You have been born with a sinful nature and into a sinful world. God gives you the opportunity to be born again.

After we are born again into His kingdom through faith in the Jesus the Christ, what comes next? The answer to this question is one simple word: growth.

In this eighth message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades explains how spiritual growth is a powerful and necessary component of our relationship with God.

Love is not something you fall into or something that magically happens. Love is a gift from God that you can give to others.

If you are a follower of Jesus, love is calling. It is as real and valid as being called by God to serve Him in vocational ministry. In this seventh message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades dives into the love God wants us to give away.

God is both our Father and our Judge!

But how can this be? How can the same God exhibit love and judgment without being self-contradictory? In this sixth message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades explores how the Bible deals with this question.

Holy.

The word conjures up the idea of something mysterious, foreign, and perhaps even frightening. To think of God as holy seems fitting, but us?

In this fifth message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades examines 1 Peter 1:13-16 for insight into the holiness of God.

The word most central to the theme of the Old Testament is not “law,” but “promise.”

There are many promises in the Hebrew Scriptures of a Messiah that would save God’s people. Contained in some of those promises is this mystery: The Messiah will bring salvation to God’s people by suffering. But how can this be? How can victory come through death?

In this fourth message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades shows how God revealed to the early church the answer to this mystery.

“If I were God….” “If I were in charge….”

We get frustrated when things don’t go our way. And when things don’t go our way, we feel like we’ve lost control.

The truth is that God is always in control, even when we feel like no one is. When we learn to trust in Him, we can relax and rejoice in all things. In this third message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades explores the idea of rejoicing in the Lord.

Jesus spoke these famous words to a religious ruler: “You must be born again.”

But what does it mean to be born again? Why does God require it of us? And how do we become born again?

In this second message from the series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades leads a study of this important topic.

If you were bullied as a kid, you probably wished the other person would just leave you alone! Hopefully, you’re not bullied like that anymore, but you may occasionally still feel beat up. You may even want to know where God is in the midst of all this. Does God care about you? Has He abandoned you?

God has not abandoned you. He will never forsake you.

What many followers of Christ fail to understand is that this world is not their home. God has planned something far greater for us! In this first message from his new series “Hope for Exiles: The Teachings of First Peter,” Dr. David Rhoades explains that before we can experience what God has promised, we must first live as exiles in a foreign land.

The task of the preacher is to take a text written two millennia ago to people in a vastly different culture than our own and make it understandable and applicable to people’s lives today. Above all else, the preacher must help people fear God and keep His commands.

In this eighth and final message from the series “How To Invest In Eternity,” Dr. David Rhoades presents the ways of God in contrast with the ways of humanity. You be the judge how you should live.

If you were to throw a piece of bread into some water, what would happen? It wouldn’t take long for that bread to disintegrate. So why does Scripture say to “cast your bread upon the waters and it will come back to you?”

In this seventh message from the series “How To Invest In Eternity,” Dr. David Rhoades explains the mystery of this strange saying and how it compels us to become generous, joyful people.