Dream Church with Joshua Brown

The book of Job is not blunt history, but it does communicate a historical truth. What is this truth and why does it matter to us, today?

What did Christ accomplish for us and how do we move forward into resurrection life? Find out in this Easter message from Joshua Brown.

John's telling of the Palm Sunday narrative begins with Mary's radical act of devotion after witnessing her brother Lazarus's resurrection. John 12 contrasts an act of devotion with the offense of religion. An act of the gospel of love will always offend a gospel of works.

It isn't enough to ask the Lord to move where we are; for the Lord to move as he desires, we must leave what enslaved us behind and venture to a place where we can rest. Where we are going is a land cultivated by the Lord himself, not our best effort.

If rest and vision go hand in hand, how do you get to proper rest and vision when you aren't there yet? Perseverance. Perseverance is continuing in what you know to be right even though you don't see the expected results. Perseverance is the trust that you will see what the Lord spoke to you as long as you remain rooted in faith.

In Genesis 26, Isaac faces famine with his family. The Lord specifically tells him not to go to Egypt and settle in a place the Lord will show him. Why? And what is this saying to us, today?

In John 2, we see the story of Jesus turning the water for purification into wine and cleansing the temple (which the other gospel accounts put at the end of Jesus' ministry). Why does the author place these together, and what is this saying to us today? Find out in this message.

In Numbers 21, we see the people grow impatient with God and, as a result, are bitten by fiery, poisonous snakes that kill them. However, the Lord offers salvation from their own destruction: taking the very thing that was killing them and lifting it up among the people so that as they see it, they are saved. Likewise, Christ becomes the son of humans so that as he is lifted up, we are set free from the bite of our delusions and lies.

Matthew Brown goes deep into Genesis 1.

Jesus, in John 1, tells Nathanael that he has become the place where movement between earth and heaven (God's space) occurs. The Incarnation isn't just a revelation of who we are but a revelation of the Creation redeemed with us.

When we go through disappointment, it creates a way of seeing the world. When that happens, we miss the beauty around us because of the brokenness within us. Jesus calls us to give him the broken pieces and allow him to bring a healing that restores our sight.

Is everything falling apart or being reborn? Perspective on what lies ahead will determine how you live your life with God.

When we see ourselves as servants, we live to do what we are told to get spiritually "paid" when we're done. When we see ourselves as friends, we live for union. Jesus calls us now friends and has disclosed all things to us.

This is our seventh year as a church, which we believe is an invitation to rest. What does that mean, and what does that look like? Find out in this episode!

Not only is darkness a metaphor for the lies that we create apart from the truth in Christ (light), but it also represents the obscurity that God plants his feet in to bring all of us into the light. Can you see God at work in the hiddenness of your life?

Each of the first three encounters with an angel in the gospel of Luke starts with "Do not be afraid." Why? What were they afraid of? Some context into the Old Testament law will show us that God, in Christ, has come to make all things right. Perfect love drives out fear.

We are so used to a mythological God, in the Father, who is more like a divine bully and murderer than the God revealed in Jesus. The Incarnation is how we reform how we see the Father and everything else.

What have you stopped praying and dreaming for? The forerunner of Jesus comes from impossibility.

If one tree is burning, it is easy to put out. If an entire forest is on fire, it is nearly impossible to put out. If we're going to see transformation in and through the Church, it is going to have to be the whole church playing an active role.

We have made a habit of responding casually to a gospel that is extremely generous toward us. Then, we wonder why we aren't moving from "glory to glory." The call is to lay down our lives in order to find life. We must live generously, not meagerly.

How did the church fathers see the incarnation and how does that differ from our current views of the Word becoming flesh? If we are going to see the gospel in all of its goodness, we must remember where we started. This is a new reformation.

It is critical to remember your baptism and what it really represents...and it isn't just "going public."

It's not just that we pursue an encounter with God, it is that we pursue a childlike encounter with God. "Unless you become like a child..."

The old law was given to make sin (misplacement) known to us so that the second law could bring us home. However, now that the new has come, it is improper for us to live in the ways of the old. It isn't sin that needs to be made known, it's who we are within the finished work of Christ that needs to be made known to all.

God, in the Incarnation, was not setting out to punish the actions of sin. God, in the Incarnation, was setting out to prove to the human race what was true. That truth is that we are deeply loved, ever accepted, and redeemed back to Him. We need to build our gospel on the truth of who Jesus is rather than the depth of sin that has already been dealt with and undone.

Jesus has prepared a place for us "in the Father's house." This is not an eschatological (study of the end) truth, this is an ontological truth (study of existence). Something happened in Christ, the Way, Truth, and Life, that has placed us in the Father's house here and now. The implications of this could not be larger.

