Recorded Media

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“Stepping Into The Story” (The Story You Live In… pt.6) – 11/26/23 Worship Service

November 26, 2023

Stephen Streett

The Story You Live in is the Story You Live Out Part 6:
Stepping into the Story
Luke 1:30-33

Genesis 12:1 “The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”
The Lord has called us all to step away from all that’s familiar, just as he once called Abram. He has invited you into His story. To make room in your heart and your home for the infant Savior of the world. As we approach the season of Advent you are encouraged to leave behind the normal rhythms of life in order for God to reveal to you your place in His story. This is no ordinary place story. It’s a story filled with love, joy, peace, hope and endless possibilities.

I am thrilled that Misty Creek will begin a Church-Wide Advent Study December 1 (Get your Book by 12/1!!) The word advent comes from the Latin word adventus—a translation of the Greek word parousia, which means “coming.” The season of Advent encourages the church to look back and remember the birth of Christ, while looking forward in anticipation to the second coming of Jesus. Advent is the start of the (Western) Christian year and begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. This Advent we are thrilled to offer each Misty Creek family an Advent Devotion book, Protagonist: Stepping into the Story of Advent. We will begin the daily devotions from the book on December 1st. So, what is a protagonist? In this study the protagonist is the main figure in a real situation. The Creator steps into the story and takes on the lead role. The Author becomes the Protagonist.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“Stepping Into The Story” (The Story You Live In… pt.6) – 11/26/23 Worship Service

By Stephen Streett|November 26, 2023

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“Living In & Living Out the Story of God” – 11/19/23 Service

November 19, 2023

Stephen Streett

11/19/23 Worship Service:
The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, pt.5:
"Living In & Living Out the Story of God"
1 John 2:16
Senior Pastor, Stephen Streett

“Living In & Living Out the Story of God” – 11/19/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|November 19, 2023

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“This Is What God’s Really Like” (The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, pt.4) – 11/12/23 Worship Service

November 12, 2023

Stephen Streett

The Story You Live in is the Story You Live Out, Part 4:
"This Is What God's Really Like"


After Highland Park Presbyterian Church announced the shocking death of their young pastor a few weeks ago they wrote: “When we don’t know what to do, we are taught to turn to God and pray.” So, they held a vigil in their Sanctuary and invited all who could “to sit with our grief and to pray with us.” That Sunday the church held “a time of guided prayer in the Sanctuary . . . asking for God to give them wisdom as they grieve and to guide their church through the next steps.”

I have lost a lot of loved ones, friends, and church members over the years. Although we may think that when we lose loved ones, we lose part of ourselves, I have a different perspective, the more and more I’ve leaned into the Lord during times of grief. My perspective is that I don’t lose part of myself but instead my spirit more and more begins the transference process. I like to call it transitioning from this life to eternal life, and to unpack this a little bit, for me it looks like this; I am becoming more and more part of the heavenly realm than I am, the earthly realm.

We worship a God who knows how to grieve. We worship a God who doesn’t try and minimize the pain of loss. We worship a God who has mercy in our times of anger and frustration. We worship a God who knows when to speak and when just to hold us as we cry. This is what God is really like.
Have you begun to try and think through the over, under, front, and back stories of your life? It's a good exercise for journaling. What has been the underlying pain, difficulty, or even travail you have suffered and endured? How has this unfolded in the "front" story of the visible movement of God's kingdom in and through your life? What about the more hidden and secret "back" story, in the house of prayer that is becoming your life? We are living in the story that defines us:
A story of grace, in which all brokenness will experience healing, all suffering will come to an end, and death will be merely a gateway into everlasting life for those who respond to the love of Jesus.

Grace & Peace,
Stephen

“This Is What God’s Really Like” (The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, pt.4) – 11/12/23 Worship Service

By Stephen Streett|November 12, 2023

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“It Is Well With Our Souls” (The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, pt.3) – 11/5/23 Service

November 5, 2023

Stephen Streett

"It Is Well With Our Souls"
(The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, pt.3)

Thursday April 27, 2023, from 7pm-11:30pm will be forever etched in my heart’s memory. The hospice RN, Muhammad, motioned for Karen to come into the room. Early that evening our church prayer team prayed over her father, Gary, via Facetime and Doug Allen sang the most anointed version of Leaning on the Everlasting Arms of Jesus that I had ever heard. Gary breathed his last earthly breath as Karen held her daddy in her arms – Joyce, Karen, Gary, Melodie and I were standing of what NT Wright refers to as thin place ( I explain in the sermon). I was struck by the intensity of the grieving that I witnessed that evening, including my own. We hugged each other with such passion that it just moved me. Later I was thinking about what I wanted the family to know - how they are to deal with grief…. how to move through it…what they are to do with the pain.

