Author Archives: Michael Dennis

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About Michael Dennis

I live in Austin, married, two adult kids, dabble in comedy and pastor at North Village Church that I started in 2009.

What is the gospel?

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In Genesis 3:15 it tells us a seed is coming in the future, a seed that will crush Satan on his head. That is a foreshadowing of what is ultimately accomplished in Jesus’ work on the cross. That is in Genesis 3. Galatians 3 teaches us that seed is Jesus Christ who enters into human history to save us from Satan, sin, and death and Genesis teaches us Adam responded in disobedience but 1 Corinthians 15 refers to Jesus as the second Adam, and the second Adam responds in obedience.

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Types of healthy conflict

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We all know how to have unhealthy conflict. Below are a few tips on healthy conflict:

Avoid Reacting to Conflict: All of us are going to find ourselves at a place in our marriage where we are tired, depleted, tense, and we are going to say something that hurts our spouse. It doesn’t make it acceptable, but it is going to happen and often times when it happens we can just react. When we react in conflict we are mirroring the offense that was made toward us. It becomes like a tennis match going back and forth. It starts with a comment, then a slamming door, then walking out, then crying, then yelling, and then throwing things. It is exhausting. Sometimes it goes back and forth so much that it just becomes a tangled mess of Christmas lights that you just want to throw away at the end of the year.

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How do husbands love their wives?

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Ephesians 5 teaches husbands to love their wives and often times we see this in Scripture and we can get easily discouraged because husbands get distracted by work, friends, hobbies, and end up doing a poor job.

We see this echoed in 1 Peter as it calls husbands to love their wives in an understanding way, however, this is going to end in frustration because husbands don’t naturally do this. We naturally treat them like a younger brother and try to wrestle with them, like a co-worker and bark orders at them, like a friend and make sarcastic comments, but we don’t naturally love them and live with them in an understanding way.

It is only when we experience someone loving us and living with us in an understanding way will we be able to share that experience with someone else. How could we possibly give to someone what we haven’t experienced. Therefore, husbands loving their wives starts with Jesus.

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Types of unhealthy conflict

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Some see all conflict as bad and unhealthy, but until heaven we are going to have conflict and through Jesus we can have healthy conflict. To help us identify healthy conflict I thought I would start us off looking at unhealthy conflict. Which one best fits you?

There is the avoider: This person avoids conflict at all costs. Adam does this as he is hiding in the bushes. If conflict happens they avoid the subject, what are you talking about, I’m fine, and if pressed they will literally start to walk the other way. They are usually peacekeepers, generally optimistic, and in the midst of conflict just assume it didn’t happen.

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What does repentance mean?

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Repentance is a big Bible word that sometimes we think of as feeling sorry, bad, guilty, shame, and much of that is a misunderstanding of repentance. We ultimately have a misunderstanding of repentance because we see want to see ourselves as perfect people that sometimes make mistakes.

When we are wrapped up in perfection repentance of any kind becomes very difficult because we are working and trying so hard to maintain our image of perfection. It creates this constant pressure we live under. We are afraid we might disappoint God. We are afraid we might let someone down. If we are honest with ourselves many of us struggle with this skewed repentance because deep down we want to be perfect. We live under constant duress that every offense, every sin, every conflict is traumatic, unnatural, and horribly threatening because someone or ourselves might find out that we aren’t perfect. If we do finally admit fault then we beat ourselves up, tell ourselves we should have done better, wring our hands and emotions and tell ourselves that it won’t happen again. We think this is repentance, but this is a misunderstanding of repentance.

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Where does conflict come from?

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7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. 8 They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”

In chapter 2 Adam and Eve were in a loving intimate relationship with God and with one another eating fruits and berries, naked, unashamed, and yet after they eat from the tree it says in verse 7 “the eyes of both of them were opened”. Before verse 7 they were in an age of innocence and Satan whispers into their ear that God can’t be trusted, that God is holding something back, God is trying to keep them from experiencing life, which is what Satan whispers into our ear today. He tempts us to do it, try it, God isn’t real, He doesn’t matter, and it will be so much fun!

