Category: Foundations of Our Faith

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

What do you think of when you hear the word angel?  Do you think of little cherubs floating around, or maybe of cupid?  Do you think of gentle creatures with wings?  Do you think of them as deities, helpers to call on?  Or simply figments of people’s imaginations?  Let me tell you that if you think of any of these things, you are picturing something far different than what is true.  The Bible paints a far different picture than what art of the past few hundred years has made popular. As we continue our study on the basic doctrines of …

In this second message on the nature of God, we dig into six more attributes or perfections of God.  We will take a look at His omniscience, His righteousness, simplicity, and truth. We will also look into two attributes that are a little tougher to fully comprehend: His unity, which deals with the Trinity, and His sovereignty, which delves into the relationship of His decree and our responsibility.  I hope you will join us, not just for this message, but also the in-person only Sunday School next week that will go deeper and seek to answer your questions on these …

What do you believe about God? Everyone has some form of “God Belief”.  Your God Belief may be that there is no God – you may be an atheist.  Your God Belief may be that there are many gods, so you would be considered a polytheist.  Or, as Jews, Muslims, and Christians believe, your God Belief says there is one God.  Those are the big categories of God Beliefs, but let’s get a little more specific:  If you believe in one God, how big is He in your mind?  Is He weak or all powerful?  Is He good or evil; …