Alliance Church - Hortonville

How do I know if my faith is real? You believe the right things about Jesus, you show up at church, you would call yourself a Christian, and yet your life does not look all that different from anyone else's. If that question has ever kept you up at night, this message is for you.Pastor Brandon opens with a picture that is hard to shake: a muscle car you spend thousands restoring, and all you ever do is rev it in the driveway and pull it back into the garage. Or an apple tree you water and prune for years that never grows a single apple. Something is wrong. That is the question James asks about faith in James 2:14 to 17. What good is faith that never produces anything? James does not call it weak. He calls it dead. Real faith does not just talk, it takes action.This message traces how James gets there. God's word is a mirror (James 1:22 to 25), and a mirror exists to show you what needs to change. Most of us look intently at our feeds six and a half days a week and give God's word a glance on Sunday morning. Religion that does not lead to living and loving more like Christ is worthless, and the religion God accepts looks after orphans and widows (James 1:26 to 27), the people who can give you nothing back. And you cannot claim to love your neighbor while showing favoritism (James 2:8 to 10). As Pastor Brandon puts it, getting pulled over on Highway 41 and telling the officer you were under the limit for most of the trip will not hold up in court.Here is the part Pastor Brandon says to lock in on. James is not saying good deeds save you. The gospel does not say be good enough and God will let you in. It says none of us are good enough except Jesus, he gave his life in our place, and when you put your faith in him, his goodness is credited to your account. Fruit is a result, not a cause. Hanging apples on a dead tree will not bring it back to life. John Calvin said it best: faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone. So if your faith never shows up in obedience, love, and care for people, James wants you to ask an honest question. Is it alive?Rather than handing out a checklist, Pastor Brandon points to three places God tends to fill in the blanks. The people right around you, because real faith refuses to make a habit of looking away. Treating no one as if they matter less, because the people who need help most usually make us uncomfortable, and every one of them bears the image of God. And doing this together, because there are needs in the Fox Cities none of us can meet alone.That is why this service closes with Christian, executive director of Hope Clinic, a Christ centered ministry in Menasha providing free primary care, medications, and biblical counseling to uninsured and underinsured neighbors. Alliance Church helped start it in 2015, and it still runs on time, treasure, and people talking about it, with others and with God.Here is the question for the comments: where has your faith been sitting in the garage, and what need right around you might God be asking you to stop overlooking? If you are in the Fox Valley, we would love to meet you at Alliance Church in Appleton, Hortonville, or Neenah this Sunday.

Does God really accept people who don't deserve it? If you've ever wondered whether you're too far gone, or quietly assumed God prefers the people who have their act together, this message is for you. Most of us have sorted the world into the people we like and the people we avoid, and somewhere along the way we started assuming God does the same thing.

In this sermon from Matthew 9, Pastor Brandon walks us into one of the most uncomfortable dinner parties in the Bible. Jesus walks up to a tax collector named Matthew, a man his own neighbors would have considered a traitor and a thief, and says two words: "Follow me." Matthew gets up, leaves everything, and throws a party at his house. The guest list is nothing but tax collectors and sinners, and Jesus is right there at the table with them.

The religious leaders are appalled. They ask, "Why does your teacher eat with people like that?" And Jesus answers with a line that flips their whole understanding of God upside down: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." He points them back to Hosea 6:6, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," and tells them plainly that he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Pastor Brandon unpacks what that means for all of us. The Bible does not divide the world into good people and bad people, the healthy and the sick. Romans 3 says no one is righteous, not even one. Isaiah says we all like sheep have gone astray. There is really only one category: sinners who need mercy. The only difference is that some of us know it and some of us don't. And as Brandon points out, you can be deeply religious and still convinced you don't need mercy, or completely irreligious and convinced of the same thing. Self righteousness is not a Christian problem or a non Christian problem. It is a human problem.

That is why the gospel changes how we see everyone else. When you realize you stand before God by mercy and not by merit, you lose the right to look down on anyone. It burns away the "us versus them" thinking that runs through our politics, our neighborhoods, and sometimes our churches. With elections approaching, this message speaks directly to how followers of Jesus can hold real convictions without holding a pharisee's heart toward people who see the world differently.

