November 6, 2011 | John Bayles | Go Into All the World: Napkins and Placemats - Part 1 (Romans 10:1-17)

In this sermon, we will make a close examination of the Substance of the Gospel and then the Spread of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul is not acting independently from the Lord, as this text so dramatically reveals. Far from a personal passion that weighted the mind and actions of one man, the mandate to share the Gospel is the core job description of each and every Christian from the time Jesus gave it to the present day.

October 30, 2011 | Reformation Sunday | John Bayles | John Wycliffe: The Morning Star of the Reformation

Though he was not counted among the reformers of the 1500's, John Wycliffe stands out as a forerunner of Luther and the Protestant Reformation. His boldness of thought, speech and writing continued a brilliant pattern of seeking to purify and reform the Roman Catholic Church. His crime was Christ. The upheaval of his desire to present the Bible in English for the most common of people and the most learned was the desire and act which propelled him to criticism, and his followers to martyr's deaths. On this Reformation Sunday it is our delight to focus upon John Wycliffe, this great man of God – his life, his work, and his legacy.

October 23, 2011 | Jerry Banks | The Forgotten Minister of the Word of God (Colossians 1:3-12, Isaiah 40:10-26)

Often the best blessings we possess are ones which are easiest to overlook. In the first chapter of the Book of Colossians, the Apostle Paul gives an amazing insight into the grace of God in redemption. While doing so, he gives a casual salute to the pastor/teacher that he left in the church in Colossia who faithfully preached the message of grace that Paul had preached to him. Paul states: "You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant" (Col.1:7). In Philippians 1:23, Paul identifies Epaphras as "a fellow prisoner" and later in Collossians 4:12 Paul calls him, "one of you." Other than these references he is a forgotten man.

October 16, 2011 | John Bayles | Go Into All The World: Jesus Is Praying (John 17:1-26)

The last prayer of Jesus on earth contains a wellspring of desire and projection, for his disciples and for us. In this third sermon in the series, "Go Into All The World", we are taken into a most intimate moment – the desire and prayer of the Lord for those who would take the gospel to the four winds of the earth. Far from a mere hope, Jesus prays with an absolute resolve. Today we will hear more than twenty points of assurance and hope from the lips of the Lord as he prays to the Father on our behalf.

October 9, 2011 | W.A. Young | Moses and the People of God (1 Corinthians 10:11)

Moses was one of three men God used to initiate a covenant that was purposed to unfold the revelation of God. Those "covenants"  and their intent would eventually express themselves in the fulfillment found in the Person of Jesus Christ. During their time in Egypt, God was forming them as His people destined to show the nations who God was. While in Egypt, they were being taught a message and how to be the messenger. What God had for them could only be achieved against the background of a demon-driven culture like Egypt.

October 2, 2011 | John Bayles | Go Into All The World: Will The Message Die? (Matthew 28:16-20)

The virgin birth is almost fifty years past. The wisdom displayed by a young twelve year old boy among the leading scribes of his day is remembered by a few. The great preacher made his mark, gathered his flock, but now had gone the way of the martyr: tried, crucified, dead, and buried. The great hope was gone – even those who believed most fervently were crushed, afraid, and hiding. Who would die next? And for what?

September 25, 2011 | John Bayles | Go Into All The World: An Obedient Passion (2 Corinthians 5:14-6:1)

In a time of trial and suffering, the Apostle Paul writes to the Church in Corinth for a third time. In his first two letters, he invested a great deal of time seeking to draw back these new Christians from the brink of the disaster of trying to live as if all the benefits of the resurrection of the Lord had already taken place. The result of this over-realized eschatology (or view of the end) had plummeted the church into unhealthy and ungodly practices of denying the propriety of the marriage covenant and engaging in disruptive and disturbing worship practices more identified with pagans. They had become tangled up in a degrading of marriage, a hyper indulgent view of sexuality, the wholesale speaking in tongues in the guise of being "like the angels", and dishonoring the communion table by drunkenness and gluttony.

September 18, 2011 | John Bayles | The End Is Near (Malachi 4:4-6)

In this last sermon in the series, Malachi leaves the tact of pressing disputes against Israel and turns to the making of two amazing announcements. The first is that Israel must not lose her tether to the historic law of God. Identity and calling were directly and indelibly tied to the Law of Moses and the historic epiphany through which the ten commandments came from Mt. Sinai. To lose their relationship to the law would be to lose their relationship to God Himself.

September 11, 2011 | John Bayles | The Sixth Dispute: A Lawless People (Malachi 3:13-4:4)

In this last dispute Malachi returns to an issue that stems from the continued degrading of the Nation of Israel with Yahweh. In this instance they have ceased to function as the people of the covenant. They have drifted from the rule of law and developed a standard of their own. Injustice and lawlessness is the result. Because the law is a direct reflection of His nature and character, a rejection of it is a rejection of God himself. This the core of the dispute: they have taken unto themselves a law that is self-promoting arrogance, a redefinition of right and wrong, and even holding this standard as better than the Mosaic revelation.

September 4, 2011 | John Bayles | The Fifth Dispute: Return To Me! (Malachi 3:6-12)

Imagine the living God, the Eternal One, the Holy One, the One who created and sustains the universe, the loving, redeeming, and restoring Almighty who created man and draws him into personal fellowship. If we have difficulty appreciating this sentence, then we may very well have some of the same challenges that Malachi found in the nation of Israel. They had lost the understanding of the nature of their God and they had forgotten that He was both loving and just. They had come to think that God was an idea shaped by their personal liking and that He would not hold them responsible to His holy standards.