Grace Central Coast

In 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Paul returns to the delicate and dangers area of sexual immorality and, again, grounds his teaching in the Gospel, all that God has done for us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus!

The Christians in the Corinthian church are suing one another in civil courts!  Its another area where they aren't living or applying the Gospel together.Here we see how Paul challenges them with the Gospel to live differently.  

1 Corinthians 5 highlights both the seriousness of sexual immorality in our own lives and seriousness of sexual immorality in the church.  This passage provides guidelines for how a church is to deal with ongoing, habitual, unconfessed, public sin.  

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul begins to confront and correct some MESSY sexual sin in the Corinthian church. As we dive into this vulnerable subject, the place to start is to explain what "sexual immorality" is and why it's so serious in the sight of God.

In one last effort to call the Corinthian church to humble unity centered on the gospel, Paul exposes how their love of worldly honor is completely at odds with the way of Jesus. He then calls them to imitate his example for the sake of their unity together.

Everywhere we look, we see a crisis in leadership: selfish leaders, harsh leaders, failing leaders. But leaders in God's kingdom and church are called to be different. What do leaders shaped by and centered on the Gospel look like? Paul models it and teaches us in 1 Corinthians 4.

The first Sunday of the new year here at Grace Central Coast, we call Covenant Renewal Sunday.  It's a Sunday where we take time to renew our covenant commitment to the Lord and our covenant commitment to one another.  This year, our challenge comes from 1 Samuel 7.  

We are living in a world that has been radically and profoundly changed by the Gift of Jesus, but most of us don't know it! As we conclude our INDESCRIBABLE series, we consider how Jesus is a world-changing gift.

Have you ever noticed how every character in the Christmas story shares the Gift of Jesus with someone? It's reminder to us that the Good News of Jesus is a gift to be shared. So let's think together about why we don't share the gift of Jesus and explore how we can.

Have you opened a gift only to discover it contained lots of other gifts? That's Jesus! And one more reason why Paul calls him God's INDESCRIBABLE gift.

One of the reasons Jesus is God's INDESCRIBABLE gift is because Jesus is the most surprising gift in all history. No one saw God's Savior coming the way he did. But our familiarity with the Christmas story means we often miss it's surprises.

Christmas is not a random event on a timeline. It is the epicenter of all human longing, seeking, and meaning! The interwoven tapestry of all scripture, history, and spirituality have all promised the coming of our King.

How do you see the local church? How does God see the local church? How we see the local church is vitally important, because our view of the church will determine our commitment to the church and to one another. Paul continues his fight to unite God's people in the local by teaching us who we are and all that is ours in Christ.

As we continue our MESSY CHURCH study of First Corinthians, we come to a bunch of helpful and humbling reminders for a church family and for church leaders as Paul continues to dismantle the factions and unite the church around the Gospel.

God's design and desire for his people is spiritual growth and maturity. We learn here that the Corinthian Christians aren't growing up. They are still spiritual babies. This is true for some of us, too. Paul here reminds us that God has given us all we need to grow as he challenges us to GROW UP! 

Paul reminds the Corinthians, and us, to forsake worldly wisdom and rest our faith solely on the power of the good news of Jesus Christ.

God uses a "foolish" and "weak" message, means and people to save perishing people. Why? We explore that question as we continue our "Messy Church" series in First Corinthians.

In the first four chapters of First Corinthians, Paul calls the divided church of Corinth to a renewed unity around the Gospel. In 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 he tells us WHY the Gospel is a all supreme and all sufficient basis for the unity of God's people.

Paul loves the Messy Church at Corinth because God loves the Messy Church at Corinth. It's because Paul loves the church that he won't leave them in their mess, but leads them forward to become all that God has declared them to be. And it doesn't take him long to jump write into one of the core issues plaguing the church. The church is divided.