Grace Bible Church

This weekend, Nigel preached from John 1:1-14 about where our identity comes from. John shows that Jesus is God, our Creator, our Life, and the Light of the world. We were made in God's image, but sin happens when we build our identity on ourselves (our needs, desires, and plans) instead of our Savior. Jesus became flesh, moved into the neighborhood, and paid for our sin. When we believe in His name, He gives us a new identity as children of God. This week, ask yourself: where am I finding my identity? Believe in Jesus more than you do today.

Continuing the Masterpiece series, Eric turns to a hard but necessary question: how does the family we grew up in shape the identity we carry as adults? Walking through four generations of Abraham's family and three generations of David's, Eric shows how patterns of deception, self-protection, and taking by power don't stay contained to one generation — they travel, often without anyone intending to pass them on. This is not an easy message, and it includes a direct account of Amnon's assault of Tamar, so discretion is advised. But the message doesn't end in the pain of family history. Eric points to Galatians 4 and the hope of adoption into a new family line through Christ — one where the patterns of the past don't get the final say, even though the work of facing them honestly still remains ours to do.

Most of us are carrying a name we never chose, a label absorbed so early in life it feels like a simple fact rather than a wound. This week Eric tells the story of Jacob, a man whose very name meant "deceiver," and who spent decades living up to it before God met him in the dark and demanded he say it out loud. Walking through the strange, physical wrestling match at the Jabbok River in Genesis 32, Eric shows that the road from the False Self to the True Self runs through the same kind of honest confession, naming what we've believed about ourselves before we can receive what God actually says about us. Jacob walked away from that encounter with a new name, a new identity, and a limp that never fully healed. Eric invites the congregation to sit with one question: what name have you internalized, and are you ready to let God wrestle it away from you?

Most Christians know they're forgiven — and yet still feel crushed by their ongoing struggle with sin, as if their standing with God rises and falls with how well they're doing that day. This week Eric untangles two very different biblical uses of the word "sin": sin as a legal status before God, settled once and for all through Christ, and sin as ongoing action, a daily battle believers are actively called to fight. Walking through Romans 5-6, Ephesians 2, and Colossians 2-3, Eric shows why passages like "you died to sin" so often confuse sincere believers — and why they were never meant to describe the end of the struggle, only the end of the verdict. Our BE, our identity before God, was never meant to fluctuate based on our DO. That guilt has already been forgiven. The fight continues — but it flows from a settled identity, not toward one.

As we continue to unmask the false self, Eric turns to one of the most familiar stories Jesus ever told, the parable of the prodigal son, and asks the congregation to see it differently. Both the younger son and the older son are living out of the same false self, just in opposite directions: one through wild living, one through rule-keeping and resentment. Both end up saying something devastating about themselves, "I am no longer worthy" and "I have been slaving for you", because both are trying to earn an identity that was never meant to be earned. Eric unpacks the practical shape of the False Self through the pattern Do, Have, Be, and shows how the Father in Luke 15 offers both sons something entirely different: an identity that is Be, Do, Have, received first, lived out second. The message closes with a simple but costly invitation: examine your own DO, and don't do this work alone.

Most of us know the exhausting pull to prove ourselves — through what we do, what we have, or what others think of us. Eric opens the new series Masterpiece by naming this pattern for what it is: the False Self, a way of building an identity that can never be finished and never feels like enough. Drawing from Genesis 1 and Ephesians 2, Eric shows that every person is already God's workmanship — his masterpiece — before they've done anything to earn it. The problem isn't that we're unfinished; it's that sin has stained what God already made, leaving us to chase an identity we were never meant to build. The good news is that the True Self isn't achieved. It's received — through grace, through faith in Jesus, and through the daily surrender that follows.

In this message, Matt Love closes out Grace's journey through 2 Corinthians with Paul's final words to a struggling church. Working through 2 Corinthians 13:1–10, Matt explores why God's correction is never rejection — it's always aimed at restoration. He unpacks why real spiritual authority looks like weakness before it looks like power, why self-examination matters more than proving yourself to others, and why a church that takes sin seriously can still be a place where everyone is welcome as they are. Matt shares honestly from his own life about what it looks like to invite correction in rather than run from it, and offers practical next steps for anyone ready to experience the freedom of being fully restored.

This sermon explores the question, “What does it really mean to love God?” Through Deuteronomy 6, Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 22, and 1 John, we see that loving God isn’t about organizing our lives correctly or simply putting Him at the top of our priority list. Instead, God calls us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, and strength- allowing our love for Him to shape every area of our lives. Because God loved us first, our love for Him naturally spills over into loving others. Ultimately, loving God isn’t about a list; it’s about all of life.

This message picks up where last week left off — with more to say about the holiness of God. Working through Job 37, Psalm 93, and Isaiah 6, we see a God who is not simply a better version of us but a different category entirely. From there the sermon traces the movement of Hebrews 10 — made holy through Jesus, being made holy through the Spirit — and gets painfully specific about what that looks like when we sin. Using pornography as a concrete example, the difference becomes clear between living on the wrong side of guilt and shame versus living from the position of someone who has already been made holy and is being drawn back toward God. The message ends with Revelation 7's vision of every nation standing before the throne in white robes — the destination the whole journey is heading toward.

In this message, Eric continues the Red Thread series by diving into one of the most challenging books of the Bible — Leviticus. Rather than a dusty collection of ancient laws, Eric shows that Leviticus is about one of the most urgent questions any person can ask: how do muddy, broken people get to be with a holy God? Working through the clean/unclean/defiled categories of Leviticus, the Day of Atonement, and the book of Hebrews, Eric makes the case that God's primary concern has never been your behavior — it's your position. And through Jesus, that position has changed forever.