Live Event sermons on your YouVersion App

For all of you out there with The YouVersion Bible App on your phones or tablets or even your computers I decided to Publish my sermons for people to be able to follow along either at our church or even as you watch them off of our website. This week there will be a new one and this time it is available tomorrow, that way you can answer questions early and we can use the poll question in the service. please check it out if you haven't. click here to view the live event

One way in

I wish that if there were one thing we could do better as Christians is get along better with ourselves. How can we focus all our time on seeking and saving the lost, or being in our community planting seeds and reeping the harvest that is so ripe when we are spending too much time complaining about one another or trying to prove how we are the only way to heaven? Christ says, I am the way the truth and the light no one gets to the father except through me." (John14:6)

    We need to realize that salvation has nothing to do with us but by the sacrifice of Christ, the free gift of salvation. Through that gift Christ gives us a simple command. He tells us really to do just two things he says, love The Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength and love your neighbor as your self. Do we need to be aware of false teachers, yes! Do we condemn people, no! Jesus didn't give us the authority to judge others, in fact he says, "Matthew 7:1-6 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. 

    I think we need to evaluate where we are at and strive to love God more and everyday by the love we have for God we learn to love His creation more and more! 

God I pray that you help us be the example of love to the world around us using the example of your son Christ. The perfecter of our faith, and we can walk in the light as he is in the light and have fellowship with one another, and with that the love of Christ will cover our sins. I pray that I don't just use words but actions, and I pray that I start with my family, by being a better husband, better father, and a better man. I pray as a leader I lead better by being a better follower of you! And I pray that you open our eyes more often to your eternal plan for us, and I Pray this in your son holy name, amen.

Body of Christ Sermon Series

Ive been writing post about the importance of Christians claiming to be the body of Christ, this sermon series challenges us to start acting like it. This series is inspired by the Casting Crowns song entitled "If We Are the Body" I hope this speaks to you, if you have any questions please ask i will do my best to answer them, if you want to visit us and see what the Elk Grove Church of Christ is all about please join us on sunday, visit www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.org, below are the links to this sermon series for you to listen to, this sunday we will be talking about our feet moving, will be a blast hope you join us.


If We Are The Body

If We Are The Body: Arms Reaching

Feet Going

Words Teaching

God Bless

If we are the Body, Where are our feet moving?

We are continuing in our study of being the body of Christ, today I wanted to discuss our movement. When I walk into churches in the area I can truly tell which families are actively moving towards something and those that are complacent and sitting in the park position. In revelation Jesus asks john to write this letter to the church of Laodicea discussing what they must do to find favor in Him. It reads "“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. (Revelation 3:14-17 NIV)" How often as a body do we ride the fence, we talk about being Christ to the masses on sunday but when we leave the building we just become another member of the world. As a body we need our feet moving, moving toward the goal, which is Christ and on that journey pick up some folks along the way. I would like to believe that we should be viewing our journey like the school age game the blob, where our goal is to get every player involved to become part of a bigger unit picking up more and more people until everyone is apart of the blob. Wouldn't that be a great idea, as Christians as we walk around through this world our excitement for God is so huge that we cant help but to pick up more and more as we carry on through our lives. I hope with all of my heart that we as a body not just in Elk Grove but all over the world can be a church that is on fire for Christ, one that wont be spit out of the mouth but savored in it because of its amazing flavor. How do we do this you may be asking? We can start by moving our feet toward those who are hurting, those that need help, those who are hungry for whats missing in their lives, we move to them instead of sitting in our safe buildings waiting and hoping for the day they come through our doors and move toward us. Have you been moving toward your co-workers leading them with your actions to Christ? Have you moved toward your family member that has been distant, showing them the comfort they need that only comes from Christ? have you been moving anywhere at all in your actions for serving the father? This week my challenge is for you to notice your feet, make an effort to move in a direction that can lead others who are following behind you as individuals and as a church , that you will lead them to the cross and as they sit under its majesty they can't help but to bow before it and say "God, I am ready to accept you in my life, I am ready for you to lead me, guide me, and yes I am ready, so ready, to be forgiven!" what a glorious day that will be.


