Exodus 19-20. God called the people of Israel to be a display to the world of the covenant he made with them. They were to be his holy people who lived in relationship with him. God gave laws for his people to follow so they could live set apart for him. In the same way, under the new covenant, God calls Christians to be his holy people and showcase his covenant with them. And under the new covenant, we have the New Testament as God's words for us to live by as his people today. And God's guidel...
Dec 08, 2024•28 min
Genesis 12:1-3. Though sin has brought God’s curse on creation, he is still at work to recover his purpose of blessing for his creation, and Abraham is the way in which God will eventually accomplish this. God’s call to Abraham challenges him to leave his normal sources of identity and security. To obey God, Abraham had to completely trust God. He didn't even know where God would take him, but he obeyed. This is the epitome of walking by faith. God gives Abraham and Sarah a son and Isaac grows u...
Dec 01, 2024•29 min
Genesis 3:1-24. Christianity is the true story of how the world began, why the world is the way it is, what role we play in it, and how everything will end. We know there’s evil, pain, and suffering. And that begs the question, “Why?” Why is this world broken and decaying? We learned in Gen. 1-2 that God created everything, and in Gen. 1:31, God looked at all he created and said it was “very good”. If everything God made was very good, how did things get so bad? That brings us to the story of th...
Nov 24, 2024•33 min
Genesis 1-2. Christianity is not just about how to be saved. It’s about the whole structure of reality. The faith it takes to believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and we’re saved through him is the same faith it takes to believe the opening words of the Bible. In this series, we’re starting with Creation, and we’ll end with Jesus returning to take his people to heaven for eternity. His people are those who believe in the God who spoke the universe into existence. Have you put your f...
Nov 17, 2024•34 min
Colossians 4:2-18. Paul wraps up this letter to the Christians in the small town of Colossae. He shares some final thoughts with them as well as greetings and remarks about some Christians who have served well. He says prayer matters, our behavior matters, and our words matter when it comes to sharing the message of our Lord with those who don't know him.
Nov 10, 2024•27 min
Colossians 3:1-4:1. Paul gives several descriptions of sins that we deal with. Because you have a new life in Christ and because God has cut away sin from your life in baptism, the Bible says we’re to put to death sin in our lives. We are to bring our behaviors, our words, and our thoughts in-line with our new identity. God has taken away sin in our lives, now while we remain in this earthly life, we still have to deal with the flesh, and Paul says the Christian is to bring our bodies under the ...
Nov 03, 2024•29 min
Colossians 2:6-23. Paul urges these Christians to walk in Christ, to be built up, to be established in their faith, and always thankful for their salvation, and not to be led astray by false teachings. Paul also explains to them that when they were baptized, the died with Christ, were raised with Christ, and were made alive with Christ.
Oct 27, 2024•34 min
Colossians 1:1-2:5. Paul was overjoyed at the faith of the Colossian Christians, and he wanted nothing more than for them to thrive in their walk with Jesus and not be deterred by false teachings. He wanted Jesus to be the center and the foundation of their lives. Since they believed that Jesus was Lord and Savior, Paul wanted it to be shown in their lives.
Oct 20, 2024•29 min
Bro. William Chen with Chinese Bible School visited to share about their great work and preached a sermon about Jesus, the Son of God, and the Son of Man, what that means, and what that means for us!
Oct 13, 2024•34 min
Hebrews 10:19-25. It’s one thing to start. It’s another thing to finish. How many projects have you started that you never finished? How many books did you start reading and never finish? We do that, don’t we? But we don’t want to start our walk with Jesus only to leave him later in life. The Hebrews author has given us a picture of faithfulness because of Jesus. A picture of someone who is faithful because they are gripped by what Jesus has done for them on the cross, which should be our reason...
Oct 06, 2024•35 min
The Lord's church truly is a family. In this lesson, we learn about several characteristics the Bible teaches about the family of God.
Sep 29, 2024•28 min
Romans 5:6-8. The love of God for us is far beyond what we can truly comprehend. He has provided all things for us because of his great love for us, most of providing his Son for our salvation. Why would we not do all we could to love and serve him?
Sep 22, 2024•36 min
Acts 8:26-39. Every Christian has their own story to tell about how they became a Christian, but you wouldn’t have one if those people in your life hadn’t cared enough to share with you the message of Jesus. In Acts 8, Luke tells us the story of an Ethiopian man who was a worshiper of God and studied the Scripture, but needed some help to understand what he was reading. God sent Philip to help, and he taught the Ethiopian man about Jesus and we see that inherit within the full teaching of Jesus ...
Sep 15, 2024•33 min
Ephesians 2:8-10. In our main text, Paul wrote saying Christians are created for good works. That raises some questions we want to look at, but basically what the Bible is saying is that God makes Christians. God makes Christians for two reasons. The first is so he can save us. God would love all people to put their faith in him and be saved. The second reason God makes Christians is so he can give us his work to do on this earth.
Sep 08, 2024•31 min
John 4:23-26. Worship is vital to the Christian’s life. If you want to grow spiritually, you must engage in worship to God along with his people. Worship is the natural response from the person who has come to know Christ and his salvation. When Jesus talked with the woman at the well, he told her the time was coming, and had come because Jesus was now here when worship would change. Under the new covenant the way God’s people would worship was going to be totally different. There would be a new...
Sep 01, 2024•36 min
2 Peter 3:18. This new series is about what you’re supposed to do when you are a Christian. We often talk about how to become a Christian, as we should, but we also need to study what to do when you become a Christian. We understand growth when it comes to a baby, or when talking about skill development in a sport or in playing an instrument, or even riding a bike. When it comes to our spiritual lives, God expects every Christian to grow and mature. To be a healthy Christian, we must grow spirit...
