Show Notes
This week Pastor Keithen continued our Follow series in Matthew 20:25-28, where Jesus tells His disciples that greatness in the kingdom looks nothing like greatness in the world. Preaching to a room full of New Yorkers, Pastor Keithen named the "main character energy" that drives so much of this city, the ambition and grit that gets us here and keeps us here, and asked whether we've quietly assumed Jesus only wants to tweak that energy rather than replace it. He walked through four shifts from the text: from consumption to contribution, from criticism to compassion, from main character energy to a life of consecration, and from extracting from New York to laying our lives down for it.
"Not so with you," Jesus says. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant.
More from Church of the City New York
This Sunday, Pastor Billy continued our Manifesto of Fruitfulness series by exploring the fruit of praise and asking who or what receives our worship. In Hebrews 13, we are called to offer God a sacrifice of praise, but praise is more than words spoken when life is going well. It is a choice to declare God's worth in the midst of uncertainty, to practice gratitude when complaint comes more naturally and to speak openly about what he has done. Through the stories of Scripture, Pastor Billy reminded us that praise does not deny our circumstances or depend on a particular outcome. It is a response to who God is and what he has already done for us. As our lives are shaped by gratitude and our own encounters with Jesus, praise moves beyond private worship and becomes a public witness to the goodness and faithfulness of God.
This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Manifesto of Fruitfulness series by exploring the fruit of evangelism and what it means to share the good news of Jesus with the people around us. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul describes us as ambassadors for Christ, entrusted with the message of reconciliation. But how we share that message can look different from person to person. Whether through our own testimony, an invitation into community, honest conversations about faith or a prompting from the Holy Spirit, we are called to meet people where they are. Pastor Jon reminded us that evangelism begins with the heart of Jesus, who pursues those who are far from God and welcomes people in the midst of their brokenness. As we learn to share the hope we have found in him, we are called to do so with gentleness and respect, trusting that the work of bringing people to Jesus is not ours to accomplish alone.
New York disciples its people through ambition. Etched into the walls of Moynihan Train Hall, the newly renovated front door to the city, is a single word from the New York State seal: Excelsior. It's Latin for "ever upward," and while meant as civic pride showcasing New York's history of excellence, said honestly, in the context of most people's lives in the city, "ever upward" feels more like a mandate than a cheer.
This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, teaching from Galatians 5:13–26 on the fruit of the Spirit.
This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our series, A Manifesto of Fruitfulness, teaching from Luke 8:4-15, the parable of the sower. Pastor Jon reminded us that Jesus describes one seed, scattered generously across every kind of ground. The variance wasn't the seed, but the soil. He named the four kinds soil could take: seed stolen before it can root, joy that springs up fast and withers under real pressure, a heart slowly choked by the decade-long apartment search, the co-op board interview, a city built to manufacture not-enough, until there's no margin left to notice God, and soil that receives the word, keeps it, and yields a hundred times what was sown, a harvest so disproportionate to the effort that it can only be received as gift. Jon closed with an invitation: not a program to complete, but a simple surrender of the soil itself. Lord, make us good soil.