The Cross & the Crescent Part 7: The Spiritual Power of Memory | Week 7 | Pastor Nate Brown

Grace & Glory | The Power to Live Free | Week 4 | Andrew Johnson

Week 4 (June 28): Glory That Outweighs It All  Romans 8:18–39  Romans 8 ends with one of the most sweeping declarations in Scripture. Paul has just described  groaning creation, a Spirit interceding with wordless prayers, and suffering that does not feel  redemptive from the inside. Then he makes the turn. None of it compares to the glory that is  coming. This is not wishful thinking. It is the logical conclusion of everything Paul has argued  since chapter 5.  The message will anchor the congregation in what Paul actually says, not just how good it  sounds. The unbreakable chain from foreknowledge to glorification. The Spirit who intercedes  when we don’t know what to pray. The God who works all things for our good. And then the  doxology of certainty: nothing in all creation can separate the believer from the love of God in  Christ Jesus. The practical landing is a hard question worth sitting in. Do you actually believe that? And if you do, what would be different about how you live this week?

Grace & Glory | The Power to Live Free | Week 3 | Pastor Nate Brown

Week 3 (June 21): Life in the Spirit  Romans 8:1–17  Romans 8 opens with one of the most consequential sentences in the New Testament: there is  no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This is a theological truth claim, and getting  it right, or wrong, has massive implications for our identity and how we live the Christian  experience. When Paul makes this statement, he’s not just being optimistic. He is stating a legal  reality. The verdict has been issued. The case is closed. What follows from that verdict is a life  defined not by the fear of judgment but by the leading of the Spirit. The message will explore what walking according to the Spirit actually looks like day to day. It  is not mystical passivity. It is an orientation, a setting of the mind, a direction from which you  draw. Paul contrasts the flesh-directed life with the Spirit-directed life not in terms of effort but  in terms of source. The Spirit-led believer is not a rule-keeper trying to stay compliant. They are  a son or daughter living from the reality of adoption. This week calls the church to stop living  under a verdict that has already been overturned, and to start living from the one that replaced  it.

Grace & Glory | The Power to Live Free | Week 2 | Pastor Nate Brown

Week 2 (June 14): The Law, the Flesh, and the War Within Romans 7  If grace produces new life, why does the Christian still feel the pull toward the old one? Romans  7 is Paul’s honest answer to that question. Before he gets there, he closes the loop on grace  and the law: through Christ’s death, the believer has been released from the law the way a  widow is released from her husband. The old union is legally over. A new one has begun. But  that release does not mean the war is finished.  Paul then describes someone who loves God’s law, wants to obey it, and still finds themselves  doing the very thing they hate. This is not a picture of defeat. It is a picture of honest self knowledge on the way to the right solution. The law, though holy and good, cannot produce  the transformation it reveals the need for. It diagnoses. It does not cure. Paul’s cry, “Who will  rescue me from this body of death?” is not despair. It is the right question asked by someone  who finally stopped trying to answer it themselves. The practical edge: the feeling that you  keep losing the same fight is not evidence that grace has failed. It may be evidence that you  are still trying to win it by the wrong means.

Grace & Glory | The Power to Live Free | Week 1 | Pastor Nate Brown

Week 1 (June 7): Dead to Sin, Alive to God  Romans 6  Grace is not just a legal declaration. It is a death and a resurrection. Paul opens Romans 6 with  the most provocative question in the letter: if grace abounds where sin increases, why not keep  sinning? His answer cuts straight to the bone. You can’t. Because you died. Union with Christ in  His death means the old self is not reformed, it is crucified. Union with Him in His resurrection means a new life is already happening.  The message will walk the whole chapter as one argument. The first half develops the identity  move: baptism declares a transfer that grace has already accomplished. The second half  develops the loyalty move: freedom is not the absence of a master, it is belonging to the right  one. Everyone obeys something. The question is who. The practical question this week is  whether we are living as people who are dead to sin and now belong to God, or simply people  who are trying harder to resist sin while still serving the old master. Those are not the same  posture, and only one of them is rooted in what grace actually did.

The Cross & the Crescent Part 10: The End of Two Kingdoms - Eschatology | Week 10 | Pastor Nate Brown

What Islam and Christianity teach about the end times  The final installment looks forward to what the Bible and Islam teach about the end  times. By examining this, we are able to see how a view of what’s coming shapes the  behavior of people in the present.   In the final week, we study Jesus and the Biblical end times. We then contrast the  Hadith and its teachings on the Mahdi, Isa, and conquest and the final days.