Kyle Kauffman | Nov 17 2024 Jonah’s response to the salvation of Nineveh is one of the most surprising parts of this book. How can Jonah be so upset that God chose to save Nineveh? Why would Jonah, who has been a recipient of God’s amazing love and grace, be so angry when God shows that same love and grace to others? Yet, even as we ask those quest…

Brandon Fisher | Nov 10 2024 Jonah 3:5-10 may be one of the most surprising sections of the Bible. An entire city, along with its King, who were enemies of God and His people believe the message of Jonah and responded in repentance. We find in this section that God’s power is able to save even those who we think are most beyond the reach of saving.…

Adam Nagle | November 3 2024

Kyle Kauffman | Oct. 27 2024 God’s saving love experienced is what he uses to commission us to be messengers of His word to others. God saves people so that he might then send them to warn others and speak his message of salvation to others. His love is what qualifies and calls us to be His ambassadors to the world. While not every Christian is cal…

Kyle Kauffman | Oct. 20 2024 God acts in history to save people. This is how God displays his love. This is how we experience God’s love. This is not just the story of Jonah, but it’s also the story of the entire Bible and it’s the story of everyone who has placed their faith in Jesus. Jonah’s powerful prayer/psalm gives us a memorable picture of h…

Kyle Kauffman | Oct 13 2024 Love can be painful because love seeks to do what’s in the best interest of someone else even when it hurts. We often conceive of love in nice and neat categories. But Jonah shows us that God’s love is what will lead him to send storms our way in this life. These storms are often the very means God uses to save us, to ex…

Kyle Kauffman | Oct 6 2024 Jonah 1:4 opens with one of the greatest phrases in the bible, “But the LORD.” Left to ourselves we would be completely lost and hopeless. We would remain estranged from God for all eternity. But the LORD shows his love in pursuing us. We see in the story of the sailors on the ship that salvation is a result of God’s inte…

Joel Wood | Sept 29 2024 This sermon is meant to provide an introduction to the book of Jonah by helping us to understand who Jonah was and what was taking place in history at the time of Jonah’s life. This sermon is also meant to show how Jonah’s response to God’s call exposes our own sinful hearts. We all hear God’s call, whether it’s to believe …

Kyle Kauffman | Sept 22 2024 God saves us completely by grace. But he expects that His grace will lead us to be active participants in his Kingdom. God entrusts into our care all sorts of things: relationships, opportunities, and resources. And he expects us to steward what he has entrusted into our care for His glory. We are meant to look for the …

Kyle Kauffman | Sept 15 2024 If you expect something big and important is going to happen, you naturally watch for it and wait eagerly for it. Those who belong to God’s Kingdom are expecting Jesus to return. We believe that He is coming back again to dwell forever with the church. It can be easy to forget this as Jesus delays his return. But if we …

Kyle Kauffman | Sept 8 2024 In two short valuables we are told that God’s Kingdom is so valuable it is worth sacrificing everything else in this life for. Which might lead us to ask, “What is it that makes God’s Kingdom so valuable?” And the answer to that question comes in the form of a person. Jesus is the great treasure of God’s Kingdom. This me…

Kyle Kauffman | September 1 2024 God’s Kingdom is marked by radical forgiveness. Though we owe him a debt we could never pay, He fully and freely forgives us. And he now calls us to do the same with others. Our lives bear testimony to God’s great forgiveness by how we forgive and forbear with the sins of others. And yet so often we are like the ser…

Kyle Kauffman | August 25 2024 To belong to God’s Kingdom means to see our lives and all we have as belonging to Him. He is the one who created us and is meant to rule over us. And yet often, we try to rule over our lives rather than submitting ourselves to His rule. We hold onto things as if they belong to us, rather than gladly entrusting them to…

Brandon Fisher | August 18 2024 God loves to give people what they don’t deserve in order to display His generosity. His Kingdom is a Kingdom of grace where he gives what he pleases to whom He pleases. We can be prone to believe that we deserve more than what we have been given. But those who live within God’s Kingdom are meant to see all they have…

Kyle Kauffman | August 11 2024 Our lives in this world are full of mystery. We often cannot understand why God doesn’t always answer our prayers, especially when we perceive the thing we are praying for is a good thing. It’s easy for us to give up praying or to doubt God’s goodness. Jesus knew this would be the case. And so he told a parable that c…

Kyle Kauffman | Aug 4 2024 We cannot save ourselves or prove ourselves worthy of God’s Kingdom. It’s only when we realize how unworthy we are that we are then prepared to receive God’s Kingdom as a gift. We are prone to think we can save ourselves because we believe our sin is not that bad and that we are actually pretty good. This is only heighten…

Joel Wood | July 28 2024 God’s Word, and specifically the good news of the gospel, is what God uses to draw people into His Kingdom. But not all those who hear God’s Word respond to it in faith and believe. Jesus reveals the various responses people have to the message of the Kingdom in the story of the sower, or more accurately, the story of the s…

