Valleyview Church

God never sends temptation. So where does it come from, and what do we do with it?

In James 1:13-18, we see that temptation starts in our own desire, and left to grow, it ends in death. But the story doesn’t end there. Every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights, who doesn’t change, and who chose us and gave us new birth by the word of truth.

In this teaching:

• The Road That Ends In Death: How Desire Becomes Sin: why we’re tempted to blame God, and how desire conceives, gives birth to sin, and brings forth death.
• Where Every Good & Perfect Thing Comes From: who God really is, and what he gives us instead of temptation.
• What James is calling us to: when we’re lured, we look to Jesus, and we ask what God is challenging us to do today.

Scripture: James 1:13-18, 1 Corinthians 10:13, Proverbs 19:3, Jeremiah 17:9-10, 1 John 2:16, Psalm 37:4, Colossians 3:5, Romans 8:13, Psalm 119:68, Matthew 7:11, Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19, 1 John 1:5

In the middle of hardship, social unrest, and a world that felt like it was falling apart, James wrote a letter to the church. And his message was a surprise: boast.

In this teaching from James 1:9-12, we look at what it means to rejoice in where God has seated us, not because our circumstances are fixed, but because of what He has done. We look at why everything else fades, and why the rich are called to boast in being brought low. And we look at the promise for all of us: blessed is the one who stays under trial, because the crown of life is promised to those who love Him.

Key verses: James 1:9-12, Ephesians 2:5-7, James 2:5, James 4:6 and 4:10, 1 Corinthians 1:26-31, 1 Peter 1:24-25, Mark 10:21-22, and Matthew 13:44.

Part of our series, James: Living Faith.

We wrap up 2 Peter 1 by asking what it looks like to keep adding to our faith. We start with a chair. Believing a chair will hold you is one thing, and sitting in it is another.

Faith is persuaded belief that acts, and that is what Peter calls us into: take what you believe and walk in the ways of the One you believe in.

Then we follow the chain in verses 7-8:

• Let steadfastness produce godliness. Using James 1, Romans 5, and Hebrews 5, we look at what trials produce in us. They aren’t making us tough, they’re making us resolved, with hearts that stay tender and close to Him. Even Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered. And this isn’t something we manufacture, because the God of endurance and encouragement supplies it.
• Let godliness produce love for our brothers and sisters. Because we have encountered His love, we love one another. It’s genuine, honoring, and humble. We love because He first loved us, and God Himself teaches us to do it.
• Let love abound beyond your family in Christ. It’s the same love, growing wider. From brother and sister to neighbor, enemy, and persecutor, we bless and don’t just tolerate. That is impossible apart from Jesus, and we leave the vengeance with Him.
• Continue to grow in all of these qualities. They aren’t good manners. They are the qualities of Jesus, and they keep us effective and fruitful in the knowledge of Him.

Scripture: 2 Peter 1:5-11; James 2:14-18; James 1:2-4; Romans 5:3-5; Hebrews 5:7-8; Romans 15:5; 1 John 4:7-21; Romans 12:9-21; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 and 4:9-10; Matthew 5:43-48

In this teaching, we continue through 2 Peter 1, digging into verses 5-6 and the qualities God calls us to grow in. Faith is where it all begins — not something we achieve, but something given to us by grace (Ephesians 2:8).

And from that faith, we're called to walk boldly, to pursue excellence, and to "taste and see" that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8) — not settling for information about God, but pursuing real, experiential knowledge of Him.

We close by looking at self-control — not as something we muscle through on our own, but as grace training us, day by day, to keep our eyes fixed on Him and not swerve to the right or the left.

Take heart — He is near, and He's faithful to finish what He started in us.

What does it actually mean to share in God's own nature? In this teaching from 2 Peter 1:4, Pastor Caleb unpacks one of the most profound — and rarely used — phrases in the New Testament: "partakers of the divine nature."

We'll look at how this promise echoes all the way back to Genesis 3, where the serpent offered Eve a counterfeit version of the very same thing — to become like God, but seized on her own terms, apart from Him.

Through Christ, that same longing is now met the way it was always meant to be: granted, not grasped. We'll also unpack what it means that we've already escaped the corruption of this world — not as an ongoing struggle, but as a finished, settled reality we get to walk out day by day, in the world but no longer shaped by it.

In this first teaching on 2 Peter 1:3-11, we sit with two extraordinary claims Peter makes to the Church: that God's divine power has already granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness, and that everything we need is found through the knowledge of the One who called us.

