A Church Must Grow in Four Directions

This week was our annual "family meeting" message where I lay out our emphases for the coming year. This year, we talked about the purpose of the church and the four ways in which we must grow in grace as a church in order to fulfill God's purpose for the church here in Stephens. The text was Ephesians 1:3-10.

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What Does God Want for Christmas?

We spend a lot of time thinking about how to pick out gifts that will make our loved ones smile at Christmas.  But what about God Himself?  Do you consider what He wants for Christmas?  There's a lot of ways to answer that question that simply boils down to doing good things.  But is that what God really wants most from you this Christmas? 

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The Foundations of God's Plan

This week, we tried to put the last eleven months of walking through God's plan that was revealed in the Old Testament stories.  In choosing certain people in history and working His plan through the ages, through the lives of real men and women, God has shown us who He is--His nature, His promises, and His work.  And in the end, we discover it really is all about Jesus.

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David, Part 8: God's Promise (2 Samuel 7)

The story we tell every Christmas began long before a "silent night" in Bethlehem.  We might say it started in eternity past in the heart of God, and that is true.  But the sense anticipation that not only marks our modern experience with the Christmas season but also serves as the emotional backdrop of the original birth narrative began with a promise made to King David.  It was a promise that would be the hope of Israel throughout the coming centuries as the nation weakened and was overrun by enemies.  It was the promise of a Messiah, the Christ-King ("anointed one") who would sit on the throne of David and redeem God's people. 

But when Jesus finally arrived, he found a people anxious for God to fulfill His promise to David, but who misunderstood the nature of the promise.  As we read the story today, how can we avoid the same mistakes?

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David, Part 7: Higher Ground (2 Samuel 5-6)

A new era began in David's life when he moved to Jerusalem and brought the Ark of the Covenant.  He had moved to "higher ground"--in both a literal and metaphorical sense.  God had taken him from the "miry clay" to the "rock," where he had firm footing.  How do we reach higher ground in our lives? 

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David, Part 6: Civil War (2 Samuel 1-4)

Did you know that after Saul's death, David didn't immediately become king? It's a story that's rarely told, but there was a civil war in Israel over who would be the next king. But David wanted to bring unity to the nation as peacefully as possible.

Are you in the middle of conflict at work, in your family, or in other relationships? How can we be an agent for unity in this polarizing world that we live in? We can learn from the example of David...

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David, Part 5: David, Saul, and the Philistines (1 Samuel 27-31)

We live in a superficial society, but the gospel is anything but superficial. It is able to penetrate every part of our lives as Jesus makes all things new in us. But we often put off God our compartmentalize our spiritual lives away from... "real life." We see in Scripture that we aren't the first to do that. At the end of 1 Samuel, we can see in the lives of both David and Saul the dangers of living a superficial spiritual life.

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