
Hosted by Ben Todd · EN

Our fourth and final Sunday in the I ❤️ My Church series is less a Sunday message and more of a Faith Mountain family conversation. The discussion focuses on what God has planned for the future of HIS Church.

The Church is one body with many parts. OUR Church is one part of THE Church - the global body of Christ. OUR Church is made up of people who, if you've accepted Christ, are part of the body of Christ. The third sermon in this series focuses on OUR Church and it's purpose, and how it impacts our people and our community.

Our teaching passage today - 1 Peter 2:9-12 - calls us "a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession." We are who we are because of "whose" we are! In the 2nd sermon in 'I "Heart" My Church' we discover how to find our identity.

Bill Hybels once said, "the local church is the hope of the world". That's a pretty bold statement, almost arrogant. But it's only arrogant if it's not true. When we understand that THE Church is the only entity in the entire world getting the word our about the cure for death, seeing it as the hope of the world makes perfect sense.

Virtually everyone has said "I wish I had more time ..." to whatever: rest, read, spend time with family, etc. But the truth is that we all have time for what we choose to have time for. In our fourth and final sermon in our I Choose series, the subject is choosing what is important over what is urgent.

John 16:33 says, "In this world, you will have trouble." The reality is that we will all experience pain in our lives. Some of this pain is beyond our control. In our third week of the I Choose series, we look at the pain that we can avoid by applying discipline to our lives.

In the second week of our series called I Choose, Pastor Ben discusses surrendering control. All of us battle, in some area, wanting to control, but the reality is whenever we are trying to control something that is not ours to control, it is a reflection of a really big spiritual problem.

Imagine waking up every single day with passion and purpose in your life knowing deep down what you are created to do. It drives you and the approval of others does not distract you… It is the choice that Pastor Ben encouraged us to make: I choose purpose over popularity.

Our final Carol in the series is O Come O Come Emmanuel. We focus on the name Emmanuel, which means "God is with us".

This week's Carol is Away in a Manger. While one picture the song brings is that of a newborn baby boy, there is another that focuses on his destiny as Lord. Over and over he is referred to as the "Little Lord Jesus". Since Jesus is referred to as Lord 740 times in the New Testament, today's sermon will help us to understand that he is LORD.