Better | Broken and Redeemed
We want to win at home. Relationships are complicated, hard, and at times hurtful. When God made us He made us for community. It is one of the primary ways we are to experience Him, learn about Him, and grow in Him. The family unit was intended to be the greatest expression of this.
Locations & Times
The Crossing - Keokuk
610 Timea St, Keokuk, IA 52632, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Jacksonville
803 S Diamond St, Jacksonville, IL 62650, USA
Friday 10:00 AM
The Crossing - Lima
2902 IL-96, Lima, IL 62348, USA
Friday 9:00 AM
The Crossing - Macomb
1600 W Jackson St, Macomb, IL 61455, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Monmouth
215 S 1st St, Monmouth, IL 61462, USA
Friday 9:00 AM
Friday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Mount Sterling
979 895e St, Mt Sterling, IL 62353, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 10:00 AM
The Crossing - Pike County
28842 IL-107, Griggsville, IL 62340, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Quincy 48th Street
150 S 48th St, Quincy, IL 62305, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Quincy 929
929 Monroe St, Quincy, IL 62301, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Hannibal
205 S 5th St, Hannibal, MO 63401, USA
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
The Crossing - Kirksville
810 E Shepherd Ave, Kirksville, MO 63501, USA
Friday 9:00 AM
Friday 10:45 AM
Crossing Online
Thursday 6:00 PM
Sunday 9:00 AM
Sunday 10:45 AM
About The Crossing
The is a multi-campus, non-denominational Christian church with locations in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. We exist to minister in local communities, following our core values to bring people to an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Visit www.thecrossing.net to learn more about our church.<br><br>To make the most of your experience, we encourage you to follow along with the provided sermon notes, as well as take your own notes. You can also download the OneCrossing app to watch past sermons and stay connected. www.thecrossing.net/app
Whether or not we want to admit it, most of us have a plan for how we want our family to turn out. It might not be spoken or written down, but internally we have a set of expectations. What breaks our hearts is that rarely does our experience match our expectations.
Every family desires to have their lives look like a perfectly assembled lego set. However, in order to get this you need three things. You need a plan. You need all the pieces and you need willingness to follow the plan from all involved.
If most of us were to be honest, our relationships really look like an incorrectly assembled lego set. For some of us we didn’t follow the directions. For some of us it was because we thought we knew better, for others of us it was because we didn’t know there were directions. Some of our houses look like this because we didn’t get all the pieces. Our childhood wasn’t what God intended. We didn’t have a safe place to learn and grow and develop. We didn’t have a good example to follow.
Some of us have a different challenge. At one point in time you felt like you were building the ideal home. There was a period of your life where your family seemed to be going in the right direction, but along the way things changed.
Perhaps one of the hardest things to do in life is to raise a Godly family. You would be hard pressed to find a lot of great examples in scripture to model your family after. Almost every family with details of their lives in scripture has areas of sin and devastation.
The way we pull ourselves through pain, navigate the sorrow and pick up the pieces is by clinging to the words of God - "Everything happens for a reason". We see the beauty of it on the other side of the divorce when we find a new person to share our lives with. We see it the marriage that is put back together after counseling, or the relationship that we get to have with our grandkids that we never had with our own kids.
The problem is that GOD NEVER SAID THAT. This makes God the architect of our pain and our misery. When you fall down the stairs, it is God who pushed you. It is this kind of bad theology that pushes people away from Him as he gets blamed for things he had no part in. So if you have been clinging to these words or said these words to someone please stop.
Let me give you something better to say. We need to replace "everything happens for a reason", with, "anything can be redeemed".
I know that God can redeem anything because He redeemed us from the worst thing. He redeemed us through his son Jesus. He took us from being prisoners to sin and set us free in Him.
He gives His Spirit which guides our mind into life and peace.
He has the power to redeem death. That when we die we have the hope of heaven.
Through the Spirit we have the power to put to death the sins in our lives. These sins are the very sins that wage war and cause harm in the very families we are trying to love.
Here we find out that in God’s redemption He takes us from being enemies with God to being adopted by God. We become his children and heirs of his glory when all things will be fully redeemed. So while we may suffer now, one day we will be glorified. While it may be a challenge today and our love will be costly and heavy, one day it will be made new and perfect.
We are reminded that our sufferings are temporary and the awaiting glory will be eternal. While we ache for all to be made right today, we have a hope that gives us the strength necessary to face tomorrow.
We have access to the presence of God in prayer. When we don’t even know what to pray for, the Spirit that God gives us intercedes on our behalf.
This week at all of our locations you will hear about a prayer challenge. We are going to pray over our relationships and believe that God is going to open doors. It may take longer than we want, but we can’t expect Godly WINS without pursuing Godly WAYS.
Not only did God redeem us, but he is working for your good. You and He are on the same team.
Not only is God working for our good but also gives us all things. Nothing is too big for Him.
Repair requires transformation. The good news is that we serve a God who specializes in transformation.
The Lego pieces are never broken, they always retain the ability to be picked up and connected again. They are deep in the DNA of all of us.
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