Sermons – Temple Baptist Church of Rogers, AR

Perhaps nothing is more vital to our participation in God’s plan to grow His kingdom than our calling to be His witnesses. As we examine in Acts 1 the last words that Jesus gave to His followers before He ascended to the Father, we see that it clearly shows His purpose for leaving us in…

This morning, we will be focusing on a topic that I have given much of my life to thinking about. I’ve spent years working to develop effective processes and tools for its implementation. It’s been said that “a person needs to invest about 10,000 hours in a skill in order to master it.” In the…

As we continue to look at the various ways in which God calls believers to walk in the fullness of all He desires for His church, we begin to shift our focus from the internal community of the body to the broader community in which we live. How has God called us to interact with those who are "on the outside"? Or in other words, How has God called us to engage our community? Pastor David shares God's purpose and plan for engaging our community.

As we consider this idea of being called to minister/serve, I want to look at Mark 10. As we will see in a few minutes, being a servant in God’s economy is not a demotion. In fact, Jesus told His disciples that the one who wanted to lead needed to be a servant and slave…

In light of all this, we want to see that the position we hold in Christ and our membership in His body (this local church) is not something that we should treat casually. We all have casual friendships with others but when it comes to our connections in the church, there should be a deeper…

According to Carey Nieuwhof, when people go shopping for a church, 86% choose a church based on the quality of the preaching—they want to be fed. Thom Rainer says that “being fed” is another way of saying that they want the church to cater to their “desires and preferences.” We know that the preaching of…

Our goal in this series of studies is to unpack what it means to be called—specifically what God wants for those who have responded in faith to the inward calling of the Spirit. As a result of our calling, we must follow in the steps of Jesus—being conformed into His image and having the same…

For better or worse, our lives are filled with moments. Some are minor but others are far more significant; life-changing moments that we look forward to most of our lives such as a wedding, the birth of a child, or a graduation. These moments carry a measure of expectation and uncertainty of what lies ahead or if circumstances will be all that we hope or dream. Thankfully, the Bible is not silent about what we should do when it comes to facing these moments. Listen to Bro. David as he shares God's instruction to Joshua and the people of Israel as they prepare to face their moment of significant change--entering the Promised Land.

The psalmist encourages us to give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His steadfast love, compassion, goodness, lovingkindness, grace and mercy never ends (Psalm 107:1). After this encouragement to give thanks to the Lord, the psalmist mentions four different groups of people who are returning from exile. We looked at the first of these four groups a few weeks ago, but since I missed the past two weeks, we will be looking at the other three groups today. Just like we saw with the first group of returning exiles in Psalm 107, each of these groups find themselves in a difficult situation, then they cry out to the Lord in their trouble, and the Lord delivers them from their distress. Each time, the psalmist follows this up with these words: “Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!” (Psalm 107:8).

We will be continuing our study from Psalm 107 today—focusing in on the concept of the Lord’s HESED to those who have been exiled from the Promised Land. The concept of restoration is a big part of Psalm 107. In this psalm, the author declares that the restoration is available through God’s HESED even to those in despair.

For the next six weeks, we will be studying through Psalm 107 with a particular focus on the steadfast love (HESED) of God. This Hebrew word is one of the most difficult words to translate because of the depth and breadth of its meaning. This Hebrew word carries the sense of an enduring connection that brings life and all good things into a relationship. In Psalm 107:1, HESED is translated thirteen different ways in English Bibles—love, favor, grace, mercy, kindness, goodness, loyal-love, compassion, benevolence, faithful-love, gracious-love, steadfast-love, and lovingkindness. HESED means all of those things and even more!

My goal today is to focus on some of the events from the last half of the week, but I hope to do this by seeing these events through the eyes of one of Jesus’ closest followers—Simon Peter. Throughout the Passion Week, Simon Peter seems to be involved in everything that is happening—which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good. As we consider all these things that he said and did during these last few hours of Jesus’ life, I hope to be able to portray not only his words and actions but also his implied thoughts and feelings. I will not overly-dramatize the text of Scripture to make it say something that it does not say, but I will attempt—when possible—to analyze the text of these gospels to help us see and feel what Simon Peter is experiencing. We’ll begin where Pastor John left off last week—in the Upper Room where Jesus and His disciples celebrated the Passover on Thursday evening.

