“How Did We Get Here?”

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Exodus 13:17-22
March 2, 2025

Exodus 13:17-22: When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel solemnly swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones with you from here.” And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Sermon Outline

1. A winding road

• The path is not humanly efficient

• Why God leads them on this winding path

2. A Word remembered

• God’s plan is unfolding

• God’s promise is prevailing

• God’s people need reminding

3. A wonderful revelation

• In Exodus, God came down in pillars of cloud and fire

• In the Gospels, God came down as a human

4. Applications

Love in Heaven

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:8-13
February 23, 2025

1 Corinthians 13:8-13: Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I reasoned like a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child. When I became a man, I put childish things behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Sermon Outline

1. Wrong idea of spirituality

• Tongues

• Same wrong idea with prophesy

• What the chapter has said

2. Summary of this passage

3. Three temporary gifts of ministry

• Prophecy

• Tongues

• Knowledge

4. Two figures of speech and a clear statement

• Contrast between childhood and adulthood

• Contrast between reflection and face-to-face

• The clear statement

5. On verse 13

• “These three remain”

• “But the greatest of these is love”

6. Jonathan Edwards on love

• The cause and fountain of love

• The objects of love

• The beings who will love

• Some aspects of love

Growth in God’s Kingdom

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Speaker: Mark Estes
Scripture: Mark 4:26-29
February 16, 2025

Mark 4:26-29, NIV: He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain — first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

Mark 4:26-29, NLT: Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens. And as soon as the grain is ready, the former comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest has come.”

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction: Parables as allegory

• E.g. Pilgrim’s Progress

• Prodigal son

1. Some church fathers took it too far

2. Hyper-allegorical

• Avoid over-allegorizing and de-allegorizing

• E.g. wicked tenants

1. Pharisees knew Jesus was talking about them

2. Why are parables hard to understand?

• Key: Mark 4:10-12

• Jesus’ two-fold purpose in telling parables

1. Reveal the truth to his disciples

2. Conceal the truth from the Pharisees

• Why do this?

• Parables were a form of judgment on Israel

3. The parable of the growing seed

• Symbolism

• Four principles

1. In both the growth of corn and the work of grace, there must be a sower

2. In both the growth of grain and grace, much is outside our understanding or control

3. True life shows itself gradually

4. Grain isn’t harvested until it is ripe

4. Applications

What Love Looks Like

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
February 9, 2025

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NIV: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, ESV: Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Sermon Outline

1. Fifteen verbs

2. First: Two positives about love

• “Love is patient”

• “Love is kind”

• Combination reflects God

3. Seven negatives about love

• “Does not envy”

• “Does not boast”

• “Is not proud”

• “Is not rude”

• ”Is not self-seeking”

• “Is not easily angered”

• “Keeps no record of wrongs”

• “Does not delight in evil”

4. Four zippy little phrases about love

• NIV translation

• ESV translation

• Answering objections

• Steve’s Uncle Tom

Love: Graces Better Than Gifts

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
February 2, 2025

1 Corinthians 13:1-3: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• Challenges facing the earliest Christians

• How God equipped them

2. Love is more important than gifted speaking and teaching

• The gift of tongues

• The problem

• The application

3. Love is much more important than mere religious activity

• “If I have the gift of prophecy...”

• “If I can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge...”

• “If I have a faith that can move mountains...”

4. Love is more important than even acts of personal sacrifice

• “If I give all I possess to the poor...”

• “...and surrender my body to the flames...”

5. The result of no love

• “I gain nothing”

• “I am nothing”

6. Three closing thoughts

Benediction

Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard our cry for mercy. Our hearts trust in him, and we are helped. Save your people and bless your inheritance, be our shepherd and carry us forever. Amen — paraphrased from Psalm 28: 6-9

A Fine Wife

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Proverbs 31:10-31
January 26, 2025

Sermon Outline

1. A wife of noble character

• Who is the passage speaking of?

• What if I’m not a wife or a mother?

• A woman of noble character

2. First area of her attention: her husband

• A helper suitable for him

• “clothed in fine linen and purple”

3. Second area of her attention: her children

• Basic needs

• Involved in their lives

• All this takes energy!