Aug 25, 2024•30 min
Habakkuk 3:1-19. We began our study seeing Habakkuk complain, "When, God?" regarding the rampant sin among God's people. Habakkuk thought God was sitting back doing nothing about their sin. Then God answered that he was going to use the Babylonians to punish Judah and Habakkuk complained, "Why, God?" because he wanted the wicked Babylonians punished and didn't understand why God would use them to punish his people. Finally, in our lesson today, Habakkuk has realized God is going to do what he's ...
Aug 18, 2024•31 min
Our youth minister, Kenley Dover, preaches during our back-to-school service about looking ahead and staying the course in our faith.
Aug 11, 2024•34 min
Habakkuk 1:12-2:20. At the beginning of chapter 1, we found the OT prophet, Habakkuk come before God pleading that he see the moral decline of his people and act to cause them to return to God. Then, God answers Habakkuk telling him something the prophet didn’t want to hear, saying he was going to use the wicked Babylonian army to punish Judah for their unfaithfulness. In today’s passage, we find Habakkuk still has questions for God. He’s struggling with understanding his current situation with ...
Aug 04, 2024•32 min
Habakkuk 1:1-11. We’ve all experienced the challenges of this life: suffering, loss and difficulties and we’ve wondered, “How long will this last?” We’ve probably prayed, “God, when will you help me? When will things get better?” The Old Testament prophet Habakkuk struggled with the same questions. He didn’t understand why things were the way they were, and he didn’t understand why God wasn’t acting to fix things. He cried out to God asking when he was going to make things better. In this lesson...
Jul 28, 2024•27 min
Habakkuk 3:17-19. We’ve talked about Christian contentment from different angles and from different passages of Scripture in this series. But as we conclude, let's think about how we can stay content. Habakkuk was a prophet in a time of great turmoil and he looked at the world and questioned God about all the injustice and violence he was surrounded by. He wondered how is it that wicked people get away with their wickedness and it seemed like God wasn’t doing anything about it. The prophet comes...
Jul 21, 2024•41 min
Bro. Marvin Whitt from Cherokee Home for Children was with us to share about their work in our Bible class, then he preached in our worship service about being a disciple of Jesus.
Jul 14, 2024•41 min
Matthew 16:24-27. There are many human accomplishments that amaze us. Many have proven valuable to us throughout history. While these are impressive and important, they all fall short of the value of faith in Jesus. Jesus is asking what is your soul worth? If you were able to gain it all in this life, would that be worth your soul? No, it wouldn’t. Jesus is saying to us that the things of this world aren’t a better investment than heaven. Nothing this world has to offer is worth your soul. Fortu...
Jul 07, 2024•30 min
1 Timothy 6:6-10. Author Leo Tolstoy wrote the story, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" and we find out, not much. But the culture around us instills within us the desire to be rich. Paul paints a picture of where that desire, when allowed to run free and unrestrained, will take us. The truth is that true contentment is found only in Christ, not in the things of this world. And it's only in Christ that our earthly blessings are enjoyed with a heavenly perspective.
Jun 30, 2024•31 min
Philippians 4:11-13. So much in the world pushes us and programs us to be discontent. We want the newest version of things, and we want them faster. We easily grow bored and tired of what we have, lose interest and want the newer style that will grab our attention until we grow bored again. Most everything made today is made to be disposable. We don’t repair things we dispose of them and get a newer one. Advertisers and product designers tell us what we need, and we tell them we need more now. Y...
Jun 23, 2024•28 min
1 Corinthians 13:1-13. Have you ever thought that things made decades ago were better quality? That they lasted longer? Whether a TV, refrigerator, vehicle, clothes, or toys, it seems like there was a time when things were built to last and now things are made to be disposable. But when it comes to our faith and our families, we need to build them to last. We don’t need to just start off strong in our faith, we need to finish strong. And we want to pass on our faith so that we leave a legacy of ...
Jun 16, 2024•25 min
Ephesians 5:22-6:4. What makes a house a home? Is it the square footage? Is it the amenities like a pool, an outdoor entertainment space, a golf cart, everyone has their own room, and not a single weed in the grass? Is it the neighborhood? Do these things guarantee a house is a home? No, because if they did, then most people in the world would not have a place they could truly call home. There’s got to be more to it than that. How do we make our house a home? And more specifically, how do we mak...
Jun 09, 2024•31 min
1 Peter 5:6-11. Many people have some sort of home security system like a doorbell camera, motion lights, alarm, or even a dog who will bark to alert you of something. While home security is an important thing, there’s a security system that’s even more important. It’s not made up of lights, cameras, alarms, guns or barking dogs. It’s your spiritual home security system. Peter shows us what this is and how to turn it on.
Jun 02, 2024•37 min
Luke 14:25-33. Imagine yourself building a home. What all is involved? Thousands of details and decisions, right? But one of the most important decisions is what do you want your home to look like? What’s the floor plan going to be? No one will confuse the home you’re building with some other kind of building. Why? Because it’s clear what you’re building. You’re building one thing and not another. You thought about it and decided to build a home and not a business. The same is true in building y...
May 26, 2024•28 min
Deuteronomy 6:1-9. Every construction job requires a crew to get the job done. Any time you drive passed a construction job, you see people working doing different kinds of jobs, but all doing their part on the project. Our families are our construction crew. They are part of the team that is building up our family. Families may look different depending on their make-up, but whoever is on your team is who you are building a home with. God's words for the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6:1-9 some thin...
May 19, 2024•27 min