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Pornography / Sexuality

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Our sexuality is created by God to be a good thing, take place within marriage, serving one another, but in our culture today it has been distorted.

1. How did our sexuality get where it is today?
Scripture teaches us that when we take sexuality out of the fireplace, outside of the marriage, that it will bring pain. This pain started in Genesis 3 when sin enters into human history. In Genesis 2 God looks to Adam and tells him that all of creation is for him to enjoy, but don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of responding in obedience Adam responds in disobedience and sin enters in and it takes all that God created for good and taints, distorts, and corrupts it.

It was created by God to be a good thing and to take place within marriage, however, because of sin the devil has taken it and distorted and corrupted a good thing. God created it for good, and Satan corrupts it. The clearest example of this in our culture today is pornography.

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Talking about sex within marriage?

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Our desire as a church is to have strong marriages and we think if we have healthy sex lives in our marriages it will lead to strong marriages. Maybe talking about your sex life is a normal every day experience for you as a couple…great! Sometimes couples won’t talk about these kinds of things because they feel embarrassed, don’t want to hurt feelings, not sure where to start, so we want to help open some lines of communication to get the ball rolling. Consider this a starting point:

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Biblical Understanding of Sexuality

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Our sexuality is one of those topics that people don’t like to talk about. People will talk about it socially, medically, scientifically, but we tend not to talk about it in our marriages and especially in the church. As a result we are left with a completely negative connotation. If we avoid talking about it we will ultimately create our own conclusions and instead of creating our own conclusions we want to look to Scripture.

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Are you convinced of your sin?

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30 The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.

There are a couple of observations we can make about this passage. The first is how the Pharisees respond. The Pharisees are the religious leaders of the day and they respond how we might think Jesus would have responded. “Grumbling, complaining annoyed, eating and drinking with sinners.” They had just seen him heal the sick, cure the diseased, and then claim to forgive sins, which are all claims of His deity, and yet now Jesus is sitting with tax collectors. Who does Jesus think He is?

Jesus didn’t claim to be a good person, a good teacher, a prophet, or a religious leader, but God who comes and walks among the lowliest of low and brings a message of forgiveness and purpose. This was completely different than what the religious leaders expected. It was completely different than merely adding religious behavior.

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Finding Romance

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When you first meet someone it seems that romance is naturally in the air. So excited to be on a date, hold hands, get to know one another, but sometimes romance can start to fade.

Below are a few points of application to keep the romance alive in your marriage:

Relationship With Jesus: We have to have a relationship with Jesus if we are going to make it in marriage. Until Jesus is central it is going to be an uphill climb. You have two people going in two different directions. We need to start with a relationship with Jesus.

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Avoiding Self-sufficiency

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Before we even start we need to do examine any task, challenge, or responsibility and be assured that it lines up with Scripture. If it doesn’t show up in Scripture then it doesn’t matter.

First Response: We pray. Most of the time we see something in scripture we are filled with a variety of feelings. We might feel excited, anxious, fearful, doubt, and we might feel our heart race a little faster. We start thinking, “What if I do it wrong, what if I mess up, what if other people do better than me?” Our mind and heart starts racing and that is why we need to pray. We take those thoughts and feelings to Jesus. Involve Jesus in the conversation as quick as possible. Go to Him with our fear, our anxiety, our doubts, maybe frustrations, or even anger.

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Self-sufficiency

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Self-sufficiency is something that is really sneaky that can creep into our spiritual lives before we even see it coming. It is really sneaky, really subtle, and it could stop us before we start. Typically it will reveal itself in 1 of 2 ways:

Arrogance: We look within ourselves and conclude we can do it. We can get it done. Our childhood idol was G.I. Joe and we can make it happen!

Discouragement: We look within and conclude it is impossible. We can’t do this. Our childhood idol was Eeyor and we are going to mess it up.

Both of those responses are an attack against the gospel because it is looking within and based on our resources determining if we can do something or not. That isn’t the gospel. It isn’t our self-sufficiency that gets us to Jesus and it isn’t our self-sufficiency that keeps us with Jesus. Here are some other characteristics of self-sufficiency:
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