Olive Branch Community Church - Weekend Messages

4. YHWH vs Pharaoh, Round 1

3. YHWH vs. Magicians

When Moses and Aaron went up against Pharaoh things just worse. So, they tried to quit, but God is teaching them that it's not about them, it's about Him. He wants to reveal Himself through their (and our) obedience. And that's just what we'll see Him do in this message.

2. Moses vs. God

Listen as Stephan explores Exodus 6:10–7:7, which includes something we're tempted to skip over or skim quickly: a genealogy. But we'll look at it through the eyes of a Hebrew and take away some valuable lessons for our lives.

1. Meet the Champ

In this next series in Exodus, we'll be looking at a fight—a big fight between YHWH, God of Israel, and Egypt.

4. What About Sexuality?

This 4-part series answers YOUR questions. So far Pastor Greg had answered questions about evil, the Bible, and life, death and beyond. This week he'll look at your inquiries about sexuality.

3. What about Life, Its End and After?

This 4-part series answers YOUR questions and so far Pastor Greg has answered questions about evil and the Bible. This week he'll look at your inquiries about life, death and beyond.

2. What About the Bible?

Listen as Pastor Greg looks at a wide variety of your questions about the Bible. There are lots of views on what the Bible is: mythology, instruction manual, storybook, self-help book, ancient history... If we view the Bible correctly, we can better ask (and answer) questions.

1. What About Evil?

This 4-part series is based on the questions you turned in. Pastor Greg will start with all the questions surrounding evil in our world. Listen as he takes us into this complex question.

The Rise and Fall of Mankind

When you really understand what took place at creation, and the tragedy of the Fall, everything else in the Bible makes sense.

5. The Real Star

Jesus is the star of Christmas–without Him there is no Christmas

4. The King of Israel

This week's "star" in the Christmas story is the villain: Herod the Great. This powerful, paranoid king of Judea pacified Jews through building projects and had members of his own family murdered. Why would God include him in the Christmas story?

3. Gabe & the Angels

As with the other "stars of Christmas," tradition has affected what we think about angels. Let's look at what the Bible tells us about them, and what that teaches us about God.

2. The Magicians & Shepherds

Every story has extra characters, and the Christmas story is no exception. Think: angels, shepherds, and wise men. God chose these extras to communicate something to us. Let's peel back what's been added to the story by tradition and legend to get to the heart of his message to us.

1. Mary & Joe

Christmas traditions and caricatures may have helped shape our ideas about Mary and Joseph, as well as the angels, shepherds, and wise men. This series will help us look closer at these "stars of Christmas" and why God chose them.

3. Expecting Information

We've seen the universe has a beginning and is finely tuned, both of which uphold the God Hypothesis. So why do some scientists still deny God? That's where Pastor Greg begins this concluding message.

2. Expecting an Order

We live in a world of fear and anxiety. People fear sharks and ticks, diseases and death. Christians may think: What if God really isn't in control? Atheists may think: What if He is? And many people avoid thinking about these questions at all. In this message we'll look at the evidence, and we don't have to be afraid of doing that.

1. Expecting a Beginning

Some think science and God are enemies. Actually, God and science are so compatible they are allies. Listen to this first message in this series on the existence of God.

5. Allegiance in the Dark

4. Calling in the Dark

3. Surrender in the Dark

We tend to try to control a situation when we are in the dark, and do not trust God's setting. However, we need to trust that God hears and remembers, so we must pray with hope and obey His direction.

2. Trust in the Dark

It's difficult to trust the Lord when we can't see what is going on. When our employers, rulers, leaders, or laws force us to choose between honoring them or honoring God, we must navigate with wisdom, grace, and trust in the Lord.

1. Courage in the Dark

We can walk in the dark if we're familiar with the room. And it's usually people we're familiar with that we trust. How about God? Do you know him enough to trust him? Is he who you turn to when things go dark? Listen to this first message in the first series of our walk through Exodus.

7. Molded by Christ

In this series we looked at God, our bodies, our community, our value, and our sin. Now we'll put it all together to hopefully see ourselves truthfully, and see that Jesus Christ, who is the image of God, is transforming our characters, our bodies, and our minds, to be more and more like Him.

6. Know Your Brokenness

We’ve learned how to see ourselves rightly by looking at the image of God. We reflect Him in our very being, our bodies, our communities, and in our value. But there is a problem: we have conformed to this world, and we need transformation.

5. Know Your Value

How do you determine your value? What does that question make you look at in yourself? What do you assess? Are you looking through the right lens? We've been learning that to develop spiritually we need to know ourselves rightly, and an important part of that is knowing our value rightly.

4. Know Your Community

Part of knowing yourself rightly is to know how your community affects you, for the good or the bad. Spiritual growth is not just personal, it's also corporate. We need one another as we strive to be like Christ.

3. Honor the Body

Last week we looked at being made in the image of God, but we left out one thing: our bodies! Our culture is, at best, confused on this topic. We don’t love the human body rightly; we worship it, hate it, or ignore it. But we are to love our bodies as God does—surrendering them to his will, because he loves our bodies.

2. Know Your Self

What if the Bible gave us a way to understand ourselves that wouldn’t provoke pride? Guess what—it does! God's word calls us to humility in our spiritual journey, connecting spiritual transformation to seeing ourselves rightly. And to know ourselves rightly, we must first know God.

1. Need for Community

In this introduction to our new series, we'll see that Jesus saved us into a community because he knew we’d need one another’s encouragement, insights and accountability to really know ourselves.

6. Fight to Live

Olympic athletes train for years and, in 1 Timothy 6:11-21, it sounds like it takes a similar dedication to maintain our spiritual life. As we conclude our last series in 1 Timothy, let's be encouraged to keep going, to "fight the good fight" and "take hold of the eternal life" to which we are called.Notes