Kaleo Church Podcast

On what do you place your confidence? Whether we like to admit it or not our confidence is often misplaced in things that are fleeting. Elisha teaches us that for those who follow the LORD, the foundation of our confidence is the Word of God empowered by the Spirit of God. The Word of God alone is always true and always accomplishes the purposes of God. Jesus Christ died and rose to ensure that his Word will overcome all opposition and his promises to us are certain.

Anyone who has ever been discipled knows how God can give you respect and admiration for the one who discipled you. But what happens when God calls that person elsewhere? Should you find someone else to disciple you? Should you disciple others? Listen and hear how the gospel forms us into men and women who count the cost of following Jesus and call others to follow him with us.

What does the call of Elisha have to teach us about the call of God to each and every follower of Jesus Christ? Have you counted the cost? Is following Jesus worth it when it leads to a life of service and sacrifice? Elisha's call reminds us that "God is my salvation." Jesus answered the call of God perfectly so that he could now call us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

      How do you respond when someone points out an area in your life where you were wrong? Do you get defensive? Do you return the favor and point out all of the areas where the person who corrected you has fallen short? In I Corinthians 16:10-11 Paul calls the Corinthians to welcome Timothy’s correction rather than despising him for it. In this message we will consider what it might look like for us to apply this advice towards anyone who chooses to correct us out of love.   

      What do you do when you work really hard to put together a plan only to find that nothing turned out the way you expected it to? It can be hard right? Now what about when your plans involved a relationship? When our relationships don’t go the way we planned we often find ourselves feeling lonely and heartbroken. In this passage we will see how Paul responded when his relationship with the Corinthians didn’t end up going the way he planned it to.

What is it that makes money so attractive? Is it the freedom and the control that it offers? Is it the security it gives in the midst of all the uncertainties of the future? Or maybe it’s the comfort and pleasure that money promises? In this message, we will compare the promises of money and the promises of the Gospel and find that, in the end, Jesus is better. Lastly, we will consider what it would look like to live as if Jesus and not money were our greatest treasure.

If you have a worldview "under the sun" it seems like everything is vanity and a striving after wind. That is certainly how life often feels. Our labor is not always fruitful or lasting. Hurt, disappointment, unmet expectations, lost dreams, and failure are part of our shared human experience in this fallen world. However, the gospel flips all of that upside down! Jesus has been raised from the dead and so we have the assurance that in the Lord our labor is not in vain! 

Have you ever longed to see death destroyed? Think of all of the havoc death has wreaked and the pain that it has caused. Well in I Corinthians 15 Paul points us towards a day where death will be no more. A day where the one who seemed to swallow everything in his path will be swallowed up in victory.

Have you ever wondered how it could be possible for bodies that are buried and decay to ever be raised to life again? The idea almost seems inconceivable. And even if it were possible, do we really want to be stuck in our bodies forever? These are a few of the questions that Paul addresses in these verses. Let’s see what he has to say.

How do we deal with the tension between the reality of death and the promises of resurrection? What does it look like to grieve in hope? How can facing death give us a greater appreciation for the resurrection? How does distancing ourselves from death end up distancing ourselves from the depths of God’s love for us? How does Jesus show us what it looks like to cling to the promises of God without denying the reality of death?

Paul tells the Corinthians that if we have put our hope in Christ for this life only then we are above all the most to be pitied. Why does he say that? In this message we will consider what it was about Paul’s life that would lead him to make this statement and we will consider what it would look like for us to imitate him in this even as he was imitating his precious Savior. We will also rejoice that Christ has indeed risen again from the dead proving that there is nothing to pity about a child of God.

Have you ever forgotten something that turned out to be pretty important? In this passage Paul comes to remind the Corinthians about what really matters. Here we find an amazing summary of the Gospel as well as a reminder that God’s grace isn’t just for good people but it extends to even the worst of sinners.

Have you ever felt stuck in some area of your life and begun to doubt that there was any way you were ever going to change? Have you ever had someone give up on you and begun to think that maybe they were right? If you have then you are not alone. In the Gospels we read the story of someone who had failed so terribly that he must have wondered if there was any way that Jesus could ever truly restore him. Well in John 21 the Risen Jesus pursues Peter and shows us that the grace of God is able to restore even the worst of failures!

Why did Jesus welcome the praise and coronation of those that he knew would abandon him, deny him, and betray him less than one week later? Because Jesus came to save sinners! Jesus alone is worthy to do it. For everyone who confesses their sin and cries out to Jesus, "Hosanna! - Save me!" - then Jesus will bring you through the tribulation of this life and shelter you with his presence for all eternity.

Some verses are hard to understand. In I Corinthians 14:34 Paul writes that “Women should keep silent in the churches.” What does Paul mean in this verse and how does it relate to I Corinthians 11:5 where Paul seems to approve of women praying and prophesying? In this message we will take a deep dive into two different ways to interpret these verses and consider how we might apply what we learn to the service.

Were headship and submission a part of God’s good plan for husbands and wives before the fall or are they actually the result of sin? If they were a part of God’s good plan then how is it fair that husbands get the role of headship while wives are called to submit? These are just a few of the questions we will consider as we try and discern the roles that God has called both men and women to play in the home.

Why do you go to the church service? Are there things that you are hoping to get from it that you don’t think you can get anywhere else? How important do you think your presence there is? In 1 Corinthians 14 Paul answers many of these questions by telling us what he wants to see take place at the gathering. In this chapter we soon realize that we are more needed then we are aware of while at the same time being more needy than we ever imagined.

The gift of tongues has been the source of a lot of confusion, disagreement, division and hurt among Christians. There are some who view tongues as the ultimate sign of one’s spirituality, while there are others who believe that it is a form of paganism that has crept back into the church. Given the massive gap between these two positions, what are we supposed to do? Are there things that we can all agree on? Are there ways that we can seek to understand those that we don’t agree with? And what might it look like to love one another across some of our differences? These are some of the things we will address in this message.