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.

Does the Bible actually contradict itself? It is one of the most common accusations people throw at Scripture, and honestly, most Christians have never been given a straight answer for how to handle it. Pastor Brandon walks Alliance Church Hortonville through exactly what to do when two Bible verses seem to sit in direct tension with each other.

This sermon is part of an August teaching series at Alliance Church on how to actually study the Bible for yourself. Pastor Brandon opens with a bold claim. What looks like a contradiction almost never is. The Bible is 66 books written by around 40 authors over about 1,500 years, and every one of them fits together with a coherence that is honestly a little mind blowing. But there are moments where two truths in the Bible feel like they cannot both be true at the same time. What do you do with that?

He gives a working example that most Christians have felt in their bones. Does God control every single detail of the universe? Yes. Hebrews says Jesus upholds all things by the word of his power. Jesus himself said not a sparrow falls apart from the Father's care. Proverbs even says when you roll the dice, God decides how it lands. And yet the Bible also demands that human beings take real responsibility for their choices. Deuteronomy 30. Joshua 24. Romans. Galatians. If God is truly in control, how are we responsible for anything? And if we are truly responsible, how is God's sovereignty not somehow limited?

Pastor Brandon offers three Bible study don'ts that will change how you read Scripture. One, do not interpret a verse without the rest of the Bible. Two, do not build your theology on one verse. As A.W. Tozer said, nothing less than the whole Bible can make a whole Christian. Three, do not choose sides when Scripture seems to conflict. Hold both truths as true and trust the resolution lives in the mind of God.

Then he walks through Peter's first sermon in Acts 2, where Peter looks at the same crowd that had shouted crucify him just weeks before and tells them the death of Jesus was both handed over by God's deliberate plan and carried out by their wicked hands. Both. At the same time. And into that impossible tension, Peter preaches the gospel and 3,000 people receive the promise of forgiveness that day. The same crowd that crucified Christ became the first great outpouring of the Spirit's work in the early church.

If you have ever wrestled with the Bible feeling contradictory, or if you have ever been afraid that your past disqualifies you from grace, this teaching from Pastor Brandon is for you. There is no crowd God cannot forgive. Including the one you are part of.

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What does Romans 8:28 actually mean? A lot of Christians quote it in the middle of pain, but not many of us have stopped to ask if we are using it the way it was actually meant to be used. In the aftermath of the EF3 tornado that hit the Fox Valley, Pastor Brandon takes on what may be the most commonly misapplied verse in the Bible and walks the church through what it really says.

This sermon kicks off a new August teaching series at Alliance Church on how to read the Bible well. Pastor Brandon opens with a simple principle. Get to the point. The most important question you can ask about any passage of Scripture is not what does this mean for me, but what was the author trying to say? He walks through five questions that help you actually wrestle with the text before you ever try to apply it. What kind of writing is this? Where does it fit in the Bible's big story? Who wrote it, and to whom? Why was it written? And finally, what was the author trying to say?

Then he applies those five questions to Romans 8:28. He reads the whole passage, Romans 8:17 through 30, not just the isolated verse, and shows something that reshapes how most Christians read this promise. The good that God is working all things for is not material comfort. It is not financial rebound. It is not the guarantee that your house gets rebuilt. It is the good of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And that promise is not made to everyone. It is made specifically to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

Pastor Brandon does something rare in this sermon. He treats grieving people as adults. He does not soften the tornado into a lesson. He does not offer a spiritualized shortcut. He simply says this. For the Christian, even the worst of suffering cannot escape the redemptive purposes of God. That is not a smaller promise. It is a bigger one.

Whether you are wrestling with grief right now, trying to understand a verse that has felt hollow, or simply want to learn how to read the Bible well, this teaching from Pastor Brandon is for you.

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What do you do when everything you built is taken from you in a single storm? Almost no one thinks that question will ever land on them personally, and then one day it does. Pastor Brian preached this message to a congregation whose city had just been devastated by an EF3 tornado, and the answer he gave is one every person is going to need at some point.

In this sermon, Pastor Brian opens with a hard truth. On July 27, 2026, an EF3 tornado over a mile wide touched down for more than twenty minutes and tore through the neighborhoods of Appleton, Menasha, and Neenah. Miraculously, no one was killed. But the loss will take generations to rebuild. And in a moment like that, everyone around you starts watching to see how you respond. Not because you asked for the spotlight, but because the world is quietly asking a question in every disaster. How do Christians handle storms?

Pastor Brian says the answer is that Christians are different. Not weird. Different. Christians still grieve. Jesus himself grieved the death of Lazarus in John 11, even though he was minutes away from raising him. Grief is not weakness. It is honesty. But the way a Christian grieves is otherworldly, because our identity is anchored in a King whose kingdom is not of this world.

