Eagle Community Church of Christ

Speaker: John Gunter
Series: The Story, Week 9
Scripture: Ruth 1:16-22; 2:1-12; 3:1-13; 4:13-17
Church: Eagle Community Church of Christ | Mont Belvieu, Texas

How do we remain faithful when we cannot see what God is doing?

In Week 9 of The Story, John Gunter explores the book of Ruth, a story that unfolds during the difficult days of the judges. After experiencing tremendous loss, Naomi returns to Bethlehem grieving the life she once had. Ruth chooses to remain with her mother-in-law, committing herself to an uncertain future without any promise of security.

As Ruth works to provide for them, she encounters Boaz, whose kindness and willingness to protect her demonstrate what faithfulness looks like in everyday life. Their story eventually leads to the birth of Obed, the grandfather of King David.

But Ruth and Naomi could not see that larger story while they were living through their circumstances.

This sermon explores the difference between the Lower Story, what we experience and understand in the moment, and the Upper Story, what God is doing beyond what we can see. It also reminds us that grief is not a failure of faith. Naomi's sorrow was real, and the blessings that followed did not erase everything she had lost.

Through Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz, we are challenged to remain faithful even when the future is uncertain. Our faithfulness today may have an impact far beyond our own lives, reaching children, grandchildren, and generations we will never meet.

We may never have all the answers, but we can continue serving God, loving others, and trusting that He is at work.

Big Idea: We may not know what God is doing or how our story will unfold, but we can remain faithful in the uncertainty, trusting that God is at work.

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.

We apologize for having some technical difficulties which led to the sermon recording starting late. Thank you for listening!

What happens when God’s people forget what He has done?

As the book of Judges begins, a new generation has arisen that does not know the Lord or remember what He did for Israel. What follows is a repeated cycle of rebellion, oppression, rescue, and return.

Israel follows the gods and practices of the surrounding culture. Their enemies overpower them. They cry out to God, and God raises up judges to rescue them. Yet after each period of deliverance, the people eventually turn away again.

In Week 8 of The Story, John Gunter follows this downward cycle through the stories of Deborah and Barak, Gideon, and Samson.

God reduces Gideon’s army to only 300 men so Israel cannot claim, “My own hand has saved me.” Samson is given extraordinary strength, yet his own choices eventually leave him blind and imprisoned. Through every story, God demonstrates that He has the power to rescue Israel, but no judge is able to permanently turn the hearts of the people back to Him.

Their struggle is not as distant from ours as we might like to think. We can remember God’s faithfulness in one season and wander from Him in the next. We can forget what He has done, take His blessings for granted, or slowly allow the world around us to shape who we are.

Yet even through Israel’s repeated unfaithfulness, God continues to be present with His people.

Joshua’s challenge therefore remains our challenge:

“Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Remember who God is. Remember what He has done. And choose to walk faithfully with Him today.

Key Scriptures: Judges 2:10-19; Judges 6:7-10; Judges 7:2-7; Judges 13:1-5; Judges 16:15-30; Joshua 24:14-15

Series: The Story
Week 8: When We Forget
Speaker: John Gunter

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus. 

Moses is gone, and Joshua is now responsible for leading Israel into the land God promised generations earlier.

God's message to Joshua is repeated again and again: “Be strong and courageous.” But Joshua's courage isn't supposed to come from confidence in his own abilities. God promises, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.”

In Week 7 of The Story, John Gunter follows Israel across the Jordan and into the Promised Land. At Jericho, God gives instructions that make little sense from a human perspective. Israel obeys, and the walls fall. But their next experience at Ai demonstrates that one victory does not mean they can stop listening to God. Faithfulness requires continued obedience.

Years later, Joshua looks back over everything he has experienced and gives God the credit. He reminds Israel that not one of God's good promises has failed.

Then Joshua recounts their story, from Abraham to Egypt, through the wilderness, across the Jordan, and into the land. After remembering everything God has done, he asks Israel to respond:

“Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Joshua's own decision has already been made:

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Our history with God should shape the way we move into the future. When we remember how God has been faithful before, we can courageously trust and obey Him with whatever comes next. 

