Heart on SermonAudio

On today's episode, Dr. Jim Townsley is in Norwalk, CT visiting Lighthouse Baptist Church for a church review and talks with Pastor Dan Keighen about ministering there in the town of Norwalk along with the surrounding area and the need for reaching lost souls on the Gold Coast of Connecticut.

Sunday morning shouldn't feel like survival. In this episode of Discipleship for Dads, Kevin Swanson, Todd Strawser, Bill Roach, and Danny Craig talk through how to actually help your children engage in corporate worship — not endure it. Their conviction is simple: kids belong in the service, sitting under the preached Word alongside the whole body of Christ. But how do you get a two-year-old through a two-hour service? The men get honest and practical, sharing what's worked (and flopped) in their own families over the years. What you'll hear: • Why worship is a 3-day experience — and how Saturday night sets up Sunday • The dad's heart problem behind every rushed, distracted Sunday morning • Age-by-age tactics: toy bags and tracing sheets for the little ones, note-taking for the older ones • How to teach even a 4-year-old to sing (hint: it starts at bedtime) • "Downloading" the sermon on the way home — without roasting the pastor for lunch • Sending your kids out with a job: someone to encourage, someone to pray for, someone to serve Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants, You have ordained strength (Psalm 8:2). Let's raise a generation that loves the gathering of God's people. Got a topic you want us to cover? Email us at [email protected] Subscribe for more God-centered family discipleship from Generations. #DiscipleshipForDads #FamilyWorship #ChristianParenting #FamilyIntegratedChurch #Generations #KevinSwanson #ChristianFatherhood

This Bible study examines the paradox of persecution in the early church, demonstrating how the stoning of Stephen and the subsequent scattering of believers by Saul inadvertently fulfilled Jesus' command to witness in Judea and Samaria. The narrative shifts focus to Philip, who travels to Samaria to proclaim Christ, performing signs and wonders that result in widespread joy and belief among the Samaritans. The discussion highlights the theological significance of the Holy Spirit's arrival through the apostles' laying on of hands, marking the inclusion of this new group into the body of Christ. A central conflict arises with Simon the Sorcerer, who attempts to purchase the spiritual power he observes, prompting Peter to confront him with a call to repentance from wickedness. The Bible study concludes by emphasizing that the gift of God cannot be bought and that genuine faith requires a right heart before God, contrasting the authentic work of the Spirit with human attempts to manipulate divine power.

Righteousness or Wrath The message traces the condition of humanity from Genesis into Romans 1, showing that when people stop seeing God rightly, they eventually begin altering His truth, redefining righteousness, and calling unclean things clean. Romans 1 reveals both the righteousness of God in the gospel and the wrath of God against ungodliness, unrighteousness, and uncleanness. The warning is not merely about recognizing what is wrong in the world around us, but about examining our own hearts for pride, anger, whispering, unforgiveness, envy, and every other evidence that we too desperately need grace. Cain becomes an early picture of this rebellion. Rather than allowing God to correct him, Cain wanted God to value what he valued. When God would not adjust to Cain, Cain turned his anger against Abel. Jude later connects that same pattern with the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the rebellion of Korah. Balaam could not curse what God had blessed, so he taught Israel how to compromise themselves through temptation. The enemy still works the same way—questioning who God is, what God has said, what God expects, and what God delights in. At the same time, the message calls believers to live differently in a tense and troubled world. We are to pray for those in authority, discern right from wrong without becoming malicious, guard our speech, refuse to be ruled by anger or anxiety, and entrust the things we cannot control to God. We can speak truth without trying to destroy people, remembering how much mercy God has shown us. The fall explains why pain, thorns, suffering, temptation, and death remain all around us, but every reminder of the curse should point us ba

The devotional message explores the sufficiency of God's grace in covering all sins, using the fall of King David as a central illustration of human vulnerability and the necessity of divine mercy. It distinguishes between intellectual knowledge of sin and the deep, personal conviction required for true repentance, emphasizing that while grace forgives, sin still carries earthly consequences. The speaker highlights the imagery of purification with hyssop in Psalm 51, connecting it to Old Testament rituals of cleansing and ultimately to the blood of Christ, which provides assurance of forgiveness. The message challenges believers to examine their hearts, rejecting the abuse of grace as a license to sin, and instead embracing a broken and contrite spirit as the most acceptable offering to God. This pastoral reflection calls for a serious response to sin, urging believers to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.

The sermon centers on the profound danger of a hardened heart, emphasizing that devotion to self and worldly pursuits leads inevitably to destruction, while only surrendering loved ones to God's sovereign work can bring true transformation. Drawing from Joshua's declaration of faithful obedience and the reality of spiritual brokenness, it calls believers to release their loved ones into God's hands, trusting that only divine intervention can break the pride of the heart and bring lasting change. The message warns against enabling behaviors that delay God's corrective discipline and encourages persistent prayer, personal repentance, and reliance on God's provision rather than worldly solutions. It concludes with a call to live with integrity, love unconditionally, and strive to finish life with the assurance of having followed the Lord as fully as possible.

Ecclesiastes 9:1 "For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them." King James Version