The Holidays are Upon Us

Here we are Church, right in the midst of the Christmas season. Let me encourage you to not fall into a pattern of laziness or apathy. This is a prime time for us to step up as Believers and love those around us! Practice random acts of kindness in public or at the workplace, pay it forward in line at the drive through, get outside of the house and serve others this holiday season. It's not about the gifts, or the lights, or the treats - it's about Emmanuel: Christ with us! It's about the whole world anxiously awaiting the coming King for 700+ years, and then celebrating his arrival; as a baby…in a manger (which is a very important fact).

Sure, he could have come to Earth in a beam of bright light, a blast of glory shooting down from the heavens. That would have been pretty wild! That certainly would have confirmed his divinity, but not his humanity. We would have a hard time believing that Jesus was actually human if he came down from heaven like that. To be human, he needed to be born as a human.

God could have had Jesus born from the relations of both a man and a woman, just like you and me. The problem with this, though, is that it would allow for his humanity, but not his deity. Jesus would have had to become deity at some point early in his life. But it would deny his full deity if his divine nature began at a specific point in time.

So he came as a baby - fully human and fully deity, in the person of Jesus Christ. And we celebrate that this season! We reflect on his first coming, we relate to Israel longing for their coming King through the observance of Advent, and we long for the Second Coming of Christ in an Advent of our own. We have the opportunity to spread real love and joy this holiday season. Will you strive to do that, or will you circle the wagons and shut down for the holidays? He gives us the choice, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord this Christmas.

Pastor Robbie Earle

Wonderful Anticipation - The Spirit of Peace

This past Sunday we started our Christmas series called Wonderful Anticipation, a series that will be following the Church’s tradition of Advent. There are many different things that Advent represents, and some things that we should not associate with it. Pastor Robbie began by speaking about the Spirit of Peace, as told in Isaiah 11:1-9. If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!

Coming up on the Holiday season, and particularly the Christmas season, the day celebrating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, gets closer and closer. For some of us, this can be an incredibly joyous time, while others of us wish everything wasn’t so busy and stressful. The celebration of Jesus’ birth is important, and something that Christians have been doing throughout the centuries. The problem is, in our culture, that in our rush to celebrate the fun stuff and even to celebrate the Birth of Christ, we want to hurry up and get to the big day. The church, historically, has used this time not to speed up, but to slow down, to slow down and to actually feel the angst and the longing, the anticipation of the coming Christ. Historically, this time has not been an overly busy one for believers, but the exact opposite in-fact. Ps. Robbie stated that ‘the most descriptive word I could use to describe this season is anticipation. That’s really one of my favorite aspects of Christmas, it’s the anticipation, the wonderful anticipation. You look forward to it and that really is at the core of what Advent is. The word literally means coming. It is an anticipation of the second coming of Christ by us reflecting on the first coming of Christ, or Christmas.

Most of the sermon specifically surrounded Isaiah 11:1-9, but some context is needed to really be able to appreciate what’s going on here. At this point in the people of Israel’s history, split up into two nations (Israel and Judah) and both of them are being judged by God for their continued sinfulness. Both of these nations will eventually be taken in exile by either Babylon or Assyria and God’s wrath and judgment will come upon them for their injustice and faithlessness. From the earliest book of the Bible, multiple covenants with God have been made, and even though the people of Israel are being judged and taken into exile, this does not mean God does not intend to fulfill those promises! The Messiah is still coming, and the unique expression of the ‘Spirit of the Lord’ surrounding this coming figure is unlike anyone before it.

Isaiah and many other prophets talk about the nature of the coming Messiah, but the book of Isaiah, in particular, gives us a unique insight into God’s character and the Servant’s also. The Spirit of the Lord is described by ‘And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.’; these traits, when acted on perfectly bring about true and genuine peace - this would have been a tremendously encouraging promise to those living in exile! Isaiah 11:5 says this ‘Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.’ - the Messiah is literally clothed in that which is righteous and faithful to God, peace necessarily comes through this figure! Jesus quite literally produces peace through everything that he intends to do - this isn’t always the most clear, but this always comes out to be true! Psalm 34:14 reiterates this idea as something that each and every one of us should be pursuing for ourselves saying, ‘Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.’ The power of the Holy Spirit in us calls us forward, away from evil and into good, away from chaos and into peace!

Ps. Robbie powerfully concludes with, ‘Peace is not so much about a state of affairs that we live in. It has everything to do with the state of being that you rest in. The Holy Spirit is the true spirit of Christmas and He is the Spirit of Peace. He brings peace to us and as we reflect and as we elevate and celebrate the character of Christ and we ask the Holy Spirit to conceive that character within us, as we rely on the power of God to bring together those things that don’t belong together; as we allow our lives to point to Christ, we may be able to see a window of that peace that is promised.’

