Recorded Media

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“The Beauty After The Battle” (Jesus in the Wild, Pt.6) – 4/2/23 Palm Sunday Service

April 2, 2023

Stephen Streett

JESUS IN THE WILD Part 6: THE BEAUTY AFTER THE BATTLE
Luke 4:14

This Sunday is Palm Sunday. "They took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" John 12:13 Hosanna is from a Biblical Hebrew phrase meaning "Pray, save us." Any kind of thanks and adoration aimed at God could be considered a hosanna. In church, many of the prayers and songs are hosannas. I hope you’ll join us this Sunday as we offer many hosannas to the King of Kings.

When we are walking in the fullness of our calling, what are the results in our hearts, homes, churches, and cities?

Resilience is a commonly heard word these days. When challenges come (and our nation has faced many this past week), and we face them with faith and fortitude, we come off our battlefields with a greater capacity to hold up—spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically— through the wilds of life. “Forty days, three temptations, and three vocationally charged answers later, the devil walks away from the battle. In other words, the devil calls it quits on the game—but is not calling it quits on the season.

There are seasons of relief in our battle with the adversary of our souls—and for those, we can be grateful”. Like Jesus, there are battles we go through with the enemy of our souls, battles during which our calling is deeply and relentlessly contested. But every battle has an end, and it is in taking them on one by one that we find the strength to walk with Jesus through them to the other side. Our calling will always be contested but know that with each challenge we can emerge with greater spiritual resilience, capacity to trust, and, hopefully, a more fierce and steadfast commitment to walk in our calling into union with Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“The Beauty After The Battle” (Jesus in the Wild, Pt.6) – 4/2/23 Palm Sunday Service

By Stephen Streett|April 2, 2023

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“The Power of IT IS WRITTEN” (Jesus in the Wild, Pt.5) – 3/26/23 Service

March 26, 2023

Stephen Streett

JESUS IN THE WILD Part 5:

THE POWER OF “IT IS WRITTEN”
Luke 4:4, 8, 12

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Jesus has been tempted. And the Word-of-God-Made-Flesh begins his answer to each temptation with a form of one, small, universe-bending statement: “It is written.” In a world full of indignation, alarm, and shock, with a social media population reacting online with anger, angst, and argument to all manner of news and offenses, we read that Jesus responded to the devil. In my imagination, Jesus was calm, he was cool, and he was unequivocally clear in those moments. In this wild, Jesus is not reacting to the temptations, the struggle, his own fears, or the attack. He is not controlled by the devil’s plays or moves. Jesus has chosen to answer the devil in his own way, on his own terms.

What promise or passage from the Word of God has most strengthened you in your seasons of battle in the last few years? What word have you hidden deep in your heart that is serving you in this season you are in? What word are you using to address the enemy who seeks to unseat you from your royal throne? What is your “It is written” word for this season?

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“The Power of IT IS WRITTEN” (Jesus in the Wild, Pt.5) – 3/26/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|March 26, 2023

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“The Jesus Revolution” (Jesus in the Wild, Pt. 4) – 3/19/23 Service

March 19, 2023

Stephen Streett

JESUS IN THE WILD Part 4:
The Jesus Revolution
Matthew 9:36

Recently, Karen and I watched The Jesus Revolution movie—a depiction of the Jesus Movement, specifically following the stories of Pastor Greg Laurie, Pastor Chuck Smith, Lonnie Frisbee, and Calvary Chapel. In the mid-1950s through the 1960s, society was unraveling spiritually, relationally, socially, and politically. On top of the growing tension and violence of the civil rights movement, the evolving liberality of the entertainment industry, and the chaotic, disturbing, and divisive political climate, the teens and young adults of the day were challenging and rejecting the accepted norms of life, truth, spirituality, identity, society, and morality. While rejecting the establishment of government, religion, social constructs and the rules and standards they represented, young people turned to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll to find freedom, love, belonging, truth, consciousness, and identity/self.

If they investigated religion, it was usually Eastern mysticism, not Christianity. The few who dared walk into a church were frequently met with looks of suspicion and judgment. Sadly, churches (pastors, church leaders, and congregations as a whole) did not navigate this season of change, tension, and unraveling well. The light and love of Jesus did not shine brightly from very many churches and Christians. Instead, they frequently preached against the latest headlines, threw their hands in the air at a loss, and saw the young—even society at large—as a lost cause, beyond the reach of the gospel of Jesus Christ and redemption. (Many Christians and churches still struggle with this sense of hopelessness as we find ourselves in a very similar political, social, moral, and spiritual climate.)

But God was neither hopeless or helpless and in His prevenient grace, He sovereignly poured out His Spirit on individuals and churches and the Jesus Movement was birthed. Across the United States through the mid-60s through early 70s, young people were radically encountering and engaging with the living God, turning away from the sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, and the false-religion scene in mass numbers.

I told Karen as we left the theater that the Jesus Revolution never ended. It’s a movement of the Holy Spirit, it’s not an institution, building or personality. Movements go through occasional plateaus and then surge again. God is moving powerfully right now, and lives are being transformed in 2023. I don’t believe It’s a coincidence that this movie came out on the heels of the latest Asbury Revival and the other revivals breaking out at campuses and churches all over the world.

I do hope people check it out and compare it to 2023. It is based on a very true story, and there are so many similarities to today. Can we love like Jesus has asked us to? Can we share Truth with Grace? Can we leave egos at the door and let God move? Can we understand that God’s movement is always rooted in the Word and in the Gospel itself? It’s about Him! Does God want to move and reach all generations with His truth? Yes! There’s so much we all can learn from one another regardless of our age and our shortcomings. Let’s get out of the way and let God move through us to reach the lost and hurting.