This led me to recall the account of David when he grieved the death of his son with Bathsheba. Here is the scripture reference of the whole story 2 Samuel 12: 16-23

“David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in a sackcloth on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”

David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked.
“Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.” Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshipped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!” He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

I want to emphasize verses 20 and 23 “I go to him”. We will go to our loved ones; they will not return to us!!! This is the greatest assurance of hope that we have. God will make all things new. It is well with our Souls!

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“It Is Well With Our Souls” (The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, pt.3) – 11/5/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|November 5, 2023

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“The Misguided and the Misinformed” (The Story You Live In is the Story You Live Out, Pt.2) – 10/29/22 Worship Service

October 29, 2023

Stephen Streett

Humanity runs down every path the world has to offer in hopes of finding life, happiness, meaning, purpose, fulfillment, love, and peace, to find themselves, only to find each path a road of empty promises. They are taught that they will find love, joy, peace, meaning, purpose, and fulfillment if they have more, do more, see more, know more; if they give more, serve more, sacrifice more; if they work harder, work smarter; if they pray more, read more, sing more, jump more, cry more, laugh more, attend more; if they focus on modifying, adapting, improving, and bettering self, then they will be “more,” they will find their self, be who and what they were made to be, and enter into that full life they’ve been longing for. To their disappointment and destruction, none of these brings about the life they are looking for—not in this world and not in the next.

As the church, are we clear with people what Jesus has invited us all into? Are we clear on His expectations, or are we simply inviting people to an easy or hard moralistic, religious, psychotherapy, behavioral-modification group where the goal is to produce more people like ourselves? Are we being clear that a “win,” “success,” and/or “to find one’s self,” according to Jesus, is to lose it, to die? This Sunday I hope to be very clear and share with you how we got here.

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“The Misguided and the Misinformed” (The Story You Live In is the Story You Live Out, Pt.2) – 10/29/22 Worship Service

By Stephen Streett|October 29, 2023

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“The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, Pt1: There is a Better Story” – 10/15/23 Service

October 15, 2023

Stephen Streett

We all have different stories, personalities, and thus unique experiences with how God met us and brought us into the family of God. The Story You Live in is the Story You Live Out! When collaborating with long-time churched people, especially those who grew up in the church, I will sometimes ask them, “What did Jesus save you from?” I get all kinds of answers from people (addiction, sexual immorality, lying, anger, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, an unhappy marriage, financial distress, sin, etc.). All these things are true and praiseworthy, but rarely the one thing I’m looking for. The Good News is Jesus saves, but saves from what? When boiled down to its simplest answer, Jesus saves us from ourselves.

Self is the problem, not food or drink, not sex, not emotions, not wealth, not status. As Peter Lord said, “Sin originates in you. No one can provoke inside of you what does not originate there.” This makes all the more real the words of Dennis Kinlaw, “In truth, we are a million times worse than we know, and our attempts to control our lives destroy us and the ones we love. The world’s ways are never the ways of God, and the world’s people are never the people of God.” It can be difficult to hear, but there are two categories of people in the world, and it isn’t based on race or gender, it is our identities as children of God or children of the devil (1 John 3:10).

This leads me to a crucial point, as stated in previous messages: the Gospel calls people out and it calls people into. Into what? Through our response of faith and repentance (a faith-filled surrender to the Lordship of Christ, turning away from self-rule and toward Christ’s rule) God makes us a new person/creature, gives us a new heart/spirit (Ezekiel 11:19), and we are spiritually born again as literal children of God (John 1:12–13). This new creature/spirit/heart on the inside, through the working of the Holy Spirit, is meant to work a transformation in our life from the inside out that affects every area of our life (2 Corinthians 3:18; 7:1; Ephesians 4:22–24;). This is our identity, who and what we are now. Now our entire life (our thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions) is to be defined and directed by this new identity (Romans 8:1–8). “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:1–4).

Grace and Peace,
Stephen

“The Story You Live In Is The Story You Live Out, Pt1: There is a Better Story” – 10/15/23 Service

By Stephen Streett|October 15, 2023