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Wonderful Anticipation - The Spirit of Peace: The spirit of Christmas should surround the anticipation of the second coming of Jesus, by celebrating His first coming!

• Main Scripture Passages: Isaiah 11:1-9; Psalm 34:14

• Advent is Important in the Christian Church: Advent is not about the hustle and bustle that we often experience during this time, but about focusing on our anticipation and longing for Jesus’ ‘second’ coming by remembering His ‘first’ coming.

• The Christ Child will be the Source of Peace: The coming of the Messiah is something that each and every Israelite should have been looking forward to, for He would bring about peace in their lives and in the world around them!

• Peace is about a restored order, the way that God intended it to be: Sin destroyed so much in our lives and in the way our world operates, we can break away and free from the bondage and damage that pure chaos can bring in our lives; peace is as much about restoring God’s originally intended order as it is about how we get to dwell in it.

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as we continue our Wonderful Anticipation Series!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Self-Care - The Drains of Our Lives

This past Sunday we concluded our Self-Care series where we're going to look at some of the Scriptural teachings about how you can be a better you and experience a better self-care as it relates to your mind, body, soul, spirit, and rest in general. If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday! This week we addressed the subject of different things in our lives distracting us and causing distress when what Christ modeled for us is a life of peace.

When we take a look at our lives in the modern world, we see a lot of innovations that have completely changed the way that our lives operate, especially when compared to the days of Jesus’ ministry. Instead of having to walk everywhere (for the most part), most of us have access to some form of transportation that those during Jesus’ day would have never thought possible! There are many examples of positive changes and innovations, but there are also many negative ones, that when misused or mishandled, can cause a lot of distress in our lives. Consider this for a moment, the last time you were at a concert, or maybe traveling somewhere - how much time were you spending on your phone instead of taking in the experience and being ‘in the moment’ per se? Our phones, for example, are something with incredible power and accessibility to so many things in our lives today, but they can take away from life as much as they give.

Pastor Robbie started off with a pretty powerful statement, and it really sets the tone for what we are about to get into, saying, “In fact, just like it’s possible for a battery in your phone to get drained, many of us walked into the room this morning, and there are things, in addition to the phone and our constant distractions that come from it, that is draining the life out of you. They're draining the joy out of you, the peace out of you, and it is not the way God wants you to live.” Much of the sermon surrounded Luke 10:38-42 which describes an encounter Mary, Martha, and company had with Jesus’ in Martha’s home. Martha is working tirelessly with managing the affair, while Mary is captivated by what Jesus is saying and takes the time to sit and learn from Him. Martha did not take kindly to this, as she was busy doing all of the necessary tasks to make everything go smoothly; Mary, however, is praised for her devotion to what Jesus is speaking about. Mary and Martha, their roles depicted in this story are what we will be addressing here.

The first ‘Drain’ in our lives, and something that each and every one of us is prone to dealing with - Distractions. If you were not able to join us this past Gathering, we hate that you missed such an incredible little prop-heavy example of Pastor Jordan. While Ps. Jordan was doing a little physical activity, Ps. Robbie continually kept stacking different objects on top of him that are priorities such as a coffee cup (working at Starbucks); a guitar (worship); a bible (personal faith); a Datebox (healthy marriage) and 3-4 other things. To say the least, this is one example of a slew of priorities being managed up until there was simply too much and everything came tumbling down! At the end of the day, you have a million things that are going to fight for your attention, and the question before you and me is, "Jesus, what do you want from me right now?" The way you and I can have focus from distraction is by focusing not on all that needs to be done, not on everything around me, but "What does Jesus want from me today?" Many of the distractions that we experience are good things, but at the end of the day they are still distractions; being conscious of managing our priorities in life will save us from dropping the ball on our many important tasks in life.

The second ‘Drain’ in our lives is likely a product of what we have addressed already - Distress from anxious and overwhelming thoughts and experiences. Calling back to Luke 10:38-42 we look at something that Jesus said to Martha in verse 41 saying, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things…’ There are three things that Ps. Robbie talked about that cause these kinds of situations: Comparison, Sin, and Circumstances. It can be through comparison about what others have, about what I don't, about how much he's making and where I should be in life right now, about how they have children and I should have those or they're married already and I wish I was or they're in a dating relationship and I wish I was… By comparison, all of a sudden, you can experience stress. A lot of the most stressful situations that are weighing many of us down inside this room are related to sin. That is a stressful thing, and it kind of gnaws at you. You're carrying a burden you were never meant to carry. That's just a fact of living in a broken world. Somebody is going to get cancer. Marriages don't go the way we hoped they would. The company has a layoff and you lose your job, and you can feel burdened from carrying on these circumstances and the stress that comes from living in a broken world. But can I give you some good news today? Whatever burdens you are carrying, they all have the same solution. Surrender those burdens to Jesus, to God. 1 Peter 5:7 says, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

We will leave with a positive affirmation that cannot be lost in all of this; above all of the distractions and distress that is in our lives, our Devotion to Christ, Brings Life! The point of this story is not Jesus is against go-getters. That's not what he says at all. The point is: he wants a relationship with you above everything else. He wants you to know him and him to know you beyond you just serving him and doing things for him. He wants a relationship, a constant connection with him. In other words, every second that it's not connected, plugged into the wall to a phone charger, it's going to continue to drain. This is how the Christian life is lived.

