Soma Spokane Sermons

One of the questions that have driven us as a church for years is this: If we can’t do all the formal church things - services, sermons, events, classes - would our people still know how to be the church? We’ve worked to equip, train and live into this for the last 15 years, and now we have an incredible opportunity to put into practice all that we have learned! You are gospel-formed people, able to be steady and grounded in the midst of uncertain times; you are already being the church, connected in life-shaping relationships, living as a family of servants and missionaries; and you are equipped to be disciple-makers in the everyday stuff of life. Now is the time to be the church, and we’re pivoting away from Planted in order to call, equip, and release you to the opportunity this pandemic has created. We’ll return to Planted, fundraising, and facilities when the time is right; for now, let’s put our time, talent, and treasure into being the church of Jesus!

Over the next 2 years, we’re hoping to raise $1 million above our regular budget for the vision of Planted. That’s a wild and audacious goal, and we’re asking the whole Soma family to participate. But to be honest, fundraising is a really strange part of ministry, and can get really confusing for everyone involved. In this section we see Paul trying to walk a fine line as he raises funds for the ministry need in Jerusalem. While it is necessary for him to share the need and equip the Corinthians for financial generosity, he doesn’t want to manipulate or coerce them, as that would entirely miss the point. He really believes that generosity is a result of genuine love for Jesus, echoing Jesus’ words about how what we do with our treasure reveals the state of our hearts. Once we have the right heart motivations in place, we’re ready to start taking practical steps toward greater generosity. Joyful generosity involves looking at our abundance, planning proactively so we are ready to give willingly and freely as o

After 15 fruitful years of being a family on mission, we’re ready to make a faith-filled journey toward permanent facilities. Our goal is to lean into being a long-term disciple-making presence in our region and beyond, and so we’re dreaming together and raising the funds we need to make it happen. To that end, we’re asking the Soma family to spend a month considering the biblical teaching on generosity and to make a 2-year financial commitment to the vision of Planted. Our aim is to grow into sacrificial and joyful generosity, rooted in personal experience of the sacrificial generosity of Jesus Christ. Without deep knowledge of his work for you - all he gave up on your behalf, and all you’ve been given in him - living a life of generosity will never make any sense. Paul urges us to reflect on the grace of Jesus until we’re transformed, leading to a radical, sacrificial, and joyful lifestyle of generosity.

Over the month of February, we're encouraging the whole church to take stock of their current growth as disciples and make a plan to lean in to Jesus, to community, and to being equipped in 2020 as a disciple-maker. By making simple goals around 4 key practices - Gather, Go, Grow, and Give - you can lean toward maturity in Christ. This week, we look at our second biblical practice, Go, considering how we are engaging with community and everyday ministry. In Philippians 1.27-30, Paul encourages the church to put the gospel on display in their inward-facing unity around Jesus and their outward-facing mission for Jesus.

This Sunday we’re launching a short series called “Next Steps,” designed to help us all think through where we’re at with Jesus and what He's calling us to in 2020. Our Priorities as a church are clear - gospel formation, life in community, and everyday mission - and we’re committed to orienting our lives around them. But how we actually do that can sometimes be a little muddier. So, over the coming weeks, we’re going to walk through 4 Practices that help us live our Priorities. This Sunday we’ll talk about Gather, looking at why we meet on Sundays, what participation looks like, and how you can use your gifts in the context of the church at worship.

We’re wrapping up our Lord’s Prayer series this Sunday, and we’re commissioning Joel & Estie Parris and the Doxa Church team. Joel and Steve walk us through an overview of where we’ve been in this prayer and create some space for us to practice praying together. In addition, we’ll learn about the Lord’s Prayer Doxology (‘Yours is the kingdom…”). While it isn’t original to the prayer, it has both biblical and historical validity, and it helps us end in confident praise and eager anticipation of the final restoration of all things. God is going to fill this world with his glory and kingdom, forever and ever - and that’s why we plant churches (cue the Doxa team…!).

Like a ship set to sea with no certainty of easy sailing, we move through life with the cruel reality of pain and difficulty. We need guidance and often require deliverance. This is not so much a prayer for safety and security but is instead a prayer for the alignment of God’s purposes in our experiences. This petition is an appeal for God to use the pain of life to build something beautiful, rather than let evil destroy us. It is a prayer of submission to God’s plan, come what may. Our journey may include crashing through treacherous waves but we pray he will deliver us to the still waters of deep harbors.

