Our long journey home to the Father is an ever-expanding love and allegiance to Him. We give all of life for all of life—our actions, thoughts, money, relationships, careers, and even our imaginations—for the sake of God’s mission. We exist to love God, love people, and make disciples of Jesus Ch...

We live in a moment of history that is outraged, anxious, and divided. There are cultural, political, and spiritual realities at play that are unique to our moment. God has placed us at this point in His story; what will we do? How will we respond?

Three stories are unfolding: your story, our story, and The Story. God has uniquely wired you and called you to a specific place and time so that you might take part in this grand story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

The lineage of Jesus shows us that His kingdom would be unlike any other. Through Christ, the dividing wall of hostility was torn down. We once retreated to the safety of homogeny. But Christ has brought together people from every tribe, tongue, and nation into a blessed unity.

He, the Author and Sustainer of life, made us in His image. Humans, regardless of ethnicity, health, wealth, age, abilities, and place in history are equal in their value and honor as image bearers. May we be a community of life illuminating the darkness for the Glory of God and our joy.

Christ is the door to freedom. He is the good shepherd, finding His own and guiding them through the door. Those who came before Him were thieves and liars. They peddled false gospels and murderous ideologies. Christ arrived with protection and care. He offered a clear way, a steadfast truth, and...

The cycle of self-improvement and failure persists because we cannot save ourselves. The salvation we need is outside our grasp unless we are reaching for Jesus.

The Creator of all things condescended and put on flesh. He came not for our condemnation but for our salvation. He, the pervasive light, has pierced the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome Him.

Happiness and joy are not the same. Happiness can be snatched away in a moment, but joy has a resilience that withstands the hurt and disappointment of the world. We remember God’s good works, bring to Him our heart’s desires, and embrace His future hope which leads to a deepening of joy.

We pray for the things that we love. The night Jesus was arrested, He prayed to the Father for His disciples in front of Him, and those who would come after—us. Christ’s glorious love broke into our loveless world, drawing us in that we might go out and love gloriously.

We find in the reign of Christ a limitless expansion of His influence and the establishment of peace with no end. In Him, we receive wonderful counsel, a strong defense, and an end to spiritual oppression.

Christmas as a commercial holiday always overpromises and under-delivers, leaving us unfulfilled. But Christmas remembered as the mercy of God sending His Son for us stirs in the believer a robust and renewed hope. So we place the anchor of our hope in this, that Jesus sees us in our lowly, fragi...

The parable of the prodigal son has a natural focus on the son who leaves, lives recklessly, and returns. But many of us live out our faith like the older brother—living at home, with the Father, yet refusing to enter into joy. The younger brother chased the desires of his stomach and found himse...

The gospel isn’t aspirational advice but the powerful work of God unto salvation. The gospel is God overpowering all that would rob His people of the fullness of life He has purchased for them in Christ Jesus. Any sin, impasse, addiction, or even Satan himself will not stop the strong arm of our ...

The gospel is both simple enough for a child to understand yet complex enough to never discover its full depth. Each of us is called to share the gospel within our everyday, relational circles. We don’t need to have every answer ready in order to do so; we just need to be willing to let the Holy ...

We find ourselves caught up in something that existed long before us and will continue to expand into eternity. What started with 500 people in Jerusalem is now 2.38 billion people worldwide. This gospel wave continues to crash into the farthest shores of the globe and the darkest corners of the ...

Whether through altars built or communion elements taken, God places a high emphasis on remembrance for His people. When we remember correctly, we move forward differently. And how do we remember? We build a memorial for what He has done and testify that He is with us and He is powerful.

The gospel creates a gifted people. God shares the spoils of His victory in Christ by equipping His people with a diversity of gifts. Each of which is meaningful and has a unique role in our shared endeavor of building up the body of Christ.

The gospel moves through every culture throughout history calling people out of darkness and into His marvelous light. From the rich, the poor, the elevated, and the marginalized, Christ is creating a people for His own possession—a community of salt and light, receiving and proclaiming God’s mercy.

All things were created through Christ and for Christ. His atoning work on the cross was for the sins of humankind and the redemption of creation. We now herald this good news to the world around us, especially the places God has placed us in—our work, our homes, and our cities.

We have all fallen short of God’s glory. While we were stuck in deep ruts of sin, Jesus Christ died for us. Our sins earned us death, but God gifts us with eternal life through Jesus. If we belong to Him, we are no longer condemned. If we confess and believe, we are saved. This is the gospel on ...