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Self-Care - The Drains of Our Lives: There are many different things that contribute towards us being drained in life, and Scripture speaks to this specifically!

• Main Scripture Passages: Luke 10:38-42; Ps. 127:2; 1 Peter 5:7

• Drain #1 - Distractions: Sometimes our responsibilities and desires in modern life hinder us more than they help us, having discernment as to which ones are necessary or desired helps us manage our priorities.

• Drain #2 - Distress: With mismanaged priorities in our lives, we can cause ourselves a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety that we never intended.

• Positive Affirmation - Devotion to Christ, Brings Life: When we are looking at and addressing our list of priorities in life, our devotion to Christ must be among the highest on that list; intentional rest and peaceful life is what Jesus models for us.

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie begins our Holiday(s) Series!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Self-Care - Cleaning Out Your Closet

This past Sunday we continued our Self-Care series where we're going to look at some of the Scriptural teachings about how you can be a better you and experience a better self-care as it relates to your mind, body, soul, spirit, and rest in general. This week we addressed some difficult topics pertaining to some of the things in our lives that we try and hide away hoping they’ll just go away. If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!

Our Self-Care series is off to an incredible start, with a second powerful and convicting message this week, Pastor Robbie is not shying away from the very real issues in our lives! This message surrounded the reality that many people are dealing with either sins or past hurts/struggles that have not been dealt with in their lives. Ps. Robbie said, ‘So we're going to look at what God's Word says about how we can experience freedom from some of the hurts and sins that have marked our lives.’ Ultimately coming down to, if we want to live lives that are honoring and glorifying to God, we need to consciously make efforts to clean out our closets every so often!

The first practical tenet to take away from this message was the truth that God will not heal the things that we continue to keep away from His influence. Beginning in Proverbs 28:13 we see, ‘Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.’ There are things in our lives some in the present, some in the past, and we hide them, we are basically saying, "God, I do not want you to heal this arena of my life." There's an Enemy called Satan who is feeding you the lie that "You can't tell anybody. You need to suffer in isolation alone because if people really knew the real you, they'd reject the real you." It's a lie. The God who's there says, "I'm inviting you to experience the cure," James confirms this further by declaring we should actively confess our transgressions. He says in James 5:16, Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” God says with that, along with prayer, you will begin to experience the cure. Confession is the cure. He's inviting you.

The second practical tenet is that to defuse the power these past hurts have in our lives, we have to truly forgive those who wronged us; true forgiveness destroys the oppressive power the event has over us. Hebrews 12: 15 speaks to this saying, ‘See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled…’ - we know that bitterness is poisonous to the soul, and causes a tremendous amount of trouble and turmoil in our lives. Colossians 3:13 gives us the solution to this issue of bitterness from hurts in our lives saying, ‘bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.’ Ps. Robbie said that ‘The action you need to take is not choosing to forgive yourself; it's choosing to accept God's forgiveness despite the fact that you do not deserve it.’ This forgiveness will lead to you being able to forgive others of things in the past.

The final practical tenet to take away is that there is no situation of past hurt that God cannot wield for His honor and His glory through your life! There's no person who has committed sins and offenses and done such things that God can't write an incredible story through your life, and he wants to write an incredible story through your life; You can be a platform for the power of God. Take the story of the demon-possessed man of Mark chapter 5 verse 18-20 - this restoration that occurs through the saving work of Jesus spoke to so many people in that area; this is exactly what God desires to do through each and every one of us when we surrender to Him! Ps. Robbie concluded with ‘The only way for you to experience healing, whether it's a hurt or a sin hang-up, is for you to reveal and bring others in, for you to release the hurts from your life and allow God to be the one who administers justice for those things and for you to recognize, whatever your story is, God wants to use it if you will let him or you can just let it get lodged.’

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Self-Care - Cleaning Out Your Closet: In our lives, we have all gone through tremendously difficult things and some of those past hurts are still alive in our lives; this does not have to be the case!

• Main Scripture Passages: Proverbs 28:13; James 5:16; Hebrew 12:15; Colossians 3:13; Mark 5:18-20

• God Will Not Heal What We Continue to Hide: God desires for us to be conformed to the life of His Son Jesus, but he won’t force us - if he want to be healed of our past hurts we have to be open about our struggles.

