Living Word Family Church Sermon Podcast

In Part IX of our Colossians series, Pastor Scott returns to Colossians 3:13, “as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive,” and walks us through Jesus’ parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. A servant is forgiven a debt he could never repay, then refuses to show even a fraction of that mercy to someone who owes him a little. Pastor Scott challenges us to see ourselves in the story, to pray David’s humble prayer from Psalm 139, “Search me, O God,” and to rest in how God sees us in Christ: forgiven, holy, and righteous. Mercy received is meant to become mercy given.

What does it look like to live as a new creation at home, at work, and in the church? In Part 8 of our Colossians series, Pastor Scott walks through Colossians 3:12–4:1. Put on compassion, kindness, humility, and patience, and above all, put on love. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Then Paul turns to our closest relationships, husbands and wives, parents and children, workers and bosses, and gives each person their own assignment. None of them is “make the other person do theirs.” In Christ we have rights and privileges, and we also have duties and responsibilities because of who we are in Him. Come see how focusing on the second makes the first come more naturally.

We've heard it many times: "Jesus didn't come to make bad people good; He came to make dead people live". We read in the New Testament that we were dead in our sins, but that Christ has made us alive! The Holy Spirit spoke to the believers in Colossae (and to us) through Paul's letters that Christ's death killed our old, dead selves, and in HIS resurrection we are raised to new life IN HIM! And that new life comes with privileges and duties; rights and responsibilities.

In Part 3 of “A Renewed You,” Pastor Mike Mack moves from renewing our minds to living it out. He starts by walking through Romans 12:9–21, Paul’s picture of what a renewed mind looks like in real life: love without hypocrisy, honoring one another, blessing those who persecute us, and overcoming evil with good. He reminds us that the mind is the control center of our lives and that we should never call ourselves (or our kids) names. Then he names the next step: keep a heart of thanksgiving. Refuse to complain, and don’t magnify your problems. Magnify Him.

What more are you looking for? In Part 6 of our Colossians series, Pastor Scott Millis walks through Colossians 2:6–23 and Paul’s reminder that in Christ “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him.” The believers in Colossae were reaching past Jesus for something new — extreme self-denial, angels and visions, food rules and holy days. Paul’s answer is the same for us today: hold fast to the Head. Rules can’t change a heart, and even real spiritual experiences were never meant to take the place of Jesus himself. We closed the morning celebrating three baptisms and the new life that is ours in Christ. Come as you are — we have a seat saved for you.

Getting saved is only the start. In Part 2 of A Renewed You, Pastor Mike Mack goes back to Romans 12:2 and shows what renewing your mind looks like day to day. You fill your heart with God's Word until His thoughts become your thoughts. You give Him your best. You keep your priorities in order and pull down the old ways of thinking that still hold on. Whether you've walked with Jesus for fifty years or you're just starting to wonder about Him, this message is about not coasting. Change what you think and you change how you live. Watch it anytime at livingwordfamily.org.

Sunday morning Pastor Scott took a detour that turned into the whole message. Walking back through how this church began — a Midwestern salesman named Larry Millis who couldn’t stop asking why the things he read in his Bible weren’t happening in church — he traced the movement Living Word was born out of, and then asked the harder question underneath it: how do we tell the difference between what God is doing and what we are manufacturing? The answer he landed on is the same one the Colossians needed. There is a difference between extra-biblical and anti-biblical. God will never confine himself to what you have already seen him do — and he will never do anything that contradicts what he has said. The gifts of the Spirit are not ornaments on the Christian life. Scripture is the measure, not the ceiling. And in Christ you are already complete, with a lifetime of growing up still ahead of you.

Pastor Mike opens a new Wednesday series on the one thing that changes everything else: your mind. Working from Romans 12:1–2, he makes the case that being born again is the starting line, not the finish — God has a good, acceptable, and perfect will for your life, and you step into it the same way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly: by a complete change, not just by learning more. He walks through what it actually takes to get there — honest self-examination, learning how God thinks about you, letting go of the lower life to receive the higher one, and practicing God’s thoughts until they become your own. Warm, practical, and full of the kind of straight talk that’s hard to shake. Part 2 comes next Wednesday.