The tenured farmer, after preparing the ground with seed, does not pester the crop to hurry the harvest. He waits. James tells us to be patient for the coming of the Lord. We should not wait with grumbling, but with joy, establishing our hearts in the Lord. He has set a time, and He will return.

Where our treasure is, our heart is. God called His people to bring their full tithe to Him, not because He needed money, but because He longed for the whole heart of His people. Our hearts are easily distracted and we place our attention on lesser things. God is lifting our heads from temporary ...

There is objective truth that doesn’t erase difficulty, but brings true life. In God’s design, there is accountability for our actions. And God is not mocked. What we sow, we reap. If we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption. If we sow to the Spirit, we reap a bountiful harvest of truth, beauty, a...

In the fourth dispute, God’s people question His justice. They accuse God of delighting in those who do evil. God responds with the promise of His messenger, John the Baptist, and His Messiah, Jesus Christ—the truest proof of His justice. His people will be refined by fire, and justice will be se...

God’s people had profaned the covenants of their fathers in the treatment of one another, the worship of other gods, and the divorcing of their wives. They chose faithless self-indulgence and unraveled into chaos. For His glory and their own flourishing, the Lord called them back to the harmony o...

By the end of the Old Testament, the priests were allowing God’s people to bring their worst to Him. God brought a charge against them, reminding them of His love and the discipline that would ensue. He wanted their full attention, not their leftovers. He is not a pet at which to throw the scraps...

God’s people doubt His goodness and are skeptical of His kindness. They are relationally fractured, apathetic, and have turned their backs on Him. His message to them through the prophet Malachi is, “I have loved you.”

It is of utmost importance to follow God, and utterly impossible to do it on our own. When we face the important and impossible, we tend to run towards shame, pride, or condemnation. Though our hearts condemn us, God does not, because He is greater than our hearts. So let your mind be convinced a...

The drumbeat of Genesis was God creating and calling it good. But after He made the first human, He saw it was not good for us to be alone. He made more people so that we would have companions and friends. Jesus was friendship made flesh. He modeled vulnerability and commitment showing the path t...

Paul, inspired by the Spirit, states that God began a good work in us and will bring it to completion at Christ’s return. This prophetic, rugged verse outlasts the buffeting of life and stands firm as a promise—He started it, and He will finish it.

The hills and high places were known centers for idol worship and altars to false gods. The Psalmist, looking up to these places, declares that his help will not come from the mountains, but from the Maker of the mountains. The one true God is our help in times of trouble.

All who are led by the Spirit have been adopted into the family of God. He gives to His children a unique identity, places us into time exactly where He wants us, and calls us to flourish, not on our own, but in a family of fellow believers. If we are His children, then we are also heirs to His k...

God, knowing the times in which we would live and the boundaries of our habitation, uniquely wired and uniquely placed us so that men and women might seek and find God. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to declare His glory in whatever we do and wherever we find ourselves. This...

As we progress through life, it is natural for us to search for who we really are. Our wounds and failures tend to speak the loudest as we grasp for strands of an identity. But the same God who spoke all of creation into existence declares that we are His forgiven children—redeemed, perfectly lov...

There is no formation without repetition. Each of us are a product of our experiences with God, our experiences with others, and our habits. Before sin entered the story, all was right between God and humans. Now, through Christ, we are being rehumanized by the indwelling of the Spirit, making us...

Generation Z is not only the church of tomorrow, but the church of today. Psalm 145 calls us to invite the next generation into God’s greater story, praising Him for His wonderful works. We ask God to raise up bold and faithful leaders in the generations to come and for us to be faithful in comme...

Motherhood is a reflection of the nature and character of God. The Accuser takes this truth and convinces moms that they should know everything, be everywhere at the same time, and carry the weight of the family’s world on their backs. But only God is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. We c...

The ultimate act of mercy is shown in God giving His Son as a sacrifice for us, the undeserving, that we might be saved. God now calls us to go and be merciful—presenting ourselves as living sacrifices, outdoing each other in showing honor, befriending the lowly, practicing hospitality, and bless...

In a world like ours, the Church should not be happening. Yet it continues to progress, all over the world, and will only get better over time because Christ is with us. God tilts the beautiful future we read of in Revelation and the old words of Paul in Romans back into the here and now. Our God...

The gospel we first received is the gospel we still need. It serves the human heart as water, sunlight, and air serve the grass of the fields. The gospel is what we need today and is what we will need tomorrow. Rather than spending our days trying to prove we were worthy all along of God’s forgiv...

The disciple Thomas was a zealous follower of Christ, yet is forever known for his moment of weakness. Right before Jesus commissions His followers, the Word says some still doubted. But Jesus doesn’t withhold His mission when His followers doubt. Like Thomas, Christ invites us to move toward Him...