God bless you this week

Reach out and touch The Lord

In 2007 I was blessed to take s group of 10 people to South Africa for a mission trip. This trip was amazing, one of the things that made this trip amazing was a stop at a church in one of the "black" (as they call it) town ships. This church was very passionate about their worship to God like many other "3rd" world countries. During our time there they sang a song titled "reach out and touch The Lord" they sang this song through a few times and each time more and more passion came through them. One of the lines out of this song is "reach out and touch The Lord as he passes by you know he is not too busy to her your cry, he's passing by this moment your needs he'll supply, so reach out and touch The Lord as he walks by." It got me thinking, we need to understand that Jesus as he walked by spent so much of his time reaching out and touching others, and on the occasions when others reached out to him even without asking for healing, received it because of how strong their faith was. How many times have you reached out to Christ in faith and prayer for healing, guidance, marital help, emotional fulfillment or whatever. I feel it is rare that we reach out to God and have faith that he isn't too busy to hear our concerns, yet instead as he is walking by we watch him carry on because we lack the faith to reach out and ask for his help. Don't be too full of pride that you can't ask for help, God reveals himself in mysterious ways don't miss your opportunity to be in his presence.

Are we taking seriously being the BODY of Christ?

There is a song by "Casting Crowns" Titled "If We Are The Body" and it talks about a few things that i want us to delve into these next few weeks. The line goes like this, "If we are the body why aren't his arms reaching, why aren't his hands healing, why are his words teaching, and if we are the body why aren't his feet going, why his love not showing them there is a way." I want us to think about this for a second, we call our selves the body, a group of people that meet to declare that the Lord Jesus Christ came and DIED on the CROSS for our SINS! However ultimately we declare this only to a bunch of other people that already know this information and rarely do much more than that. We may see someone that is hurting and disheveled and instead of reaching out to them we cross the road because we don't want to be on the same side of the street as that kind of riff raff. Or how many of you have done this one, where you know someone is looking for someone to talk to but you know its going to take a long time and you don't want to "deal" with it so you scoot out the back door, or find something to take your time away from them so you won't get "Stuck" with them. How about we don't beat around the bush here, you talk a mean Christian and know all the right things to say but ultimately what outsiders see is just a "Mean Christian." Is this ringing home; over the next few weeks we are going to get back to the basics, we are going to see how Christ used his earthly body to show us that there is a way. A way to a better life, a way to healing, a way to be lifted up, a way to be forgiven, a way to heaven, and Jesus is the way. Through this discussion and topic i hope we see that Christ used his body to reach out to the unreachable, to forgive the unforgivable, to touch the untouchable, and to heal the unhealable. Christ's body was constantly at work and found new ways to engage others at their level of learning so they couldn't deny his wisdom and power. i hope that in our lives each and everyone of us can reach someone at their level accepting them helping them understand there is a way, I found my way through an amazing mother that wanted to emphasize a life with Christ is better than any life without him. a Mother that wouldn't force us or give us standards we couldn't reach but instead, reached out with her arms and hugged, put her hands on us and kissed away out hurts, walked with us in our journey, and used her words often in a way that would teach us and impact us for a lifetime. My mom understands she is a vessel for Christ, I am hoping to take that example and let my kids and the generations that is following me to live that example out as well. Hopefully you have someone like that in your life that helped you find your way and if you did, pay it forward there are many who are hurting and empty inside looking for the way, the hope of being fulfilled. do me a favor and write down some names of people you have been putting off talking to about Christ, and look at that name pray everyday for the rest of this week that you will gain the strength wisdom and opportunity to talk to them about Jesus. We are not guaranteed tomorrow it maybe the time today to help people find their tomorrow in Christ.


questions or comments leave them here or email me ghavinn.crutcher@elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

MAY GOD KEEP YOU AND BLESS YOU AND MAKE HIS FACE SHINE UPON YOU AND GIVE YOU PEACE!

