As Paul finishes up his sermon, the audience responds in two ways – some want to hear more, and ask him to speak again next week. Others, however, start speaking contradictions and insults against him. Some believe, some reject. And yet Paul and Barnabas refuse to let persecution stop the message. Full of joy and the Holy Spirit, they keep pressing forward.
Acts 5:12-42 – A memorable event had just happened in the life of the new Church in Jerusalem, with the news of Ananias and Sapphira's "untimely" death. So people weren't sure what all this new group of believers was all about. But the Lord kept bringing people to faith, and the apostles continued to do miracles, healings, casting out demons, and it led to jealousy from the Sanhedrin. Pastor Steve Hall turns our attention to our own hearts, and how jealousy can very easily take root in us.
Is there a right way to be a parent? Is there a way of raising children that is in fact "God's way"? Or is it up to us to figure out the best way on our own? In this message, Pastor Steve Hall leads us through how Jesus' life, death and resurrection informs the way we think about parenting and grand-parenting.
Jesus tells a parable about a rich man and a poor man who had very different values and purposes in their lives, and their experience of the afterlife told the story.
We tend to live our lives day to day, moment to moment with our eyes on what is right in front of us, but God in his Word informs us that death is not a period on the end of our story, but a comma. All of the doctrines we've looked at so far find their resolution in the Doctrine of Eternity.
The first words of scripture are, “In the beginning God…” So we move from the doctrine of scripture to the doctrine of God.
Jesus said that people who come to him, hear his words, and act on them, are like a person who built their house along a hurricane coast fully equipped to handle "the Big One."
We might think of love as a warm fuzzy feeling we get when we're with another person, or simply as the enjoyment we get from something we like. But God's love goes far deeper than that.
Using a very specific situation of co-signing a loan, the father in Proverbs teaches his son to be careful with how he stewards finances.
Justice is when someone gets what they deserve. Poetic justice is when someone plans harm on someone else, and it ends up coming back on themselves instead. The story of Esther is about to take a major turn...