Sermon by Luke Welte

Focus: Matthew 23:23. What is the context surrounding this statement? What are the "weightier matters of the law"?

Text: Acts 2, 6:1-7, 11 and 13:1-3.

The Focus: What are the core characteristics of the Church? What is it that the Lord intended His Church to be? In this lesson we look at the church in Jerusalem and the church in Antioch, and by seeing what distinguished them and set them apart will help us identify what the Church that belongs to the Lord is to be today.

Text: Genesis 16 and Genesis 21.

Focus: Hagar gives the Lord a descriptive name. What do we learn about the Lord through her short narrative?

Text: Hebrews 6:13-20.

The Focus: Can we have security in Christ? Throughout the book of Hebrews there is an effort to warn against drifting and falling away, and encouragement to hold onto the hope which is the anchor of our soul. So, through this lesson we will examine "Why we need security", "What is the source of our security" and "How do we grab hold of this security?"

July's Theme: The sword of the spirit (the word of God)

The Focus: Psalm 119 is an outpouring of love and thankfulness for the Law of the Lord. The psalmist views the law of God as an act of grace from the Lord, and as we dive into this psalm we will examine a few of the themes found within that are held together by the thread of "the heart and character that loves God".

Text: Genesis 39-50; Looking at the life of Joseph and lesson for us to learn.

Text: Mark 10:46-52. 

Focus: Jesus said to Bartimaeus, the son of Timeus, "Go, your faith has made you well." We want to examine this text and this encounter between Bartimaeus and Jesus to gain a deeper understanding of the "faith that made well" and led to the healing of his blindness. We do this because we desire to be able to imitate this faith, as we understand we have a far worse condition to deal with than blindness, being the sin in our lives. How can we be healed and made well? 

What is a Biblical worldview and how do we build and maintain one? This is the focus of our lesson, to examine ourselves and to get to the very foundation of our worldview to consider what we truly believe about God, and then how to fix any faults in our foundation.

June's Theme: Putting on the Helmet of Salvation The focus of this lesson is to address the objection brought up regarding trying to prove the trustworthiness and reliability of the New Testament writings. In order to accomplish this we will dive into some of the texts and see how the writers (although independent of one another) very subtly confirm one another without outright doing so. This is seen in the many "undesigned coincidences" we find in Scripture (a term borrowed from William Paley and Lydia McGrew).