As the heat of life turns up, the aroma of death becomes all the more obvious. But eternal life is available, and we don’t have to wait until heaven to get it. Christ said to Martha that those who live and believe in Him will never die. The sting of death has been swallowed up in His victory. Dea...

God’s solution for a broken, lost, and hurting world is a church that is awake and alive to each other–living in true, biblical community. In the final sermon of our series, we examine the dramatic birth of the early Church and how the believers devoted themselves to one another.

Many of us celebrate the miraculous things of our faith—the virgin birth, the exorcism of demons, the healing of the sick and lame—but live as if none of that is available to us. We look back at those miraculous moments as moral fables rather than God calling us to participate. Nothing has change...

God provides the seed and the bread, and promises righteousness for those who give cheerfully to the advancement of His kingdom. To be a cheerful giver is to orient our hearts around truth, and to see our resources for what they are—gifts from the Giver. In return, He promises all grace, all suff...

At opposite ends of the wisdom literature stand Job and Solomon. Job loses everything and finds God’s presence is more than enough. Solomon gains everything and finds His presence better still. His presence is the story of the Bible. He has made known to us the path of life, fulfills our joy in H...

We rarely expect our modern world to look like the world of the Bible. We erase the unseen and supernatural with information and human innovation. Mystery is no longer something to marvel over but something to prove. As sober-minded children of light, let us trade the twilight cynicism, skepticis...

Nothing calls for and retains our attention like anger and fear. Online algorithms serve us content that keeps rage levels high, anxieties buzzing, and our attention fixated. God calls us to live differently. He says to be captivated by whatever is true, honorable, pure, praiseworthy, beautiful, ...

A flourishing human by today’s standard is one who defines a moral universe for themself, basing truth on their inmost desires. Yet our desires can be at odds even with themselves. There is one person who bears this weight gladly and gracefully. He was not only a great truth-teller, but Truth its...

We have been justified once and for all, and are being sanctified over time. Yet, often we confuse our justification with our sanctification and can feel our salvation is at stake at every turn. When we try to complete in the flesh what the Spirit started, we lack the courage to walk in the light...

Having begun their relationship with Christ by a work of the Spirit, the Galatian believers turned to their own works in hopes of perfection. Paul said they had been bewitched into something distorted and evil—a different gospel, which was no gospel at all. In the same way, we can be so church-ad...

The gospel had radically transformed the city of Ephesus 15 years prior, but Paul is concerned that the believers’ are again being lulled into sleep by its wickedness. By deceit, rootlessness, the anxieties of the world, and the deception of worldly riches, we too begin to distance ourselves from...

After Jesus rose, the disciples asked if it was now time for Him to restore the kingdom to Israel. His response was one of protection and calling. He reminded them that only the Father knows the times, and called them to go into their neighborhoods, surrounding cities, and the nations and bear wi...

John’s vision from God in Revelation 21 gives us a picture of the new heavens and earth—all ethnicities bringing what’s good and beautiful about their cultures to live together. As we exist in the “already but not yet” of this kingdom to come, we learn about other ethnicities and cultures with cu...

In Genesis, God makes man in His own image and places a unique, spiritual mantle on all humans—regardless of status, ability, race, or gender. As we become the kinds of people God is making us into, we are to embrace our role as salt and light pushing back against the darkness and engaging the ho...

The path of life has been laid out by God through His law and made possible through the coming of Jesus. By His grace, we are transformed from one degree of glory to the next and called to the table of His joy to experience pleasures forevermore.

In Him is life, and this life is the light of mankind. And to this day His light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.

There is a joy that transcends all of life’s circumstances. Hebrews 10 mentions the joyful acceptance of being robbed knowing there is a better, future possession. The disciples were beaten but left rejoicing for the honor of suffering for Christ’s name. Happiness is fragile and folds under press...

Even the best stories about human love reveal frailty and cannot be looked upon as any righteous constant. So we start with the Savior. We did not love Him first, but He loved us. With no good in ourselves, Christ moved toward us. While we were still weak, ungodly sinners, Christ died for us. Tha...

There is a set of subversive expectations that we are steeped in when it comes to Christmas. Books, movies, and the lore of the holidays promise all things can be made right and complete through the magic of the season. Our human hearts are desperate for this relief and it is found in Jesus Chris...

The gospel of Jesus can feel quaint and outdated in today’s fast-paced, sensory-driven world. With so many things vying for our attention, we should find ways to cultivate moments of meaning, hope, and rest. Our faith lives on patience. Patience is willing to endure. Endurance is sustained by the...

