Joy!cast

Pastor Alva Caldwell on 9/23/07   3rd in a series of 4 Reading from Acts 2:40-47  Rituals are an important aspect of living in community. Develop rituals and patterns that will strengthen your relationships

Pastor Scott Hackler on 9/16/07   2nd in a series of 4 Readings from 1Corinthians Chapter 12 Each person is important in God's eyes and vital to the well being of all.

Pastor Scott Hackler on 9/09/07   1st in a series of 4 Reading from Matthew 26:36-46  Commitment is essential for healthy families and friendships.

Pastor Scott Hackler (on right) invites an old friend to Joy!Fest (Rev. Prudencia is not pictured) with Pastor Herberto Prudencia on 8/19/07   When God provides rain Joy! people move the party indoors.  This years Joy!fest raised the roof at 749 Hunt club Rd. Over 400 school supplies packs were outfitted. Joy! ministry partner Segrado Corazon and Pastor Herberto Prudencia joined us for the day. William Smith and the Renewed Voices for Christ praised in music. Food and Fun were had by all. If you missed it you should plan better for next year!

Luke 12:32-40 “Don’t be anxious about your life? and “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.? We can have strong relationships with our things which can distort our priorities and values. You may have heard it said that we should “use things and love people.? However, in our culture we often “use people and love things.? This is not what God intends for us and Jesus gives us some clear direction in our reading. To Know: Our things can get in the way of our trust of God. To Feel: Calm confidence that God will provide all we need. To Do: Trust God, balanced laboring and resting, and seeking first the kingdom.

Have you ever realized that three of the commandments concern the use of our tongues? Makes you stop and consider that this must be something of importance! Our words have incredible power – to hurt, harm or to build up! God’s desire is that the words we speak would bring love into people’s lives – not hurt. Because our words are so powerful – we must be careful, careful, careful what we say! To Know: I have to be careful what I say – everywhere I am! To Feel: Compelled to be intentional about what I say. To Do: Choose this week to be over sensitive to what I say and to whom I say it! Make my words pleasing to God at all times!

Reading: Luke 10:25-37

Many people think this command is easy to keep because they have never actually murdered anyone, but Jesus points out to us that in our anger, we “kill? each other every day. Every time we speak out in anger, whenever we act out in anger, when we intentionally hurt someone else – we are doing exactly what we’re told not to do. God knew anger was a problem and would always be a problem for us and so here he takes time to help us!

Reading: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20Jesus widens his horizon of ministry from 12 to 70 and then sends them out together, in pairs, into the mission of the kingdom of God. Followers of Jesus are to go out into the world together, discern where they can be effective and then serve whole heartedly.To Know: We are a community called to serve. To Feel:  Each of us is called and gifted to serve.To Do: Go serve together.

Contrary to popular belief, this commandment is not just for kids! While we are to honor our parents, those who are parents are called to also be worthy of honor. And this command – is the only commandment with a promise – it is the hinge between the commandments about our relationship with God and our relationships with others. Our lives hinge on how we deal with this commandment because in knowing how to honor parents – we learn how to honor others as well. Tonight will also not only talk about honoring, but will teach us HOW to honor as well. To Know: What it means to honor someone in God’s eyes To Feel: Called to figure out ways to honor our parents – and others in our lives. To Do: Choose today someone you need to honor and have a hard time honoring…then make a plan to start honoring them today!

Ron Mehl writes, “…if you consistently dishonor the Sabbath principle in your life, somewhere along the line the bills will come due. Things will begin to break down in your life…? When we think of remembering the Sabbath often what we think of is focusing on God – and while this is certainly a part of this, there is a reason that God gives us a day to REST. Tonight we will look at the whys of and importance of Sabbath and the role it plays in our life! To Know: God calls us all to a day of rest EVERY week! To Feel: Relief and excitement at the gift that God is giving To Do: Choose to honor the Sabbath…by actually changing your calendar to give yourself a day of Sabbath each week. Do the hard work!

Reading: Luke 7:36—8:3 Jesus humbles the proud but is forgiving and accepting of those who come to him humbly. Basic Focus: Forgiveness. Humility. To Know: Jesus forgives the greatest sins of those who come to him. To Feel: Conviction for any lack of humility and relief that Jesus forgives our darkest sins. To Do: Confess sin…go to the feet of Jesus.