• Defusing Past Hurts Comes Through Forgiveness and Release of Power: The way Scripture says we need to address our hurts in life is very different from the rest of the world, we are to forgive, not destroy; forgiveness, true forgiveness releases the power that hurt has over you

• There Is No Past That Cannot Be Used As A Platform For God’s Power If We Let Him: Everyone has these kinds of hangups, but nothing is beyond God’s means’ of restoring you for His honor and His glory; your personal sanctification is a direct testament to believers and non-believers alike!

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie continues in our Self-Care series!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Self-Care - Train of Thought

This past Sunday we began a new series where we're going to look at some of the Scriptural teachings about how you can be a better you and experience a better self-care as it relates to your mind, body, soul, spirit, and rest in general. f you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!

Self-Care is a concept that has become incredibly popular in our culture here in America, and it certainly isn’t a wholly bad thing when it has the right motivations and right results for you and others around you. This can be a very real issue with some people, who can wrongfully abuse this term in their lives, Pastor Robbie states early on about our cultural view of self-care being ‘like a new virtuous way to do the things we want to do anyway. Biblically speaking, that would be a little bit more like selfish care…’. If our ideas surrounding self-care are for the exclusive benefit of ourselves at the expense of those around us, we are not taking care of ourselves like Scripture suggests we should. Our trains of thought are so critical for how we live our lives, because what you think about in your mind is going to impact the person you become!

Moving towards proper self-care from a biblical perspective includes several things, the first of which is to remove toxic thinking from our lives and minds. Ps. Robbie said, ‘All of us came into the room this morning and have had thoughts fill our minds that are toxic. They are not in line with God's Word, and you have to capture or arrest those thoughts. Thoughts like that are going to pop up. They're negative thoughts, anxious thoughts, lustful thoughts, all kinds of different thoughts. God would say those things are going to pop into your head, but it is your choice over whether you will dwell on them.’ (2 Cor. 10:3-5). We must take captive of our thoughts as we go throughout our days, we cannot be complacent and allow thoughts to live outside of obedience to the Gospel!

This second mode we need to work towards for proper biblical self-care is replacing toxic lies, and malicious thoughts with the Truth we find in Scripture! This comes directly from Philippians 4:8 saying, ‘ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.’ If you want to win the battle of the mind, it involves replacing the lies with the truth. I need to identify when I am beginning to believe a lie, wanting to get on this train, and I need to have others around me and really take the steps to replace the lie with the truth. It’s not enough to just try to arrest and push out the lies and toxic thoughts, we have to replace them with God’s Truth! Imagine what your life would look like if you really applied these verses. Imagine what this week would have looked like if everywhere you went, every thought you had at work even?! We have to tell ourselves the Truth! We have to affirm ourselves and those around us with Scriptural truths!

The third and final point mentioned about re-orienting our trains of thought is that we need to refocus with the right perspective. What do we mean by that? We mean with an eternal perspective. We can either choose to see the world around you with an earthly perspective and with today and "This is always how it's going to be" or with an eternal perspective. The apostle Paul was able to choose joy because he maintained an eternal perspective. In Phil. 4:4 we hear Paul declare to us ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!’ Because of God…his promises are eternal, we have security, no matter what we face in this life he's working for our good…you can choose to look for the goodness of God in every situation!

There are so many things that uniquely happen in all of our lives - many of them seem impossible to try and manage or deal with. What we can find comfort in an eternal perspective, dwelling in this mode of living through training our minds to focus on God’s promises! This is the same train of thought that allowed Paul to continually praise the Lord in the midst of harsh jail conditions, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of dealing with life! We are not alone in this fight, we have an intercessor who in familiar with our trials and pains - Jesus!

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Self-Care - Train of Thought: Unlike the sometimes selfish sentiments of our cultural idea of ‘self-care’ Scriptural Self-Care is based on how we orient our Trains of Thought!

• Main Scripture Passages: 2 Cor. 10:3-5; Philippians 4:4, 8; 2 Cor. 12; Rom. 12

• Remove Toxic Thinking: Our trains of thought must be checked because what we think about in our minds is going to impact the people we become.

• Replace the Lies with Truth: Checking our trains of thought are not enough, eventually they will come back unless they are replaced with Scriptural Truths.

• Refocus with the Right Perspective: Our perspective needs to be more focused on the eternal, rather than only on what is going on in our lives right here and now.

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie continues in our Self-Care series!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Angels and Demons - The Reality of Hell

This past Sunday we concluded our Angels and Demons series by diving into what Scripture has to say about Hell! This was such a great series, full of information that many of us have never really sat down and addressed before surrounding the ‘spiritual realm’ around us. This upcoming Sunday Pastor Robbie will be addressing Self-Care as we see prescribed in Scripture. If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!

