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Upside-Down Christmas: Luke 4
Greetings this morning from the Upside Down Christmas podcast, our Advent series tracing the theme of reversal and irony through the book of Luke one chapter at a time. In chapter four, we start off with Jesus entering into the wilderness. Jesus, after having been baptized by John, goes off into the wilderness for forty days to fast and pray. And while he’s out there, he’s also tempted by the devil in three different ways. In one of those temptations, the devil tempts him wit

Pastor Joseph
Dec 3, 20254 min read
Upside-Down Christmas: Luke 3
Welcome back to the Upside-Down Christmas podcast. We’re walking our way through the Book of Luke one chapter at a time looking at the great themes of reversal—the rich becoming poor, the weak made strong, the high becoming low. And this week, we’re looking at the ministry of John the Baptist in chapter 3. And I love John’s story because here’s this guy who has parents that are deeply connected to the inner workings of the religious institutions of the time that were right in

Pastor Joseph
Dec 2, 20253 min read
Upside Down Christmas: Luke 2
Welcome back to our Advent series called “Upside Down Christmas” where we’re looking at the Gospel of Luke—one chapter at a time—and tracing this great theme of reversals in the life of Jesus. And in the second chapter, we see this theme in abundance. But one of the more obvious ones reveals that it’s not just that the low get exalted—like we saw with Elizabeth in chapter one—but that the high become low. What do I mean by that? Well, in this case, we’re talking about Jesus h

Pastor Joseph
Dec 1, 20253 min read
Upside Down Christmas: Luke 1
Welcome to our Advent series called “Upside Down Christmas.” And what we’ll be doing is just working our way through the Gospel of Luke chapter by chapter—one chapter a day until Christmas; and we’ll be tracing this theme of the upside down kingdom. And what I’d love for you to do is to follow along by listening here, but also by reading just a chapter of Luke a day. If you do that, by the end of the month, we’ll have read the whole book together. Now that way of talking abou

Pastor Joseph
Nov 30, 20253 min read
A Day of Prayer and Fasting for Kid Kamp
"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do...

Pastor Joseph
Jun 5, 20243 min read
Prayer Is A Lot Of Things
When we started this podcast, it was all about figuring out how to pray. But what I hope you’ve seen along the way is that, while prayer...

Pastor Joseph
Feb 3, 20241 min read
Prayer Is Glorifying God
If you’ve been listening this week, you’ll remember that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about the image of God and about how we’re...

Pastor Joseph
Feb 2, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Reminding God
It’s an odd thing to say that prayer is reminding God. It’s odd because—well, doesn’t God know all things? How could we remind him of...

Pastor Joseph
Feb 1, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Prioritizing God
In our busy world, it can be hard to find time to pray. Would you believe me if I told you this was true even for ministers?...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 31, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Praising God
Yesterday, we talked about how the heart is bent in on itself, how it’s curved away from God where it’s supposed to be. But we also...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 30, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Thanksgiving
Prayer is about more than us. In fact, it’s primarily about God. We tend to think of prayer as asking for things because our hearts are...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 29, 20242 min read
Prayer Is An End
If you’ve ever heard the story of Mary and Martha, you probably heard someone tell you that people (women?) are of two different types....

Pastor Joseph
Jan 27, 20242 min read
Prayer Is A Means
“Do less and pray more.” That was Paul Miller’s conclusion about his ministry. He’d been working really hard to find the right staff...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 26, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Unscripted
Do you make a habit of prayer? Like, do you have a specific time of prayer or do you have a routine of prayer? Like a planned prayer...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 25, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Disciplined
Jesus would often get up early by himself to pray, even when he’d been up late the night before ministering to people. I wonder if he...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 24, 20241 min read
Prayer Is Play
As my children and I were reading through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—that classic children’s book by C.S. Lewis—I was struck...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 23, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Work
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I resist praying because it doesn’t seem like real work. What I mean is, at the end of a time of...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 22, 20244 min read
Prayer Is For Others
If you’ve been following the podcast for a while, you might have noticed that we’ve been talking a lot about what prayer means to you,...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 20, 20241 min read
Prayer Is Confession
Have you ever played Hide and Seek with little kids? I mean the ones who aren’t quite old enough to get it? So they stick their head...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 19, 20242 min read
Prayer Is Being Invited By God
Have you ever lost your dog? What’s the first thing you do? You go outside and whistle for him to come back. You call him home. Jesus...

Pastor Joseph
Jan 18, 20241 min read
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