Podcasts by Missio Dei LA Sermons

The God of Peace in the Midst of Anxiety from 2018-08-13T01:03:09

We all wrestle with anxiety. For some, it's obvious; for others, it's hidden well. At times, it's a mild uneasiness; at other times, it's a debilitating fear. However it manifests itself, experienc...

Who We're Becoming: The Merciful, Part 1 from 2018-08-05T23:00:54

In the Beatitudes, Jesus declares, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." In the first of two sermons on this Beatitude, we consider the connection between mercy and Jesus' decla...

Who We're Becoming: The Happily Rooted from 2018-08-01T02:37:36

The Declaration of Independence includes "the pursuit of happiness" among the unalienable rights granted to every human being. And we are a people who relentlessly pursue happiness. Yet, study afte...

Who We're Becoming: The Hungry and Thirsty from 2018-07-23T00:51:43

According to Jesus, happiness is the result of hungering and thirsting for something more important than happiness.

Who We're Becoming: The Meek from 2018-07-15T23:42:15

Many of us wonder whether Jesus' teachings actually "work" in real life or whether they're just pie-in-sky, wishful thinking. And in our world where things like aggression and self-promotion are se...

Faith and Doubt, Faith and Doubt from 2018-07-09T02:25:12

We like to picture the journey of faith as a smooth upward progression of ever-increasing trust in God. But our journeys are more like roller coasters of faith and doubt. But the good news is that ...

Who We're Becoming: The Mourners from 2018-07-02T01:56:07

In a culture in which the pursuit of happiness is seen as an inalienable right, Jesus declares that mourning is a prerequisite for a blessed life.

Who We're Becoming: The Poor in Spirit from 2018-06-18T01:20:19

In the Beatitudes, Jesus gives us a very unexpected, countercultural, and counterintuitive description of a blessed person. The first characteristic of such a person is that they're "poor in Spirit...

Who We're Becoming from 2018-06-10T23:49:17

If someone were to ask us for our goals, how many of them would focus on what we're trying to achieve and how many, if any, would focus on who we're trying to be? And how does our answer to this qu...

Jesus and Our Hiding Places from 2018-06-04T01:27:17

Genesis 2:25 tells us that when God created Adam and Eve, they were "both naked and were not ashamed." They were both known and vulnerable without shame or fear. But once they sinned, they experien...

Do You Want to Be Healed? from 2018-05-28T02:50:49

In John 5, Jesus approaches a man who's been immobilized for 38 years and asks him, "Do you want to be healed?" This seems like a silly question. Isn't the answer obviously "yes?" After all, who wo...

The God of Justice from 2018-05-21T01:18:38

We would all agree that we want our world to be marked by justice. Yet, how do we define justice? What is it, and what does it require? How do we pursue it in this broken world? And how do we stay ...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Jesus Prays That We Would Be With Him from 2018-05-14T01:49:40

According to a former U.S. Surgeon General, loneliness is a "growing health epidemic." In a recent survey, 2 in 5 Americans said that they sometimes or always feel that their relationships aren't m...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Jesus Prays That We Would Be Missional from 2018-05-07T02:02

If asked to write it down, what would your life's mission statement be? Just as, or even more, importantly, how did you go about answering that question? Underneath these questions are two of the c...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Jesus Prays That We Would Be One from 2018-05-04T00:13:17

In our highly polarized world, Jesus calls the church to embody a unity that points the world to the supernatural power of the gospel.

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Jesus Prays That We'd Be a Holy People from 2018-04-23T02:05:13

What picture would come to mind if you heard someone described as "holy?" Would you picture someone who, at best, is austere and who, at worst, is self-righteous and judgmental? That would probably...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: A Joy and Peace That Can't Be Taken from 2018-04-16T00:28:18

We all long for joy and peace, but what are they, where can we find them, and is it possible to have them in the midst of sorrow and suffering?

God is in Control from 2018-04-09T01:15:55

God's heart is for every nation and every people group on earth. His redemptive love is offered to all peoples. And in His grace, He also grants us the privilege to play a role in the great story o...

Easter - Disappointed in Jesus from 2018-04-01T22:52:56

Disappointment is an unavoidable part of life. Throughout our lives, we suffer disappointments, ranging from the minor to the life-altering. How does the Resurrection of Jesus speak to this reality...

