Good Tree, Good Fruit

Expectant Waiting

As Brian Knapp walked into his daughter's classroom, a biblical parallel entered his mind. He shares it in this message, calling us into faithful and expectant waiting upon God.

Renewing Our Minds to Jesus-Centric Pacifism

Jesus' teachings on responding to our enemies are entirely backward from ours. For him, love is the highest principle, and we are to engage with those who hurt us in pacifistic ways that turn the tables. Jamin dives into these themes in this message.

Blessings and Woes

In this message, Jamin walks through stories of power and wealth throughout the Bible and then points us toward the grand socio-economic reversal that is to come.

Resurrection is Breaking Through Now

In this Easter message, Jamin explains how the resurrected age that is to come is already breaking into the world around us today, and how Christians can holistically be a part of it.

Serving with the Holy Spirit

In the final message of our Lenten "12:08 Prayer Initiative" series, Jamin preaches on the biblical importance of taking care of those around us via acts of service. He further connects this to Palm Sunday and invites us to listen to the Holy Spirit to figure out what to do next as a church.

Evangelism and the Kingdom of Heaven

In this message, Jamin looks at the wider picture of the Kingdom of Heaven and explains how evangelism fits into it.

Don't Tithe

This may be the most financially dangerous message Jamin has ever preached! Or if you catch the point of it, it may be the most financially empowering!

In this message, Jamin explains how tithing is an Old Testament notion, not a New Testament one. Giving to the tabernacle and giving to the church are two different principles, grounded in different customs and cultures. Christians are not called to "tithe 10%" per se, but to give generously as the Spirit leads them.

Check out this message for more details or James D. Quiggle's book, "Why Christians Should Not Tithe," for all of the research this message is built upon.

Your Unique Image of God

Christians are often found saying things like, "All of you God and none of me." While the sentiment of such a statement can be appreciated, it's not exactly a Biblical perspective of who we are as humans. God is not looking for Christians to become a homogenous group of people that are unidentifiable from each other. Rather, God wants to help us become a full expression of his image, while maintaining our unique identity. This means some things will be chiseled out of us. Other things will be grown in us. Spiritual gifts will be allotted to us. And other qualities will stay and be perfected in us. Jamin explains more in this message.

Partners, Deacons and Pastors

This year we are praying that we raise up 26 new partners, 1 new deacon (which we’ve already started developing!), and 1 new local ministerial candidate for pastoring. Jamin explains some of the spiritual, biblical, and practical reasons behind these needs at 1208.

There Shall Be No Poor Among You

While all humans were made in God's image with equal authority, sin has pushed us to thrive at the expense of another, creating a vast dividing line between the rich and the poor. God saw this in humanity and created laws to make sure humanity took care of one another, but as we can see, that didn't happen. God continued to show this theme when he came to earth as Jesus.

Jamin traces this line through the Bible and then illustrates how benevolent ministry can be messy, but is still essential for Christians nonetheless.

Prayer and the Divine Council View

Many are used to an intercessory kind of prayer where you simply say the same thing over and over again in different ways, but the Bible invites us to pray quite differently than that. Jamin gives a few ideas on how to pray personally and corporately for 1208 during this Lenten season.

An Invitation to Fast

For a few weeks now, Jamin has felt a call to do some significant fasting during this Lenten season. He invites you to join along and gives some Biblical reasons to fast compared to the many modern reasons people fast.

A New Name

Jesus speaks identity into his disciples. He changes Simon's name to Peter. He nicknames the other Simon "the Zealot." He nicknames two others "The Sons of Thunder." He calls 12 of them "apostles." Jesus invests calling in them through names, and titles. What names and titles is he speaking over you? What names and titles does he want you to speak over others?

The Heart of the Law

It seems like a little deal to us when we read stories about Jesus breaking Sabbath laws and expectations, but it certainly was a big deal to the Pharisees. In their minds, he was breaking the sacred laws that God had put in place. But Jesus didn't see it that way. So how did he see it?

Choose the New Thing

Old jeans with new patches. Old wineskins with new wine. These are some analogies that Jesus puts forth to show us the incompatibility of his ways and the old ways. This has a million applications to us today, but first we need to understand how the old is embodied in the new.

Evangelistic Multiplication

Sometimes Jesus finds "people of peace" that he can work with to reach others. In this case, he calls one tax collector to follow him, allowing him to get to know all of his tax-collecting friends. He then enters their world and meets them in their sin and shows them his Father.

Forgiveness is a Power

When we read the story of the healing of the paralytic, our attention often gets caught up on the paralytic's faith rather than on Jesus' strange teaching on forgiveness that follows. Why did Jesus' forgiving people sound so extreme to the religious leaders? And what does it mean that Jesus also told us that we could forgive people?

Holy Spirit

Jamin shelves his original message to talk about the Holy Spirit.

Skin

Many Christians have a very negative view of skin. But in this Christmas message, Jamin talks about the goodness of skin and God's redemption of it through God, who put on skin himself as Jesus.