Jesus knew when, where, and how we was going to die. Which meant that Jesus would have been intentional with the time He spent on this Earth. And you have to think that the closer that He came to this week, he’d really be intentional with who He spent with and what He said and did. Today we are going to explore the time he spent Zacchaeus, as well as, His actions on Palm Sunday.

In this final section of our study, we will be dealing with some practical instructions for the Christian life. The author addresses several topics in this passage—such as not growing weary in living for Christ, but persevering; living a life of peace, holiness and grace, not allowing bitterness to take root in your heart; and avoid sexual immorality and any instant gratification.

In every generation Christians face opposition that works against lifelong perseverance in following Jesus. Sometimes the “hostility of sinners” is expressed verbally and socially. Sometimes matters escalate to financial hardship, physical harm, imprisonment, and even death. But God gives us strong reasons to run with endurance the race of faith laid out in front of us: the abundant testimony of those who ran ahead of us; the courageous example and loving self-sacrifice of faith’s founder and perfecter, Jesus; and the Father’s encouragement that our present pains as we struggle to hold fast to faith signal his loving acceptance and fit his flawless plan for our eternal well-being. Looking to Jesus and recalling our Father’s encouragement supply the stamina to run the race to the finish line. (Excerpt from the ESV Expository Commentary, Volume 12)

Last week, we finished up Hebrews 11—the Faith Chapter. So, today we will be studying from Hebrews 12:1-2. In order to discover what the Bible is teaching us from this passage to be able to apply these truths to life, I will be utilizing our six interrogative words—who, what, when, where, why and how. The first thing we see in verse one is the word “therefore.” So, as always, anytime we see the word “therefore,” we need to remember all that the author has just written and consider what is coming in light of everything he has just said. So, in light of this synopsis of the lives of many great heroes of the faith, God wants us to live our lives by faith. Let’s dive into these two verses to discover six essential components for living by faith.

We have been walking through what is commonly known as the Faith Chapter—Hebrews 11. Before we get to today's passage, I want to take just a few minutes to think back on the last three weeks of study from chapter eleven. The chapter begins by defining what faith is. The author states: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” He goes on to explain: “For by it the people of old received their commendation.” The rest of the chapter focuses on those people of old—who by their faith—were made right with God.

In Deuteronomy 34:10-12—the epitaph to the Books of Moses—an unidentified author closes this section of Scripture with the final events of Moses’ life that included a sort of eulogy, or obituary, for Moses. R. Kent Hughes wrote: “To all Jews, Moses was the greatest of all men... He was Israel’s greatest prophet. God communicated directly to him... This is why his face was luminous when he descended Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments. He was Israel’s greatest lawgiver. Virtually everything in their religion recalled his name. He was Israel’s great historian. Moses authored everything from Genesis to Deuteronomy. He was considered Israel’s greatest saint, for Scripture says he was “very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). This is perhaps most amazing of all because often those who have accomplished great things are anything but humble. But Moses was the humblest of the entire human race! He was Israel’s greatest deliverer. His feats are wonderfully chronicled throughout the book of Exodus.

In our passage today from Hebrews 11, we will begin to observe the ways in which these "Heroes of the Faith" lived their lives. The three men mentioned in this passage are part of the same family—a family of faith, but as we examine the correlating passages in Genesis 4-6, we will be able to contrast these three men with men with another family—a rebellious one. In each case, legacy and heritage played a role in the ultimate outcome.

Last week, we noted that “the grand key for perseverance is faith. Knowing this, we are set up for the greatest exposition of the subject of faith found anywhere in Scripture—in chapter 11.” (R.Kent Hughes) So as we move into the eleventh chapter of Hebrews this morning, we will begin our exposition with a definition for faith. After that, we will take a few minutes to consider some of the “people of old” that are not mentioned by name in the remaining portion of the chapter. And then, finally, we will look at some foundational teaching about faith.