Then Pastor Brian walks through two storms in Scripture that reframe everything. In Luke 8, Jesus calms the storm on the Sea of Galilee, and the disciples' response is not relief but fear, because they realize they had no idea who was in the boat with them. And in Matthew 27, at noon on the day Jesus was crucified, the sky went dark and Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1). He names what the cross actually is. It is the storm that defines Christians. You and I were asleep in a sinking boat we did not even know we were in, and Jesus went into the water for us. We may not get every "why" answered on this side of glory. But we know the why of Jesus. His why was you.

That is why Christians are different about home (we build houses, not homes, because only Jesus is home), different about neighbors (we can be generous because we gave up everything to Christ already), and different in storms (we do not have all the answers, but we have the God who understands the tears).

Eight people gave their lives to Christ in the seven days after this tornado through Samaritan's Purse and community ministry. The house may fall. The eternal work never does.

If you have been through a storm you cannot explain, or you are watching one right now, this teaching is for you.

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Why is God allowing what you are walking through right now? A lot of us have hit a season that makes no sense. We did not choose it. We did not deserve it. We just woke up one day inside a life we would not have picked. Pastor Paul walks through an ancient king whose story speaks directly into that feeling.

In this sermon, Pastor Paul preaches on King Jehoiachin from 2 Kings 24. Jehoiachin was 18 years old when he became king of Judah. He inherited a mess his grandfather had held together and his father had unraveled. Three months into his reign, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon showed up at Jerusalem's gates. Jehoiachin surrendered. He was hauled off to Babylon in chains along with 10,000 exiles, and the temple was stripped bare.

By every measure, Jehoiachin was done. He spent 37 years in prison. Not weeks. Not months. 37 years watching his life quietly waste away in a foreign country, while everything he had ever known was destroyed back home.

And then Pastor Paul pulls up something remarkable. Around 1900, a German archaeologist named Robert Koldewey was excavating near the Ishtar Gate in Iraq and found 300 cuneiform tablets. Four of them mention Jehoiachin by name, listing the food rations he received in Babylon, calling him "Jehoiachin, king of the land of Judah." His name was still on the palace ledgers. He was still recognized as king. The last living king of the line of David.

And then the epilogue. Both 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52 end the exact same way. After 37 years, a new Babylonian king released Jehoiachin from prison, gave him a seat of honor at the king's table, and provided a daily allowance for the rest of his life.

Then Pastor Paul lands the payoff none of us would have seen coming. Matthew 1:11 lists Jehoiachin (spelled Jeconiah there) in the genealogy of Jesus. God spared Jehoiachin's life for one massive reason. The Messiah had to come from the line of David, and Jehoiachin was one of the last standing links. Every quiet, invisible year in that prison cell was God keeping the promise of Jesus alive.

The takeaway is a sentence you will want to carry into this week. God sees you, and he is working where you cannot see. Not once did Jehoiachin get an answer to why. But we, on this side of history, get to see exactly what God was doing.

If you have been walking through something that makes no sense to you, this teaching is for you.

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Why can't I change? If you have ever promised yourself that this time would be different, only to end up right back where you started, this message is for you. Real change never comes from trying harder. It comes from something far better than willpower.

In this sermon, Pastor Brandon walks through the life of Zedekiah, the very last king of Judah, found in 2 Chronicles 36:11 through 16. Zedekiah knew exactly what God wanted him to do. He had the prophet Jeremiah speaking directly into his life. And yet he could not bring himself to obey. Pastor Brandon traces four snapshots of a failed king: a man who knew God's word but would not obey it, a man whose fear became his functional king, a man who listened to the wrong voices, and a man who tried to save himself and lost everything.

Sound familiar? We are remarkably optimistic about our future selves. We tell ourselves that next time we will be more patient, more faithful, more disciplined. But if the answer to fixing your life is more willpower, you will keep looking to yourself to fix a problem you have never been able to fix. As Pastor Brandon puts it, maybe our deepest need is not a stronger version of ourselves. Maybe we need a better king.

Fear is sneaky that way. In Jeremiah 38:19 Zedekiah admits it out loud: I am afraid. Fear of people, fear of losing control, fear of what obedience might cost. When fear runs the show, it quietly becomes the king of your life, and it will lead you exactly where it led Zedekiah. The same is true of the voices we listen to. Zedekiah surrounded himself with people who told him what he wanted to hear, and it cost him everything.

That is where the good news of Jesus comes in. Where every other king failed, Jesus succeeded. He died for failed kings and failed subjects, He rose victoriously, and now He invites anyone who will listen to surrender to Him, to walk with Him as a friend, to learn from Him as a teacher, and to worship Him as a Savior. Your identity is not something you achieve. It is something you receive. Real transformation happens not by trying harder for Jesus but by belonging to Jesus.

