Watch Sermons

Welcoming the Stranger
Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman

Welcoming the Stranger

Kyle Kauffman

It’s easy for the church as a whole and us as individuals to drift in the direction of an inward focus. There are so many needs within the church that we can spend all of our time simply focused on meeting them. But God has given us a mission, and that mission requires us moving out. Moving outward with a welcoming mindset towards those outside the church is uncomfortable and challenging. And yet as we move outward, we do so in the love of Christ, by the power of Christ, with faith in the promises of Christ. As part of God’s family, we can all take steps to move outward and extend welcoming arms toward others in hope that God will use us as a part of welcoming them into his family as well.

Luke 6:32-36

Read More
Welcoming the Children
Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman

Welcoming the Children

Kyle Kauffman

The tendency in our modern world is to either see children as a burden (keeping us from our dreams) or to see children as an idol (having our dreams wrapped up in them). Children can be seen as an inconvenience or distraction getting in the way of what really matters. God shows his value for children in the fact that He himself became a child. Jesus then demonstrated that children are a gift by welcoming them into his life. We have a God who loves children and welcomes children to himself. The church can and should also look for ways to love and welcome children into our lives in an effort to point them to the God who loves them and wants them to be a part of his family.

Mark 10:13-16

Read More
The Welcoming Home
Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman

The Welcoming Home

Kyle Kauffman

It is so easy for us to view our homes as our own private refuges and fortresses. They can quickly become the places where we seek to escape the burdens of other people. What would it instead look like if we saw our homes as welcome centers: places where we could invite others in so that we could get to know them and encourage them? What if, ‘Do you want to come over for dinner?’ was a common invitation in our church? What if it was expected that we will regularly sit around a table with others in our church?. What effect might this have on the church? What effect might this have on others looking in on the church? How might God use that?

1 Peter 4:7-11

Read More
The Welcoming Church
Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman Welcome Home Kyle Kauffman

The Welcoming Church

Kyle Kauffman

The church is meant to be a community that looks and feels different then the world outside of it. The church is meant to be a place where people feel known and seen, loved and valued. We are called to put on display in our culture what we believe in our doctrine. Therefore, if we truly believe God is a welcoming God then we should seek to be a welcoming place and people as the church. However, this does not happen by accident. It happens as God’s grace changes us and motivates us to do the challenging work of welcoming others in. The gospel not only gives us the model for how we are to welcome one another as a church, but it also helps to overcome the fears and desires that would prevent us from being a welcoming people.

James 2:1-13

Read More
God Welcomes Us
Welcome Home Brandon Fisher Welcome Home Brandon Fisher

God Welcomes Us

Brandon Fisher

Welcome is a metaphor for the gospel. Hospitality is central to God’s Heart. The Bible is a story of a God who displays his glory and grace by pursuing the people who have spurned Him in order to welcome them back into His family. This is perhaps displayed nowhere more clearly than in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We see that all of us have spurned God and deserve to be shunned/abandoned by Him. But we find in this story that God welcomes us not on the basis of our merit, but on the basis of His grace and mercy. We find that God goes above and beyond to welcome us back into His family. We find that it brings God pleasure to display His glory by welcoming people into his family. And we find that understanding how great God’s welcome is of us should lead us to be welcoming people.

Luke 15:11-32

Read More
We Fight Together
Ephesians: Together in Christ Joel Wood Ephesians: Together in Christ Joel Wood

We Fight Together

Joel Wood

One of the storylines we can find traced throughout the Bible is that there is a cosmic, unseen, spiritual war that is happening throughout history. It is not simply a war of good vs. evil or of two equally competing powers. Rather it is a war between God and Satan. It is a war that Satan started when he attempted to take God’s place and yet it was a war that was futile from the start. God has decisively won this war at the cross through Jesus’ death and resurrection. We know because of Jesus the war ends with Satan’s defeat. But until that final ending there are still battles that rage on. As a result, we find ourselves in the middle of this war. We find ourselves engaged with an enemy who wants to steal, kill, and destroy our faith and the life we have in Christ. And yet we find ourselves with resources that far outweigh our enemy’s ability to harm us. We are meant to fight together by exercising the weapons God has given us as we rely on him till the day when the war is finally over.

Ephesians 6:10-24

Read More
Gospel-Shaped Relationships
Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman

Gospel-Shaped Relationships

Kyle Kauffman

Our relationships with other people can simultaneously be one of the greatest gifts we experience in this life and one of the greatest challenges we face in this life. This is especially true in our closest of relationships with the people that we live with, work with, and see every day. The gospel is the good news of how we can enter back into a relationship with God. But it is also the good news that shapes all of our relationships with other people as well. Paul demonstrates this by bringing the gospel to bear on some of our closest relationships in Ephesians 5:22-6:9. While there is much that can be learned about each one of these relationships, there is also certain gospel principles that we can find in these verses that can impact and shape all of our relationships.

Ephesians 5:21-6:9

Read More
Imitating God Together
Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman

Imitating God Together

Kyle Kauffman

One of God’s resounding commands that travels across the pages of the Bible and across time and history for his people is this: “Be holy for I am holy.” We find in Ephesians that one of the very purposes why God chose to save us and why and why Jesus died on the cross for us is to make us holy. It’s really easy for us to downplay holiness, emphasize love at the expense of holiness, or view holiness as an optional add-on to the Christian life. But it’s clear that if we belong to God, and therefore belong to the church, we are called to imitate God as his children. This will include living a life of holiness in a world where holiness may make us stick out and may be mocked, offensive, or even hated. Yet the ultimate purpose of seeking to live holy lives is not to show how great we are or to shame other people. Rather, in living holy lives we show how satisfying God is and invite others to find satisfaction in him alone.

Ephesians 5:1-21

Read More
The Gap In Our Gospel
Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman

The Gap In Our Gospel

Kyle Kauffman

We often spend so much time thinking about what the gospel means for our past and what it means for our future that we can miss that the gospel is also good news for our present. There tends to be a gap in our gospel where we sometimes struggle to know or understand what difference it should make for the present. In Ephesians 4:17-32 Paul seeks to show the gospel is not just good news for the past or future, but it’s also good news for the present and how we are meant to live today.

Ephesians 4:17-32

Read More
Growing Together
Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman Ephesians: Together in Christ Kyle Kauffman

Growing Together

Kyle Kauffman

If we want to grow and change in some area of our lives, we likely come up with a plan of how we will try to grow in that area. We come up with a strategy, set goals, and hope to see change. God’s goal for all Christians is that that we grow into maturity in Christ. And God’s plan and strategy for how he will accomplish this involves the church. The Church is necessary for us to grow and mature as Christians. And if we don’t prioritize gathering, worshipping, and serving with the church then our growth will be stagnated and we will likely find our faith beginning to shrink. God never meant for us to grow in Christian maturity alone. Rather he has designed and called us to grow together as one.

Ephesians 4:1-16

Read More