We start by unpacking what it actually means to be made complete in Christ — not partially blessed, not still waiting on more, but filled in Him, who is head over all rule and authority, given to the church as the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Every promise of God finds its "Yes" in Jesus, and our aim isn't to earn what's missing but to walk out what's already ours.

From there, we turn to the heart of the passage: knowledge of Him. Not facts about God, but a real, growing, relational knowing — His glory, His love, His character, His promises. We look at what it means to press in and truly know Him, drawing from Jeremiah's call to boast not in wisdom or strength or riches, but in knowing the Lord, and Hosea's invitation to press on toward that knowledge like the sure rising of the dawn.

Because in the end, the fullest life isn't found in five steps or ten steps to something better — it's found in knowing Him, and Him only.

What does it look like when a church is known — not by its programs, but by its ONENESS?

In Acts, the early church is marked again and again by a single Greek word: homothumadon — one heart, one mind, ONE ACCORD. Not their mood. Not an expectation. Their REPUTATION. The operating system of the Holy Spirit Himself.

As we close this series through [Acts 2:42-47], we're not closing the pursuit — we're asking what it looks like to actually LIVE this out, together, starting with a cost: dying to self, so He can become more [John 3:30].

In this final teaching, we walk through three realities:

• We Are One Body — many members, one body, called to honor and build up one another
• Under the Head, Which Is Christ — growing into maturity and unity, because apart from Him, we can do nothing [John 15:4-5]
• We Are No Longer Our Own — we belong to Christ, and because of that, we belong to one another

This isn't a call to forced community or copied formats. It's an invitation to the same basics the early church lived — imperfectly, but together — and to keep gathering, keep encouraging one another, all the more as we see the Day drawing near [Hebrews 10:24-25].

Join us as we close out our series through [Acts 2:42-47], "The Lifestyle of Gathering" — and keep pursuing what it looks like to live it out.

AWE CAME UPON EVERY SOUL.

Not dread. Not terror. But a reverential weightiness — a complete recognition of who God is, what He said He'd do, and what He had already done.

This wasn't a strategy the early church figured out. It wasn't a technique. The fear of the Lord isn't something we can manufacture — it's something we surrender into.

In this teaching, we ask an honest question: have we lost the fear of the Lord? Have we become so passive, so comfortable, that reverence has quietly slipped away?

We'll look at [Psalm 36] and see what a life without the fear of God actually produces. We'll trace [Deuteronomy 10] and rediscover what God has always required of His people. And we'll see how the early church — filled with AWE — didn't shrink back, but were propelled into mission, love, and obedience that turned their world upside down.

Because it's not love OR fear. It's both, hand in hand.

This is an invitation — to come back into the place of reverence, awe, and wonder before a Holy God, and to let it reshape how we live, love, and go.

Join us as we continue our series through [Acts 2:42-47].

Where did the people being saved in Acts 2 actually come from? Was it always the apostles' teaching front and center, or something closer to home?

In this teaching, H takes us back into Acts 2:42-47 and uncovers something surprising in Ephesians 4:11-13: adding to the body of Christ was never meant to rest on pastors and teachers alone. It's an invitation for all of us.

• Why the early church didn't wait until they were "mature enough" to go make disciples, and what it means for our own hearts to burn with that same urgency
• What it looks like for pastors and teachers to equip rather than carry the whole load, pictured as simply as a Sunday school classroom
• Why the church was never meant to hand off loving our neighbors, schools, and workplaces to programs and government, and what stepping back into that calling actually looks like
• Real stories from people in our own church, discipling and ministering right where they are: at the hospital bedside, in the classroom, at work, and in their own homes raising the next generation
• A challenge to ask, wherever you are, whether it's your job, your neighborhood, or a Tuesday afternoon: how can I build up the body of Christ today?

Whether you've been discipling people for years or you're just now feeling the stir to step into it, this teaching is a reminder that adding to the Kingdom was never someone else's job. It's ours.

Scripture referenced: Acts 2:42-47, Ephesians 4:11-13, Jeremiah 29:7

What does it look like to be 100% devoted to what God has called us to do!

Not half-hearted, but fully devoted to Christ and in pursuit to making Him known.

Join in as a guest speaker and missionary challenges our church to walk in RADICAL DEVOTION to God, and to be in alignment with His heart.