1 Peter 1:1-2 | Elect Exiles | Trent Hunter

Most of us get a lot of junk mail, the kind of mail that messed up your perfectly good day. Or at least your goal of cleaning out your in-box. Peter's letter is not that kind of mail. It arrives to us in a hard day for Christians. With this sermon we will open this letter and read Peter's greeting, a fitting way to begin a season of life together through this book.

Ephesians 6:13–18 | The Armor of God | Abe Stratton

Ephesians 6:10–18 | The Armor of God | Abe Stratton

Psalm 121:5 | A Bible Verse We Need Right Now | Trent Hunter

In this sermon we will meditate on a short and beautiful promise from Psalm 121:5, "The Lord is your keeper." This is the kind of assurance we always need, but perhaps especially during especially hard times. If the Lord is not bringing you through great difficulty right now, be assured that many of your brothers and sisters are in just such a season. Here is a psalm to prepare you for difficulty and to help you help others on their way.

Ephesians 6:11–12 | The Armor of God | Abe Stratton

The previous sermon saw Paul’s words to the Ephesian believers echoed in Isaiah 59. There God rouses Himself for war, arms Himself for battle, and brings deliverance to His people. However, we know that evil has not yet been fully eradicated from our world or from us. Paul knows it too. He warns us that there is still a lion on the loose—a roaring lion who wants to devour.

Isaiah 59:14–21 | The Armor of God | Abe Stratton

This is the first of four sermons on the armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18). There are probably a variety of ideas which enter our minds when we hear that phrase. What was Paul talking about when he encouraged the Ephesian believers to put on the whole armor of God? What is the armor, and how do we put it on? If the stakes are as high as Paul indicates in his letter, then we need to understand what he meant. When we discover that Paul was referring to words from the prophet Isaiah, then we begin to get a clearer picture. 

Mark 16:1-8 | The Path | Trent Hunter

We come to the end of Mark's gospel, and to a new beginning. In fact, Mark intends his entire gospel account as a beginning of the rest of Jesus' story and of ours. He began his book with the words, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," and he ends his book with the resurrection of Jesus, the firstborn from the dead for a whole new creation. With this sermon we will ponder the fact and the meaning of the resurrection together in light of the many themes that have emerged in our journey through this book.

Mark 15:42-47 | The Path | Trent Hunter

As we come to the final two sermons in our series through Mark's gospel, we linger on the burial of Jesus. The death and burial of a loved one brings with it a sense of finality. In this sermon our text is a similarly sober moment in which we watch different parties respond to Jesus' death, one whom we've met before and one new character.

Isaiah 52:13-15 | Missionaries | Mark Hansen

When we think of passages outside of the Gospels that teach us about the suffering of Jesus for us, one of the most loved is Isaiah 53. But due to chapter divisions in our Bibles, what we don’t often see is that Isaiah 53 is a poem—which actually begins in 52:13-15. In this sermon we’re going to slow down and look at these 3 verses.  They’re packed with hope for people who feel like sin and failure is inescapable. The stakes and emotions are high in this short section—so we need the Holy Spirit to awaken us so we can digest his Word and be more transformed as His beloved church.

Mark 15:33-41 | The Path | Trent Hunter

Through Mark's gospel and especially in the telling of Jesus' passion, we have been presented with the responses of different characters to him. As we have gotten closer to Christ's death, the responses have become increasingly hostile. In this sermon we meet a different response from a least likely character.