The Backpack

A comeback without a win is just a nice story nobody reads. In the final installment of our series through Ezra, we discover that finishing the comeback God has called us to requires more than rebuilding our circumstances, it requires a return to holiness.

Like the Israelites who kept falling back into the same patterns of unfaithfulness, we too can sabotage our comeback before it's complete.

The good news? What we started and were unable to finish, God did. Through Jesus, sin is condemned, the law is fulfilled, and we're no longer obligated to our flesh. The story doesn't end with our failure; it ends with His grace.

In this sermon from Ezra 8, we discover that returning to God's design requires recognizing what's clogging our hearts; sin we've grown numb to, like a dirty air filter slowly shutting down the system. The good news? The gracious hand of God is on all who seek Him. Through reliant prayer and fasting, we can humble ourselves, purify our faith, and place our hearts back in God's hands, strengthened to play our role in His kingdom.

Caytie shares her story of finding peace with God through years of battling Crohn's disease - culminating in a near-fatal Easter weekend that landed her in the hospital alone during COVID. A powerful reminder that God shows up in our darkest valleys.

Where is God sending you? In this sermon from Ezra 7, we explore how God gives us resolved courage to join Him - not by our own strength, but because Jesus came to us first.

Kaleb Nab shares a powerful story of faith, risk, and God's faithfulness at Christ Community Church. After building a comfortable, safe life in his small hometown of Carrollton, KY, Kaleb felt God calling him to give it all up and step through a new door.

What started with a bold Facebook message to a girl named Meika, led to a whirlwind three-month engagement, a wedding, and a cross-state move to Shelbyville. Kaleb's testimony reminds us that everything we're afraid of losing when we step out in faith may indeed happen, but God is just as real on the other side of the door as He is on this side. Sometimes you just have to open the door and let Him show you what's next.

When obedience to God's mission provokes opposition, it's easy to want to quit. But the story of Ezra reminds us that God specializes in transforming enemies into allies, and that's where true joy is found. From the comeback crew rebuilding the temple to a Pearl Harbor pilot turned missionary, this sermon traces how God changes hearts, rekindles joy through obedience, and calls us back to the mission of making disciples. If you've lost your joy, return to what God has asked you to do.

When God calls, He provides. Follow Sherry's journey from a 14-year-old girl with a heart for Africa to a nurse on her first medical mission in Uganda, where three nurses treated over 400 patients, witnessed miracles, and fell in love with a community that forever changed their lives.

Your best sacrifice will never be enough to complete the comeback, but Jesus already made the greatest sacrifice for the greatest comeback ever.The question is: God, are You getting all of me?

Two graduating seniors, Emma Moreno and Jordan Williams, share how a week at Kentucky Baptist Student Worship Camp shaped their faith and prepared them to lead worship as they head off to WKU together.

From forming a band with strangers to performing a worship set days later, they reflect on community, calling, and stepping into their next chapter with the Lord at the center.

When life deports your dreams, through failure, disappointment, or a faith that once felt alive, what does a real comeback look like?

In the opening message of The Making of a Comeback, Blake walks us through Ezra 1 and the story of God’s people returning to Jerusalem after years of exile. The big idea is simple and hope-filled: God’s plans to deliver you were made long before your dreams were deported.