First Baptist Church Thomson, Ga

In this new sermon series, #FamilyGoals, we'll spend six weeks exploring topics like communication, forgiveness, faith, and more, equipping and encouraging us to thrive by embracing God’s design for healthy families. In this first message, on Mother's Day, we look to Hagar, to help us discover how we can overcome the chaos of life and find peace and calm in God’s care.

This message concludes the Easter series, "This Is Not the End." The good news is that we don’t have to wait for death to experience the power of the Risen Jesus. His Resurrection has implications for life today, not just for life after death. Maybe it can help us to see it illustrated in Luke’s account of Jesus’ Resurrection. In the post-resurrection experiences of those closest to Jesus, we see what it looks like to move from death to life.

Easter answers the age-old question, “Is there life after death?” The Resurrection of Jesus gives us the definitive answer: "Yes!" There is life after death, for death does not get the final word—life gets the final word! Death’s turn is nearly over, and what comes next is beyond our wildest dreams. In this message, we will discover three realities of Life… after Death has lost its power. And there aren’t three better words to express these new realities than “Faith, Hope, and Love.”

The Corinthians struggled to understand the importance and impact of Jesus' Resurrection on their own lives and eternal future. They believed in the Risen Jesus, but failed to capture why its reality mattered. In this message, we study 1 Corinthians 15 to see what a world without Easter...without a Risen Christ, would be like. In this sermon, we are blessed to hear from Mrs. Amy Lemley, as she shares how God's goodness, grace, and love has been a source of hope for her through her battle with cancer. She demonstrates how blessed we are to live in a world where there IS an Easter and an Empty Tomb!

C.S. Lewis famously said that every person must decide if Jesus was a liar, a lunatic, or the Son of God. In a similar way, either Jesus' first century followers were lying, hallucinating, or telling the truth about a Risen Jesus. In this sermon we focus in on the claims of some people that the disciples lied about Jesus' resurrection. If they did, they broke every rule for telling a convincing lie.

The Cross was not the end of Jesus's story. The Tomb wasn’t the end of the story. But neither is the Resurrection—Instead, it’s a new beginning to a new story that never ends! Just as Easter allows us to look back at Crucifixion Friday and call it Good, so the reality of Christ’s Resurrection reframes all our lives going forward. We must see all suffering, grief, and fear in light of the Empty Tomb. No matter what you’ve experienced before, or what you will face tomorrow, know that “this is not the end.”

In this message, I finish this sermon series with a focus on the last two words from Jesus before He died on the Cross. Together these two words are spoken at the finish, as Jesus completes the race He came to run, finishes the work He came to accomplish, reveal two truths about Jesus's saving work, it's finality, its completion, and the promise of future rest for all who believe in Him.

In his first three sayings from the cross, Jesus focused on those around Him—forgiveness for those putting Him to death, a promise of eternal life to the thief at His side, and provision for His mother. The next two sayings continue to reveal Jesus’s human and divine nature, of the eternal weight of our sin, the incomprehensible grace of our God, and how Christ meets our great physical and spiritual needs.

The seven words, or statements, Jesus made from the cross bear special significance because they are the words spoken from this place of death, spoken at the conclusion of His earthly ministry, spoken by a man who was about to die. They can be summed up in two categories: the first three Jesus spoke for others, while the last four concerned Himself. In this message, we focus on the three statements Jesus made about those around Him while He hung on the cross.

The final two commands in Ephesians 6:10-20 are to Pray and Be Alert. These are indispensable parts of God's battle plan for the believer. John Bunyan called it the Weapon of "All-Prayer," and it is how we take up and put on the Full Armor of God. Paul gives us six qualities of prayer that are necessary to stand firm against Satan.

In this sermon series, we've learned that there is a spiritual battle happening all around us, and even within us. We must know our enemy and identify his strategies. So far, our strategy has to been to stand firm and resist Satan's schemes. To that end, God has gifted us with spiritual armor, which we are responsible to take up and put on. Up to this point all the parts of God’s Armor have been defensive. We’ve looked at the satanic schemes each are meant to help us withstand. Now, finally, the Lord hands us the only primarily offensive weapon in our arsenal—the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And our strategy is to rightly handle the Word of Truth to resist Satan and push back on his lies with God's inspired and true Word.

In this sermon, we discover Satan's three-fold strategy to steal, kill, and destroy. We identify the flaming arrows he shoots to attempt to steal God's Word from our hearts, kill the fruit and work of God in our lives, and destroy our witness. And we see how the shield of faith protects us from each of these attacks.

The Helmet of Salvation protects us in similar ways as the Belt of Truth and the Breastplate of Righteousness. We need to protect our mind from Satan’s deceiving lies and false teachings—it is after all a helmet meant to protect the head. But it specifically deals with our salvation, which like the Breastplate of Righteousness, assures us against Satan’s accusations meant to discourage us and cause us to doubt our relationship with God and our usability to Him and His Kingdom. So the Helmet of Salvation further protects us against both of these schemes of the Devil, but in a different way.

Shoes go with readiness, and for soldiers they are vital parts of their armor, enabling them to stand their ground in combat and move forward their objectives on the battle field. As Christians, God has given us Gospel shoes--to make us ready to stand and to go, to make our feet beautiful as we share the Good News of God's peace.

Continuing to look at the Full Armor of God, given to us so we can withstand Satan's attacks and resist his schemes, we turn from what seems like the least coverage—the belt—to what appears to offer the most coverage, the breastplate. We will discover how the Breastplate of Righteousness can guard our hearts from the accusations of the Devil, who wants Christians to live defeated and discouraged lives.

The first piece of the Full Armor God that Paul presents is the belt of truth. Belts may not seem like a vital piece of armor, but the belt is what holds the rest of the pieces together. It is what the sword and shield hang on. Truth is what all the parts of our spiritual armor hang on. It is what holds us and our faith together. We need the Belt of Truth to help us stand firm against Satan's scheme to deceive our minds and seduce our hearts.

The United States Army has four pillars for combat-readiness; four things necessary to be fully prepared for war: Manning, Training, Equipping, and Leader Development. In Ephesians 6:10-13, Paul gives Christians our own Four Pillars of Readiness. As we identify these pillars, let us evaluate ourselves—Are we combat-ready for the spiritual battles we face every day?

From local lowly shepherds to royal wise men from afar, to the heavenly host, as we think about the worshipful response of God’s coming into the world to redeem lost sinners, let’s think this morning about some basic truths of worship. Just as it’s easy for the message of Christ’s birth to get lost amidst the tinsel and trees, the gifts and parties of Christmas…so it is easy for us throughout the year to let the truth about biblical worship to get lost among the musical styles, traditions, and preferences of our worship services.

Advent is as much about preparing ourselves for Jesus' Second Coming as it is celebrating His first. Peter tells us that "the end of all things is near," and gives us five actions we should embrace to help prepare ourselves for the Second Coming of our King. These are spiritual marks of readiness. Which do you need to focus on this Advent?

Hebrews 11, called the “Hall of Faith” chapter, details the stories of the deeds of faith-filled men and women, but the focus is on WHY they did what they did. Their motivation, priority, and nonnegotiable was faith in God’s promises. As we think of having faith in God's promise for the Newborn King and all He would accomplish, let's look at the essence of faith and how we can exercise our faith in King Jesus.