Pastor Brandon also draws a crucial line between mercy and approval. Jesus ate with sinners without ever endorsing sin. Moving toward people with compassion does not mean pretending there are no differences. It means remembering that underneath it all, we share the same need.

That need is answered at the cross. Only one person has ever truly belonged in the righteous category, and he took the place of everyone who didn't. "He who knew no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because Jesus moved toward us when we deserved nothing, we have an obligation to move toward others the same way.

If you've written someone off, or if you've written yourself off, this teaching is an invitation to come to the Great Physician. He is not recruiting an all star team. He is healing the sick.

Who is one person you've been avoiding that God might be calling you to move toward this week? Share in the comments, and if this message hit home, we'd love to have you join us at any of our three campuses in Appleton, Hortonville, or Neenah.

Is God angry or loving? If you have ever pictured God as a cosmic hothead waiting for you to slip up, or as a laid back grandfather who does not really care how you live, this message is for you. The way you see God quietly shapes the way you live, and most of us walk around with a lopsided picture of Him.

In this message from Alliance Church's Hortonville campus, Pastor Brandon opens Exodus 34:6 and 7, the moment God introduces Himself to Moses on the mountain right after Israel's worst failure. God's own words dismantle the idea that He used to be all justice and is now all love. He is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and yet He will by no means clear the guilty. Both halves are true at the same time, and they always have been.

Pastor Brandon reads Richard Dawkins' famous caricature of the God of the Old Testament and then lets God speak for Himself. You will learn the difference between mercy and grace, what the Hebrew word khesed really means, and why this one verse became the John 3:16 of the Old Testament, echoed in Psalm 86, Psalm 103, Nehemiah 9, Joel 2, and the book of Jonah.

Then comes the hardest line in the passage: God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. Brandon explains why this is not God punishing kids for their parents' sins, but a sober description of how sin ripples across generations, from a father's anger or addiction or adultery into the lives of his children. Forgiveness restores the relationship. It does not erase the ripples. That is exactly why love requires justice. A God who shrugged at the evil devastating His people would not be loving at all.

So the real question is not why a loving God would punish sin. The real question is how a holy God could ever forgive guilty people. The answer is found in only one place. At the cross of Jesus, God's love and God's justice meet in full. He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities (Isaiah 53:5 and 6). When God forgives you, your sin is not swept under the rug. It is laid on Christ.

If you have been avoiding God because you assumed He was angry with you, or coasting because you assumed He did not care, Pastor Brandon's message will give you a clearer picture of who God really is.

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What does God actually think about Christians who worship vibrantly on Sunday but ignore the vulnerable the rest of the week? It is one of the most jarring questions in Scripture, and Pastor Brian walks the church into it head on. Full seats. Hands raised. Tithes up. Prayer and fasting strong. And God, says Isaiah, cannot stand it.

This sermon kicks off a new teaching series at Alliance Church on biblical justice, what it is, who it is for, and why Scripture is so unflinching about it. Pastor Brian opens with Isaiah 1:11 through 17, where God tells his people he hates their offerings, cannot bear their worship, and refuses to hear their prayers. Why? Because they neglected the vulnerable. Learn to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow.

Then he gives one of the clearest working definitions of biblical justice we have heard. An expression of God's love, doing what is right for the good of another, especially the vulnerable. The poor. The outsider. The victimized. The powerless. The weak. The needy.

He also explains why Christians uniquely see this as justice, not just charity. One, we do not own what we have, we manage it, so misusing it against God's priorities is theft. Two, all sin ultimately offends God, not just a human neighbor. Three, every person reflects the image of God equally, so unequal concern for people different than us is injustice against that image.

Then Pastor Brian takes the church to Matthew 25:31 through 46. The sheep and the goats. Jesus hands us the actual script of the most eternally significant moment in our lives. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was a stranger. I needed clothes. I was sick. I was in prison. And whatever you did or did not do for the least of these, you did or did not do for me. He notes something most people miss. Both the righteous and the perishing say the exact same thing. Lord, when did we see you? Nobody realizes how much the vulnerable mattered to God.

Then he lands it in the gospel, where it has to land. The point is not to go home and check a list. The point is to let the cross blow you away. We were the spiritually bankrupt. We were the powerless. We were in prison for our sin. Jesus moved into our neighborhood and gave up everything so that we could become citizens of heaven. The more deeply you receive that grace, the more naturally you spend yourself for the vulnerable.

