Sermons & Resources

SERMONS

Exodus: Seeing God in the Journey. To know the story of Exodus and God's people is to recognize it as our own. Through this series, we hope to learn more about how God leads us into certain situations, so that He can lead us out. Two questions for you to think about are: .
1. When faced with a difficult decision or choice, do you look back or look forward?
2. Do you walk with your eyes focused on your own steps or do you look for the footprints of Jesus, who is walking right beside you?

Has it ever occurred to you that Jesus launched the church, not while people were singing or while someone was preaching, but while people were praying? In the first two chapters of Acts, the disciples were doing nothing but waiting on God to move. As the late expositor Harry Ironside once stated, "When God is going to do some great thing He moves the hearts of people to pray. He stirs them up to pray in view of that which He is about to do so that they might be prepared for it." Just like these early disciples, I want to invite you to set aside time this next week for self-examination through prayer and supplication, so that we might be ready for the tremendous thing that God is going to do in our church.

"Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you...Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results."

FOCUSED. Our vision behind this series is to enter into a season where we intentionally regain our focus on who Jesus is and who He has called us to be as a church. When we focus on Jesus, transformation in our lives and the lives of those around us is inevitable. Focusing our attention on Jesus will ultimately lead to an intimacy with Him which in turn allows us to experience abundant life.

Focusing on Jesus also brings freedom in our lives and allows us to see His purposes for us. In any area that we are struggling, as we set our eyes on Jesus, we will receive power to overcome those areas of weakness. Now more than ever, we need to keep our focus on Jesus, so that He can bring clarity to what may seem chaotic and unclear.

The reason behind the title is we will be joining the early apostles on a wild, roller-coaster type ride through the book of Acts. Over the next several weeks, we will take a peek at how God used Gospel-Centered Multiplication to launch the First Baptist Church of Jerusalem. However, during our journey through Acts, we will also witness how the early followers of Jesus dealt with opposition so ferocious and so deadly that any other organization would have folded immediately...but not these bold, unhindered disciples! Come ready to "Fasten Your Seatbelts" and hang-on as God continues to transform us into the image of His Son, Jesus!

We are in a new series titled Gazing at Glory. Through the Gospel of John, we will learn about a loving God, who sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to die on a cross for our sins. Thankfully, Jesus rose from the grave and ascended into heaven where "God gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father". (Philippians 2:5-11). Don't miss this as we begin a journey towards a deeper relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Our ability to be surprised by Jesus has largely been shaped by the New Testament, and too an even greater degree, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Traditions and past experiences have also shaped our idea of how Jesus moves and works in our lives and in the world around us. I believe that because of these two factors, the Jesus of the Bible and our own experiences, our ability to be surprised by Jesus is limited. Not because of Jesus himself. Not because Jesus isn't doing some amazing things today; but rather, because of our own self-imposed limitations or beliefs in how we experience Jesus.

Surprise the World, by Michael Frost.
Join us as we explore 5 essential missional values: engagement with neighbors, connection with each other, a deeper experience of God's leading, a stronger understanding of the gospel, and a framework for identifying ourselves as missionaries

If I ask a person why they aren’t in church today, many may say it’s because of the hypocrisy of Christians. For Mary Jo Sharp, this objection is personal, painful, and forms the background of her latest book, Why I Still Believe. Though she’s an apologist and professor, her experiences in the church have driven her to question if Christianity is true…or even worth it. Having been drawn to God through the beauty of His creation, but seeing the ugliness of human failings, she’s heartbroken that what she found in church didn’t match what she longed for. Mary Jo calls her journey an “anti-deconversion” story about finding hope and answers in the grace of truth of Jesus.