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Christ Our Cornerstone

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What are you built on? It's a question most of us don't stop to ask — until the ground shifts beneath us.   This past Sunday, I preached from 1 Peter 2:4–8, and I want to share with you what I believe is one of the most important truths any of us can anchor our lives to: Jesus Christ is the Cornerstone. Not a cornerstone. The cornerstone. The one on which everything else either stands or falls.   Peter wrote this letter to a scattered, persecuted church — believers who had been displaced from their homes, dispersed across Asia Minor, living under real and dangerous pressure for their faith. Before we can fully receive what Peter was saying to them, we have to sit for a moment with the weight of that reality. According to Global Christian Relief's 2026 World Watch List, an estimated 388 million Christians today face high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. Nearly 4,850 believers were killed for their faith in just the last reporting period alone.   We...
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You Are Not Home Yet: Introduction to 1st Peter

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  You Are Not Home Yet: What It Means to Live as a Pilgrim in This World Do you ever feel like you don't quite belong here? Like something about this world just doesn't fit? This past Sunday, I began a new study through the letters of First and Second Peter — and right from the very first verse, Peter gives us a framework for understanding that feeling that I believe will change the way you see your everyday life. The Book in Your Hands Is Not Ordinary Before we dive into what Peter says, I want to start where I always try to start: with the nature of the book itself. What you and I hold in our hands when we open the Bible is not simply  a book about God . It is the very words of God. Second Timothy 3:16–17 tells us that "all Scripture is God-breathed." God breathed these words into human authors — forty men across centuries — and what they wrote is His special revelation to us. General revelation — creation — can tell us that God exists and that He is...
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Jesus, Our Propitiation - Christ Our Mercy Seat

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  Bro. Ricky's blog post draws directly from his sermon “Jesus, Our Propitiation - Christ Our Mercy Seat” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends. Jesus Is Our Propitiation: The Word That Changes Everything I'll be honest with you — when I first encountered the word propitiation , I couldn't have spelled it without spell check. It's a big word. But I want to tell you something: it's one of the most important words in the entire Bible, and understanding it just might change the way you see Jesus forever. This past Sunday, we opened Romans 3:21–31 together, and I want to walk you through what I believe is one of the most profound truths in all of Scripture. It's the truth that Jesus is our propitiation — our mercy seat. And it's not just a theological concept. It's an eternal, life-giving reality. A Picture Hidden in the Old Testament To understand what Jesus acc...
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You Must Be Born From Above: Why Good People Still Need Jesus

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What if the most spiritually accomplished person in the room is still the one who needs Jesus most? That's exactly the tension at the heart of John chapter 3 — and it's the question I want to sit with you in this week. This past Sunday, I preached from John 3:1-17, one of the most familiar passages in all of Scripture. Most of us know John 3:16. But that verse lives inside a conversation — a late-night meeting between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus — and that conversation has something urgent to say to all of us. Nicodemus Represents the Best of Us Before we can understand what Jesus said, we have to understand who He was saying it to. Nicodemus was a Pharisee — and I know that word automatically raises red flags. But here's what I want you to see: we don't actually know anything negative about Nicodemus. He was a religious leader, a teacher of the law, a man of moral integrity. When the other Pharisees wanted to condemn Jesus, Nicodemus defended Him (John 7:50-51). Af...
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How Do We Persevere with Spiritual Disciplines?

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  What would it look like if you and I genuinely pursued godliness with the same intentionality we bring to everything else in our lives? This past Sunday, I brought our 13-week series on spiritual disciplines to a close. We've covered Bible intake, prayer, worship, evangelism, serving, stewardship, and fasting. But finishing a series on spiritual disciplines isn't really the point — the point is whether we're actually practicing them. So this week I want to leave you with something practical: how do we persevere? We Live Here, But We Don't Belong Here Before I get to the how, I want to remind us of the why. The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3 that believers, "with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." That word transformed implies movement. Growth. A life that looks more like Jesus today than it did yesterday. That transformatio...
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When Was the Last Time You Were Truly Hungry for God?

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  Let me be honest with you about something. After everything we ate on the Fourth of July, the last thing any of us wants to talk about is fasting. But that might be exactly why we need to. We've been walking through a series on spiritual disciplines — Bible intake, worship, prayer, evangelism, stewardship, and service. Each one is an invitation from God's Word, not just a suggestion. And today, I want to talk about a discipline that most of us have quietly set aside: fasting . What the Bible Actually Says About Fasting I want to start in Matthew 6, because I think Jesus settles the question of whether fasting is optional for the follower of Christ. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives three parallel instructions. Look at how he phrases each one: "When you give..." (Matthew 6:2-3) "When you pray..." (Matthew 6:5-6) "When you fast..." (Matthew 6:16-17) Jesus didn't say if you fast. He said when you fast. Just as he assumed his followers...
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Does God Control My Schedule?

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  This past Sunday, I asked our congregation a question that I want to ask you now: Does He control my calendar and my clock? It's a simple question, but it cuts straight to the heart of how we live. The Weight of What We're Dealing With We've been working through a series on spiritual disciplines — Bible study, worship, prayer, evangelism, and service. This week, I want to turn our attention to stewardship. Not just stewardship of our finances (we'll get there), but stewardship of our time . Here's something I've been sitting with: when you and I walk away from God's Word and forget what we heard by Wednesday, we haven't just forgotten a preacher's words. We've been neglectful of the eternal Word of God. That's the gravity of what we're dealing with every Sunday. The Apostle Paul puts it plainly in Romans 13:11–14: "And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than wh...
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Are You Using Your Time—or Wasting It?

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This past Sunday, I asked our congregation a question that I believe every one of us needs to sit with this week:  Does God control my calendar and my clock? It's a simple question. But if we're honest, it's one of the most convicting ones we can ask ourselves. We're in a series on spiritual disciplines — Bible study, worship, prayer, evangelism, service — and this week we turned our attention to stewardship. Specifically, stewardship of our time. Next week we'll talk about our finances, but today I want to focus on what may be our most undervalued resource: the hours and days God has given us. We All Understand Time — So Why Do We Waste It? In Romans 13:11-14, the Apostle Paul writes with urgency: "And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the arm...
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You Were Made for This: The Spiritual Discipline of Serving

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What if the very thing you were created to do is the one thing you keep putting off? This past Sunday, I wrapped up our two-part message on the spiritual discipline of serving, and I have to be honest — this topic has stayed with me all week. We live in a culture that quietly tells us we deserve to be served. I'll be the first to confess that if I'm not careful, that mindset creeps into my own heart. But here's what God's Word makes unmistakably clear: followers of Christ were not just invited to serve — we were created for it. Serving Is Not Optional
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Serving God by Serving Others: The Spiritual Discipline That Changes Everything

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This past Sunday, I shared something I believe cuts to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus: serving isn't a program or a personality type — it's a spiritual discipline every believer is called to practice. We've been working through a series on spiritual disciplines — Bible intake, worship, prayer, evangelism — and now we arrive at one that I think many of us quietly avoid: serving. My hope is that by the time you finish reading this, you'll see serving not as a burden to carry, but as a gift you've already been equipped to give. What Does It Actually Mean to Serve? The word "serve" appears somewhere between 600 and 1,000 times in the Bible, depending on your translation. That alone tells us something important — God takes this seriously. In the New Testament, there are at least five different Greek words translated as "serve," and they carry a range of meaning: to minister to, to wait on tables, to care for practical needs, to obey compl...
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