Text: Esther 5-6 | Listen to Message Sometimes obeying God just doesn’t seem to pay off. You know the feeling, right? You decide to take your faith seriously, so you read your Bible, go to church, and try to live an obedient life . . . and things go worse for you than before! Worse yet, […]

Text: Ezra 4:1-23 | Listen to Message Fighting for Hope I don’t mean to be a downer, but if you’re not discouraged about something right now, you’re probably in the minority. Discouragement is that common. And it requires no definition or explanation – you know it when you feel it. Discouragement is also self-perpetuating in that […]

Text: Ezra 3:1-13 | Listen to Message Fear That Conquers Fear One of Bible’s most important lessons on worship is also one of its most overlooked. Ezra 3:2-3 says of the Jews returning from exile, “They built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the […]

Text: Ezra 1:1-2:70 | Listen to Message Stirring The Heart of A King In 586 B.C., God stirred the heart of the Persian king Cyrus to let the Jews return to their homeland and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. Even more remarkably, he commanded his other subjects to financially support this endeavor. It’s especially remarkable because […]

Text: Esther | Listen to Message God, Are You There? The name of the LORD is nowhere to be found in the book of Esther. The situation – namely, a king’s decree to annihilate all the Jews – seems to indicate that God himself is absent altogether. Sometimes life feels like that. The early chapters of […]

Text: Ezra 1:1-3; 8:22 | Listen to Message Someone Is Shaping History Let’s imagine you’re a genuine truth seeker and you’re trying to discern whether or not the Bible is trustworthy. Is it really the Word of God – as it claims – or is it merely the product of man? Let’s imagine, too, that you’ve […]

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14 | Listen to Message Don’t Waste Your Life There’s a power-packed piece of advice that goes something like this: Ask yourself what’s really important and then have the wisdom and courage to build your life around your answer.* Modern people tend to build their lives around some combination of career, possessions, a few […]

Text: Acts (various) | Listen to Message High Impact Church Planting It’s an age-old debate: Was the book of Acts meant to be descriptive or prescriptive? Is it telling us what to do or just how things were? Acts is a true history of the Early Church and the expansion of the Gospel outward from Jerusalem. […]

Text: Luke 24:44-53 | Listen to Message The How And Why of Mission No shortage of material has been written on “The Great Commission” – Jesus’ call to his followers (including the modern church) to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel. Usually the emphasis falls on the command part of this, which is […]

Text: Luke 24:13-45 | Listen to Message The Heart & Soul of The Whole Bible It’s such an odd and inexplicable story. How could some of Jesus’ closest friends walk and talk with him for hours and not even recognize that it’s him? I’m referring, of course, to that first Easter Sunday when Jesus joined two […]