Does prayer work? Most people can point to places in their life where they've felt like prayer doesn't work - things we've asked for, prayed diligently about, and pleaded with God to do have not happened. What do we make of that? In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus urges us to make our needs known (give us this day!), but also shows us where personal requests fit in the larger work of prayer. We're not making requests of a genie in a bottle but of our good and trustworthy Father, and expressing our needs comes after we've aligned ourselves with his kingdom and will. The flow of the prayer is intentional, and as we learn to follow it we'll see that indeed prayer always works!

This week we continue in our series on the Lord's prayer. This powerful prayer, modeled by Jesus to his disciples instructs us on how to pray. We are invited to pray to our "Heavenly Father" as we are the sons and daughters of the king. We also are reminded that God is "hallowed" and that there is none that compares to him in all the earth. We will consider the question of whether or not we truly long for the Kingdom of God to come to earth. Together we will spend time considering what the kingdom is about, what our part is in bringing the kingdom, and lastly what does it look like when the kingdom of God breaks into our world.

The Lord's Prayer is, simultaneously, the simplest form of prayer and the deepest expression of prayer's meaning. Simple enough for a child to memorize, the prayer gives us the basic content of every true Christian prayer. Over the month of January, we'll unpack what Jesus means by this prayer, practice it alone and together, and lean toward becoming a praying church. This week we look at 2 pathologies of prayer (religious and pagan praying) before unpacking the first phrase of the prayer itself. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name" tells us both with whom and to whom we pray, as well as directing us toward the real hope of all Christian praying. Check out this link and join us for a week of prayer: somaspokane.org/prayer

The holidays are prone to sentimentalism, that warm fuzzy feeling that lit trees, cute family Christmas cards, and stockings hung by crackling fires brings us. And because the Christmas story is so familiar, it is really hard for it to be for us anything more than emotional warmth. But the first Christmas was not sentimental in the least: an unwed teen with an unplanned pregnancy gave birth in a barn, poor and rejected and alone, with nothing but strips of cloth and a manger for her newborn. And in that barn 2000 years ago God broke into our world to do something that forever changed the course of history and ushered in a whole new possibility between men and God: Good news for all people, in and through Jesus, the Savior, Anointed King, and Sovereign Lord!

The holiday season has a very particular set of songs and melodies, and they range from some of the richest theology to some of the most banal sentimentalities. One minute we're singing "born that men no more may die," and the next minute we're singing "I saw mommy kissing Santa Clause." Huh? Mary, the mother of Jesus, wrote the first ever Christmas song, and in it she declares how her soul was set ablaze by the message of Christmas. As we look at her song, we'll see how the Christmas message ought to lead us all to lasting joy.

Last week we looked at changing our hopes from what our culture promises and surrounds us with, to Emmanuel, God with us, and to Jesus, Our God saves. This week we will continue handling the holidays and the magic of Christmas by looking for more permanent magic. In Luke 1:26-33, Gabriel the angel comes and announces the birth of the long awaited Messiah, the Eternal King. The conclusion of our passage is to have our practices (celebrations) celebrate this Eternal King and to seek His presence.

We come into Thanksgiving and then into Christmas with high hopes - for depth of connection with our loved ones, to give or receive gifts that mean something, to feel that life isn’t just mundane and hard all the time. And while we sometimes catch glimpses of all that (thank God!) the reality is that “the holidays” rarely feel very holy, our gatherings don’t quite bring the joy for which we long, and (if we’re honest) we’re still the same old schmucks we were last year (ok, maybe that’s just me!). In any regard, whether you’re a Grinch or a Cindy Lou Who, handling the holidays is no easy feat. So, all December we’re looking at the songs and stories of the very first Christmas, and returning again to the Savior King who brings the holy into the everyday.

God’s dream for the world is that every nook and cranny of His creation would know and enjoy Him forever. “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2.14). To that end, we’re calling and equipping every disciple to our biblical Priorities of Gospel Formation, Life In Community, and Everyday Mission. In our wrap-up to this series, we look at 4 Key Practices - Gather, Go, Grow, and Give - and how they help us get our Priorities to the ground. While we don’t have membership, committing together to these 4 Practices is how we partner for the sake of the Gospel in our church, region, and the world.1. Read Titus 2.11-15. What has struck you most about this text as we’ve soaked in it over the last 10 weeks?2. Take some time to review where we’ve been in Basics. Consider the riches of the Gospel and all that is ours in Jesus. Remember your baptism into the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, and reacquaint yourself with what it means to be part of a F