True Success in Surrender

2025-10-25 4 min read

Introduction

Guest preacher: Ernest Smith, Lead Pastor of Front Range Church (Castle Rock, CO), a Lake Pointe church-plant (2013).
Ernest recounts Lake Pointe’s partnership, highlighting the Strategic Launch Network and personal support from Pastors Steve & Josh.
Sets the stage by confessing a lifelong struggle with comparison and the cultural pressure to “be successful.”
Central tension: God’s definition of success vs. our drive for status, wealth, and control.
How God re-defines achievement through Naaman’s healing and our own obedience.

2025-10-18 3 min read

Initial brain-storm: participants named “faith,” “trials,” and practicality as hallmarks of James.
Leader highlighted four biblical men named James and identified the letter’s author as “James the Just,” half-brother of Jesus and senior pastor of the Jerusalem church (circa A.D. 40).
Purpose of the letter: equip scattered Jewish Christians to live out genuine faith amid persecution.

2025-10-18 4 min read

Pastor returns from vacation and 20th-anniversary trip, grateful for church family and fellow pastors who preached in his absence.
Launches new series, “Run to Win,” promising some weighty themes.
Opens with a lighthearted “St. Peter at the gate” joke to expose common confusion about salvation and judgment.
States pastoral priority: preparing believers for eternity above all else.
Sets goal for message—clarify exactly what happens the moment after death and at Christ’s return.

2025-10-11 3 min read

Ice-breaker: everyone rated their fear of heights (0 - 10). The leader later tied this to “spiritual heights,” safety harnesses, and the assurance God gives in vv. 24-25.
Session goal: finish the Jude series (week 5) by exploring vv. 20-25—how believers contend inwardly (vv. 20-21) and outwardly (vv. 22-23), and how God ultimately keeps them (vv. 24-25).

2025-10-11 3 min read

Pastor begins by greeting all campuses and online viewers, then poses a penetrating question: “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”
Acknowledges common, paralyzing fears—rejection, failure, success, loneliness, financial entrapment, relational stagnation.
Sets the stage for Acts 23, continuing Lake Pointe’s series on the life of Paul.