Woodland Hills Church Sermons Audio Podcast

Sometimes time doesn’t feel like such a gift. In fact if we’re not living in right relatedness with how God intended us to function, it can feel much more like a burden. Throughout history technology innovations have made false promises about giving more time back to their users, but in fact we have as many distractions as ever to keep us from living the simple, undistracted, others oriented life God calls us to. In this message we explore what can be done to take back control of how we’re living our life and spending our time so we don’t fall in to temptations that lead to getting our life from how busy we are.

God lovingly entrusts us with money, possessions, and resources. As followers of Christ we are called to surrender all our gifts to the Lordship of Christ. Because God is an other-oriented God who lovingly pours out blessings, and we are made in His image, then we too should be people who use our resources to bless others.

This weekend we honor the memory and life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a message from Dennis Edwards and Greg Boyd. King dedicated his life to the pursuit of the one new humanity inaugurated in the life of Jesus and this sermon focuses on King’s commitment to justice, peace and love.

Everything that we have is a gift from God that we have been entrusted with. But these gifts are meant to be given away.

This weekend service recognized our teaching pastor and dear friend, Seth McCoy, as he gave his last sermon here. Seth and his family will be transitioning from Woodland Hills to serve God’s Kingdom in another capacity. We celebrate and thank the McCoy family for serving, loving and participating in our larger Woodland Hills family. In this sermon, Seth discusses his affection for Woodland Hills and for the process of following your calling through three lenses: A telescope, a microscope and a rearview mirror.

Jesus is the Light of the world, and this Light has always been at work within us, whether or not we've been aware of it. Once we surrender to that Light, we find ourselves swept up into the greatest love story of all time!

Keeping the Light. Throughout the biblical narrative, we see that Jesus is the light of the world. And that light is shared with humanity in order that we may shine the light. In the Old Testament, Israel was called to be the light to other nations. With the Incarnation, Jesus came as the light of the world. And today, the family of God is to bear witness to the light of the world. Greg shares with us how we are blessed to be conduits of light, to shine and share the light.

In this third week of our Across the Universe series we are reminded that the counter-cultural beauty of the Christmas story is in the reality that the God who created the vast expanses of the universe became small and vulnerable. While it is often the case that we marvel at what is grand and big, the message at Christmas is that oftentimes the most profound experiences of God are in the seemingly mundane moments of life. Our call is to be a people who remember and remind others that the God of the universe does not only go half way for us, and so we should go all the way in love for others.

As we move toward Christmas during our Across the Universe series, Seth explores what it means when God, the Creator of the universe, calls us home. This message took a look at what home means, and what we’re being invited in to, as seen through the unique lens of the prodigal son.

In the sermon this week Greg reflects on how the heavens tell of the glory of God. The vast and beautiful universe, bigger than the human mind can conceive, points to a marvelous creator. This same awe-inspiring creator is the one that became human to love and save all of humanity.

In this final sermon of the Without Borders series, Greg explores our ultimate weapon for fighting the powers of this present darkness. (Hint: it isn't more darkness)

Fear and Faith. Throughout much of the biblical narrative we encounter stories of people who danced between fear and faith. Stories such as the fear of the disciples on the stormy sea, to the townspeople after witnessing the healing of the Gerasene demoniac, to Jairus and his daughter. Yet, in the midst of these fears, we also encounter the Jesus who is bigger than our fears. The Jesus who tells us, “Do not fear. Instead, have faith.” In this weeks’ message our guest, Pastor Dennis Edwards from Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, MN, takes us on a journey through these stories and exhorts the church to live in love – for there is no fear in love.

In this final pre-election sermon, Greg reminds us that while the kingdoms of the world rise and fall and are ultimately doomed, the kingdom of God is everlasting and truly deserving of our hope.

In this third week of our Without Borders series and a week before the election we are reminded that Jesus' challenge to us in loving our enemies was designed to remind us that God has no human enemies. He has called us to be agents of peace, to find the commonality between us and to build on it. This practice will be exceedingly challenging during this election time. We are quick to blame and quick to judge. Jesus invited people on the polar opposites of the political controversy of his day to be brothers within his community of disciples.

Jesus calls us to be His ambassadors. Living as an ambassador of the Kingdom God instead of a citizen of the kingdom of the world requires an awareness and intentionality to not buy in to the “me first” culture of the world. Christians throughout history have usually migrated to one of two extremes in our relationship with the world. Either we withdraw and isolate ourselves from the culture to the point of irrelevance, or else we acquire as much power as possible in order to force or legislate Kingdom of God behavior in to the culture. Neither of these work, or are what we're called to. Instead we're called to a third way as an ambassador and missionary in a foreign land where we interact and show the people the Kingdom by how we live, love, and steward our talents and resources, and then invite others to join.