Episodes
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Money Matters: Wealth and Stewardship
The Church often uses the language of stewardship to talk about our discipleship regarding money. This Sunday, we’ll look at how the call to steward money is the call to say it’s all God’s and to look to God for direction in how to distribute it to meet our own needs and to bless the people in…
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The Way of Wisdom: Wisdom and Discernment
Words. Desire. Sex. Food. Work. Teachability. Wisdom cries out on these topics we’ve covered over the last month. How do we respond? The call is not to be overwhelmed, guilty, or even to be determined to be perfect. Instead, the Proverbs instruct us to take in wisdom and to discern how to live…
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The Way of Wisdom: The Wisdom of Discipline
Proverbs 3 instructs us to “not despise the Lord’s instruction…[nor] loathe his discipline.” This can sometimes feel costly. As we weigh the cost together, we’ll study what scripture tells us about receiving discipline and how we can become teachable people. - Series Description - The Wisdom of…
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The Way of Wisdom: Wisdom At Work
What would it mean to follow the way of Wisdom when it comes to our work? It’s so easy to fall out of balance. Proverbs warns against both laziness and haste. What would it look like to cultivate a wise pace of work? To live in and through healthy habits of work and rest? To be diligent and...
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The Way of Wisdom: What Are You Hungry For?
Wisdom cries out on the street: she wants to tell you what is worth hungering for and inquire about your desires lately. But many other forces and powers want to know what you’re hungry for, too. Using our appetites of various kinds and our physical bodies, these forces sometimes tempt us beyond...
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The Way of Wisdom: Words of Grace Finding the Way of Wisdom in What We Say
According to the Scriptures, a disproportionate part of wisdom consists of the words we speak. And according to Jesus, the words we speak necessarily flow from the kind of people we are on the inside (Matt 12:33-37). Join us as we consider the topic of “Words of Grace: Finding the Way of Wisdom…
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The Wisdom of the Kingdom: The Wisdom of the Upside-Down Kingdom
How does the Kingdom - the government - of God work? Not like ours. The wisdom of the Kingdom shows up to the least, the last, and the lost and is run on servanthood, not lording power over others. This way of the Kingdom is quite different not only from our political rulers, but from us. Where…
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The Wisdom of the Kingdom: Small Things Big, Hidden Things Known
As we continue our series on The Wisdom of the Kingdom, we'll look at four short parables of Jesus that give us important clues about what both the wisdom of God and the kingdom of God are like. In these little parables, we discover first that the wisdom of God’s kingdom often consists in small…
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The Wisdom of the Kingdom: Yes is the Way In
Yes is a powerful word in God’s Kingdom. More than a perfect track record of obedience, a “yes” to God orients us to whatever God has for us no matter our past choices or our background. In the book of Proverbs, wisdom is personified as someone crying out in the streets (1:20). Most people do not...
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Keeping Our Lamps Burning in Good Times and Bad
For many of us, autumn is a time for returning to routines that have faded over the summer as well as establishing new ones. As we move on from our summer in the Psalms of Ascents and prepare for a new sermon series next week, we’ll take time this Sunday to focus on Paul’s words to the Ephesian...
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Psalms of Ascents: Agents & Recipients of Blessing
This week we bring the Psalms of Ascents series to a close with Psalms 133 and 134, where we read of both the blessings of Christian community and the power of Christian community to bless both God and others. When we give and receive blessing, we play a part in the reverberations of grace in the...
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Psalms of Ascents: Wonder at God’s Majesty and Trust in God’s Care
As we continue our “Psalms of Ascents” series, we come to Psalms 131 and 132, which help us learn what it means to relate to God with both awe and intimacy. How do we engage with a God who is so far beyond our understanding and yet so lovingly near? Join us this week as we look at how a…
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Psalms of Ascents: Out of the Depths I Cry to You, O LORD
The language of the psalms expresses a stunningly wide range of human experience: rage, sorrow, hope, joy, desperation, and much more. What prayers do we pray when the weight of what’s broken is way beyond what we can carry on our own? The Psalms give us a way forward from these depths - we cry…
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Psalms of Ascents: Blessed is Everyone Who Fears the Lord
As we continue with our “Psalms of Ascents” series, we come to Psalm 128, which promises blessing to all those who fear the Lord and walk in his ways. But, looking around us, we don’t always see blessings flowing to those who do what is right—in fact, sometimes it can seem like the opposite is...
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Psalms of Ascent: Shaped by Sorrow, But Living in Hope
As we continue with our “Psalms of Ascents” series, we come to Psalm 126, which begins with the Psalmist either remembering a past or imagining a future where God has restored his people from captivity and back to a life of favor, blessing, and joy. It continues with a prayer for that same...
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Psalms of Ascents: "Those Who Trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion..."
The pilgrims arrived a few weeks ago in Psalm 122: "Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem" (122:2). But having reached the desired destination, there is nonetheless anxiety about whether that blessed state might last: "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: '...Peace be within your walls...
