River’s Edge Church

Coping with COVID - A Non-Anxious Presence

Jesus was a non-anxious presence in a world gone mad, and He calls us to do the same. In the midst of unprecedented anxiety and national angst, He calls us to be a people rooted in a deeper reality. 

Coping with COVID - Hope and Lament

All of us have felt various forms of loss or grief in the last few months, but in the absence of biblical lament we tend to suppress these emotions, only to reach for unhealthy coping mechanisms instead. Our anxiety, our fits of anger and rage, and our rampant self-medication are all symptoms of our failure to lament: to take what is internal and make it external before God and others. The path to peace starts here. 

Galatians - What Counts is New Creation

As Paul concludes his letter his reminds the Galatians of this powerful truth: what matters isn't religious law or religious performance, what counts is the new creation, which is already bursting forth in redeemed human hearts. 

Galatians - Reaping and Sowing

The grace of God is so radical that we are often left wondering: why not live in sin? If we really have the righteousness of Christ then why not do whatever we want? One of Paul's many answers is this: God will not be mocked, a man reaps what he sows.

Making Disciples

Some of Jesus final words to his disciples are known as the "Great Commission" - in which he directs every follower of Jesus to go into the world and make disciples who will go into the world and make more disciples. But what does this look like and how do we go about it?

Galatians - Comparison

A community that breathes in the grace of God is transformed by it, and one of the things that the Kingdom community experiences is freedom from comparison. What does it look like to "test our actions," to live free from comparison, and embrace a richer expression of Kingdom community? 

Galatians - Restore Them Gently

Grace and the Spirit transform every aspect of our lives with God, including how we deal with sin in our lives and the lives of others. As Paul teaches about living under grace, he speaks into a difficult topic: dealing with sin in community.

Galatians - Spirit and Flesh

Paul maintains that we are radically free in God's grace; free from sin, even free from the Law. But this makes many people nervous. If we really walk in such radical freedom, what's to keep us from sinning? How should we use the incredible freedom that Jesus has given us? Paul's answer is to walk in step with the Spirit. 

Galatians - Don't Be Circumcised!

As Paul continues to speak into grace and the Law, he tackles an important issue in the earliest worshipping communities: circumcision. "Don't be circumcised!" Paul says, "be on your guard!" A little legalism works its way through the whole batch of dough, and those who place themselves under some of the Law are obligated to follow the entire Law. They have fallen from grace, and become alienated from Christ. But it's for freedom that Christ has set us free!

Galatians - Isaac and Ishmael

The early church is being thrown into confusion about their relationship to the Law, but Paul makes it clear by analogy: we are like Isaac, children of divine promise given life by the power of the Spirit, while those who labor under the law are in slavery.