We all feel a sense of worthlessness or contempt in our hearts. We try to combat it with self-righteousness and self-loathing. When we realize that although we can’t save ourselves but Christ’s desire is to do that very thing, it produces in us a humble self-forgetfulness. Our reward is justifica...

It is our hope and prayer that we will have planted and revitalized 30 healthy, gospel-centered, multiplying churches by the year 2030. And God has already begun this work. As a church, our work is to collectively affirm what God is doing and commit to support the work of advancing the Kingdom of...

There is an innate hunger for abundant life hidden in the heart of people, and the vast majority don’t yet know the beauty, truth, and relevance of Jesus. Before He ascended into the heavens, Jesus made a promise to His followers that we would receive power when the Holy Spirit comes. Therefore, ...

The Pharisees and Scribes grumbled as Jesus dined with the unwelcome and uninvited. In a series of three parables, Jesus responds to their complaints with the message that the Kingdom is for all people. It is for the saint and the sinner. The banquet table is set by a compassionate Father. For th...

While Jesus is not indifferent to matters of justice, the matter at hand was one of greed. Before telling this parable a man demanded that Jesus tell his brother to give him some of the inheritance. Jesus tells this story to derail man’s desire for worldly gain and calls the crowd to be rich in God.

Jesus says to pray and not lose heart. In Luke 18, He tells the story of a woman in desperate need of justice. Her “bothersome” persistence convinces the unrighteous judge to act. How much more will God be moved into action by the cries of His own children?

The parable of the growing seed is a concise story of a profound truth. The farmer sows the seed yet knows not how it grows. He can only see the surface and is unaware of the energy happening underground. Jesus tells this story to remind the listener, that although the ground seems unchanged and ...

The parable of the Good Samaritan is one of Jesus’ greatest parables, asking and answering the question, “Who is your neighbor?”. Trevor Joy shared that the story of the Good Samaritan describes how the love of God guides us on how we should live and participate in the world. The fruit of our han...

The friend at midnight is a “lesser to greater” parable, in that it shows us if we as humans respond in love to our friend’s untimely requests, then our God will respond in love all the more. Mason King shared that this parable is an invitation to live out the Lord’s Prayer by doing away with dis...

The parable of the two builders is a comparison of wisdom and foolishness. Both builders heard the words of Jesus, but only one put them into action. Nick Crawford shared that this “hearing and doing” is the solid foundation of the wise man’s house. This builder has done the hard work of putting ...

Beginning the Parables series, Mason King called the Parables prophetic instruments designed to disrupt our thinking and invite us to rethink our reality. These stories Jesus told were the primary way He chose to teach about the Kingdom of God. Like the various environments that sower’s seeds fel...

The final gospel metaphor of union with Christ serves as a blessing for the believer and a reminder of the finished work of Jesus. In Ephesians 1, Paul begins his letter with a handful of prepositional promises that give us hope and comfort. In love and through His blood, we have been unified com...

The apostle Paul serves as the perfect example of the gospel metaphor of redemption. After years of ravaging the Church, God called Paul out of terrorizing His people and into fortifying the Church. We worship God around the world today because of the redemption of this wicked man. When God redee...

This angle of the gospel shows our full acceptance as children into the family of God. We have been justified, made new, and adopted by our good Father. This gospel metaphor serves as a reminder of God’s unending embrace of the elect as beloved members of His family.

As we turn the diamond of the gospel, we see the old passing away and the new coming. When Christ comes for His people at the end of all things, we will not spend our days in some ethereal plane plucking a cartoon harp. We will be in physical bodies, in a physical place, and all things will be ne...

Beginning the Every Angle sermon series, Matt Chandler compares the gospel to the most precious of gemstones. As we marvel at the good news of Jesus, holding this dazzling stone to the light, every angle of truth is illuminated. In this sermon, Matt speaks on the gospel metaphor of Justification.

Around the age of 90, the apostle John finds himself isolated on an island, far from the churches he had planted years ago, and imprisoned by the most corrupt and violent emperor. In this sermon, Ross Lester shares that it was during this season of suffering that Jesus gave John an astounding rev...

To stand firm in hardship, we have to remember that we are children of a good, good God. In this sermon, Ryan Kwon reminds us that our Father trains, nurtures, and blesses us by His merciful hand as we go through hard seasons.

In pursuit of contentment, our eyes become set on resources we do not have rather than what God has already given us. In this sermon, Mason King calls us to ask God for deliverance from the desire for more money or resource, thinking that more will cure what ails us.

