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Easter 2018 Sermon Evaluation: the Beginning

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This sermon evaluation will be of the 2018 Easter Sermon at Church of the Highlands presented by Chris. Before we get into the specifics I think it's important that we understand why the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was, and still is, so vitally important. "By His life, He wrought a perfect righteousness which fulfilled God's law in full; by His death, He made a perfect atonement for sin, satisfying God's holy justice and wrath which demanded sin's punishment; and by His resurrection from the dead, He proved the truth of who He is as God incarnate, and that the salvation He came to bring was accomplished for every sinner whom the Father gave Him to save (Matt. 1:21; 5:17-18; John 6:37,39; Rom.2:21-28; 5:1-11; 2 Cor.5:21)."¹ The Gospel:  First, the bad news... Since the fall of the Adam all men have been born sinners. Adam's sin was imputed to us, his descendants. The Bible states that we are by nature sinners, "for all have sinned a
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Thou Shalt Not Steal...(Vision Sunday 2015, pt.2)

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Before I get into part 2 of Vision Sunday 2015, if you missed Vision Sunday 2015-part 1 I recommend checking it out, as it provides my reasons for speaking out against the giant Church of the Highlands, and it's lead pastor, Chris Hodges. As I mention in part one, I was an all-in member of Church of the Highlands for several years, until, through the grace of God, my eyes were opened to the dangers of this "ministry." And it is dangerous. In the previous post I focused on the Scripture Twisting that initially caught my attention. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only passage Pastor Chris mangled in that particular "sermon." This post will address this: Kairos vs. Kairos This clip is taken from the latter half of the Vision Sunday 2015 clip. If you go to the church's website and watch the sermon in its entirety this portion begins at timestamp 30:24. Chris begins by, I believe, over emphasizing the importance of the word "opportunity" i
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A Tale of Two Sermons...

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Honestly, I think the evidence speaks for itself, so without further discussion... So, which is it, Chris? Follow? Believe? I'm so confused... Exhibit A: Vision Sunday 2015 Exhibit B: Easter Sunday 2018 
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Why I'm speaking out against Church of the Highlands - Vision Sunday 2015-part 1

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After being raised in a Southern Baptist Church for my entire life, I was determined to raise my kids the same way. However, after walking through an incredibly difficult season in our marriage, we became disillusioned by the people and left the smallish SBC church we had been active in for almost ten years. In our floundering we visited several churches around our town, but none of them ever "felt" right. To my shame we eventually stopped attending church altogether. I don't know why exactly, but one Sunday we found ourselves headed to one of the campus locations of Church of the Highlands or COTH (several of my in-laws were already attending). The kids liked it well enough and honestly, it felt good that our family was back in church, and I especially liked that I could easily get lost in the crowd. After the experience at our previous church I was not interested in another "big fish/small pond" situation. We were pretty faithful for a while, then life got b
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