Key Scriptures: Joshua 1:1-9; Joshua 6:1-20; Joshua 8:1-2; Joshua 23:1-14; Joshua 24:1-15

Series: The Story
Week 7: Choose Whom You Will Serve
Speaker: John Gunter

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.

Israel has finally reached the edge of the land God promised to Abraham generations earlier.

The spies return with evidence that the land is everything God promised. But they also report fortified cities and powerful inhabitants. Ten spies become convinced that Israel cannot overcome what lies ahead. Joshua and Caleb see the same obstacles, but their confidence comes from somewhere else: “The Lord is with us.”

In Week 6 of The Story, John Gunter explores how fear changed Israel's view of both their circumstances and God's faithfulness. Instead of remembering the God who delivered them from Egypt, brought them through the sea, provided for them in the wilderness, and led them to the land, they focused on what they believed they could accomplish on their own.

Their decision had consequences. Forty years later, a new generation stands ready to enter the land.

Moses' message to them isn't that the road ahead will be easy. It's that they will not travel it alone:

“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear...for it is the Lord your God who goes with you.”

Fear itself does not mean we have no faith. The question is what we do when fear comes. Will we measure the situation only by what we believe we can handle, or will we remember the God who has been faithful and who goes before us?

The obstacles may be real. But God is with us.

Key Scriptures: Numbers 13:26-33; Numbers 14:1-11; Deuteronomy 8:2-5; Deuteronomy 31:6-8

Series: The Story
Week 6: God Goes Before You
Speaker: John Gunter

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.

After more than 400 years in Egypt, Israel is finally free. But God did not rescue His people simply to remove them from slavery.

He tells them at Mount Sinai, “I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.”

In Week 5 of The Story, John Gunter explores what happens as Israel learns to live as God's people. God establishes His covenant with them, calls them His treasured possession and a holy nation, and gives them the Ten Commandments. These commands show Israel what life with God should look like, both in their relationship with Him and in the way they treat one another.

But Israel quickly struggles to remain faithful. While Moses is on the mountain, the people build a golden calf and credit it with the deliverance God Himself accomplished.

Even after their rebellion, God reveals His character to Moses as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Moses pleads for God's presence to remain with Israel, and by the end of Exodus, God's glory fills the tabernacle and He dwells among His people.

Israel's story reminds us that grace and obedience belong together. We do not obey God to earn His rescue. We respond in obedience because of what God has already done for us.

From Eden to the tabernacle and throughout the rest of Scripture, God's desire remains the same: God wants to be with His people.

Key Scriptures: Exodus 19:2-6; Exodus 20:1-17; Exodus 32:1-8; Exodus 34:4-9; Exodus 40:34-38

Series: The Story
Week 5: Brought to God
Speaker: John Gunter

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.

What happens when God answers your prayer, but the answer doesn't look like you expected?

After generations in Egypt, the Israelites cried out under the weight of slavery. God heard their cries, remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and called Moses to lead His people to freedom.

Through the plagues, the Passover, and the crossing of the Red Sea, God demonstrated His power and faithfulness. But Israel soon discovered that being delivered by God did not mean the journey would be easy.

They faced Pharaoh's army. They became hungry and thirsty. They complained about their circumstances and even wondered whether they would have been better off in Egypt.

Yet they were still exactly where God had led them.

In Week 4 of The Story, John Gunter explores the tension between what we experience in the Lower Story and what God is accomplishing in the Upper Story. We don't always understand God's timing or where He is leading us. Difficult circumstances do not necessarily mean we have taken a wrong turn.

In fact, we can be living inside an answered prayer and still have days where we question what God is doing.

God hears. God sees. God knows. And when He calls us to walk through an open door, we can move forward in faith even when we cannot see how the journey will unfold.

The journey may not be easy, but God is faithful.

Key Scriptures: Exodus 2:23-25; Exodus 3:7-12; Exodus 6:6-8; Exodus 12:21-32; Exodus 14:10-31; Exodus 16:2-15

Series: The Story
Week 4: The Journey Isn’t Always Easy
Speaker: John Gunter

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.

