord.

Pastor Brian Zahnd concludes his two-month series on climbing the Mountains of God with the "Mount Everest of the Gospels", the Mount of Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are not commands, but portals to a new way of thinking. They are not platitudes, but paradoxes. The Beatitudes are the Preamble to the Constitution of the Government of God. The government of God is nothing like the governments of this age. If we can become a people formed by the Beatitudes, what would happen? We will receive comfort and mercy. We will see God and be called the children of God. We will be persecuted. But we will receive the kingdom and we will inherit the earth.

One of the most fascinating stories in the Gospels is the account of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Along with his birth and his crucifixion and resurrection, the Transfiguration is one of the most important events in the life of Jesus. It is packed with mystery and meaning. In the Transfiguration, we are able to see Jesus' divinity shining through his humanity. The flesh of Jesus is human flesh, but it is also divine flesh. Jesus is not "absorbing" or reflecting glory, like the story of Moses on Mount Sinai. The glory shining from Jesus comes from within. If you will climb the mountain and gaze at the glory of God in the face of Christ, you will experience your own transfiguration, a spiritual metamorphosis. And this is what this Christian thing is all about! To become like Jesus! The goal of the Christian life is not to go to heaven when you die, but rather to become like Jesus now!

The Bible never hides the humanity of its heroes. Noah, Abraham, David all have incredible failures recorded in the Bible. Even the prophet Elijah, known best for praying fire down from heaven, is shown curled up and a tree praying to die. Elijah believed it was up to him to save all of Israel, and he believed he was on his own. But God showed him he wasn;t the only one left. In fact, there were over 7,000 other faithful worshipers. You can't do walk the Christian journey alone, you can't make it on your own. Sometimes you need to be on the mountain of God deep in prayer, but sometimes you need to get off the mountain and go find a friend. In the long run there's probably nothing more important than friendship. However important you think friendship is, God would probably tell you it's even more important. And whatever it is that you are sacrificing your friendships for in order to achieve, is probably not worth it in the long run. Elijah thought his zealous work for God was the most important thing, but with

On the 31st anniversary of Word of Life Church, Pastor Brian Zahnd tells the story of back-to-back days standing atop Mount Sinai in Egypt and Mars Hill in Greece. To do so is not easy, and would not have even been possible in the days before jet travel. But it was an experience filled with prophetic symbolism and was an indication what the next five years would hold for Word of Life Church.Moses also climbed Mount Sinai, and it is the place where he received the 10 Commandments from the Lord. This was the Law, written by the finger of God on two stone tablets. The purpose of the law is to produce justice and a worshiping society; to learn how to worship God in order to treat people right. Jesus tells us on the Mount of Beatitudes that he did not come to abolish the Law, he came, rather, in order to fulfill it. The entire Sermon on the Mount is about the whole Law summed up in two commandments: To love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is the Jesus Way. This is what God's des

Our mission as the Church (to preach, baptize, make disciples, teach, do theology) flows from our worship. Why do we preach the gospel, make disciples, teach, do theology, build churches, care for the sick and poor? Because we worship the true and living God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything we do as a church flows from our identity as a worshiping people. Worship is central, primary, formative, and it is essential. Our attitude when we gather together on Sunday mornings should be that we are disciples intending to worship, not consumers needing to be entertained. One of the worst ways to evaluate worship is by how it makes you feel. The purpose of worship is not to make you feel something (it's not about you, afterall), but rather, the purpose of worship is to properly relate to God and be properly formed. On Sunday mornings when we gather as a corporate body, we will be faithful, intentional, thoughtful, and thankful. And we will remember, everything we do as a church flows from our identity a

Guest speaker Brad Jersak from Abbotsford, British Columbia, paints of picture with words of God's dream for humanity and the Kingdom of God as described in Isaiah in a message inspired by by Tom Sine's Mustard Seed Conspiracy.