Joel Wood | July 21, 2024 Jesus was, and still is, the greatest teacher the world has ever known. While Jesus taught in many ways, one of the most specific and impacting was in using parables. Often, we think of Jesus parables as sermon illustrations or stories that merely helped people pay attention. Jesus stories were certainly captivating and th…

Brandon Fisher | July 14 2024 We all long for a “perfect life.” We may have different ideas of what a perfect life looks like, but the longing for a perfect life is universal. Yet, one of the things we are reminded of on a regular basis is that our lives are far from perfect. We don’t always get what we want. We have hopes and dreams that go unfulf…

Kyle Kauffman | July 7 2024 Suffering. It’s the one thing we all wish that we could avoid. And yet it is the one thing that every single one of us will face in this life. The amount of suffering we face will vary, but no one makes it through this life without suffering. Whether it is loss, physical pain, mental and emotional pain, or a combination …

Kyle Kauffman | June 30 2024 What we believe about forever will shape how we use our money (and other resources) in the present. Or to put it another way, how we use our money will reveal what we truly believe about the future. If we believe this life is all there is then we will use our money to get as much as we possibly can out of this life. But…

Joel Wood | June 23 2024 One of the main things we are called to do as Jesus’ followers is to love other people in this life. We are to love others just as Jesus has loved us. We are to love other people by helping to meet both physical and spiritual needs. And yet to love others in the present will also require making sacrifices in the present. Tr…

Kyle Kauffman | June 16 2024 The future we are promised is meant to shape our lives in the present. One of the ways our future should shape the present is in motivating us to grow in holiness/Christlikeness. When we know that heaven is our true home it means we should be okay with living as foreigners in this world. When we know that one day, we wi…

Kyle Kauffman | June 9 2024 We tend to spend more time focusing on “how” things will end in this life then we spend focusing on what will come afterwards. We often talk about the end times and how it we believe everything will end more than we actually talk about heaven and what comes after the “end.” What do you believe heaven will be like? What t…

Kyle Kauffman | Jun 2 2024 You are going to live forever. Let that sink in for a moment. Forever is where you are headed. Your life will not end the moment you stop breathing in on this earth. Rather, you will go on living forever after you die here and now. Many people are vague on whether or not forever exists. They may hope there is some sort of…

Kyle Kauffman | May 19 2024 What does a life well-lived look like? That’s a question we all ask in some way. We know we only have one life to live and so we don’t want to waste our lives. In the midst of all the challenges, pressures, and temptations it can become easy to coast, drift, or just fail to consider the direction of our lives. Hebrews 13…

Brandon Fisher | May 12 2024 Think of a time where you ran a race in your life (or where you set out to do something else that was challenging). Why did you run that race? What did you experience during the race? What kept you going when things got difficulty? What was it like to get to the finish line? The Christian Life can be compared to a race …

Kyle Kauffman | May 5 2024 Faith is fueled by the promise of a better reward. As a result, faith is willing to give up all the “rewards” of this world. Faith knows that all this world offers to is only temporary and fading. But all that God promises to us is eternal and imperishable. In other words, faith operates with a whole different value syste…

Kyle Kauffman | Apr. 28 2024 Christians are called to live by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). And yet can also be accused of having blind faith in this life. The reality is that everyone lives by faith in certain areas of their lives. In our own time, the words, “You just need to believe” are a common refrain. And often the object of that belief …

Kyle Kauffman | Apr. 21 2024 How can I be sure? That’s a question we might ask in all sorts of areas in our lives. And yet there may be no more important place we ask this then when we ask, “How can I be sure I am saved?” Or “How can I be sure I will remain a Christian?” A lack of assurance can be a terrible thing to endure. A false sense of assura…

Joel Wlld | Apr. 7 2024 It’s easy for us to overlook the ascension of Jesus back to Heaven. In fact, it is often the event of Jesus’ life that gets the least amount of focus. We hear Jesus’ words, “It is to your advantage that I go away” and are left dumfounded and confused. Wouldn’t it have been better if He stayed here on this earth and lived amo…

Kyle Kauffman | Mar. 31 2024 Most historians agree that a man named Jesus lived in the first century and died by crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Empire. Yet many believe this was the end of the story of Jesus. What if this really was the end of story? What if Jesus remained in the grave and he was never truly raised back to life like the gosp…

Kyle Kauffman | Mar. 24 2024 How can someone who has done something wrong be made right again? How can our wrongs be atoned for? We can be prone to both minimize our own sinfulness and presume that we deserve forgiveness for whatever sins we have committed. The sacrifices in the Bible consistently make clear that our sin is a far bigger deal then w…

Kyle Kauffman | Mar. 17 2024 Relationships can be very fragile. They can easily be fractured and broken in all sorts of ways. And when a relationship is fractured, we often look for a way for the relationship to be fixed/restored. We were created to enjoy a relationship with God. But that relationship has been fractured because of sin. And yet we f…

