This Sunday, studied Acts 13:13-52.

The apostle Paul is invited to give a message of encouragement at the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia. What makes this sermon especially noteworthy is that Paul is speaking immediately after something very disappointing happens to his missionary team.

Sometimes God calls on us to encourage others when we aren’t feeling so encouraged ourselves. In His kindness, God positions us to share with others the very truths our own souls desperately need. He is so wise and He is so kind.

If you need a word of encouragement (and who doesn’t), this message is a great reminder that God is faithful even when we are not. Our hope rests not in our perfection or performance but in God’s unfailing and unrelenting faithfulness.

This Sunday, our sermon was entitled Victory Over Darkness. It is a common experience for missionaries moving into unreached people groups to discover rather quickly that one of the great challenges to the advance of the gospel is spiritual warfare. My wife, MariAnne, works for a mission agency that provides resources for the under-resourced churches around the world. One of the churches that her ministry serves meets under a tree in a remote village in Malawi. That community was under the strong influence of a village shaman or witchdoctor for many years. Now, it is under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What we all need to realize is that when the sharing Christ, we are always facing a spiritual battle. This isn’t just for remote and unreached peoples. As the apostle Paul reminds the church at Ephesus, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We are not merely dealing with intellectual questions or relational injuries with the church or emotional struggles. We are in a battle for the freedom of souls from the dominion of Satan.

Praise God as we will see this Sunday in Acts 13:4-12, the enemy is no match for King Jesus. Come as we study God’s Word together and worship the One who has defeated our Enemy. See you this Sunday, Lord willing.

This Sunday, we returned to our study of the book of Acts, Luke’s second volume in the New Testament. As we return to the book of Acts, I want to remind you of a key truth this morning. Luke is recording for us the activity of the Triune God in advancing His mission through his church. This is not merely the story of a remarkable human religious movement. Luke does not want us to read the book of Acts as a biography of a human missionary movement. This is the sovereign hand of the Triune God fulfilling His promises in all of the Scriptures to bring the nations to Himself through His Son.

Acts is a record of the unstoppable mission of God to reach the nations with the gospel. This is why New Testament scholar, Alan Thompson entitles his commentary on Acts, “The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke’s Account of God’s Unfolding Plan." He writes, “Luke is drawing attention to the continued outworking of God’s saving purposes specifically in the inaugurated kingdom of God through the reign of the Lord Jesus . . . The focus of the book of Acts is actually on God.” (The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus, 29).

Friends, the news often rattles believers. The culture wars have throughout history shaken Christians. It feels at times that evil will win. But as Luke will show, the promises and prophecies of God never fail. It is in the darkness of the world that Christ shines His light, and as He said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Let’s pray together that God would fill our hearts with clarity of purpose and confident hope. The message is called "God’s Church for God’s Mission" and we will look at Acts 13:1-4.

Let's worship together!

As most of you know, we have been studying the doctrine of the Love of God over the summer months. Last Sunday, we studied Jesus’ exhortation to “abide” His love.

This week we are going to study Jude’s exhortation in Jude 17-25, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” You might think it sounds strange, but the reality is that it is a real battle to keep ourselves living in, learning about, and growing in the love of God. In the classic hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, author Robert Robinson describes what so many of us feel in our hearts: “Prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Jude would tweak that and say, “Prone to leave the God who loves me.”

Come this Sunday morning, as we consider how to collectively keep ourselves in the love of God. We need to fight the battle together.

We have Teen Challenge with us, and it is going to be a great time of seeing the power of Christ in the lives of His people. Super looking forward to it. There is a lunch after the second service.

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This Sunday, we studied the call of Jesus in John 15:1-17 to abide in him. The Lord says these words in John 15:9, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love.”

One of the great challenges that we continually face as Christians is not drifting carelessly from a deep, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.

MariAnne and I were just in Florida with three of our grandchildren. One day, we were at the beach and we were all in the water when suddenly there were flashing lights and sirens. A rescue jeep went flying past on the sand. A rescue boat with flashing lights when flying past us in the water. They were headed to a location about a quarter mile down from us. Someone was in distress. One of the common things that happens down there, or relatively common, is that people get caught in riptides. They are playing in the water, having fun, and then suddenly they realize that they have been and are being pulled out into the deep.

Drifting into spiritual danger is a constant for every Christian. Growing in grace takes conscientious intentionality. Christ’s call to abide in Him is crucial for every believer.

As we head into all the busyness of the Fall season, I think this will be an incredibly helpful passage as we begin to wrap up our summer series on the biblical doctrine of God’s love.

Pray that God might meet all of us powerfully this week.

See you Sunday at 9 or 11 a.m.

Diego De La Vega shared the message from Ephesians 2:10. You can preview the text of the message below:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

This Sunday, we studied the final scene in the gospel of John where Jesus talks very personally with Simon Peter. Simon’s journey in discipleship has been a roller coaster, to say the least, because His expectations around what following and loving Jesus needs major adjustments. I would suggest that this is true for any disciple of Jesus. We love Jesus, but we don’t know how to love Jesus. Our faith is genuine, but it is immature.

This Sunday’s message from John 21:15-23 is called, Loving Jesus Jesus’ Way. Jesus' final words to Simon Peter are not simply corrective; they are enormously gracious and re-directive. Peter had just recently denied His relationship with Jesus three times before the crucifixion. Yet, here is Christ fully committed and completely compassionate – calling Simon to love Jesus, Jesus’ way. If your faith is genuine and your love for Christ is sincere, this passage will help adjust your expectations to the expectations of Jesus.

Join us Sundays at 9 & 11A, as we learn to love the One who laid down His life for us so that we might lay down our lives for Him. Hope you will come and invite a friend!

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This Sunday morning, we continued our study of the doctrine of God’s love. Our text will be one of the most well-known passages on love in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13.

The message is entitled, The More Excellent Way. 1 Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul to a congregation that desperately needed to mature in love. Though they were genuine Christians, the community was riddled with divisiveness, spiritual pride, moral compromise, and selfishness.

The two letters to the Corinthians show us how to shepherd people towards true gospel- rooted community. Last weekend, as we celebrated the grand opening of our new ministry hub, I made the point that one of the core aims of our church family is to learn how to really be the family of God.

We want to be a community where people can genuinely experience the grace and love of God within the fellowship of God’s people. 1 Corinthians 13 is very helpful in shaping how we understand fostering the love of Christ within our lives as Christ’s people together.

It provides us a framework for how we think about ministering together in love. I think you will find it helpful and I pray that God will use it to continue to build us up together as a church in love. Looking forward to worshipping with you.