As Pastor Robbie addressed last Sunday, Heaven is a very real place of perfect communion with God - we also believe that Hell is a very real place that is meant to righteously judge those who have not been forgiven of their sinfulness. He stated, “A recent survey done shows that only 55% of professing Christians believe that Hell is a real place, while 15% are undecided and 30% don’t believe in Hell.” showing that so many believers want to believe in a place of blessing, but want to avoid the idea of judgment for those who live in open rebellion against our Lord and Creator. There are a lot of misconceptions about Hell, and hopefully, we can really dive into what Hell is and is not, in addition to showing how and why our understanding of The Reality of Hell matters.

A common question, that we believe most people ask at some point in their spiritual journey is ‘Why Does Hell Exist’ and the answer to this question informs us on many different fronts theologically and practically. This question brings up God’s holiness and justice as both of them exist in resistance to the presence of rebellion and sinfulness in our world. Hell exists as a means of dealing with injustice against God, - the Lord, and the Creator of our world. Hell is not for ‘bad people’, Hell is for those who live in open rebellion to what God desires for His Image Bearers i.e. those who are NOT forgiven. God’s holiness and perfect justice must be satisfied, this is done through what is and will be eternal judgment for Satan and those who do not accept the saving knowledge of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

First and foremost, Hell was intended specifically for Satan and the angels/demons that fell from heaven with him. In Matthew 25:41, we read ‘Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…’ The original intention of this place of torment was for Satan who originally rebelled against God, taking 1/3 of heaven’s angels with him; he would go on to influence the Fall of mankind in Genesis 3. Some have got this picture in their mind that Hell is a place where Satan rules and does whatever he wants, and by default unbelievers who stayed in their rebellion to God will just be enjoying themselves through their sinful pleasures. This is not the image that we see in Scripture, Hell is a place of fire and torment - a place that is meant to be eternal punishment for Satan himself.

Hell is also, now meant as a place of equal punishment and torment for those who live in rebellion to God - specifically, those who are not forgiven! 2 Thess. 1:8-9 reads, ‘He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.’ (NIV). In Luke 16:19-30 we see a story about an incredibly rich man who fails to live out the Gospel by ignoring the poor man at his doorstep and the rich man is sent to Hell, while Lazurus is sent to Heaven. In verse 24 we see that the man is in conscious agony wishing for Lazurus to just ‘dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’; here we see that He is suffering and in pain and in torment, which begs the question, what do we really know about Hell? We don’t know a lot, but if you are taking notes, we know immediately that Hell is a place of unspeakable suffering. It is a place of unspeakable suffering.

Ps. Robbie concluded with a ringing statement that we all should pay very close attention to and dwell on going forward, “Why do we talk about hell? Because what you believe about eternity affects how you live today, and if we don't understand the horrors of hell, we'll never truly appreciate the goodness and the grace of the price that God paid by sending his Son so that we could have eternal life.”

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Angels & Demons - The Reality of Hell: Pastor Robbie addressed the traditional view of Hell as a place of eternal conscious torment for Satan, and those who live in rebellion to God.

• Main Scripture Passages: Matthew 25:41; 2 Thess. 1:8-9; Luke 16:19-30; Rev. 14:10-11.

• Why Does Hell Exist? - Hell exists as a means of righteous judgment for all those who live in rebellion to what God has prescribed as Lord and Creator of our world.

• Hell is a place of righteous, eternal judgment for Satan: Satan openly rebelled against God and led to the fall of mankind - Hell was originally intended to be a place of judgment for Him and his angels/demons.

• Hell is a place of righteous, eternal judgment for Unbelievers: Given the Fall of mankind, as influenced by Satan, our rebellion (without forgiveness) must be judged as a means of God’s perfect justice.

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie will be starting a new series on Self-Care as prescribed by Scripture!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Time to Push Forward

I don't generally feel like God always gives me a "word" for the year, but I have been thinking about a specific idea for a little while now. The idea is: forward, progress, advance. I know there is a fine line between marketing the church and sharing the mission of the church. Outsiders might see a fine line between seeking numerical growth and wanting to reach more people. They also might look for a fine line between being "seeker-friendly" and simply loving others unreasonably. So I think I have taken the route of caution over these last years. To not give off the impression like we are "into ourselves," we didn't really do any marketing in the community - a result is people still don't know we exist 2 years in.

In spite of this, God has brought new people, we've seen steady growth over the first 18 months, and this has been a home and a place of healing for many de-churched people.

But here's what I know; God has placed us in a very unique place with a very unique mission. I believe that he has commissioned us to fill some gaps in this community and reach people that could not be reached otherwise. Legacy City is not church as usual, this is a movement and I think it's time for this movement to progress forward, to advance. If we really believe that God has given us this unique vision and mission, then we have to own it, live it, and share it.