Preparing Them to Be Sent - Abiding and Bearing from 2018-03-26T01:39:57

Where do you draw life from? In John 15, Jesus uses the imagery of a Vine (Himself) and Branches (us) to highlight the fact that He alone is the True source of life and that it's only by staying in...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Our Divine Advocates from 2018-03-19T17:20:30

In John 13-17, Jesus is giving His disciples, and by extension us, a hosts of promises as He prepares them for His death and the mission He'll send them on afterward. Among all of the astonishing p...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: It Will Be Enough for Us from 2018-03-12T00:45:08

In one of his most famous statements, Jesus declares that He is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." As we continue our series through John 13-17, we dive into what this statement means for us, and ...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: The Inclusive Exclusivity of Jesus from 2018-03-08T02:15:01

Is Jesus the only way to God? Aren't all religions basically saying the same thing? Isn't it arrogant, divisive, and dangerous to make exclusive truth claims? Isn't it more important to live a good...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Getting Their Home Ready from 2018-02-26T04:36:36

Home is one of the most powerful words in our language. At its best, it represents love, belonging, acceptance, safety, intimacy, and so much more. And when we have a place to call home, we're much...

Preparing Them to Be Sent: Calling to Serve, Invited to Be Served from 2018-02-22T17:49:48

In John 13-17, Jesus prepares His disciples for His impending death and the mission they'll be sent on afterward. Jesus begins this time of preparation through the "enacted parable" of washing His ...

Life Is But a Drop from 2018-02-12T00:59:14

As we think about the future, we often do so under the illusion that we're in control. Yet, because it's an illusion, it leads us to all sort of problems. However, because that's our ingrained defa...

Learning to Pray: That You May Be Strengthened to Know the Love of Christ from 2018-02-06T14:56:51

As we conclude our brief series on praying for others, we consider how to pray for God's power in others' (and our) lives and what exactly it looks like when God's power is at work within us.

Learning to Pray: That You Would Know the Hope of Your Calling from 2018-01-29T04:48:10

Hope is one of the most fundamental needs we have as human beings. Yet, where can we find our hope? What can we hope for? And can hope be anything more than wishful thinking or naive optimism?
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Learning to Pray: That You Would Know the Will of God from 2018-01-22T02:50:41

Over the next several weeks, we'll look at examples from the Apostle Paul to help us learn to pray for others. In Colossians 1, Paul prays that the Colossians would be filled with the knowledge of ...

Learning to Pray: A Secret Between Just You and Heavenly Your Father - Matthew 6:1-15 from 2018-01-15T02:50:09

Why is praying regularly so hard for us? And can prayer be an avenue for our freedom? And is there anything unique about Christian prayer? As we begin our series on prayer, we look to Jesus Himself...

What Kind of Soil Are You? from 2018-01-08T02:30:06

As we begin a new year, we take a look at Jesus’ Parable of the Sower. This well-known parable is a powerful diagnostic tool for helping us reflect on the condition of our hearts so that we can hav...

Advent, Week 3: The Various Responses to Jesus - Matthew 2:1-12 from 2017-12-18T04:12:15

We often wind up “domesticating” and “sentimentalizing” Christmas by making it about things that we can all get on board with – time with family, peace on earth, etc. However, even at His birth, Je...

Advent, Week 2: What's in a Name? - Matthew 1:18-25 from 2017-12-11T05:51:45

Why did your parents name you what they did? Was it in honor of someone who went before you, perhaps a relative or other significant individual? Was it because of the meaning of your name? Was it j...

Advent, Week 1: A Broken but Redeemed Family Tree - Matthew 1:1-17 from 2017-12-04T02:05:40

Christmas can be a difficult time for many, with one of the main sources of heartache being our families. As many of us wrestle with the challenges of family at this time of year, it’s right to won...

The Word Who Invites, Reveals, and Makes Whole from 2017-11-29T02:47

The Gospel of John famously opens by describing Jesus as “the Word.” But what does that mean, and what are its implications for things like our desire to belong, our confidence in God’s love, and o...

Missional Habits: Stewardship and Generosity, Pt 3 - 2 Corinthians 8-9 from 2017-11-20T04:44:49

How would you describe your relationship to money? Are you a Spender of money? Are you a Saver of money? Are you a Servant of money? Or are you a Servant with your money? As we conclude our series ...

Missional Habits: Stewardship and Generosity, Pt 2 - Matthew 19:16-30 from 2017-11-13T03:15:07

We often treat Jesus sort of like the local Goodwill, where we donate clothes that we weren’t planning on wearing anyway. Similarly, we often give Jesus control only of those things that either don...

Missional Habits: Stewardship and Generosity, Pt 1 - Gen 1-2; 1 Tim 4:4-5, 6:17-19 from 2017-11-06T01:37:17

How should Christians feel about money, material things, and created goods in general? Should we enjoy or be wary of them? Is it ok for us to have more than we need, or should we simply meet our ne...

Missional Habits: Blessing, Pt 2 from 2017-10-30T01:34:46

In the broadest sense, blessing others involves anything we do that helps others live as God intended them to live, i.e. in right relationship with Him, ourselves, others, and creation. As we conti...

