Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

mckaycaston.com

Living All of Life in View of the Cross

Filed under: 1 peter

"Facing the Lions" Message Will Wrap Up Our Summer Teaching Series This Sunday

This focus of this week's message, entitled, "Facing the Lions," will be on how important it is to recognize the destructive strategies of the enemy in our lives. We will need very practical help standing against his schemes—help that 1 Peter 5:8-14 provides.  This message will wrap up our summer teaching series in 1 Peter, "Real Faith for Real Life." I do hope that you'll be there!

If you ever have questions or comments about our Sunday messages, feel free to contact me on Facebook (www.facebook.com/mckaycaston), via email (mckaycaston@gmail.com), or here at my blog.  

How Anxiety and Worry Function Like the Law

Is it possible that God might be letting me experience intense anxiety, worry and stress so that I finally will come to a point where I will stop trying to control my life, and will cry out for grace... and then experience peace." Or as Peter says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." In other words, God even uses anxiety, worry and stress for good — like the law, to lead us to Jesus.

The Perfect Marraige • 1 Peter 3:1-7 (audio + outline)

As a follow up to today's message on marriage from 1 Peter 3, I am going to post resources all week on my blog related to marriage and how grace is the motive and power for renewal and joy in that most intimate of human relationships.  You may visit the blog here at www.mckaycaston.com. Check back all week for new posts.

For any past messages, you can listen online or download the mp3 from my blog, from the Creekstone website's audio player or via iTunes.

(download)

Pastedgraphic

Will You Join the Movement?

Pastedgraphic
This past Sunday I delivered a message from 1 Peter 2:1-12 entitled, "The Gospel Counter-Culture." After working through that passage in my study, I became convinced that the concept of counter culture is exactly what I want Creekstone to be collectively, and for each of us to be individually—a community of people who are defined not by what we wear or by a socio-political ideology, but by the radical grace that is ours through the cross of Jesus. And just like the counter-culture of the 60s and 70s had a undeniable impact on our culture, it is my prayer that we, as a gospelcounter-culture, will have a lasting, positive inluence on our families, in our workplaces and classrooms, and throughout the broader community as the implications of the cross are lived out on a daily basis in our various spheres of influence.

So, if you were providentially hindered from attending on Sunday, let me encourage you to "stay on pace" with us in our study of 1 Peter by lisenting to the message. You can listen online or download the mp3 from my blog, from the Creekstone website's audio player or via iTunes.

And don't forget, communion is next Sunday, June 5, followed by a church-wide, BYOS (bring your own stuff - dinner, drink, frisbees, etc.) picnic that afterfoon at Yahoola Creek Park from 5:00-7:00 p.m.  

I do hope to see you this Sunday, as we celebrate again the glorious gospel in the presence of God.

Spring Fever • 1 Peter 1:3-12 (audio)

This is today's Creekstone message, the second in our new series in 1 Peter, "Real Faith for Real Life." 

(download)
Message review:

  1. The ground of our eternal hope is the redemptive ______________ we have we have received in the gospel.
  2. The ______________ is yet to come.
  3. Trials are ______________ that purify and refine faith so that we can see and ______________ Jesus more clearly and love and _____________ him more fully. 
  4. The result of a refined faith is an inexpressible and glorious ______________.
  5. In order to experience this joy, I must learn to ______________ at the cross and ______________ of what I see and hear.

 

Looking Forward

This morning during family time with the kids I asked them what they were looking forward to today. Catching up in school, playing outside, and reading a new book were some of the responses. I'm looking forward to meeting a friend for lunch, running before picking Ann Ferris up from chorus, and n  a movie (Shawshank Redmption?) with my wife later tonight. It's good to have something to look forward to. Fall weather. A birthday party. Christmas. A hike in the mountains.

And the Bible agrees. Among many passages about looking forward are these:

"Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:13b

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Romans 8:18

Looking forward gives a fuller perspective to life (not to mention eternity). The future gives us more than the past and present, which often leave us shortsighted and without the hope that is ours in the gospel. As I fix the eyes of my faith and hope on Jesus, past failure and present suffering is infused with the supernatural sweetener of grace. Grace that when experienced in 200 proof form will result in Psalm 16:11, "In Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore." 

I am looking forward to that.

​