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How do we do that? A few simple ways:

• Invite. That's right, take some invite cards, reach out to those around you, and share what God is doing here. Studies show that more people respond to a personal invite than any other form of marketing we could come up with.

• Social Media. I know, I know. This seems lame to some. Many of you may not even have social media and that's perfectly fine. But if you do, why not cut through the madness and the darkness by sharing the message of hope that God has given us? Why not tell people that there is a place where they can come to be loved and cared for no matter what their situation is? You all simply liking, sharing, and commenting goes a LONG way to getting our voice out there. Leaving reviews on FB and Google helps a ton also!

• Leading by Example. Do you know what people really want? Authenticity. They want to see that you practice what you preach, that you are buying into the same thing you're inviting them to. Because if you're not, then we just come off as a bunch of hypocrites. Be involved.

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These are just a few thoughts church. Let's move forward together. Let's prepare the way for more church plants to come. Let's prepare the way for training up future leaders. Let's prepare the way for impacting a community like never before. These are our mandates. For God and his Kingdom, For People and this City. Forward. Progress. Advance.

Pastor Robbie Earle

Angels and Demons - Heavenly Misconceptions

This past Sunday we continued our Angels and Demons series by diving into what Scripture has to say about Heaven! This has already been a great series, full of information that many of us have never really sat down and addressed before surrounding the ‘spiritual realm’ around us. Heaven and Hell are pretty broad topics, so we decided to split these up into two separate messages; we don’t want to miss out on any important details. If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!

When someone talks about Heaven, what naturally comes to mind? Some think of the idea that we will be in ‘some ethereal space’ where we will be singing and praising God. Others have never really considered that question, and just know that they would rather be there than in Hell. The afterlife, and what we believe about the afterlife directly effects what we in our lives here today. But, even from what we can see in Scripture, describing heaven explicitly probably takes away from the grandeur it will likely be! 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” - this being said, what we have to work with is what we see in Scripture, and there is quite a lot to consider about Heaven. Consider John 14:1-

Pastor Robbie starts us off saying, “My strategy today is this: In order to try to help you understand what heaven is, what I want to do is I want to start by showing you what heaven is not. Because I really believe a lot of people have misconceptions about what heaven's going to be like.” The first of these misconceptions surround this idea about heaven somehow being boring! Many people have many different ideas about heaven, and this could be from Satan whispering lies in the ears of people who are spreading such an idea. “If I were the devil, what I would do, is try to convince the world today that hell is not a real place...or at the very least you shouldn't worry about it. And I would try to convince you that heaven is boring. You might as well live for today. This is all that matters. Heaven is boring, why would you want to go there?” Revelation 21:1-7 has a lot to say about heaven - heaven will be a perfect dwelling place between mankind and God, ‘death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore…’ (v4). God has a place for us, holy and perfect. Heaven is the opposite of boring, because our God is the opposite of boring, for those that know Him.

Naturally, the question we all want to know, is if heaven isn’t this or heaven isn’t that - what will heaven actually be like? In heaven, you will see Jesus face to face. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will have has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2). Your body will be perfect and new in every way. “What will heaven be like? Heaven is the absence of everything bad, painful and evil. It's the presence of everything good, holy and glorious. Based on my study of heaven, what it appears is that we'll actually have the glory of working for Jesus - in a way that we enjoy and love.” For all eternity, you are ruling and reigning with the king of all kings and the Lord of all lords. It’s the presence of everything good, holy, right and just - the absence of everything evil and painful.

The lies that we continue to hear from people around us, from those who do not know God tries their very best to convince everyone that this world is the only thing there is! They believe that this world is the only world that matters - that we should live for this life, and just do what makes us happy. Philippians 3:19-20 informs us of something very different church, “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Not to mention, some of these same people would suggest, that even if there was a heaven, most of us will be there because ‘most of everyone is good, right?’ There is a belief that all people eventually end up in heaven, because most everyone around us are not murderers, rapists, or any severe violator you would like to input - this is not the case church, Heaven is for those who are forgiven, not those who are ‘good’ enough. All have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), all of us have turned our backs away from what God desires for our lives, and we must be forgiven to be able to dwell with Him eternally.

Those who are forgiven, gain eternal life in Christ Jesus. People ask themselves, Have I been good enough? What about all my secret sins. Have I been too bad? I go to church, I try to do good, I try to dedicate my life and but I keep messing up. These things are not what we find salvation in, faith in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is what gives us salvation - through this faithfulness, by God’s grace, we are forgiven. A Heaven of pure bliss and perfect communion with the Creator and Lord of our world is what awaits those who are found faithful.

