June 4, 2020
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
"This past Pentecost Sunday, we are reminded of the answer: my friends, we must be filled with the Spirit. When our emotions surge and our passions rise for truth and justice, we must be filled with the Spirit, for the Spirit, unlike our emotions, does not usurp the place of truth, but takes us to the person who is Truth Himself. When we think all the people around us are ...
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April 2, 2020
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
"Into this uncertainty and lack of control, I see Jesus! Jesus, who is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities...
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January 16, 2020
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
"As I have considered this inevitability of balance in the Star Wars universe, I have been reflecting upon how much better the Christian story is. Where the Star Wars universe is left with either adhering to the rules of the universe and leaving off a story in a “balanced” state of good and evil or breaking the rules and allowing good to triumph, we live in a story whe...
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December 12, 2019
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
"My friends, beholding Christ this season is not merely finding out how Christ can augment our understanding and our experience of Christmas. Behold our Christ means perceiving how Christ, taking on human form and coming as a crying and mewling babe, fundamentally reorients all of our traditions, all of our experiences, all of our joys, all of our sorrows, all of our hopes...
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October 17, 2019
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
"At the end of the story, we are left with the younger son reconciled to his father while we are uncertain as to the status of the older son; though the sins of the younger may have been more severe, the ultimate reconciliation of the younger son to the father made any gradations of sin irrelevant in light of the category of being in grace. And this, then, is the principle...
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July 4, 2019
by Josh Spare
| Tags: Fasting, feasting, beholding the Lord
"Paul is calling us to remember that the kingdom of God is forever, that the work we put into justice and goodness and sanctification and edification, that work will endure while our weak and frail bodies will pass away to be replaced with immortal bodies, freed from the limitations and weaknesses that we endure now! And so, in light of that, we fast. We take opportunities...
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April 4, 2019
by Josh Spare
| Tags: Worship, Singing, Music
"As I stand to sing, I rarely feel like singing; the words seem rote, the melodies too familiar. But herein lies the great opportunity for song to lift you from your reverie, to consider God, to consider your impoverished state, and to consider how Christ has raised you up to new life. In this way, the practices of song have great opportunity to raise your eyes to properly...
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November 8, 2018
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
The question that rattled around in my head as I listened and reflected on Pastor Justin's sermon this week was "What promise?" Before I expand on that, let me take a few steps back to explain how I ended up where I am in my thinking.
In this Series,The Gospel According to Abraham, we have returned to Genesis and have begun tracing the story of Abraham from his calling ou...
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September 20, 2018
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
Augustine wrote in hisConfessions, "What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; but if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I know not." I think this is a most astute observation of time, for I spend all my waking moments oriented around time - I wake up at this time; I go to work at this time; I spend this amount of time doing this task; I wasted this amount of time ...
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May 31, 2018
by Josh Spare
| Tags: albuquerque, Idolatry, pride, heart, blog, Church, Truth, Albuquerque Church, Sermon Reflection, Church blog, Revelation, Bookends, Believe, Repentance, Perceive, Conviction, Self-centeredness, Mercy, Temptation
...the Revelation of John for things to come points to a people so engrossed in their self-sufficiency that the thunder of heaven cannot turn their unrepentant hearts - how much like that are we? How much like that am I? ...
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February 15, 2018
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Sermon Reflection
Our common sense, our most natural desire, as we face the icy challenges that life throws at us is to “white-knuckle” it; to strive to control and over-power difficulty by making our name great, or by demonstrating our own righteousness, or by building up our own little kingdom. And yet, the paradox is that it is precisely by relinquishing control to God, by forgoing o...
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November 23, 2017
by Josh Spare
| Tags: gospel, albuquerque, gospel living, blog, love, Jesus, Church, redemption, Albuquerque Church, Sermon Reflection, Albuquerque Churches, Church blog, Savior, Genesis, Revelation, Gospel Life, Presence of Love, Redeeming, Live, Reminder
We look forward and say there is a better day coming because of Jesus. And not only do we look forward, but we hasten it by living today as a renewed people in the midst of that broken world. ...
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August 31, 2017
by Josh Spare
| Tags: gospel, albuquerque, idols, hope, rest, culture, Jesus, God, Church blog, Busy, Time, Weary
How often do I “rest” by binging on show after show? Or fritter my time away on silly articles on Twitter or Reddit? Or squander my Saturday on a unimportant book?...
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May 18, 2017
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Gospel
| Tags: gospel, albuquerque, abq, prayer, trust, Mercy, Control, Albuquerque Church, Daniel, Church blog, Destiny, Fate, Conquered, Poetry
How silly to think that large statutes and grand works will last beyond a lifetime! And yet, as Pastor Justin reminds us, we must see ourselves in Nebuchadnezzar’s quest for transcendence, for meaning, for a legacy. ...
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January 13, 2017
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Gospel
| Tags: gospel, justice, faith, hope, Mercy, Pain, Religion, Suffering
We, as Christians, have the privilege of engaging with our Creator, demanding a response for evil that seems contrary to His very character, and throwing ourselves into the eternal love that began between the Trinity and has been mercifully extended to us....
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November 18, 2016
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Gospel
| Tags: Man, social media, technology, God's glory, culture
Leave it to sinful man to conflate their good, God-given capability for developing technology and for building wonderful things with their own ego-driven self-aggrandizement....
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July 21, 2016
by Josh Spare
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Category:
Gospel
| Tags: Family, Grace-filled, Affirmation
There was a phrase that Pastor Justin emphasized in his sermon this week. I don't know if you caught it, but he stopped and repeated it very slowly, almost as if he was waiting for me to write it down in order to be able to reflect on it more fully later on. "A grace-filled family is loud, not with its criticism, but with its affirmation."...
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