Grace & Glory | The Power to Live Free | Week 5 | Pastor Nate Brown

Grace & Glory | The Power to Live Free | Week 5 | Pastor Nate Brown

Week 5 (July 12): Has God’s Word Failed?  Romans 9  Romans 9 is where the series shifts from the new life grace produces to the glory of the God  who makes it possible. Paul asks the hardest question the gospel raises: if Israel was the  covenant people and they largely rejected Christ, does that mean God’s word failed? If His  promises to Abraham and his descendants didn’t hold, why would His promises to anyone else?  The message will make clear that God’s word has not failed, because it was never based on  biological descent alone. The promise ran through a remnant defined by faith, not simply  bloodline. Paul reaches back to the patriarchs to show that God has always worked this way.  His sovereignty is purposeful, not capricious. The examples of Isaac and Jacob are not about  God predetermining individuals to salvation or damnation. They are about God’s freedom to call  a people to a purpose, to work His redemptive plan through unexpected vessels, including  Gentiles. Biblical election has always been this: a people called to a mission. Not a  predetermined list of winners and losers. That framework is what makes Romans 9 coherent,  and what prepares the church for the next two weeks.

Freedom Sunday | Free Indeed | Pastor Nate Brown

On this special weekend in America, we look at the biblical foundations of our country and why religion and morality are the pillars of our democracy.

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.