In response to the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, we celebrated the protection of life with a deep sense of sobriety. The work to care for women, children, and families continues to be a space where God calls His Church to enter into as salt and light.

In a flyover view of the book of Ecclesiastes, we see our lives as short and good and that we should live in preparation to meet our God. The time is now to live wisely and well.

If we bring our first and best to something other than God, we bring an offering to something unable to sustain our worship. We have worshiped at weak altars. Yet God pleads with us to return, seek first His kingdom, and steward well the resources each of us has been given.

There is a defiant joy and bend towards celebration by which the people of God are meant to be marked. While the church is messy and life increasingly complicated, God is still accomplishing amazing work among His people. This is a cause for celebration!

There are moments when the brokenness becomes so vivid it wakes us to see our world for what it is. Let us lift our heads and turn our eyes to our Lord, our only real hope.

Our money can put us on a treadmill with a goal we will never reach. Material wealth and status lose their luster, leaving us wanting more. Christ is the “more” for which our hearts are longing.

Jesus is not anti-wealth, but He knows that money makes for a worthless god. Jesus is not coming after our money but our hearts.

God is redeeming, renewing, and restoring every tribe, tongue, and nation on earth, and we find ourselves in the middle of the story.

God is at work around the world today. Lift up your eyes. The harvest is here.

Our days have been numbered, our God is trustworthy, and Jesus has dealt with our shame.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a means of celebration for the believer and an invitation for the unbeliever.

Christian leaders live out the power of the gospel and demonstrate its validity by faithfully pursuing Christ in the face of opposition.

Believers should not be surprised by suffering but should instead rejoice in future hope, remember why we suffer, and rely on our faithful and sovereign God.

Christian hope is an active mindset that works to restore true humanity, is lived in dependence upon God, and compels us to a faithful presence.

The people of God endure suffering with the hope of final victory as the inheritance of Christ pulls them ever forward.

Christian relationships are to be marked by mutual submission in light of the gospel.

When we bear unjust wounds without sinning in our speech, we display Christ to a watching world.

Christians are to graciously submit to authority for the Lord’s sake, as keeping honorable conduct shouts the gospel even when we are silenced.

We have been chosen and redeemed by the grace of God to live holy lives with one another as witnesses to a broken world.

The people of God stand in grace as the gospel calls them to both action and love.

Peter’s first letter calls its readers to a living hope while encouraging them to steward their suffering and orient their lives around future glory.

We are caught up in the story God is writing, and we’ve been given power to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth.

John Stonestreet, President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, encourages us to have hope that Jesus is Lord as we engage this cultural moment.

God’s plan is to create a community of people who would reflect His glory, wisdom, and moral beauty to the world.

Human beings have been made distinct from the rest of creation, which makes the value of any human life immeasurable.

With a new year comes the opportunity to examine our lives and measure the space between what we say we believe and how we live. Does your life on Earth reflect the reality of Heaven as your ultimate home?

Christian joy transcends circumstantial happiness because Jesus has overcome the darkness.

The overwhelming reality that the Son of God put on flesh and dwelt among us should cause Christians to marvel.

Regardless of what’s going on in the world, the coming of Christ has given us an opportunity to let peace be established in our hearts.

Advent brings us hope because the birth of Jesus is the death of fear.

God has called us to Himself, and He will fully empower us to live as the people He made us to be. We can be encouraged to step out in faith and trust in Him.

Much of what frustrates our lives today is driven out when we live as the people God made us to be, with the people God gave us to love.

The Creator of the universe has invested in each of us for our joy and His glory. Discovering and living into that investment provides us with what we’ve been searching for.

Our lives are interwoven with others, and we need each other. Our varying purposes shape a community of faith where people are cheered on to live out their own part of God’s good design.

God forms us into who we are through our gifts and by the triumphs and tragedies that make up our stories. Unearthing these things reveals His good design.

God has prepared specific opportunities for us to step into, but words and wounds can bury our potential and keep us from realizing them.

We all share a general identity as children of God and heirs of His promise, but what does it look like to step into our specific identities? Who has God made us to be? Visit patersoncenter.com/tvc to learn more.

We are God’s workmanship; each of us is formed by His hand, with His people, and for His glory. God calls us to Himself for a specific purpose.

Jesus came to earth preaching the kingdom of God—His reign and rule over all creation—and it looks different than what many of us imagine.

The love of Christ is the only answer to the brokenness of the world, but many of us walk right past what God is inviting us into every day.

The Bible doesn’t just talk about the gospel as individual salvation; the gospel is the good news that God is redeeming everything.

You can grow up in church your entire life and never truly hear the gospel because receiving it and being transformed by its power requires God to move.