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Psalms of Ascents: Had It Not Been the Lord...
As we continue our “Psalms of Ascents” series, we come to Psalm 124, which begins, “Had it not been the Lord who…” – words that invite us to consider what our lives might have been had God not been with us, protecting, preserving, and sustaining us. But for God to have been with us – “on our…
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Psalms of Ascents: Where Do You Need Mercy?
Mercy is abundance when facing lack and forgiveness when facing wrong. Psalm 123 compares our need for mercy to a servant looking to a Master for direction. Your eyes do not look away. Every movement is tracked. Your action is tethered to theirs. Is that how much you are tethered to mercy — for...
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Psalms of Ascents:Pilgrims, Where are We to Go?
If we’re pilgrims, where are we going? Our Psalmist (in Psalm 122 this week) confidently says: Jerusalem. We might want to rejoice with those who say, “let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps 122:1). But we might also ask, “can you share those GPS coordinates right quick?” Our path to any…
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Psalms of Ascent: My Help Comes from the Lord
This week, we will focus on whom we ask for help: a God who is remarkably involved in our lives. This God intervenes on our behalf and for our good. This view of a personal God might be new or may have become hard to believe as of late. This Sunday we will hear why a God who watches over our…
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Psalms of Ascents: Psalms of Ascents
Join us as we start our journey together in Psalm 120, a psalm that encourages us to cry out to God as a starting place for any pilgrimage. - Series Description - On Sundays this summer, we'll explore the Psalms of Ascents (Psalms 120 - 134) together. This particular group of psalms is all about...
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Spread the Love: A Different World is Possible Through the Holy Spirit
At Pentecost, we celebrate the Spirit filling and empowering people. A different world is possible because of what the Spirit can do in and through us. As we conclude our series, Spread the Love, we will take time to proclaim, demonstrate, and take some risks to see the Spirit’s work amongst us...
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Spread The Love: Loving and Obeying Jesus in All Things
The idea of obedience brings complex reactions for many of us, perhaps stirring fears of legalism or a sense of anxiety. But when coupled with love – our love for God and God’s love for us – obedience to Jesus is the only way of true freedom and joy. Obedience to Jesus draws us into a life of...
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Spread the Love: Spirit-Empowered Communities
Community is key. We are not meant to live in isolation. We are also not meant to live in communities that are empowered by fear, anxiety, a cult of personality, or mere pleasure. Communities empowered by the Holy Spirit are altogether different. God is refining communities like this through a...
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Spread the Love, Joining the Mission of God: Love In Action
ECV’s mission is to call all people to revolutionary lives of action through spirit-empowered communities that love and obey Jesus Christ in all things. But what does a revolutionary life of action actually look like? In the upside-down kingdom of God, true world-changing revolution happens in…
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Spread the Love: Joining the Mission of God
God calls all people to know and experience Him. Our Church exists to do the same. Some religious folks think God is only for some. Some non-religious folks think God is not for them. Jesus does not accept these false divides: he pursues the outsider while pursuing the insider to do the same. We...
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Fruit That Will Last
Love your neighbor. Be kind. Practice patience. Keep it under control. Love your enemy. Showing up in the world the way we hope to is hard work. Or is it? the Bible says that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are aspects of the fruit of…
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Celebrate Peace
Celebration is a way to mark God’s consistent presence with us and to call forth more of God’s good Kingdom to come and draw near. Celebration is worship. Celebration is prayer. Celebration can even be resistance. As we mark that there have been no homicides in more than four months and none in...
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Deep Calls to Deep: For God So Loved
Why did Jesus come to the world?” It's not to bring a cosmic judge even closer to those he would condemn. Instead, Jesus came to show us how to live, even if his greatest lesson came through his death: resurrection is real if we trust in Jesus. Jesus sacrificed for those who killed him because…
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Deep Calls to Deep: Becoming a Sacrificial Person
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." - Jesus (John 12:24) As the week we now call Holy Week unfolds, we see in Jesus what it looks like to live a sacrificial life. Together as a body...
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Deep Calls to Deep: Generosity
When we think about the deep things of life, money may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But Jesus says there’s a deep connection between our hearts and our wallets. Join us Sunday as Matt invites us to consider what the way we spend our money might tell us about the deep attachments of...
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Deep Calls to Deep: Go Deeper in Mission
In Luke 4, Jesus says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him to proclaim freedom to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free-- to proclaim the Lord’s favor. If we follow Jesus, we are to go and do likewise. We are called to go deeper in mission — not mission as a...
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Deep Calls to Deep: Embracing the Humility of Christ
Join us as we reflect on Humility as a posture of dependence that allows us to receive from God. Join us as we discuss what humility is, why it matters in our lives with God and others, and practical steps for how we can grow in the humility that Christ models for us. - Series Description - True...
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Deep Calls to Deep: Becoming Prayerful People
Join us as we reflect together “On Becoming Prayerful People” so that we might better live into the richness of active engagement with and openness to God as a way of life. Far more than merely asking God for things on behalf of ourselves or others, Christian prayer involves moment-by-moment...