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Angels & Demons - Heavenly Misconceptions: While there are many different ideas about Heaven, Scripture is clear that it is among the most unique things possible.

• Main Scripture Passages: John 14:1-6; Rev. 21:1-7; 1 Cor. 2:9; 2nd Cor. 4:17-18; Rom. 3:23; Phil. 3:19-20

• What Will Heaven Be Like? Is it boring? - New Bodies, no sickness, no pain, living life with Jesus, and working with pure and sinless purpose - Heaven is going to be awesome!

• This World is Not Our Home - Some would say that this world is all there is, we know different - there is freedom and hope in what is to come!

• Only ‘Forgiven People’ Will Be In Heaven - ‘Good’ people do not go to Heaven - ‘Forgiven’ People, go to Heaven!

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie continues in our Angels & Demons series when we explore the subject of Hell!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Angels and Demons - Satan and His Demons

This past Sunday we continued our Angels and Demons series by diving into what Scripture has to say about Satan and His Demons! This has already been a great series, full of information that many of us have never really sat down and addressed before surrounding the ‘spiritual realm’ around us. If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you and hope to be able to see you this upcoming Sunday!

Last week Pastor Robbie addressed the lighter and more favorable side of spiritual beings with Angels, but this week we dove into the less appealing subject of Satan and His Demons. In our pop culture, Demons are presented as malicious entities that make themselves known in the most explicit and terrifying ways possible. People in our western culture have this idea of Satan being a red man with horns and a pitchfork - his demons tricksters with menacing smiles. While our culture’s portrayal of Satan and his Demons are not altogether true, like many things, there are shreds of truth that still keep the image in the minds of our friends and family. Ps. Robbie started off with a unifying declaration that is paramount in understanding our situation in our world, “We need to establish a baseline - Satan is real. And taking it a step further, demons are real. They are also a part of this unseen supernatural realm.”. Here in the West, where a naturalistic and materialistic worldview dominates, these entities in pop culture are discussed in such a way that degrades the reality of our situation. Evil forces that seek to steal, kill, and destroy God’s Image Bearers are very real - our underestimation of them gives them equally real power over our communities.

Let’s start from the top and we’ll work our way down to the range of influence and impact of their works’ demons have in our world. First of all, Demons Influence the Leaders of Nations. Let’s look at Daniel who had prayed for twenty-one days nothing happened. Then, an angel of the Lord came to him and declared in Dan. 10:13, “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia…”. This ‘prince’ is understood to be a demon of significant power, in other faith traditions we see hierarchies concerning demons defended and this is one of the verses to support such an idea. We see the forces of darkness, demons at work, trying to influence the leaders of nations!

Now, consider the work that is being done in our communities - most of the stories in the Gospels surrounding demonic activity involve the suffering of individuals in very unfortunate ways; to say the least, Demons Desire to Inflict Suffering on You. Take Matthew 17:15-18 for example, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.” Ps. Robbie implores us saying, ‘I want you to think about a six-year-old, or a seven-year-old, or a little boy or a little girl, and imagine this little child doing stuff like trying to throw themselves into a fire, or trying to jump into a pool in order to drown themselves.’ (v15). This is what was happening in this story. This demon was trying to kill this child - but Jesus rebuked the spirit and the boy was healed instantly (v18)! The torment that this family and their surrounding community endured from these events must have been unimaginable!

Now let’s get right down to it, this was a story back in Jesus’ time, and some may think that demonic activity was for this time and has ended - this is not the case church! The reality that we are dealing with, right here and right now, is that Demons Scheme to Lure You Away from God & Demons Want to Paralyze You with Fear. Satan and His Demons are schemers, and above all deceivers; for the believer, the enemy has what power is given to them and that real power comes from deception. But, this is not the end of the story, this is not the condition that Jesus lived, died, and rose again for his followers to experience - as we see in 2 Tim. 1:7 “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” We do not fight with our power, but with God’s authority; we cannot miss that today, God’s power and authority have overcome the world and all the schemes and deception(s) that the enemy seeks to wield against us! Do not let these forces induce doubt towards the amazing works that God has done in your life - it is this power, this trans-formative power, that he can wield to conquer whatever force may be against you.

Ps. Robbie concluded with “There is an evil force that is more wicked than you could ever imagine that wants to steal, kill, and destroy everything that matters to the heart of God. The demons want your family, your marriage, your children, your finances, your health, and your relationship with God. Bottom line is, they want you.” but we are not defeated, we are not powerless against these forces; for we have been empowered with a Holy Spirit that, when wielded, will conquer all forces that come against us. God conquers the forces that come against us for “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.” (Col. 2:15)!

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Angels & Demons - Satan and His Demons: Satan, and His Demons, are very real and active in our world.

