Northplace Church Podcast

If you understand the math behind compounding, you realize the most important question is no, 'How can I earn the highest returns?' It's 'What are the best returns I can sustain for the longest period of time?' Little change compounded for a long time creates extraordinary change. Today's sermon isn't a conversation about compounding interest, it's a conversation about the power of compounding faithfulness, and faithfulness in its rawest is staying committed when you can't see results.

We started this year with what has been basic introductory material on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. As we come to the end of the “introduction” and prepare to move into a deeper conversation on the “fruit of the Spirit," we're going to let this one simple statement guide this message: The Holy Spirit is a divine person who helps us.

Pastor Bryan shares a personal story of a supernatural interruption he experienced at a remote cabin in Arkansas.

In this message, Pastor Bryan shares a Biblical perspective on living a life empowered by the Holy Spirit that distinguishes itself from cessationism and sensationalism. Scripture calls us to live in the tension while keeping our eyes focused on the Lord.

To the early church, the Holy Spirit and God were one and the same. It wasn't hard for them to think of the Father as God or the Son as God, but many view the Holy Spirit as some Jr. deity, some lower-ranking, impersonal force not equal to the Father and Son. One of the reasons people fall into this theological trap is because the Holy Spirit, by nature, operates in the background. His goal is never to bring honor and attention to Himself. The Holy Spirit always comes to reveal Jesus--to glorify Jesus.

We have more books written on prayer, more podcasts, videos and teaching tools on prayer than any generation in the history of the world. If our heart really wanted to engage in a meaningful relationship with God through prayer, we would. It's not a matter of "know-how"--it's a matter of "want-to." The Lord wants us to sense and see what is possible if we truly become a praying church.

No one in Scripture has been more misunderstood, misaligned, forgotten, or ignored than the Holy Spirit. There are all kinds of theological extremes surrounding the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and it's usually the extremes that get all the attention. Throughout the year, we will address the extremes and wade through the scripture to get a biblical understanding of the Spirit’s work.

Pastor Bryan discusses ways to prepare our hearts for Northplace's 21-Day fast. In the next 21 days and throughout 2024... our prayer is that the Holy Spirit would move so powerfully that: 1. You become the you, God destined you to be. 2. You are empowered by the Spirit to love people when they least expect it and least deserve it.

It will be your best year ever if it is your best year spiritually, and it will be your best year spiritually if you learn what it means to respond to God correctly.

Merry Christmas Northplace Family All month long, we set out to answer the 4 big questions on the timeline of human history: 1. How did it all begin? (Creation) 2. What went wrong? (The Fall) 3. How is God going to make it right? (Redemption) 4. How will it all turn out in the end? (Restoration) Technically, the first in-breaking of God into human history was the very beginning of that history (at creation). The Garden of Eden was the first place the passion of God’s heart for a relationship (with us) was revealed. In the beauty of that paradise, He came down every day to walk and talk with Adam and Eve as a father and a friend. This, not Christmas...was the first Advent. It’s in these moments in the earliest days of creation and in the opening lines of your bible that you see the heart of God to be “with ”us. We’ve focused on this theme all month at Northplace: “Heaven Came Down”. But we want you to understand… this is not just true at Christmas. Heaven came down at creation...and He’s been coming down in unique ways ever since. Christmas is just one more moment in God’s story where God comes down to be with us.

Each week, we’ve been looking at lesser-known, more obscure Christmas passages that don’t tell us the details of what happened (shepherds, wise men, mangers), but they tell us the meaning of what happened. Today's sermon helps answer this question: How does Christmas connect with God’s plan to make everything right in the world?

The whole story of the bible can broken into these four chapters: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. Last week, we looked at how it all began. This week, we’re going to be looking at what went wrong. Without truly understanding what went wrong with the human race, you’ll never understand why Jesus HAD to become human, and you’ll never see the full beauty of Christmas.

As we begin the Advent and Christmas season and end this year-long bible engagement journey, we want to finish it the way we started it: by pointing you back to the bigger story. And as we do, it not only helps you understand the whole bible more clearly, but you’re going to understand and appreciate the meaning of Christmas in a way you never have before.