Whether you are exhausted from fighting the same battles, skeptical that faith could actually change anything, or simply curious about what the Bible really says about transformation, Pastor Brandon's message will meet you where you are with honesty, humor, and hope.

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Are you too far gone for God to forgive you? It might be the quietest question people carry into a Sunday service, or refuse to say out loud at all. Some of us have done things we cannot forget, and we are half convinced God cannot either. And some of us have the opposite problem. We are bothered by the idea that God would forgive certain people, and we do not fully know why that offends us so much.In this sermon, Pastor Brandon opens with three things he says Americans struggle with. The offsides rule in soccer. The metric system. And the fact that God forgives people who have done truly terrible things. He then walks us straight into 2 Chronicles 33 and the story of King Manasseh, the man the Bible describes as the worst king in the entire history of Judah.Manasseh was 12 when he became king and reigned 55 years. He tore down every reform his father Hezekiah had built. He filled the temple with idols. He practiced witchcraft, divination, and demon worship. He sacrificed his own sons in the fire. And 2 Kings 21:16 says he filled Jerusalem from end to end with innocent blood. Pastor Brandon does not soften any of it. Because the point of the sermon is not that Manasseh was not that bad. The point is that he really was.And then rock bottom hits. The Assyrians captured him, put a hook in his nose, and dragged him to Babylon in chains. And there, in shackles, this man finally humbled himself. He cried out to the same God he had rejected for over fifty years. And the sentence that follows is one of the most staggering in the Bible. "The Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea. So he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God" (2 Chronicles 33:13).Pastor Brandon lands the point that most modern Christians have never fully wrestled with. God's forgiveness does not minimize sin. It magnifies grace. Every objection our hearts raise when God forgives a person we think should be beyond forgiveness reveals a version of the gospel we have not fully understood yet. Because the gospel has never been about God forgiving people who deserve it. It has always been about God forgiving people who do not.He tells the story of David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, to make the modern version of Manasseh painfully real. And then he brings the whole thing to the cross. Centuries after Manasseh, blood would fill Jerusalem again. But this time the King would shed his own. Jesus was treated like Manasseh so that Manassehs could be treated like Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).If you have been carrying a story you think has disqualified you, this teaching is for you. And if you have been quietly angry that God would forgive certain other people, this teaching is even more for you.

Why does life feel so far from God right now? Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to walk away from him. It happens quietly. Slowly. A thousand small decisions that eventually add up to a place you never meant to end up. And then one day, you look around and cannot remember how you got here.In this sermon, Pastor Brandon opens with a jarring picture. Imagine waking up on July 5, the day after celebrating 250 years as a nation, only to find your family taken, your home gone, your voice silenced, and you marching in chains to a foreign land. That is exactly where the northern kingdom of Israel found itself under their last king, King Hosea (2 Kings 17:1 to 8). And Pastor Brandon walks us through what actually caused it, because it was not what most of us would guess.Israel did not fall because Assyria had a bigger army. Israel fell because Israel had spent hundreds of years drifting from God. King Hosea took the fall, but he was not the worst king. He was just the one holding the empty box after generation after generation had already eaten through it. He ate the last bowl of cereal, but he did not eat the whole box.Then Pastor Brandon pulls six steps straight from verses 7 through 23 that trace the downward spiral almost anyone can slip into if they are not paying attention. Forget the God who rescued you. Start imitating the culture around you. Trade the real God for whatever idols the world offers. Ignore the Word when it starts to correct you. Reject the covenant relationship God has extended to you. Refuse to repent when he calls you back. That path always ends the same place, in what he calls spiritual exile. Not that God stops loving you. But that you find yourself living far from the joy, peace, and freedom your soul was built for.And here is where the message takes a turn most religious talks never do. Pastor Brandon flips those six steps into the road home. Choose to repent. Embrace the covenant Christ purchased for you. Listen to God's Word until it stops being information and starts being transformation. Destroy the idols that compete for the throne of your heart. Imitate Christ. And remember God, not as a fact but as a daily rhythm.The pivot from avoidance to embrace is the whole gospel. It is not about staring at the Doritos you cannot eat. It is about a ribeye and mashed potatoes so much better in front of you that the Doritos disappear from your mind entirely. That is what Jesus is. Not a list of rules to avoid. A person to feast on. And the wildest promise of the New Testament is not just that Jesus shows you the way home. He is the way home. And when you trust him, he makes his home in you (John 14:6, John 14:23).If you have felt distant from God for a while and are ready to come home, this teaching is for you.