Munger Place Church - Dallas, Texas

Have you ever been in a situation where you knew without question what faithfulness looked like but fear got the final word? Genesis 12:1-4

Mark 10:38-45

VBS Sunday. It's quite simple, God is good!    Joshua 3:19-24

We all have different life circumstances, but identical next steps. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Acts 2:42 Occasion: Pentecost Sunday

Too many of us see faith in Christ as a finish line, whereas it’s actually a starting line. For Jesus, his ministry begins after his baptism. The challenge: to ask the Lord “What’s next for me?” for the next 7 days. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Mark 1:9-13

Does God make mistakes? When Jesus encounters a blind man in Mark 8, it seems at first that he messes up the healing. In reality, however, the whole thing is under control. What if that were also the case in your life? Here’s the truth: God has the whole thing under control. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Mark 8:22-26

You have everything you need. How would your life be different if you believed that? Date: 5/19/19 Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Mark 6:30-44 (Feeding of the Five Thousand) Occasion: Confirmation Sunday

Desperation isn’t a bad thing—it is an ESSENTIAL thing.   In Mark 5, we see 2 people who are utterly desperate, and we see that their desperation precedes something miraculous.   Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Mark 5:21-43 Date: 5/12/19

Perception is everything, so how do you know if you are seeing things clearly? Mark 3:20-25

Everybody has the same goals: to be happy, to have a good life, to have peace. But not everybody has the same habits, and it’s your habits that will make you. Small disciplines, big results. Here’s how to be an overnight success. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Mark 1:35 Reference: “Atomic Habits,” by James Clear

Sooner or later, there will come a time when you have nothing to go on, when you feel totally hopeless. What do you then? Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 28:1-20

On Palm Sunday, the crowds cheered Jesus. Four days later, they jeered: “Crucify him, crucify him.” Why? What happened? The crowd made the same mistake that we make: they thought they knew from current circumstances what the future reality would be. They were wrong. It’s Cross Before Crown, but it’s also Crown After Cross. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 21:10-11; Matthew 27:15-26

How do you survive and persevere through tough times? When you are out of work and there are no jobs coming, when you’ve been served with divorce papers, when your daughter is struggling to make friends in middle school—when you are in difficulty, how do you make it through? It comes down to this: Keep watch; keep going. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 26:36-46

Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 26:36-56 “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., “Where Do We Go From Here?” (1967)

Sometimes in life there’s a choice between the easy way and the hard way. But sometimes there is no choice. Sometimes the hard way is the only way. The last week of his life, Jesus knows that there is no way to avoid it: the cross has to come before the crown. And so he spends that week teaching in the Temple Courts, telling his hearers some important—but hard—truths. One of them is this: the grace of God is free, but it’s not cheap. The invitation from God comes with an obligation. This week, we’re talking about how to know if you’ve responded appropriately to that invitation. Jesus says it is all about what you’re wearing (but he’s not talking about clothes). What about when the hard way is an important truth about yourself? Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 22:1-14 (The Parable of the Wedding Banquet)

The prayer Jesus taught us says,  “let you will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” yet we live most of our lives trying to bring earth or make earth our heaven. God our Father is good and desires to give us eternal things-eternal life, to match our desires with that which will last forever, to get our hearts off of earthly treasure and focus on eternal life.

“Who Am I?” It’s one of life’s biggest questions. And we all look toward all kinds of man-made things for the answer. But our truest identity as Jesus followers is not our “Do It Yourself” man-made identities, but rather it is the God-given gift of Jesus’s very own identity. What is true of him, is also true of you.

“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” --from The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The point is simple: fix your eyes on Jesus, not on your problems. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33

If faithfulness always comes with a cost (which it definitely does), why would anyone actually want to pay that cost? Why make the faithful decision? John the Baptist paid the price for his faithfulness, and his story offers us some insight into why anyone would actually choose to be faithful. Preacher: Andrew Forrest Scripture: Matthew 14:1-13