Missional Habits: Blessing, Pt 1 from 2017-10-23T02:27

Being missional isn’t first about doing a whole bunch of new things but about doing what we already do with an eye toward blessing others. Well, there’s nothing we do more than talk. And that’s eve...

Missional Habits: Eating and Drinking - Various Passages from 2017-10-16T03:29:02

Eating and drinking are among the most foundational and common things we do. But what if they point beyond themselves to redemptive realities and, as a consequence, are some of the most powerful mi...

Missional Habits: Mission-Focused Prayer from 2017-10-08T23:54:07

If God answered all your prayers from this past week, how many people would have come to saving faith? How would people in your church have been blessed? How would your city be better? If we strugg...

Missional Habits: Marinating in Scripture as an Act of Love for Others from 2017-10-01T23:19:22

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul writes that we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Similarly, in Titus 2:14, Paul wr...

Vision Series, Part 3: Love L.A. - Jeremiah 29:4-14; Ezekiel 47:1-12 from 2017-09-25T02:35:54

A central part of our vision at Missio Dei is to love L.A. – the beautiful, glorious, and broken city where God has placed us and to which He has called us. But what does loving L.A. require of us?...

Vision Series, Part 2: Love People - Acts 2:42-47, Ephesians 4:11-17 from 2017-09-17T22:59:19

Before the Church is an instrument of God’s shalom in the world, it’s meant to be a display of God’s shalom in the world – a new community that reflects the love of God in its life together. But wh...

Vision Series, Part 1: Love Jesus - Philippians 1:18-26 from 2017-09-11T01:30:50

A scholar once identified the “anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness” as the root anxiety of the modern age. Whether that’s historically and sociologically accurate, the question of meaning and ...

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda from 2017-09-04T00:18:19

How do you we find contentment in the midst of disappointments and regrets? What’s the secret to happiness when we find ourselves in what feel like the cul-de-sacs or even the dead-ends of life?

Singing While Doubting - Psalm 73 from 2017-08-27T23:05:51

Doubting is something that most Christians do not think you are permitted to express and work through, yet the Bible has multiple stories and situations where doubt seems to be a *part* of faith...

His Greatness and Grace from 2017-08-21T23:33:53

One of the recurring statements throughout the Psalms is the call to “Praise the Lord.” But why does God call us to do this? Is it because He’s some sort of insecure narcissist who needs to have Hi...

Yet They Have Not Prevailed Against Me from 2017-07-31T02:42:18

Suffering comes into our lives for many different reasons. The most of horrific of these reasons is that we sometimes encounter genuinely evil, sinister people who intentionally, repeatedly, and re...

Making Our Way Home from 2017-07-24T02:11:20

Home is one of the most powerful words in the English language. It’s more than a physical house. It speaks to a sense of welcome, belonging, identity, and safety. And the story of the Bible, of the...

Our Rebirth from 2017-07-17T05:01:01

A screenwriter recently wrote an article for the LA Review of Books about why she attends church (Mass) every week. In her article, she describes church like this: "The things that I feel proud of ...

The City of God from 2017-07-10T02:31:07

Though God is present everywhere, it's the Church - the community, not a building - where God is particularly, uniquely, intimately present in the world until Jesus returns. And so if we want to dr...

Wholeness in Our Words from 2017-07-03T02:46:46

Psalm 15 asks who can dwell in God's presence, and a large part of the answer it gives focuses on how a person uses his/her words.

Wholehearted Wholeness from 2017-06-19T04:04:56

Psalm 15

Psalm 15 wrestles with the question of what kind of person God invites into His presence. In the first of two sermons on this Psalm, we consider the issue of wholehearted devotion...

The King We Need from 2017-06-12T04:35:46

Psalm 2

The Psalms are quoted in the New Testament more than any other book of the Old Testament. And among the Psalms, none is quoted or alluded to by the NT more than Psalm 2. To hear wh...

Hope in God's Plans and Purposes from 2017-05-29T16:14:13

The promise that God is working all things together for our good is one of the most precious promises in the Bible. Yet, it's also one of the most often misunderstood and misapplied. What exactly d...

God's Hidden Hand in Our Everyday Faithfulness from 2017-05-22T01:11:56

We should underestimate what God can and might do through our everyday faithfulness.

God's Hidden Hand in Our Risks from 2017-05-15T14:55:24

In our messy and broken world, we must sometimes take risks that will put us in uncomfortable and uncertain situations if we're going to be a redemptive presence

God's Hidden Hand in Our Hesed from 2017-05-08T02:11:10

Last week, we introduced the Old Testament concept of "hesed," which describes God's relationship to us and how we in turn should also relate to one another. One person describes hesed as "selfless...