Leaving Boldly

We have reached the end of the series of 30 days to live, it is interesting where we have gone, we have learned that we have a dash between the day we are born and the day we die, we only get one and it is usually a lot shorter than we expect it to be. W have learned that to live a life with no regrets we should allow The Lord to teach us to live with passion, to love completely, to learn humbly, and ultimately to leave boldly. The apostle Paul talked to Timothy about his days coming to an end, that he had fought the good fight and he had finished the race, he stood upon the goal of leaving a legacy that would out live him. He was investing into something that was bigger than him. There was a professor that did research based on people that were over a 100 years old and they asked them if they could go back in there life would they change anything. There were 3 things that stood out the first response was I would take more risks, the 2nd wash would live with more purpose, the 3rd stood out the most, they said I would spend more time investing it things that would out live me. I would invest my energy, time, money, talents etc... Into things that had legs as they used to say in the news paper. To me that sounds like leaving a legacy. What are you doing now, what are you investing your time in now, are your investments currently building sand castles or are they building foundations that are solid that generations behind you can take and start to carry out, continuing the legacy. Wouldn't you want to invest into things that will out last you, the biggest legacy you could leave with anyone and will out last anything is the foundation of Christ, that foundation is based on love, forgiveness, grace, and everlasting life in heaven. Gd is good and his love endures forever! For more on leaving boldly joins on Sunday for more info on times and locations, elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

Learning Humbly (are you willing to Learn)

As we start to finish up on our series of 30 days to live we have reached a part that is pretty difficult. Which is being a humble learner. I am going to give the tease version and hope that you tune into church on Sunday at 10am for more on this but as I was studying for this my heart started to weigh on me. Long story short there is something that gets in the way of us learning and being humble learners; that something is pride. Pride doesn't allow us to be good listeners and in turn when we do not listen we have a hard time hearing what God is trying to teach us. When Cain was angry that God found favor in Abel instead of him, God tried to teach him something but pride plugged his ears. God was teaching Cain that if you do what I ask you will be blessed but if you do not sin is knocking at your door and you must conquer it. We find out later Cain didn't conquer it instead he felt killing his brother was a better solution. There are so many times in our lives that sin is knocking at our door and instead of listening for gods guidance and learning through the struggle we play def to it and act as if it doesn't exist. When we do this I often call us appearance managers. An Appearance manager will do whatever he has to do to let people think he has it figured out where in fact we don't. Appearance managers are people that get frustrated and ticked off when things are said about them that aren't glowing remarks, A.M's are people that get upset when others around them get promotions instead of them, A.M's are people that when things start to unravel in their lives they blame others and circumstances first... Is this hitting home? Well it did for me, I have a huge issue and I will give full discloser here sometimes to save face or to avoid conflict I won't tell the truth 100% of the time. I has been eating at me because I have found myself doing it over little nothing situations. Let me tell you there are a lot of regrets here; I got some good news however, I am a person that wants to learn, and learn humbly... I have started truly listening to God to allow him to guide my heart and choices. God is trying to teach me something and for so long pride blocked my ears but I am ready for them to be open so I can truly hear his calling for my life. Your word to know for the day in tapenoprosune I may have spelled that wrong so forgive me... It is the Greek word that means push down oh your gut when translated directly. It also means, the having a humble opinion of one's self a deep sense of one's (moral) littleness modesty, humility, lowliness of mind. God is saying when your sinful gut desires approach you push them down and come before him with a humility, understanding that you do not know everything and believe it or not God knows you better than you do and he wants to prosper you. Take time today to be still and know that He is God, and he is trying to teach you something today, are you listening and are you ready and willing to learn.

May God bless you, if you need prayers or have something on your heart you want to share, leave a comment or email me, ghavinn.crutcher@elkgrovechurchofchrist.org we would love to be apart of your lives and have a great family that will support you, come visit it us elkgrovechurchofchrist.org

The Mountain of Resentment

Another teaser for this sundays sermon on "No Regrets: Loving completely" we are going to be talking about love with the metaphor of being like a mountain. There is a point toward the top of Mount Everest that is called the dead zone, it is called the dead zone because at that high of altitude there is not enough oxygen to sustain life, and it is an awful and slow way to die. When we are learning to love completely and we are loving people regardlessly of how they perform, and loving people that may not deserve it we have to learn how to forgive. it is like looking at a mountain that is impossible to climb because it is a mountain full of resentment, a mountain full of hurt, full of disappointment, and it sucks the life right out of us. Maybe you have found yourself saying but he lied to me, or she wasn't faithful, or he took my heart and crushed it. Maybe today is the day that you decide in order for me to truly live a life that is full and has no regrets, I need to forgive those that hurt me, to forgive those that have taken advantage of me, because in doing so you are allowing yourself to finally heal.

For more on how this all wraps up join us sunday, there is a hint here, we will never understand the power of forgiveness until we can see for ourselves the depth and height of God's forgiveness for us.

jon us sunday at 10 am Elk Grove Church of Christ

www.elkgrovechurchofchrist.orrg for more details