Mosaic Church | Winter Garden Audio

As holy siblings and citizens of heaven, our calling is to fixate the attention of our hearts on Jesus as the one greater and more glorious than anyone else, including Moses. Such consideration of Jesus fuels trusting Him no matter the cost.

This Easter Sunday we remember the profound significance of why Jesus came to die and rise from the dead foreshadowed in the story of Lazarus. Namely, that Jesus’ death and resurrection overcame sin and death for those who trust in Him by faith. Our death, darkness, and bondage is defeated by Jesus’ life, light, and freedom. Hallelujah!

Why do we come back to the cross every year? We come to remember Jesus’ willing sacrifice that washed us clean with his blood, and to anticipate the empty tomb that changed everything.

Jesus was human in every respect, and yet without sin. The perfect example of our true identity as believers, securely attached to our Father! There is no time in our life when we should not look to him. Before and during temptation, while we sin, and after we have failed – Jesus is our advocate sitting on a throne of grace.

As followers of Jesus, we have lifelong freedom because God, being just and merciful, took on human form and paid the debt we owed for our sins. The death of Christ has overcome the fear of death in every way, and now death serves to refine our faith and lead us to a heavenly glory this passing world cannot fathom.

During times where it is difficult to trust God with our pain, we can look to Jesus, our true older brother, who willfully took on the suffering of humanity to be the Messiah who would redeem us into the family of God.

We are on a collective mission as the body of Christ to be ambassadors of Jesus. Anyone we encounter should experience what it was like to encounter Him. Our last three values are vital to how we go about accomplishing this mission because they embody the identity of our King. Jesus is extravagantly hospitable, fearlessly generous, and daringly missional, so we will be too.

As we pursue why we exist and where we’re going as Mosaic Church, it is helpful for us to consider our code of conduct – our values. Values are defining marks of our identity that lead to our activity. Our first three values are the following: We follow Jesus. We are one. We are gospel-centered. As those who are followers of Jesus, we are united in Jesus and view all of life through the lens of who Jesus is and what He accomplished for us.

To belong to King Jesus is to participate in His mission with Him. The mission of Jesus, through the church He is building, is to bring His kingdom and push back the gates of darkness until the territories of darkness are no more. As the commissioned church, it is necessary for us to gather up and brief ourselves on the vision and values through which we will accomplish our mission. “We” is a series for us as Mosaic Church to lay out our values; our identity and code of conduct by which we will realize what Jesus has called us to do.

Jesus, the embodiment of true greatness, is worth our heart’s full attention because He is the suffering servant who condescended from glory to dwell among us and bear the death that we deserved for our sin. Having fully paid our debt with His blood, He is now risen and reigns over all things forever.

Followers of Jesus must pay much closer attention to the reliable word of Christ delivered to us through the apostles. Our good Father provides this loving warning to keep us from drifting into things most dangerous for our soul. We pay attention and keep from drifting by having the word of God richly dwell in us, gather regularly with community, and daily walk by the Spirit.

Jesus is greater than all messengers before Him, including angels. In contrast to the angels, Jesus is the heir of David, God incarnate, and Messiah, who is to be worshipped by all creation. When we see Him for who He truly is, we turn from worshipping God’s created gifts to worshiping the infinitely greater one, the only one worthy, Jesus Christ.

Is it truly worth it to follow Jesus even in the dangers and heaviness of life? When we realize that Jesus is completely sufficient for us because of His supreme authority over everything, we have a solid foundation to remain faithful. As those who are always sustained in the safety of the God-man, Jesus Christ, through His authoritative Word, we will always have reason to look at Him and declare, “That’s my King!”

An anonymous author with an incredible handle of the totality of Scripture and a direct relationship with Jesus’ first followers writes to Jewish Christians experiencing difficult persecution for their faith. The author begins to hold up Jesus as worthy of our perseverance because He is greater than the angels and Torah, Moses and the promised land, the priests and Melchizedek, the sacrifices, and the old covenant. Jesus is worth our all because He is greater than all!

Our God is on the move and this year as a church we’re going to intentionally join Him in His redemptive work in the world. We’ll do this by staying close to Him, offering Him our weakness, trusting that His Spirit will equip us through church leadership to be faithful witnesses of the power of the gospel. Our first step together is to simply come before God daily and say, “I’m here. What can I do?”

<p>New Year provides us the opportunity to look not only forward but also backward. Scripture continually invites us to move forward with a framework of remembrance: of the character of God and His unfolding story of redemption. When we remember Him, we remember something more real and true than our circumstances so that we always have reason for hope and joy.</p>

God’s plan of redemption always included Jesus’s two advents. Jesus arrived the first time to free those who trust in Him from slavery to sin and death. Today, we who are free eagerly anticipate the second arrival of King Jesus, where He will fully and finally conquer sin and death forever. Compared to those present for the first arrival, we have cause for all the more awe and wonder having both advents in view.

The genealogy of Jesus reveals that God uses the worst of humanity to display the best of His faithfulness. God’s hands are never tied by what we have done or what has been done to us. He can take the most evil actions of man and turn them for our good and his glory. This reality is most fully seen in the crucifixion of Jesus where God used the evil actions of men to bring about the salvation of all nations.

Since the beginning of time, God has planned every life with purpose. And yet, humanity struggles to maintain faith in the present and hope for the future while surrounded by the effects of sin. Christ’s genealogy affords us an opportunity to look back all the way to the beginning and be encouraged. Included are stories of all kinds – the rich, the poor, obedient, disobedient, famous, and obscure. As participants in God’s story, they all mattered, and so do we. Not because they were sometimes faithful but because He is always faithful and true.

The genealogy of Jesus tells many true stories to ultimately tell one story. Our Faithful and True King uses the worst of humanity to tell the best of His faithfulness, whether in the rebellion of people like Adam, Eve, and Jacob or the weakness of people like Abraham, Sarah, and Rachel. God continues to show Himself faithful to preserve the line through which the Lion of Judah, the root of David, our conquering King Jesus, would come.