Tonight we will look at the truth that idols are anything which takes our focus off of God. Even the things which seem or are “good? – when they usurp God’s position in our lives, they become idols. We’ll challenge people to look at their own lives and name the idols they worship and then also remind them, that God tells us he wants our focus on him – not so he can see better when we mess up and be ready to jump on us – but rather He wants our focus on Him so that we will focus on what’s best for us – in this life and for eternity. To Know: We become like that which we worship To Feel: Desire to take stock of what gods I am worshiping that aren’t God and the willingness to get rid of them To Do:Take an active look at your life and answer this question: If everyone leaves an “Image? here on earth (and we do) – what image so I want mine to be? Then take the active steps towards doing just that!

When God penned the 10 commandments he gave us more than just “rules for living?. He actually was writing a profound love letter to us. These commandments are God’s way of telling us what he thinks, what he desires for us. Just as a father wants their own children to have the benefit of their wisdom, the experiences, etc – the same is true for God with us. Over the centuries this love letter has been turned into something critical, something unattainable – over the next few weeks we want to reclaim this as what it is – a love letter from a Father to his children. To Know: God penned one of the most profound love letters in the 10 Commandments To Feel: The depth of God’s love – that he would love us so much, he’d give us this letter to guide our lives To Do: Commit to discovering and living the 10 Commandments more fully

Reading: John 16:12-15The Spirit guides Jesus' followers along the path to truth.  It will be both convicting truth and the truth of hope in Jesus, which leads to a future without fear.  The Spirit declares the salvation brought by Jesus for all people.Basic Focus: The work of the Spirit. Truth. To Know: The Spirit is active in the life of a Jesus follower opening up the truth of Jesus.To Feel: Trust that it is for our good that we engage in the life of faith where the Spirit will lead us to truth.To Do: Seek the Spirit of truth through the practices of our faith. Willingly face our convictions and actively live in the truth of Jesus.

Reading:  John 14:8-17 (25-27)This is Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church. The book of Acts describes this day as a time when the Holy Spirit descended as tongues of fire. What started as a small spark has turned into a roaring fire. Two thousand years later this church lives on because this fire was passed from person to person, generation to generation.  In the Gospel reading from John, Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will come to his disciples. Because of the Spirit, they will be able to do even greater works than had yet been seen among them.  This is a "Spirited Life" in which God, through His Spirit, is at work to move each of us to go deeper in our love of Jesus, our trust of Jesus and our obedience to Jesus.Basic Focus: The work of the Holy Spirit. To Know:     The Spirit is at work in our lives to unite us to the work of Christ and the will of God.  To Feel:      We are empowered to carry out the mission of Jesus Christ in our world.To Do:      Give our lives in service to people of our

Scripture Focus: Revelation 21:1-6 This sermon will focus on some of the same concepts as last week. I will be telling the story of the battle with Satan and his emissaries. The story is of the continual defeat of Satan and evil and the ultimate victory of Christ. As the battle wages there is sadness, pain, and suffering, but there is a future for believers that promises something new. The hope that God gives us is unparalleled—“Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more...? Rest in the knowledge that we aren’t alone in our pain as well as in clinging to the promise that eventually God will take away our sadness and end the reason for our tears. Praise God that that promise is more than enough to carry us through from this world until the next...when we experience eternal life in the new heaven and earth. To Know: Jesus Christ battles the powers of evil and promises to bring all of those powers to a complete end. To Feel: Hope in Christ's promises that give us what we ne

Scripture Focus: Revelation 7:9-17 There are at least three life-changing promises from this text. This life is not the big event. They know that this life will be swallowed up by eternal life. The eternal life we inherit is without suffering. It is devoid of pain represented by the wiping away of tears, it is a place where Jesus has thrown a tent of protection around us that causes all the pain and suffering to disappear. It is also a place where sin and evil have been eliminated, and therefore the sources of pain are gone. The last promise that is pivotal for us as Christians is the reality that in heaven we will not know hunger or thirst, but only an unending source of living water. So much of our human life is about our hungers and thirsts, some of them just our physical needs and some of them other needs in our lives. The place we are going will no longer have those thirsts so we can spend our time in service to God and in the satisfaction of a filled and fulfilled life in eternity. To K