• Main Scripture Passages: Eph. 6:10-12; Mark 5:2-8; Eze. 28:12-15; Dan. 10:13; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 1:7 Col. 2:13-15.

• Demons Influence the Leaders of Nations: Powerful forces come against those who have influence and power over the affairs of the world.

• Demons Desire to Inflict Suffering on You: These forces desire to make you and everyone around you suffer!

• Demons Scheme to Lure You Away from God: The deceptive schemes of these entities have one ultimate goal in mind - to instill doubt about who God is and what He has done through the blood of Jesus.

• Demons want to Paralyze You with Fear: These schemes unto doubting the work of God are done through inducing fear in people, and that is their entry point.

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes.

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie continues in our Angels & Demons series when we explore the subject of Heaven and Hell!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!

Angels and Demons - All About Angels

This past Sunday we started a brand new series surrounding the incredibly fascinating subjects of Angels and Demons! Pastor Robbie opens our series by exploring who angels are and what are their roles in Scripture. We hope you enjoyed the one-off message ‘Good Vibes Only’ a comment on Christian subcultures - we learned about so many valuable half-truths in Christian culture and how to address them! If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you!

Most people, whether or not they have spent much time in the Church, have heard of both angels and demons but our culture has a very different perspective to them than Scripture. Honestly, if all of us were honest with ourselves, we struggle to realize the impact of the spiritual realm altogether in our culture. Even though we have verses like 2 Corinthians 4:28 to deal with, “…as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Pastor Robbie stated, There is this supernatural world, this unseen spiritual dynamic that we consider from time to time…but we are getting desensitized to a very real battle that waging in our minds and souls all around us! We know that there is a spiritual realm existing within our physical realm, but we may not have considered that Scripture has a lot to say about this matter.

So. who exactly are angels? Angels are beings created by God to serve him in a variety of ways, as He wills. We see angelic activity in both the Old & New Testaments in a wide variety of functions but all of them are by nature God’s servants. Angels can be invisible, or they can also manifest themselves in human form! Angels are immortal - they don’t die (Luke 20:36). Angels are incredibly intelligent (2 Samuel 14:20). Angels are holy and innumerable (Mark 8:38; Hebrews 12:22). Pastor Robbie put it well saying, “I want to forever dispel the myth that angels are fat harp-playing babies sitting on clouds. My angel is 10 feet tall and works out, ok? That might be your angel but I’m just telling you right now, my angel is buff and you don’t want to mess with my angel.” There is this idea, especially from artists’ visual descriptions that angels are passive and wholistically attractive beings - this is not what Scripture tells us Church!

In Scripture, there are so many stories involving angels, but we begin to see a pattern develop when we pay attention to what they’re doing when they are talked about. There are three main roles that angels take on in Scripture (while in actuality, there could be innumerable roles that they take on - Scripture is not explicitly clear on this). The first role that angels take on could be a Worshipper - Wherever you find God, you will always find angels worshipping Him (Hebrews 1:6; Revelation 5:11-13). Similarly to mankind, as God’s Image Bearers, angels can take on the role of eternally honoring and glorifying God! The second role that we see angels take on is that of Warriors of God, they are able and willing to carry out whatever sort of physical or violent task that the Lord requires of them (Daniel 10; 1 Chronicles 21; 2 Kings 19:35). Angels were created for God, by God - they are worshippers and they are warriors. The third role that we find angels taking on in Scripture is a Messenger - when the Lord needs information conveyed to someone specific for a specific reason, we see Messanger angels sent out (Judges 6:12; Luke 1:30-31)

Angels and everything surrounding angels is a fascinating subject to us, because, I imagine that not many of us (if any) have ever known of an encounter with an angel - what we need to understand is Church, you very well could have and not known! There is so much more about angels and even in the message from this past Sunday’s Gathering - we encourage you to go and listen to the full version!

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SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS

• Angels & Demons - All About Angels: Angels are a fascinating subject, and are much more apart of our world than most people believe.

• Who Are Angels and What is Their Purpose: Above all, Angels are God’s servants, charged to whatever He desires for them to do.

• How Should I Think About Angels?: Angels are beings that are created for God and by God - they operate in our world in a variety of ways; we not consciously aware of them, but they are active!

• There is so much more to explore!: Given that there are about 273 verses in Scripture that talk about angelic activity - there is so much more to know about their role(s) in the world than what we were able to cover!

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If this topic piques your interest or if you would enjoy listening to this sermon in more depth, check out Legacy City’s Podcast, available here, or on Spotify and Itunes

To keep up to date with Legacy City Church and everything that God is doing in our community, please follow us on social media:

Facebook: LegacyCityGWD
Instagram: LegacyCityGWD
Twitter: LegacyCityGWD

Join us next Sunday as Pastor Robbie continues in our Angels & Demons series when we explore the subject of Demons!

We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!