The Bridge Church: Reno

Nothing is ever wasted in our lives. God will always use the circumstances of our lives to grow our character and deepen our integrity if we allow Him. We ultimately serve an audience of one and he is the one that we must please and no one else.

What do you do when you keep doing the right thing and nothing seems to work out for you? How do you handle those times when everyone else is advancing and your life is falling apart? What do you do when others don’t come through for you? Joseph did what was right and God seemed to be blessing Him. He finally found a way out of his predicament and the person who was to help him forgot all about him. What do you do? We can learn from him how we can face life when we are discouraged mistreated and alone and God seems silent...

Things will not always turn out well for us because we do the right thing. All of us will face the temptation to take short cuts in our lives to get what we have legitimate needs for. There will even be times when someone else makes the suggestion and gives us the opportunity. When this happens we’re not only faced with the question of will we give in, but we’re also faced with what happens if we don’t. Joseph had the opportunity to compromise his convictions and do something for himself, but he chose not to do it. He knew that there are some things worth standing firm about regardless of the outcome in your life. He knew that honoring God with his life mattered more than anything else.

We all face challenges in our lives that are beyond our control. The issue is not what we face, but rather how we will face it. Will we give in to the tough times and allow them to make us bitter and resentful? Or will we choose to face tough times with a sense of purpose and integrity? Joseph lived with a dysfunctional father and irresponsible brothers, but he never allowed their focus or attitude to determine what course he would take. He lived his life with a sense of purpose and destiny. He lived as if his life truly mattered and that made all for the difference for him and it will for us.

Every person who saw Jesus after his death and resurrection surrendered their life to Him and were never the same. They went out and helped change the world. How will each one of us respond to the Risen Savior?

Salvation is not found in what we do but is found in the person of Christ and the work he has done for us. One criminal demanded salvation for himself. The other acknowledged that he deserved the punishment he was getting, yet in humility, he asked for Jesus to remember him. Jesus words of certainty to him are also extended to us.

It’s easy to dismiss Judas as a villain or a victim, but in many ways, he was just like me and you. Judas was a follower of Jesus and a preacher of the gospel, but there was a doublemindedness about him. He spent much time face to face with Jesus and had a front row seat to amazing miracles and incredible teaching. But in the end, he abandoned the faith he once professed. It's easy to be very close to Jesus and still miss out on who He really is. That’s what happened to Judas and it’s what can happen to us as well.

It was a very tense time in Jesus’ life and a risky time for anyone to closely associate with Him. His arrest would take place in just a couple of days. A woman finds Jesus and not only comes to him uninvited but also does what no one would expect. When Jesus changes our lives, we will not be able to contain ourselves as well.

There’s no such thing as an unanswered prayer. God answers every prayer with “Yes,” “Wait,” or “No.” The last response is always the most difficult one to receive and can be flat-out heartbreaking. In this message, you’ll discover how to trust that God does everything—even saying, “No”—out of goodness and love.

Does God heal people today? Of course, he does! God uses different ways to heal different kinds of pain: financial, physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual. Because we live in a broken world, we all need some kind of healing or restoration, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Imagine how strong your relationship with God could be if you had a proven strategy behind your prayer life. In this message, you’ll learn ways to pray throughout the day that will bring you closer to God.

In this message, get ready to take your faith to the next level by looking back to the cross, inward at Jesus living inside you, and forward to your future in Christ.

Have you ever experienced a stressful or difficult time that left you questioning the presence of God? Sometimes it takes days, months, or even years before we realize that God used that experience as an opportunity to rely on him through difficult times. The more we begin to understand what God is really like, the more everything can fall into place, including our prayer life.

From Cinderella to Aladdin, these fairytale stories are based on characters whose lives are changed with the granting of a wish. When it comes to prayer, we often treat it like a magical wand that we wave at God when we want our dreams to come true. But the Bible teaches us that prayer is a relationship with God, and not an enchanted tool.

When it comes to our faith, the Bible says we are not meant to remain as children but instead to grow up in Christ. We’ll learn six laws of spiritual growth and action steps toward a deeper relationship with God.

God’s grace has invaded our lives and changed us. We're no longer separated from Him by our sins, but we're also forgiven and welcomed into His family. We're also now His ambassadors wherever we go. Our first allegiance is to Him. We're here to represent Him to the world where we now live. We're to love this world as Christ loves this world.

We all come from and are a part of a dysfunctional family. No matter how hard we try, we all mess it up for ourselves and for others. We long for a family where there is unconditional love and acceptance given to each person. God has made that possible by adopting us into His family through Christ, not as an afterthought but as a part of His Plan from before the creation of the world.

Our sin alienated us from God. We experienced the guilt and shame that sin brought into our lives. We often allow that guilt and shame to continue to dominate the way that we think about ourselves. Jesus wants us to know that He came to not only forgive us and take away our guilt-he also came so that we might be His friends.

The way that we view ourselves will largely determine the way that we live in this world. Many of us who call ourselves Christ followers still think of ourselves in very negative and critical ways-yet God is the one who says in Christ we're forgiven. Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins so that we can stand forgiven before God.

For some, it’s easy for us to make the focus of Christmas all about me and what I want. For others, it’s easy to make Christmas all about them and what they want. Either focus really misses the point of what we really need this Christmas-it not about me or them, it really is about Him. It’s all about Emmanuel, God with us-the baby born in a manger-a Savior who is Christ, the Lord. It’s all about surrendering our lives to Him as the Lord of our lives. Each and every person and group made the first Christmas all about Jesus and that’s what we need now, just as what they needed then.