The Joy of Knowing Christ as Your King

I just can’t get away from the theme of “Jesus is King.”  We began looking at this in the last message, the fact that Jesus came in fulfillment of many prophecies naming Him ruler and King, not just of Israel, but of the world.  In fact, this is why Herod ordered the massacre of all the babies that first Christmas, because the wise men came to worship the newborn “King of the Jews”, and indeed, that is what Pilot also called Him when He crucified Him. In talking about His Kingship, we also talked about His goodness, His love and …

Worshiping Christ as King

This is the season we celebrate the birth of our Savior.  We celebrate baby Jesus in the manger, and we talk about all that He has done for us by becoming one of us.  It is easy to overlook one very important aspect of Jesus in the midst of His condescension – the fact that He is and will be the King!  As we worship Him together as our loving, humble Savior, let’s remember what He stepped away from to come to earth and what it will look like when He comes again to take His rightful place ruling and …

Christology – the Doctrine of Christ

Where is your trust?  That is the question I hope you will consider very seriously as we take our first look at the doctrine of Jesus Christ, known as Christology.  Rather than take a purely systematic approach to this doctrine by drawing from a multitude of passages, I want to spend our time looking at Isaiah 7-9.  I thought it would be fitting, since we are entering the Christmas season, to look at this Old Testament prophecy as our basis for developing some of the major teachings on the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  I hope this study blesses you and causes …

Why We Need Thanksgiving

Have you ever bought something you already had, because you forgot you have it?  I am thinking right now of a tool for my chainsaw I have hanging on the wall in my garage unopened.  Why?  Because after I got home with it and finally got around to using it, I discovered I already had replaced that item!  There was no need to buy a new one, yet I had and it was well past the return window. Now I may be worse than some, but the fact is, we humans are forgetful and we need to be reminded of …

Shoebox Sunday!

Today is one of our favorite Sundays of the year.  For the past several weeks (and much longer for some) we have been packing Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes to send the love of Jesus to children around the world.  All the hard work and sacrificial spending of the church culminates on this day when we remember what we are doing and why, then spend time praying over the shoeboxes we packed.  We pray that God will put just the right shoebox into just the right child’s hands.  If you can’t be here in person for this special day, we hope …

Hamartiology – The Doctrine of Sin

Where did the idea of sin come from?  Is it just some old-fashioned idea that was created to help keep humans in line?  Is guilt just a social construct? It would be nice to think that sin and guilt were something fictional that we made up, but I think we all know that is ludicrous.  But that doesn’t answer all the questions we may have – like if there is a good, Almighty God, how did sin come to exist?  Can a good God create sin? This message looks at sin, its origin, its nature, and its effects.  We will …

Foundations of Our Faith – Anthropology: the doctrine of man

So when we think of anthropology, we tend to think of history and archeology and maybe even sociology or science.  The truth is, the study of anthropology has many subsections, but today we want to look at the most important, the origin and purpose of man as taught by God in the Bible.  This study will provide a biblical foundation to help you properly interpret all the other disciplines that help us understand who we are as humans and what our place is in the universe.  We will look at the three most important questions – where did we come …

Foundations of Our Faith Series – Demonology

In the previous message we looked at the doctrine of Satan.  He is indeed our enemy, and he is a very powerful one at that.   This message is really a continuation of the doctrine of Satan as it addresses the doctrine of demons, Satan’s minions who help him in his rebellion against God.  Together they are hard at work in the world deceiving and attacking.   I trust that this message will provide you with a fuller understanding of our spiritual enemies, where they came from, and why they do what they do.  I also desire that you will grow in …

Foundations of Our Faith Series

The Christian faith is built on the teachings of the Scriptures, God’s very words given to us in written form.  The religious landscape is full of competing beliefs and world views, many of which hold little resemblance to the clear teachings of Scripture, so it is easy for a person to become confused or led astray by false teachings about God.  This series is a survey of the major doctrines of the faith in everyday language.   It reflects orthodox Christian doctrine built squarely on the Scriptures.  Each sermon generally covers one area of theology and includes several supporting Scripture references.  …

Foundations of Our Faith – Satanology

September 11 and October 7 – these dates have some things in common.  Two different peace-loving democracies learned a hard lesson on those dates – that you cannot underestimate the power and evil of your enemies. Christians need to learn this lesson as well, but we should avoid learning it the hard way.  In this installment of our Foundations of Our Faith series, we are going to be looking at the doctrine of Satan.  He is indeed our enemy and he is a very powerful one at that.  As with most doctrines, there are people at two extremes: one extreme …