Wisdom isn't just empty knowledge; wisdom is a man and that man's name is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father. Therefore, we are called to attain wisdom in order to know the one we are joined to. This divine reasoning holds all things together.

How do we burst through the layers of unorthodox tradition and religion to get back to the ancient "way?" The Incarnation of the Son of God.

The first words of Jesus in the gospel of John are, “What do you seek?” This is the question all of us must answer as we walk with Jesus. What is it that we are looking for? The following statement Jesus makes after his question to the two disciples that long to follow him is, “Come and see.” What are you looking for?—Come and see. Repentance (a change of thinking) is necessary if we are to see Jesus for who he really is, thus see God for who God really is. We have to see God on God’s own terms with God’s own perception.

What has your experience with God and the gospel really been like? Has it looked like continual acceptance of a new way in which you are deeply loved, accepted, and chosen, including—not excluding—all the broken pieces that once condemned you? OR, has it looked like a rivalry between trying to convince yourself of your worth and God’s goodness and the fact that you’ve been told—endlessly—that you are just a sinner? We need to be embraced by the true, orthodox, and original gospel.

We've been told that baptism is a public profession of an inward reality. While that is somewhat true, it is much more than that. Baptism is the means by which we live our lives in Christ. It is an ever-present sacrament.

*This message was recorded at a service at the West Columbia Riverwalk Amphitheater.

How do we process pain within the gospel of a good God revealed in Jesus? The early Church gives us some insight into this, as does the New Testament. In this message, Joshua Brown speaks to how we reconcile pain and the goodness of God.

Faith is not mere belief. Faith is welcoming a new way. Faith is trusting in the midst of contradiction to human rationale. In the New Testament, that contradiction is of a God who is holy (other) and is called the kingdom of God. Therefore, we can't understand the gospel we can only embrace it and be embraced by it.

We wrap up our study of Ruth with a story of a close relative to Naomi, who is purposefully left unnamed by the author, rejecting an inheritance because it required intimacy with a covenant partner. The unknown relative was solely worried about his own estate. For Boaz, however, the prize was Ruth. For Naomi to be fully redeemed, Ruth had to be rejected by a works-conscious partner and joined to a covenant-conscious partner. The result was a child "being born to Naomi." Let the religion of a sum of your works go so that you can be fully embraced by covenant-lifestyle.

Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor in Ruth 3 to encounter Boaz in a way that would secure the family line. What will you risk for the encounter you desire? It will require you to risk everything you're in control of and trust you'll be left with what you were really made for.

The Bible isn't a book of what happened a long time ago; the Bible is a book of why things happen, both then and now. That being said, what questions should we be asking as we read Ruth? What does it mean for us today? Find out in this bonus episode.

When we are in the middle of a work of God, and we can't see the end result of what he's actually doing, we'll start to settle for temporary fillings that we can control. God isn't a God that just longs to give you just enough; God is a God that wants to give you abundantly more than you could ever dream.

In this message, Matthew Brown teaches us how we can find ourselves in the story of Jacob becoming Israel.

Ruth 1 gives us symbolic insight into the power of who we are tethered to. God will allow us to realize the fullness of what we cling to, particularly in religion, so that once that part of us is gone, we will find ourselves with another covenant partner who will birth beloved identity and be the redemption of what was once lost.

The dry seasons in our life are God's grace, given to us to sow seed. If we wait for the rain to come, we're too late. What do you need to sow right now before you see proof of its fulfillment? Rain is coming.

If you know everything there is to know about the love of God but never allow that to be reflected in how you love others, it profits you little. We are called to become the love that God is.

The wilderness is the place we typically beg God to remove us from. We talk about the wilderness as if we are going through it. What if it is God's plan to place you in it rather than through it? What happens in the wilderness? We'll explore why your greatest trials can actually be your greatest blessings.

The audience of the New Testament understood the eyes to see through what Plato called Emission Theory. That is, that light comes from the eyes and illuminates what you are looking at. Therefore, they defined light as unobstructed vision and dark as obstructed vision, but it was all based on the idea of where the light of vision comes from. That being said, what is the New Testament telling us when it continually contrasts light and dark?

What do we do when we're waiting on the Lord to come through on what he promised? In this episode, Joshua Brown looks at the sons of David and shows us how inheritance is our portion, not taking for ourselves what might be right (in the right season) because we're tired of waiting.

God is love. Not just any love—God is unconditional love. There is no condition to meet in order to gain God's love. It chose you before you chose it. For us to be image bearers of God, we must reflect the same kind of love to the world around us.

What does Jesus mean when he says that the kingdom of heaven is like leaven hidden in three measures of dough? In this message, we discover what a whole church looks like.

Where are you rooted? It doesn't matter how great of a "tree" you are, if you aren't planted in the right place, you will dry up and die.