East Albertville Church of Christ Podcast

East Albertville Church of Christ Podcast

By East Albertville Church of ChristReligion & Spirituality
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East Albertville Church of Christ Podcast episodes

  • The Masks We Wear

    Series: N/A

    Service: Sunday

    Type: Sermon

    Speaker: Gary Chumley

    When we think of masks, we think about Halloween costumes or masquerade balls with people hiding behind a disguise. You can’t always tell who is joyful, hurting, honest, or broken.

    But the truth is, we live in a world full of masks. Not the kind we wear on our faces, but the kind we wear on our hearts.

    Someone asks, “How are you?” and without hesitation we say, “I’m fine.” Yet behind that smile may be pain, fear, doubt, bitterness, loneliness, or even a struggling faith. We’ve all worn masks before. Sometimes we wear them because life taught us to. We had to stay strong while everything around us was falling apart.

    What starts as protection can eventually become a prison. The longer we wear the mask, the harder it becomes to take off. We begin to fear that if people saw the real us (the scars, the failures, the struggles) they might walk away.

    But there is one person we cannot hide from: God.

    In 1 Samuel 16:7, the Bible says, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

    Think about Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. After they sinned, their first instinct was not confession. It was concealment. They sewed fig leaves together and hid themselves from God. Shame always makes us want to hide.

    And we still do that today. We hide addictions, doubts, family struggles, wounds, and fears. But those fig leaves represent human attempts to cover what only God can truly cleanse.

    Jesus warned about this kind of spiritual masking in Matthew 23:27 when He spoke of the Pharisees as “whitewashed tombs” which are clean on the outside, but full of corruption within.

    Why do we wear masks spiritually?

    Sometimes it’s fear of judgment. Sometimes it’s pride. Sometimes it’s because we think faith means never admitting weakness.

    But Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

    God’s strength is not revealed when we pretend to be perfect. It is revealed when we honestly admit we need Him.

    The danger of spiritual masks is that they isolate us from God and from each other. James 5:16 says, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

    Healing begins when honesty begins.

    The world doesn’t need perfect pretenders. The world needs authentic Christians. It needs people who walk in the light, who are honest about their struggles, and who trust God enough to remove the mask.

    And the beautiful thing is this: in Christ, you no longer have to hide.

    2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Your identity is not your past, your failures, or the mask you’ve been wearing. Your identity is found in Christ.

    Tonight, maybe you’ve grown comfortable wearing the mask. Maybe you’ve hidden pain, sin, fear, or spiritual weakness for so long that it feels safer than being honest.

    But wearing the mask only prolongs the loneliness.

    God already sees your heart. And His love calls you out of hiding.

    So tonight, will you lay down the mask? Will you choose authenticity over appearance, repentance over reputation, and transformation over pretense?

    26 min
  • "Not Under Bondage": What Happens When An Unbeliver Departs A Marriage?

    Series: N/A

    Service: Sunday

    Type: Sermon

    Speaker: Dylan Stewart

    Does 1 Corinthians 7:15 teach that if an unbeliever divorces a believer, the believer is free to remarry?

    This is an important question because we want to respect God’s boundaries. We don’t want to add permission where God has not given permission, and we don’t want to forbid what God allows. As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:11, “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.” We simply want to believe, teach, and practice what Scripture says.

    This matters because marriage, divorce, and remarriage are serious matters. Jesus taught that unlawful remarriage is adultery, and adultery is a sin that will keep people out of the kingdom of God unless repented of. So we must handle this carefully and honestly.

    Now, to understand 1 Corinthians 7:15, we need to keep it in context. In this chapter Paul is addressing different groups of people and answering questions the Corinthians had apparently written to him about. In verses 12–16, Paul is specifically speaking about marriages between a believer and an unbeliever.

    Paul says:

    “If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her… But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.”

    The key phrase is “not under bondage.” Some say that means the marriage bond is dissolved and remarriage is permitted. But I do not believe that is what Paul means.

    First, notice this: the passage never actually mentions remarriage. Paul’s discussion is about whether the believer must continue fighting to preserve the marriage if the unbeliever insists on leaving. The focus is the departure itself, not remarriage afterward.

    Second, the phrase “not under bondage” does not use the same Greek word Paul uses elsewhere for the marriage bond. In passages like Romans 7:2 and 1 Corinthians 7:39, Paul uses the word meaning “bound” in marriage. But here in verse 15 he uses a different word meaning “enslaved” or “held in servitude.”

    So Paul’s point appears to be this: if the unbeliever insists on leaving, the Christian is not enslaved to stop it at all costs. God has called us to peace. The believer is not required to spend their life begging, bargaining, or compromising their faith to keep an unbelieving spouse from departing.

    But that is different from saying the believer now has the right to remarry.

    And this is important because Jesus already gave the one exception for remarriage in Matthew 19:9: sexual immorality. If we interpret 1 Corinthians 7:15 as granting another reason for remarriage, then we create a contradiction between Paul and Jesus. And Scripture does not contradict itself.

    Jesus taught that if someone is put away and remarries while the marriage bond still exists, adultery occurs. Paul also taught that the marriage bond lasts until death in Romans 7 and 1 Corinthians 7:39.

    So my conclusion is this: 1 Corinthians 7:15 does not grant the right to remarry. Rather, it teaches that the deserted believer is not enslaved to the unbeliever’s decision to leave.

    And I want to end by saying this with compassion: God absolutely sees the pain of abandonment. This verse is not minimizing that suffering. God is mercifully assuring the believer that they are not morally responsible for the unbeliever’s sinful decision. The Christian is not chained to the unbeliever’s rebellion. God has called us to peace.

    But at the same time, we must let God define both truth and compassion. Our responsibility is not to change His word, but to trust it, obey it, and follow Christ faithfully no matter the cost.

    49 min

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