God's Hidden Hand in Our Commitment from 2017-05-01T02:54

God is a promise-making and promise-keeping God, and we're to be a promise-making and promise-keeping people.

Easter: Transformed by the Risen Christ from 2017-04-18T03:12:23

John 21

We've all experienced failure in our life. While some of us experience minor failures daily, there are those of us who are still trying to bounce back from life-altering defeat. Th...

Words for the Cross: Demonstration from 2017-04-10T00:28:37

We conclude our series on the Crucifixion by discussing how the Cross not only saves us but shapes. Put another way, the Cross is not only the source of our life but the pattern for our life.

Words for the Cross: Victory from 2017-04-03T04:44:28

In His crucifixion, Jesus not only secured reconciliation and redemption for us. He also defeated our ultimate enemies: Satan and death.

Words for the Cross: Justification from 2017-03-27T01:41:23

If asked to describe God, many people will quickly use words like “loving,” “gracious,” and “accepting.” Far fewer people, if any, will describe Him as “just.” And yet, the fact that He is just is ...

Words for the Cross: Redemption from 2017-03-20T00:23:21

Redemption is one of those words that, whether you're "religious" or not, you've probably used on more than one occasion. It speaks to our awareness of things gone wrong and our longing to see them...

Words for the Cross: Propitiation from 2017-03-13T00:38:06

The wrath of God is an uncomfortable topic for most us. If we believe in God at all, we most likely prefer not to think of Him as having wrath. Yet, despite what we might think, His wrath isn't con...

Words for the Cross: Reconciliation from 2017-03-06T02:06:13

Estrangement. Alienation. Hostility. Loneliness. These are some of the words that reflect a universal human experience, that of broken relationships. But underneath all of the broken human relation...

A Strange Path to Blessing from 2017-02-20T06:20:30

God longs to bless us. Yet, the pathway to that blessing is often a strange and expected one.

A Dark Nowhere from 2017-02-13T02:06:23

Listen to how God meets us in those seasons when we seem to have forfeited God's promises and blocked His purposes for our lives.

God's Unstoppable Blessing from 2017-02-06T05:47:25

Each member of Isaac's family - Isaac himself, his wife Rebekah, and their two sons Esau and Jacob - each act in selfish and destructive ways. And yet, all of their brokenness can't derail God's go...

The Ultimate Test from 2017-01-30T02:18:39

Tests can reveal something about us, whether sometime trivial or something central to who we are. You can listen as we reflect on the ultimate test that God put Abraham through and what it might te...

Our Origin Story from 2017-01-16T00:29:05

One way that a people learn who they are is by understanding their history better. Of course, one crucial aspect of that history is the beginning - how, when, where, and perhaps even why they came ...

Devoting Ourselves to... from 2017-01-09T01:43:05

We take a look at the earliest church to see what practices we should aim to be devoted to as a community centered on Jesus.

Jesus is Too Exclusive and Too Inclusive from 2016-12-19T05:26:13

People struggle with Jesus for various reasons. Some people find HIm too exclusive. Others find him too inclusive. Hear how both are challenging but good news to us all.

Glory to God in the Highest from 2016-12-14T04:52:53

Hear how God acts in history, interprets His acts in history, and then calls us to respond.

Waiting on God from 2016-12-05T16:09:29

Elizabeth and Zechariah had to wait on God when it came to their personal lives and the lives of their people.

Wanna Know a Secret? from 2016-11-23T04:34:33

The Apostle Paul says that he's learned the secret of contentment and wants us to know it as well

Where Do We Go From Here? Some Thoughts After the Election from 2016-11-14T01:40:47

Now that the presidential election is over, how should we respond?

It's Personal from 2016-11-11T05:56:04

Mark 7:31-37

Focus and FOMO from 2016-10-23T23:57:44

Hear how Jesus provides focus and eliminates FOMO (fear of missing out)

A U-Shaped Life from 2016-10-17T15:51:06

Our culture presents us with a vision of life that's about a steady upward climb from wherever we started, sort of like an arrow pointed at an upward angle. In contrast, Jesus presents us with a vi...

Fellowship of the Gospel from 2016-10-10T01:17:31

The advance of the gospel provides us with a purpose that binds us in rich community and that endures through life's disappointments and detours.

Gospel-Granted Identity and Gospel-Shaped Prayer from 2016-10-03T00:38:12

We discuss what it looks like to have a gospel-granted identity and gospel-shaped prayers.

Comforted and Commissioned from 2016-09-27T17:08:02

Upon His resurrection, Jesus appears to His disciples who have locked themselves in a room out of fear. He then proceeds to comfort them with His peace and commmission them for His mission.