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Chosen by God, Living as Exiles: A Faith Received - Getting Back to Basics
We conclude our series, "Chosen by God, Living as Exiles" with a teaching on "A Faith Received: Getting Back to Basics." The Apostle Peter was happy to remind the church of the central realities of our faith (2 Pet 1:12-15): the death and resurrection of Jesus, our new life and ongoing...
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Sermon Series Chosen by God, Living as Exiles: Leadership in Exile - Shepherding Well by Following the Good Shepherd
When God calls people to follow him, he also often calls them to leadership roles within the church. What does it look like to lead and follow well while living as exiles? - Series Description - In this series we will explore 1 and 2 Peter, the Apostle Peter’s two letters to the scattered...
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Chosen By God, Living as Exiles: Make Every Effort
God calls us to action even when we’re in exile. Even in the winter, God still calls us to bloom. How? We receive God’s power and God’s call. We participate in God’s promises over us. We make every effort to confirm such things — for our own lives and the lives of others. This is how we grow —…
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Chosen By God, Living As Exiles: Suffering "For a Little While"
Followers of Jesus, 1 Peter says, rejoice "even if now for a little while [we] have had to suffer various trials" (1:6). It's a teaching shared across the writings of the New Testament: the kingdom of God has come already in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the…
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Chosen By God, Living As Exiles: Set Apart By Mercy
The author of 1 Peter calls Jesus followers a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:5). He commands them to be holy as God is holy. If the people of God are already living in exile, it could seem like this is just another hard thing: how can I live as a holy priest in a context of exile, oppression, and...
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Chosen by God, Living as Exiles: Learning to Live as Third-Culture People
Followers of Jesus live in a world that is often at odds with the life Jesus calls us to, and our own place and time is no exception. To be faithful to Jesus means that we will often feel out of place and called to ways of living and being that clash with the ways and rhythms of those around us.…
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The Work of Christmas: Embody Love
To close our Advent series, we’ll hear short messages from a few of our Roots youth, celebrating and reflecting on God’s love. - Series Description - This is work. It’s the work of Christmas — to strike a match not just for ourselves, but for our community, the stranger, the oppressed, the one…
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The Work of Christmas: Cultivate Joy
It’s easy to experience life as a rat race for happiness. Who can get it first? Who can make it last the longest? Is joy any different? When we sing “Joy to the World,” are we singing for the world to have momentary happiness? Let’s hope not. Thankfully, the joy of a Jesus follower is more than a...
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The Work Of Christmas: Fight For Peace
During Advent we remember that the babe in the manger is the Prince of Peace – the one who will one day bring an end to all war and discord in us and in the world. Among the Lord’s last words to his disciples before his death are these: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27...
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The Work of Christmas: The Work of Christmas
This is work. It’s the work of Christmas — to strike a match not just for ourselves, but for our community, the stranger, the oppressed, the one left out. This Advent, we’ll be looking at how the flames of hope, peace, joy, and love - the traditional themes of Advent - call us to holy work. We…
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Take Heart
In our last talk of the “So You Want To Be A Christian” series we will dive into the topic of suffering. Nobody wants to suffer, but we all will at some point in our lives. Being a follower of Jesus does not disqualify us from suffering. As a matter of fact, Jesus himself suffered and was known…
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Receiving and Extending Forgiveness
When we say yes to Jesus, we receive the gift of forgiveness that God offers us. And as we find ourselves in the story of God as those who are forgiven, we’re invited to join God’s Kingdom work by forgiving those who have sinned against us. Join us this Sunday as we continue our teaching series,...
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Living in the Story of God
If someone were to make a movie of your life, what would the genre be? Action-adventure? Rom-com? Slice of life? Epic? You could probably imagine a few different versions. Which one do you think is true? It matters a lot. The stories we tell ourselves-- the stories we live in and through--tell us...
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Saying No
Saying yes often looks like saying no. “Drop your nets. Leave your boats. Come and follow me.” - Jesus Why does following Jesus mean leaving certain things behind? Like any other decision, following Jesus involves a cutting off. It is, as Jesus says, a narrow path (Matt 7:13-14). To truly say yes...
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Getting To Know Jesus
When we say yes to following Jesus, what comes next? It can be tempting to think that the most important thing is to get rid of all the mess in our personal lives, or to immediately get to work doing important things for God. But the gospels give a simpler and more radical invitation: we get to...
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So You Want to Be a Christian?: Saying Yes
This Sunday, we’ll explore how our first step is to say yes. Not just yes to a task, but yes to a person — someone who calls us to himself and to his mission. - Series Description - In our new series, So, You Want to Be A Christian?, we’ll cover the beginning steps of following Jesus. At times,...
About this show
Elm City Vineyard Church Talks is a collection of talks from Elm City Vineyard Church, a faith community in New Haven, CT.
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Elm City Vineyard Church
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