If you have ever felt distant from God, or wondered what Christianity is actually supposed to look like in real life, this teaching from Pastor Brian is a hard, honest, hopeful starting point.

How does the Bible actually say you should organize your money? Not just how much to give or how much to save, but the actual order. Because if we are honest, most Americans have quietly organized theirs the same way. Earn it. Enjoy it. Save some. And if there is anything left over, leave God a tip. Pastor Brandon walks the church through why that order is exactly backwards.This sermon wraps up a three week teaching series at Alliance Church on what Scripture actually teaches about money. Pastor Brandon opens with a thought experiment. Imagine God sends heaven's auditors down to grade the last year of your finances. Bank statements. Cash flow reports. What letter grade would show up on your report card? Then he references the old Pastor Mark Harris line. The last part of a person to get saved is their wallet.Then he takes the church back to Luke 12:13 through 21. Someone in the crowd interrupts Jesus with an inheritance fight, and Jesus refuses to referee it. Instead, he goes underneath the request and warns everyone. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. Not just the obvious kind. Not just the rich person's kind. Every kind. Status greed. Security greed. Comfort greed. The common denominator underneath all of it is self centeredness. My money is my money for me.Then Pastor Brandon lays it out with pastoral honesty. The rich man's fatal mistake was not making money or making a plan. It was two things. He failed to acknowledge the harvest came from God. And he placed his confidence in the grain, not the giver. God calls him a fool, which in Bible language does not mean silly. It means someone who lives as if God does not exist.Then he offers what most Christians have never actually heard laid out plainly. The biblical order for organizing your money.One. Earn it. Scripture upholds hard work.Two. Give some to God first, as firstfruits.Three. Save some for your needs.Four. Then enjoy some, and give some to people in need.That is a completely different order from the American default. And he is careful to say the whole point. You do not give God money to make him happy with you. You give God your heart through Jesus Christ, and because of Jesus, he is already happy with you. What flows from that is a totally different relationship with your paycheck.He closes with the invitation. Sit down this week, with your spouse if you are married, and prayerfully audit your finances. Does the order reflect who owns it? Does it reflect where you want your heart to be?If money has felt confusing, tight, or spiritually murky, this teaching from Pastor Brandon will give you the clearest framework you have heard in a long time.

Can you serve God and money at the same time? Jesus said no. And Pastor Brandon walks the church through one of Jesus's most direct, most searched, and most quietly ignored teachings on it in Matthew 6:19 through 24. This one changes not just what you do with your wallet, but who owns your heart.

This sermon continues an Alliance Church teaching series on money and generosity. Pastor Brandon opens with a real world story from his Navy days. Two bosses. Same industry. One cared more about his people than the company and was a joy to work for. The other cared more about money than his people and made every day miserable. If money is your lord, it will infect every corner of your life. If God is your Lord, money quietly falls into its rightful place.

Then Pastor Brandon takes the church to Jesus's own words. Do not store up treasures on earth. Store up treasures in heaven. And notice the odd order Jesus uses. He does not start with the heart. He starts with your behavior. Then he says the sentence that most Christians have never really absorbed. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Translation: move your money, and your heart will follow it there.

He lands the point with a Procter and Gamble stock analogy. Buy ten thousand dollars of stock in a company you have never given a second thought to, and by next week you are reading their earnings reports at breakfast. That is what treasure does to the human heart. Do not wait until you feel generous to become generous. Start moving your treasure, and watch your heart catch up.

Then Jesus goes deeper. The eye is the lamp of the body. Whatever your eye is fixed on becomes what directs your whole life. A divided eye leads to a divided heart. And Jesus is blunt. No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money.

Pastor Brandon closes with the tender, terrifying question underneath all of it. If I do not chase money, who will take care of me? Jesus's answer in the very next verses is quiet and confident. Your Father will. Look at the birds. Look at the lilies. Then he shares his own story. When Melanie was pregnant with their firstborn, they cut their income in half so she could stay home, and started tithing for the first time. And every single month, there was just enough. Every time.

If money has been quietly winning your heart, or if you are exhausted trying to trust God and provide for yourself in your own strength, this teaching from Pastor Brandon will reset you.