What do you do when you cannot understand what God is doing?

Joseph's story is filled with dramatic highs and lows. His brothers turn against him and sell him into slavery. He finds success in Potiphar's house, only to be falsely accused and thrown into prison. Eventually, Joseph stands before Pharaoh and rises to a position of authority over Egypt.

Throughout every change in Joseph's circumstances, one truth remains: the Lord was with him.

In Week 3 of The Story, Sherard Romar follows Joseph's journey and reminds us that God's work is often difficult to recognize while we are living through it. Joseph eventually understood that God had used his journey to put him in a position to preserve his family during the famine.

We may not understand the chapter we're living in right now, but God sees the whole story. We don't have to know everything God has planned in order to follow Him, trust Him, and believe that He is with us.

Our greatest hope is not simply that God will change our circumstances. Our hope is Jesus Christ, who saves us, walks with us, forgives us, and gives us eternal life.

Key Scriptures: Proverbs 3:5-6; Genesis 37–45; Hebrews 13:5; Joshua 1:9; Isaiah 41:10; Romans 8:38-39

Series: The Story
Week 3: The Lord Was With Him
Speaker: Sherard Romar

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.

God called Abraham to leave his country and go to a land He would show him. There was only one problem: Abraham didn't know where he was going.

Then God promised to make a great nation through Abraham and Sarah. There was another problem: they had no children, and years continued to pass.

In Week 2 of The Story, John Gunter follows Abraham's journey from uncertainty and impatience to a growing trust in the faithfulness of God. Abraham asks questions. Abraham and Sarah try to help God's plan along through Hagar. Yet God remains faithful to what He promised.

By Genesis 22, Abraham has learned something through those years of waiting. When asked to offer Isaac, the son through whom God promised to build a nation, Abraham still doesn't understand what God is doing. But now he trusts that God can accomplish what seems impossible.

His answer is simple: “God will provide.”

Faith does not require us to know the how, when, or why. It calls us to trust the God who has proven Himself faithful and take the next step He places before us.

Scripture: Genesis 12–35; Hebrews 11:8, 17-19
Series: The Story
Week 2: Trusting God When You Can't See the Way

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus. 

The Story begins where everything begins: “In the beginning, God.”

In Week 1 of our journey through The Story, John Gunter explores creation, the fall, Cain and Abel, and Noah. God creates humanity in His image and provides everything they need, yet humanity chooses its own wisdom instead of trusting Him. Sin enters the world and quickly spreads, bringing shame, brokenness, violence, and death.

But underneath the Lower Story of human failure, something bigger is happening. In the Upper Story, God continues working. He does not abandon the people He created. He pursues relationship, provides a way forward, and establishes His covenant with Noah.

From the opening chapters of Genesis, we begin to see the heart of the entire biblical story: even when humanity walks away from God, God continues working to bring humanity back to Himself.

The question Adam and Eve faced is still ours today: Will we trust God's wisdom, or will we choose our own way?

Scripture: Genesis 1–9
Series: The Story
Week 1: In the Beginning, God

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus. 

What do you expect to happen when you encounter the Word of God?

As Eagle Community Church prepares to begin a 31-week journey through The Story, John Gunter challenges us to approach Scripture as more than information to consume or another spiritual task to complete.

Isaiah 55 reminds us that God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts and His ways higher than ours. We see only part of the story, but God sees the whole. And He promises that when His Word goes out, it will not return empty.

That means our goal isn't simply to finish each week's reading. We want to encounter God, discover what He is revealing about Himself, see what He is showing us about our own lives, and allow His Word to transform us.

God's work in us may sometimes happen slowly, like rain bringing life from the ground. We may not immediately see the growth. But we can faithfully put ourselves in a position to encounter His Word and trust God to do what only He can do.

Key Scriptures:
Isaiah 55:8-11
2 Timothy 3:14-17

Eagle Community Church of Christ
Mont Belvieu, Texas

Loving God. Loving People. Following Jesus.