4. Third area of her attention: outside her home

• Finances (for her home)

• The needy

5. Near the end: “Who can find?”

6. Applications

The Danger of Spiritual Declension

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Speaker: Rich Goswiller
Scripture: Jeremiah 2:9-13
January 19, 2025

Jeremiah 2:9-13: “Therefore I still contend with you, declares the LORD, and with your children’s children I will contend. For cross to the coasts of Cyprus and see, or sent to Kedar and examine with care, see if there has been such a thing. Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

2. God’s declaration

• “Therefore...”

• Some measure of judgment

3. God’s indictment

• They exchanged the better for the worse

• Idol factories

4. The two evils committed by Judah

• Evil #1

• Evil #2

5. God’s word for us today

• Why do the faithful turn away from the truth?

• Keep yourself in the love of the God who loves you

Human Suffering and the Sovereignty of God

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Various passages
January 12, 2025

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• Where is God when we suffer?

• The story of Rabbi Harold Kushner

• Many evangelicals are like Rabbi Kushner

• Some people take the opposite view

2. The causes behind suffering in the Book of Job

• What caused Job’s troubles?

• God governs nature and its laws

• God governs both intentional and unintentional actions of people

• God governs Satan and demons

3. An objection... and two answers

• The objection

• God is drawn to suffering people

• God’s motives for decreeing evil are good

4. Summary

• What about suffering is God sovereign over?

• For what purpose?

“The Christian’s Eternal Rest” — Adapted from Richard Baxter (1640)

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Hebrews 4:9
January 5, 2025

Hebrews 4:9: There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

Sermon Outline

1. Introduction

• Baxter’s life/illnesses

• Old Testament saints in the desert were promised rest

• Christians have hard lives, but God has promised eternal rest

2. Our eternal rest

• Our eternal rest means the end of tiring effort

• Our eternal rest means we will experience perfect love

• Our eternal rest means we’ll have the capacity for all heaven’s delights

3. How our souls will respond to all this in heaven

Suffering and Glory

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Speaker: Dr. Iain Duguid
Scripture: Acts 17:1-15
December 29, 2024

An Angel, a Virgin

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Luke 1:26-38
December 22, 2024

Luke 1:26-38: In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Sermon Outline

1. The angel

2. The place

• Far from Jerusalem

• Of “inferior Jewishness”

• The town of Nazareth

3. The time

4. The virgin

• Her need for a Savior

• Her modest role

• Her godliness

5. The conversation

• Gabriel’s graciousness and Mary’s fear

• Gabriel’s reassuring message

• Mary requests an explanation

• Gabriel’s astounding, mysterious answer

• Gabriel’s help to Mary’s faith

• Mary’s courageous, submissive reply

6. The applications

When the Time had Fully Come (the Birth of Jesus Christ)

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Galatians 4:1-5
December 15, 2024

Galatians 4:1-5, NIV: But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

Galatians 4:1-5, ESV: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Sermon Outline

1. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son”

• The Father behind the Christmas story

• God moved toward us

2. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son”

• Doctrine of the Holy Trinity

• Relationship of love

• Relationship of likeness

• The self-existent Son

3. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son”

4. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son”

• God sent his Son when he alone knew the time was perfect

• God sent his Son when the means were in place to spread the good news

• God sent his Son when the felt need for him had ripened

• God sent his Son when the time had fully come

Weary of Waiting for Messiah

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Malachi 3:12-4:6
December 8, 2024

Malachi 3:12-4:6: “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’ You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”

Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name. “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD Almighty. “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Sermon Outline

1. Background

• Return from exile

• Weary of waiting

• God’s list of grievances

2. The general problem: religion wasn’t paying off

• They had religion

• But their hearts weren’t in it

• From a resentful heart come resentful words

3. How true believers responded to Malachi’s preaching

4. God’s reaction to the conversations of believers

• God paid attention

• What God did for these believers

5. The future Day of the Lord

• What unbelievers experience

• What believers experience

6. God’s closing words

• “Remember the law of my servant Moses”

• “I will send Elijah”

A Covenant Keeping Advent

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Speaker: Matt Carter
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-18
December 1, 2024