Mountains are a classic metaphor for prayer. A lot of praying in the Bible happens on mountaintops. Once, when Jesus was praying on a Galilean mountain, his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. So Jesus did what all Jewish rabbis did to teach their disciples how to pray, He gave them a prayer to pray. He didn't teach on abstract concepts or sentimental ideas, he gave them a specific prayer. Without being taught how to properly pray, we simply recycle and reinforce our own fears, desires, and misguided opinions. We never make any actual progress; we just keep trying to get God to do what we would do. We try to manage God. It is a pagan concept of prayer to attempt to cajole God into doing what we want. The Christian concept of prayer is that we need to be transformed by God. The primary purpose of prayer is not to advise or manage God, but to be properly formed.

In Christ we have come to the mountain of God. And God, much like a mountain, is far too vast to be comprehended from one perspective. If you want to have a full conception of the living God, you need more than one perspective! To have more than one perspective of a mountain, you need to traverse the mountain, to climb on it. Of course, it's not easy. Mountain climbing is never easy. It's difficult and demanding; dangerous in places, scary at times; and seeking to understand God is the same way. But you can do it. And it's worth it!

In the final track of the 2012 edition of Finding God on Your iPod, Pastor Brian Zahnd examines the vision of Jesus and Paul for a new humanity, gathered together into one flock with Jesus as the shepherd; A humanity in Christ that learns to kill the hostility instead of kill one another. From this text, Pastor Brian is able to offer a prophetic critique of the systematic destruction of the indigenous peoples and cultures of North America in the name of Manifest Destiny. "Manifest Destiny" was an American self-delusion justifying the systematic destruction of indigenous peoples and cultures in the name of "progress."

Jesus taught that lamp of our being is the eye. We can have bright eyes or dark eyes. How we look at life has a lot to do with whether our soul is filled with darkness or light. We can look at life with squinty-eyed greed, calculation, and cynicism. Or we can look at life with wide-eyed wonder, love, and acceptance. After four years, Bob Dylan finally makes an appearance in Finding God On Your iPod - the song and the sermon are called Dark Eyes.

The satan is the spirit of accusation, especially fear-based accusation. When people feel threatened in some way, such as their security, their worldview, or their ideology, they tend to channel that negative vibe into an accusation of someone else. This is the scapegoat phenomenon. Instead of allowing the spirit of faith, hope, and love to control them, they seek to dispel the negative feelings by transferring it through accusation. This is the primary work of satan. And it is the opposite of the work of the Holy Spirit! The way you deal with accusation is not to lash out, but rather, to forgive, and when possible, help people see what they are doing. You cannot let unjust accusation turn into self-accusation. That's the devil in your head. In the song Negative Vibes by Irish singer-songwriter Damien Dempsey, he addressing his critics and the spirit of accusation when he sings "I'm never going to let your negative vibes and comments get through to my psyche and cripple me."

For a long time God has been trying to communicate his self-revelation to humanity. We must realize that Jesus is the exact imprint of God's nature-the perfect, eternal Word of God! Everything we know and believe must be reconsidered in the last days in the light of God's final word- Jesus Christ! Jesus is the revelation of truth that is superior even to Scripture. Jesus Christ is God's final world to humanity, and Jesus Christ is God's final word to YOU!

Pain in the great equalizer. We have all felt pain of one kind or another, but we do not have to bear it alone. We can take our brokenness to Christ and experience healing of body and soul. Healing and recovery is a part of the life story of Johnny Cash, a true American icon. Six months before his death, he recorded the song "Hurt" originally written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. In this song, Johnny Cash sings in mournful regret of the hurt he caused others through a life in turmoil. While he created a lot of hurt through his life-long struggle with addiction, he experienced healing and wholeness as he chose to live in the kingdom of God. As the story of Johnny Cash demonstrates, God did not turn an blind eye to our suffering, but chose to enter into suffering humanity so that by his wounds we can be healed.

We are God's workmanship, his poem, created in Christ Jesus. God is not a machine mass-producing religious experience industrial style. God is an artist. We are his work of art and we move the life with the grace of Christ. We should desire to be a work of art. This is the longing in The Guggenheim Grotto song, "Philosophia". As we engage our lives with Jesus Christ, the redemptive result is poetic. Our lives gain a graceful structure and poetic expression that is beautiful. Jesus is the poet who can rearrange the logos of our life, the words that tell our story, and do it in such a way that our life becomes a beautiful poem. For your life to be a work of art, for you life to become a graceful poem, the place to begin is to give your life over to the great Artist, the great Poet.