-Stephen

“The Jesus Revolution” (Jesus in the Wild, Pt. 4) – 3/19/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|March 19, 2023

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“Facing Down the IF in Our Lives” – 3/12/23 Worship Service

March 12, 2023

Stephen Streett

JESUS IN THE WILD Part 3:
FACING DOWN THE IF IN OUR LIVES
Luke 4:3, 7, 9

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
“If you worship me, it will all be yours.”
“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.”

What is the last “if” you heard in your heart? If you were loved by God, you wouldn’t have this problem, if you were really close with God, this job would just appear before you, or these trials wouldn’t be happening to you. The enemy’s goal, according to the story of Jesus in the wild, in the untamed places where we feel most vulnerable, is simply to put question marks in our minds. And some of the most potent questions begin with one tiny, little, itty bitty word that can set our world on fire: IF

For us today, let’s explore how we handle the if challenges to our own calling that come from the adversary. Your calling and mine will be contested; we must learn to identify the little demonic words that call it into question. If is one of them. How does the accuser speak to you? What is the enemy of your soul seeking to get you to question?

If is a word God uses to build us. God uses the word if to stir faith in us, hope, and love! If you act in this way, he says, then I will bless you and we will do great things together. The word if is neutral in itself; the effect of it holds power according to the one speaking it and the motivation behind its use. God uses the word if for our benefit and flourishing; the enemy uses the word if for our confusion and ultimately, our extermination. If is a word of possibility, of new potential—of another way to live.

“If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land”
(2 Chron. 7:14).

“If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:11).

Let’s explore the IF in our lives more this Sunday at 10:30am.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“Facing Down the IF in Our Lives” – 3/12/23 Worship Service

By Stephen Streett|March 12, 2023

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“What is Your Identity as a Child of God?” – 3/5/23 Service

March 5, 2023

Stephen Streett

JESUS IN THE WILD Part 2 What is Your Identity as a Child of God?
Luke 4:1

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” Luke 4:1

Jesus’s experience in the wild in Luke 4 is different from suffering or even just temptation. Many of us were taught to conflate the two ideas of the wilderness and suffering, and though testing from all sides happens in all kinds of trials, the wild Jesus enters is a field of battle onto which he has been guided by the Spirit of God. That puts the wild in a different light. If the Spirit sends us there, then the Spirit is with us in it.

Therefore, the wild, the place of testing, can happen to us, or we and the Spirit can happen to it. Jesus goes in to the wild isolated (alone) and empty by choice (fasting) to face down the sinister voice that is about to tell him that everything God has said is untrue—and that there is a better, easier way. He begins to turn the selfless nature of Jesus’s calling toward a vision of a new kind of self-satisfying, self-fulfilling, self-focused calling that Jesus could embrace if he so chooses. Do you know that voice and the version of life purpose it offers? I know it well. The wild is a dangerous place to be for making big decisions, especially weak and hungry. Into the wilderness of testing, armed with only the spiritual business card his Father had affirmed at his baptism, Jesus went.

When the first time you truly felt the love of God touch your heart. Where were you? What did it feel like? What did you do after you felt God’s love that very first time?

In what ways have you recently experienced the wild—meaning the world as being unpredictable, untamed, and
unruly? What happened in your heart when you experienced that feeling of being out of control?

How does knowing our belovedness help us walk through difficult circumstances?

-Stephen

“What is Your Identity as a Child of God?” – 3/5/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|March 5, 2023

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“Tested, Tempted & Challenged” (Jesus in the Wild, pt.1) – 2/26/23 Service

February 26, 2023

Stephen Streett

JESUS IN THE WILD PART 1: Tested, Tempted and Challenged
Luke 4:1–14

There is, perhaps, no more unusual story in the Gospels than the story of Jesus in the wilderness. We are led to Jesus’s baptismal waters in Luke 3:21–22. Then, placed between that mighty declaration of belovedness and affirmation from the Father and the launch of his Isaiah 61 ministry in Luke 4:14–21—Jesus is tested, tempted, and challenged. Luke 4:1–14 is, in my view, an extended meditation on Jesus’s calling, or what we can also call his vocation. The story of Jesus in the wild (“wild” is short for “wilderness” and is another name for those untamed places where we confront the devil along our own journey) is our focus for these six sermons in the series I will preach until Easter Sunday.

Ultimately, these lessons will have implications for understanding our own calling in the world, and what it means to start with who and whose we are before we talk about what we do. Each sermon will focus on one lesson we can learn from the story of Jesus in the desert (in Greek, the eremos), and has the goal of moving the disciple toward hope: hope that recognizes that Jesus understands what it means to be in a place of vulnerability, coming out of his wilderness season “in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14). Since the time of my conversion 40 years ago, I have truly been fascinated by this particular story in the Gospels. I have always felt there was more to the story than met the eye.

Along the way, I humbly confess, I have been reading the story somewhat out of context—along with many preachers and teachers in the body of Christ, I’m sure. I won’t say my reading of the wilderness narrative has been completely wrong, but I will say that I often missed the wider, all-important context of Luke 3 and 4 within which the story takes place. It’s easy to do. The strange narrative of fasting, satanic attack, temptation, and resistance can draw us in, leaving the context of the stories that surround it in the background. But the stories between which the wilderness narrative is placed are vital to understanding the specific nature of the wilderness into which Jesus was led. The story of Jesus in the wilderness is about the surprising, unexpected places we must go—often led by the Holy Spirit—in order to face our enemy and to discover more deeply who God is, who we are, and what this life is truly all about.

Grace and Peace
Stephen

“Tested, Tempted & Challenged” (Jesus in the Wild, pt.1) – 2/26/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|February 26, 2023