Joel Wood | Mar. 10 2024 It’s easy to trust God when the seas of our life are calm. When things are going the way we want them to, circumstances are good, and there’s no really big trials we are facing, trust in God seems to come naturally. But when suffering, temptation, and trials start to blow and rage against us, it can be hard to continue to t…

Kyle Kauffman | Mar. 3 2024 One of the things that we notice as we read Hebrews is that it is not only full of descriptions of how Jesus is Better, but it is also interspersed with serious warnings about turning away from Jesus. While these warnings are contained throughout the book, perhaps nowhere is the warning and what’s at stake clearer then i…

Kyle Kauffman | Feb. 25 2024 In Hebrews 4:14-5:10 we see Jesus described as a Perfect Priest. While the original readers of Hebrews would have understood their need for a priest, the idea of a priest likely seems foreign to us today. And yet we still look to people to play the role of a priest in our lives. We look to others who will listen to us, …

Kyle Kauffman | Feb. 18 2024 Israel had some great leaders throughout their history, including especially Moses and Joshua. And yet the author of Hebrews wanted both them and us to see how much of a better leader Jesus is. We often choose what leaders we will trust and follow based on who they are, what they’ve done, and the promises/hope they offe…

Kyle Kauffman | Feb. 11 2024 We were made to worship. It’s impossible for us not to worship. Whatever we give our mind’s attention to and our heart’s affection to is what we worship. And there are all sorts of things in this life that compete for our attention and our affection. We can easily end up worshipping the wrong things. So many of thing th…

Joel Wood | Feb. 4 2024 When presented with different options, we all want to choose what is better. In many ways our lives are one long exercise in trying to choose what is better. Whether it’s what we do with our time, with our money, or with our energy, we are always trying to figure out what is better so that we might give our lives to what pur…

Kyle Kauffman | Jan. 28 2024 It’s easy for the church as a whole and us as individuals to drift in the direction of an inward focus. There are so many needs within the church that we can spend all of our time simply focused on meeting them. But God has given us a mission, and that mission requires us moving out. Moving outward with a welcoming mind…

Kyle Kauffman | Jan 21 2024 The tendency in our modern world is to either see children as a burden (keeping us from our dreams) or to see children as an idol (having our dreams wrapped up in them). Children can be seen as an inconvenience or distraction getting in the way of what really matters. God shows his value for children in the fact that He …

Kyle Kauffman | Jan. 14 2024 It is so easy for us to view our homes as our own private refuges and fortresses. They can quickly become the places where we seek to escape the burdens of other people. What would it instead look like if we saw our homes as welcome centers: places where we could invite others in so that we could get to know them and en…

Kyle Kauffman | Jan. 7 2024 The church is meant to be a community that looks and feels different then the world outside of it. The church is meant to be a place where people feel known and seen, loved and valued. We are called to put on display in our culture what we believe in our doctrine. Therefore, if we truly believe God is a welcoming God the…

Brandon Fisher | Dec. 31 2023 Welcome is a metaphor for the gospel. Hospitality is central to God’s Heart. The Bible is a story of a God who displays his glory and grace by pursuing the people who have spurned Him in order to welcome them back into His family. This is perhaps displayed nowhere more clearly than in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. W…

Kyle Kauffman | Dec 24. 2023 Christmas is often a season of great joy. There are all sorts of reasons we make look forward to Christmas, be excited about Christmas, or be happy at Christmas. Yet so much joy at Christmas (and in all of life) is surfacy, shallow, and hollow. This doesn’t mean that it’s bad, it just means that the joy can so easily be…

Kyle Kauffman | Dec. 17 2023 In our lives the temptation to seek comfort in this world and apart from Gid is great. Our lives can so easily become all about finding and keeping comfort. We end up trying to avoid all that is uncomfortable even when we know God is calling us to give up our comfort. Christmas can so easily just become another season w…

Kyle Kauffman | Dec 10 2023 We all have a tendency to put ourselves first. We our prone to prioritize our own desires, interests, honor, and recognition. We seek to look out for ourselves more than we do for others. We seek to climb the ladder and get ahead of others. We look for ways that we can serve ourselves (or that others can serve us) rather…

Joel Wood | Dec 3 2023 When it comes to knowing the truth, it is inevitable that we will disagree with others and find ourselves in situations where we feel like we need to speak up about what we believe is true. This may be with fellow Christians where we disagree on some truth or it may be in conversations with those who don’t know Christ where w…

Kyle Kauffman | Nov 26 2023 Our ability to know and live according to the truth will be greatly affected by the information we take in. Who and what do we listen to the most, watch the most, read the most, etc? We are people who are inevitably shaped by what we give our attention to. Lots of voices (perhaps more than ever before) clamor for our att…