Recent Sermons

Paul and Barnabas had a passion to share the gospel and train the new disciples to live for Jesus Christ. However, even these passions and priorities did not keep them from experiencing strife and difficulties. In the midst of these difficulties, God took a difficult situation and turned it into a positive situation for the spread of the gospel and ongoing efforts for evangelism.

Melchizedek is a unique individual in the Old Testament. He appears suddenly on the scene, interacts in some key ways with Abraham, and then is not seen again in the Genesis account. However, a study of his life and ministry provides a striking type of Jesus Christ.

Throughout church history, several church councils have been convened to combat heresy and confirm important doctrines. None was more important the this first council at Jerusalem. This council addressed the critical question of what a person must do to be saved. Is salvation by grace through faith alone or is it necessary to come to Christ down the road of Judaism?

People in the Bible were no different then we are today except for their historical and cultural differences. In the next few weeks, we will be looking at a number of these characters. There is much that their lives can teach us if we are willing to learn from their relationship to God and His Word. We can also learn from their mistakes and failures. The historical context will cause the Biblical text itself to become more meaningful. There are great insights to be gained in understanding the time and the culture in which the Biblical characters lives. In this first lesson, Joseph will illustrate that we have been chosen for God’s own possession and purposes. Our focus is always crucial and the secret of many of the characters in this series is that their focus is more on God and His ways instead of on themselves.

At the outset of his ministry, Paul would establish a pattern of spreading the gospel that he would use over and over again. He would enter a city and head straight to the synagogue where he would preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. What followed would be a part of the usual pattern of his ministry: division among the people due to their reaction to the gospel, persecution by those who rejected the truth, and growth in the new believers in spite of the persecution. The story of Iconium, Lystra and Derby demonstrate God's hand on the ministry of Paul in the midst of this repeating pattern.

Timothy was just a kid from the middle of nowhere. He was the son of a mixed marriage with a Greek father and a Jewish mother. He was uncircumcised but well taught in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is likely that he, his mother and his grandmother were saved under the ministry of Paul during his first trip to Lystra. All of this was part of the plan of God to prepare him for long-term ministry with the Apostle Paul.

Paul stated in Romans 1:16 that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God for salvation. However, the same power that draws men and women to the Savior also elicits power responses of rejection of the truth. During his ministry in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul experienced the extremes of both types of responses as the power of the gospel changed lives.

Paul's entire life and experiences were orchestrated by God to prepare him for the ministry to which God called him even before he was born. There were no coincidences, no accidents, no wasted experiences. God prepare him to be the most effective evangelist and church planter of all time. He works the same in our lives as he prepares us for ministry to others.

In Paul's longest sermon recorded in the book of Acts, we have already seen in the first part of the sermon that Jesus Christ is the culmination of all of history. In the second half of the sermon, Paul will emphasize the fact that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the Messiah and the Law.

As we conclude our study of the book of Nehemiah, there is value in reviewing the principles that we need to apply from the life and ministry of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a man who was greatly used by God to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and rebuild the spiritual lives of the people of Israel. More important that any of that, he was used to display the glory of God in Jerusalem.

Acts 13 contains the first and the longest of the recorded sermons of the Apostle Paul. In it, Paul points the Jews and the Gentile proselytes to Jesus Christ as the true Messiah and fulfillment of God's plan, prophecy, and the Law.

Though the start of revival had been strong in the hearts of the people, the revival fires soon went out after the departure of Nehemiah. On his return, Nehemiah urges the people to stand by their original promises to God and sets them back on a successful, spiritual path.