Why does money cause so much stress, in your marriage, in your head, in your late night worries? It is one of the most universally exhausting realities of modern life, and Pastor Brandon opens up the honest, biblical conversation about it that a lot of Christians have never actually heard. Money is not a financial issue. It is a discipleship issue.This sermon kicks off a new teaching series at Alliance Church on what the Bible actually says about money. He leans into the numbers first. A 2026 Certified Financial Planner Board survey found 57% of Americans say money has caused tension in their closest relationships. Money and marriage. Money and mental health. Money and identity. All tangled up. And Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else, because he knew what it does to the human heart.Then Pastor Brandon takes the church to one of the most powerful, and least quoted, prayers in the Bible. 1 Chronicles 29:10 through 16. At the end of King David's life, David dedicates the entire royal treasury and his personal fortune to building the temple. The leaders and officials follow him, wholeheartedly and freely. And in the middle of all of it, David pauses to pray. He does not thank God for the money. He praises God for who he is. Then he says the line that reframes everything. Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory. Wealth and honor come from you. Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.That is the whole sermon in one prayer. He puts it simply. You do not own your money. God does. You are the manager. He is the owner. And once that truth lands, everything else in your financial life starts to reorient. The Cheetos analogy alone is worth 30 seconds of your day.Then Pastor Brandon lands the sentence that will sit with you all week. If you have a money problem, most of the time you actually have a theology problem. Stinginess, anxiety, tight fisted living, panic about the paycheck. Those symptoms almost always trace back to a distorted view of who owns what.He closes at the cross with Romans 8:32. If God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Generosity does not start with better math. It starts with a bigger view of the God who has already given us everything in Christ.If money is a source of stress, shame, or quiet fear in your life, this teaching from Pastor Brandon is one of the most freeing places to begin.

How do you actually discipline your kids without yelling? It is one of the most exhausting, quietly discouraging challenges of parenting, and Pastor Brandon says almost every Christian parent lands in one of two ditches. He walks the church through the third way that Scripture actually teaches, and it will change how you show up in your own home this week.

This sermon comes from a Broadcast Sunday at Alliance Church, joining all three campuses (Appleton, Hortonville, and Neenah) around Ephesians 6:1 through 4. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. And then Paul turns straight to the dads. Fathers, do not exasperate your children. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Pastor Brandon opens by pointing out that the gospel is the great equalizer. Every believer has equal standing before God, regardless of age, status, income, or role. In Christ, father and son are actually brothers. But that gospel equality does not erase household authority. Kids still need mom and dad to be the parents. Kids need to hear you say the word no and stick to it.

Then Pastor Brandon narrows in on why God specifically addresses fathers here. Dads have their hand on the thermostat of the household. Dads set the spiritual and emotional temperature of the home. And dads tend to blow this one of two ways. They abdicate their authority (checked out, disengaged, absent even when they are physically home) or they abuse their authority (harsh, cold, explosive, controlling). Both are sin. The gospel offers a third way. Authority exercised with love.

He calls this firm but warm. Firm without warm exasperates kids. Warm without firm turns them into a train with no tracks. Firm and warm together is exactly how the Father parents us. Exodus 34:6 says God is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and slow to anger.

He also names the honest struggle. Godly parenting takes discipline of the parent, not just the child. If you let your emotions drive your discipline, you will exasperate your child. If you never admit when you are wrong, you will end up with bitter kids. Most discipleship is caught, not taught. You cannot give your kids what you are not getting from God.

Pastor Brandon closes with a painting called The Banjo Lesson by Henry Ossawa Tanner. A tired dad, home from an honest day's work, patiently teaching his son. The kid does not have much, but he has everything that matters. That is what Jesus opened up for us. He gave up his own seat with the Father so that we could climb into the Father's lap and receive the firm but warm love that reshapes everything.

If you are a parent tired of losing it, or an adult still processing your own upbringing, or someone learning what God as Father is actually like, this teaching is worth every minute.