Sermon Outline

1. A Gospel built on two covenants

• Davidic covenant

• Abrahamic covenant

2. Grafted to Jesus’ family tree

3. God’s faithfulness through generations

• Famous and kingdom-advancing generations

• Invisible generations

• Foreign generations

• Scandalous generations

• Generations of division and exile

• Generations in which kingship has vanished

• The final generation

4. Two takeaways from our time in Matthew 1

Israel's December: Hoshea, Exile, Samaria Resettled

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 2 Kings 17:1-41
November 24, 2024

Sermon Outline

1. The beginning of the end

• Picture an imaginary future for the United States

• Israel’s situation in today’s text

2. Israel’s final days and ultimate collapse

• Too little, too late

• Hoshea’s folly

• Assyria’s vengeance

3. Why God let this happen

4. What counterfeit religion looks like

• Counterfeit religion often begins with ingratitude toward the one true God

• Counterfeit religion focuses on what is aesthetically pleasing

• Counterfeit religion invents itself; biblical faith receives what is revealed

• Counterfeit religion is after results; biblical worship is after God

• Counterfeit religion rots a person’s soul

• Counterfeit religion ruins not just ourselves, but also our descendants

• Counterfeit religion leads to judgment

5. How counterfeit religion is guarded against

6. The weeping Judge

A Pleasant Company: Jesus, the Twelve, and the Women

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Luke 8:1-3
November 17, 2024

Luke 8:1-3: After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Sermon Outline

1. Three familiar scenes of 21st-century people

• Major TV networks watched by older folks

• Hollywood scenes of the supernatural

• The situation in the Middle East

2. A scene of some first-century people

• The twelve

• “Some women”

  • The women in general

  • Mary Magdalene

  • Joanna

  • Susanna

3. The man who drew them out of darkness

Anarchy in the Northern Kingdom: Zechariah-Pekah

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 2 Kings 15:8-31
November 10, 2024

Sermon Outline

1. The sad political story

• Two weeks ago — 41 years of prosperity

• Today — 21 years of anarchy

2. The bloody succession of kings

• Zechariah (6 months)

• Shallum (1 month)

• Menahem (10 years)

• Pekahiah (2 years)

3. Pekah’s reign and fall

• The darkening night

• The prophesied Light

4. What sin destroyed this nation?

• The sin that stands out

• Jesus on personal responsibility*

*As you study the Bible, remember that Scripture interprets Scripture

A Picture for Perseverance

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Speaker: Dave Royes
Scripture: Revelation 1:9-20
November 3, 2024

Sermon Outline

1. An audible call

2. An overwhelming scene

• His presence is real

• His mediation is glorious

• His wisdom is infinite

• His perception is perfect

• His conquest is ongoing

3. A tangible comfort

• John’s response

• Jesus’ reassurance

October in Israel: Jeroboam II and the Writing Prophets

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 2 Kings 14:23-29
October 27, 2024

2 Kings 14:23-29: In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Sea of the Arabah, in accordance with the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

The LORD had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering; there was no one to help them. And since the LORD had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash. As for the other events of Jeroboam’s reign, all he did, and his military achievements, including how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Yaudi, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? Jeroboam rested with his fathers, the kings of Israel. And Zechariah his son succeeded him as king.

Sermon Outline

1. Review and introduction

• Israel splits in two

• The southern kingdom

• The northern kingdom

2. Opening description of Jeroboam II

3. Point 1: It’s God’s nature to bless undeserving people

• How God blessed Jeroboam II

• Why God blessed Jeroboam II

4. God’s blessing does not necessarily mean God’s approval

• Examples from the minor prophets

• Applications

5. God’s judgments in one time/place are always to show mercy in another time/place

• Examples

• Where is this in today’s passage?

Rebellion and Obedience

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Speaker: Andrew Hageman
Scripture: 1 Samuel 15
October 20, 2024

Sermon Outline

1. Overt Rebellion: Rebellion against God warrants destruction

• The cruelty and evil practices of the Amalekites

• God’s justice against the Amalekites

• What does this mean for us?

2. Covert Rebellion: The heart of covert rebellion is self-deception

• Covert rebellion begins with self-justification

• Covert rebellion often includes blame shifting

• Covert rebellion results in consequences

3. True Obedience: A relationship with God requires the true obedience which only Christ possesses

• God requires obedience, not sacrifices

• Our hope in Jesus Christ, the obedient King