Why isn't reading the Bible changing me? It is one of the most honest, quietly frustrated questions a Christian can carry, and Pastor Brandon says it usually comes down to a simple confusion about what the Bible is even for. The goal was never just to inform you. The goal is to shape you.This sermon wraps up an August teaching series at Alliance Church on how to read the Bible well. Pastor Brandon opens with a question a lot of us have never quite answered for ourselves. What is the point of reading the Bible? He points out that other books have obvious purposes. A cookbook makes food. A textbook gives you knowledge. The Bible is different. It is the one book you read so you can actually know the author and be transformed by him.He anchors it in Colossians 3:12 through 17, where Paul describes what a person shaped by the word of Christ actually looks like. Compassionate. Patient. Kind. Gentle. Forgiving. Loving. Not the kind of Christian who has memorized verses. The kind people actually want to be near.Then Pastor Brandon lays out the framework. There are three people you have to invite to the table if you want the Bible to transform you and not just inform you. You, the Holy Spirit, and the bride of Christ.You bring a willingness, an eagerness really, to obey. Not I will keep what I like and ignore what I do not. But God, help me see the smallest place I am falling short and shape me there. Colossians 3:12 starts with identity (God's chosen, holy, dearly loved) and then moves to behavior. God does not shape us so we can be his people. He shapes us because we already are his people. Do not put the stinky socks back on.The Holy Spirit brings power. Psalm 119:18, 34, and 36. Open my eyes. Give me understanding. Turn my heart. Pastor Brandon retells the Corrie Ten Boom moment when she stood face to face with her former concentration camp guard asking her forgiveness. She had none to give, until she prayed and Romans 5:5 came alive. The love of God poured through her into that man.The bride of Christ brings you flesh and blood community. So many biblical commands (love one another, bear one another's burdens, forgive one another, weep with those who weep, husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church) cannot be obeyed in isolation. He tells the story of a couple who lost a baby and whose closest brother and sister in Christ met them around a kitchen island, cried with them, prayed with them, and let the word actually become flesh in the middle of grief.If you have been reading the Bible and quietly wondering why it does not seem to be changing anything, this teaching from Pastor Brandon is the honest, pastoral answer you have been waiting for.

Why does the Bible sometimes feel flat when you read it? You are reading the right words, but the weight of those words is not landing. Pastor Josiah says almost every Christian is missing one thing when they open Scripture, and it is not a seminary degree.

This sermon continues an August teaching series at Alliance Church on how to read the Bible well. Pastor Josiah opens with an honest story about learning that saying fine to his wife is not a sufficient answer. She wants context. And that turns out to be exactly what most of us are missing when we open the Bible. God did not give us a collection of disconnected inspirational quotes. He gave us Scripture, real books written by real people living in real places, speaking into real cultures. Sometimes we read the right words and still miss the weight of them because we do not understand the world around them.

Pastor Josiah anchors this in Nehemiah 8:8, where Ezra reads the law, explains the meaning, and helps the people understand. A simple rhythm shows up. Read it, understand it in its original context, then respond to it.

Then Pastor Josiah shows what historical and cultural context actually does with two examples.

First. John 13, when Jesus washes the disciples' feet. Every home in first century Judea had a strict social order. The lesser served the greater. When Jesus, the highest person in the room, wraps a towel around his waist and kneels, the entire social order gets flipped upside down. That is why Peter freaks out. Once you feel the culture, you feel the weight.

Second. Luke 2, the Christmas story. Most people rush to the manger. He goes back one verse to Caesar Augustus, a ruler Rome literally called savior, whose birth was celebrated as good news, whose reign was associated with peace. Then Luke tells you about a different birth. Not in a palace. In a manger. And angels start announcing good news, a Savior, peace on earth. Luke is asking the whole Roman world one question. Which one is really Lord?

He then hands the room practical tools. A study Bible. Commentaries. Blue Letter Bible for looking up original languages. But he is careful to say the tool is never the treasure. The Bible is the treasure. And he lands with the Bereans in Acts 17, who listened eagerly to Paul but searched the Scriptures day after day to test what he taught. If your tradition disagrees with Scripture, Scripture wins. If your favorite pastor disagrees with Scripture, Scripture wins. Every voice bows to God's word.

He closes with the story of Ali Hafed and the diamond mine of Golconda. Ali sold his farm searching the world for diamonds, only to die broke, while the buyer of his land found the greatest diamond mine in history right there in his own backyard. The treasure you are looking for is already in the book on your shelf. Open it.