Faith Community Bible Church

Ready, Set, Grow!

No Longer but Not Yet

A Breath of Fresh Perspective

Hope for Exiles Overview

If You’ve Been Raised With Christ

What is the Mission of the Church?

What is a Healthy Church Community?

Community: What Is A Healthy Church Community Ephesians 4:1-16 • FCBC • 01/14/24 Good morning church, it is a privilege to be worshipping with you this morning. If you are visiting with us for the first time my name is Ryan and I am a pastor and one of the elders here at FCBC and I have the privilege of continuing in our series this morning entitled “Our church, it’s purpose: who is FCBC and where is she going?” We’ve been answering that question by going word by word through the name of our ...

The Force That Shapes Us

What It Takes to Finish Well

Why You Must Not Be Silent

Engage!

Isaiah 6:1-10

Standing Firm Against Evil

Jesus on the Job

Ephesians 6.5-9 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, k...

The Potential of Parenting

Titus 2

Husbands Love Your Wives

Husbands love your wives – Ephesians 5:25-33 Introduction So last week in his introduction Benj told us how he was surprised to be assigned a tiny little portion to preach on. The email only had two verses 22-23. That’s a little short he thought. It takes a long winded preacher to make a long sermon out of a short text. So, he took the liberty to add an extra verse, to at least complete the thought. Before the final song is ended, Steve’s over here, and come to find out the tens digit wa...

The Forbidden Word (Submit)

Introduction • A few months ago I got an interesting text from Steve Walker. He said, “Hey, we’re going to be going through Ephesians, and we want to know if you’ll be up to preach.” • So I was like, “Yeah!” Texted him back. Absolutely. o I love Ephesians. I’ve been to Ephesus a couple times, maybe I’ll be able to talk about some of the harbor there and the multinational city and the impact that had on the believers there. o Riot in the theater in Acts 19 and tie that into the book. The go...

Controlled by the Spirit

So, if Paul is commanding us to walk in wisdom, how do we do that? The answer to our question is that the Spirit empowers us to walk in wisdom. In verses 15-17, Paul lifts up “making the best use of the time” and “understanding the will of the Lord” as examples of wise, Spirit empowered living. To me, both of these things sound nearly impossible. How in the world am I supposed to make the best use of the time in such an evil day, and how does one know the will of the Lord? Here’s what we nee...

Imitate God: Love, Sex, and the Glory of Christ

IMITATORS OF GOD: LOVE, SEX, AND THE GLORY OF CHRIST Ephesians 5:1-14 • FCBC • 07/23/23 Good morning church, it is a privilege to be worshipping with you this morning. If you are visiting with us for the first time my name is Ryan and I am the pastor for worship and counseling and one of the elders here at FCBC and I have the privilege of opening up the Word to us this morning. I want to start by simply reading our passage and then we’ll jump right in. This morning we’re going to be looking a...

Revealing Reactions

Your Mouth Matters

How to be Good… and Mad

HOW TO BE GOOD...AND MAD! Ephesians 4:26-27 • FCBC • 6/25/23 Intro: We live in a polarized world. Put a Democrat and a Republican together and you’ll likely see an argument or a fight. Post anything remotely controversial on Facebook and you’ll probably get called a name or have your motives impugned. Even in your car you’d better buckle up because if you go any distance with any traffic there’s a better than even chance someone may anger you or you may anger them. We’re fast losing civility ...

I Cannot Tell A Lie

The Blueprint For a Healthy Church

Living for Something Larger

SLIDE ONE: Living for Something Larger Ephesians 3:1-13 Faith Community Bible Church 5/21/2023 Pastor Dave Gibson SLIDE TWO: Eph 2:1-10. God deals with our alienation from Him. Eph 2:11-22. God deals with our alienation from others. SLIDE THREE: Eph 3:1-13. Paul gets sidetracked—to explain his ministry/calling. SLIDE FOUR: Listen! Three pilots focused on one little light on the dash while their plane… SLIDE FIVE: For this reason (v1): Because Jew and Gentile are one new man. SLID...

The People you Love to Hate

The People you Love to Hate – Ephesians 2:11-22 Eph 2:1-10. God deals with our alienation from Him. Eph 2:11-22. God deals with our alienation from others. The Cycle of Conflict: A. Disagreement/Tension. B. Role Dilemma/Who does he think he is? C. Collecting of injustices, real or imagined. D. Confrontation/Fight lever. E. Reset/Rinse/Repeat or Genuine Resolution. Alienation is the enduring pandemic. Hatred is the resistant virus. Hostility is the unbreakable habit. Differences run deep! Ther...

Your Real Spiritual Biography

YOUR REAL SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY The Master’s Plan • Ephesians 2:1-10 (p. 917) • Redeemer’s • 5/11&12/19 Intro: I have a confession. Sometimes I get nervous when I hear Christians speak of being saved or having salvation. Don’t get me wrong: I think we need to be saved. I like the word. But I don’t think most people have the right idea. Christians often think of it simply as being forgiven—and that’s barely the beginning. And non-Christians normally interpret “save” to mean preserve or collect—l...

Can’t You See?

CAN’T YOU SEE? The Master’s Plan • Ephesians 1:15-23 • Faith Community • 4/30/23 Intro: Christmas hadn’t been all that spectacular for Joseph Heer. He’d been all alone. No presents to open, no friends to celebrate with. Whether by desire or because of his getting along in years, Joseph, at age 89, pretty much kept to himself. He lived alone in a small two-story brick house, near the downtown area in Washington, Pennsylvania. Apparently not a man of means, he lived by scrimping and sacrificing...

The Master’s Plan (Overview)

EPHESIANS: THE MASTER’S PLAN Faith Community Bible Church • April 16. 2023 • Steve Walker Intro: What’s God’s job? What’s He doing? What’s He up to?” How you answer those questions affects how you relate to Him, and how you’ll live out your life. Allow me to identify five common misconceptions about God’s job: [SOME PICTURE GOD AS:] […The CEO of the Universe]: Can you imagine walking into the offices of Amazon and asking to see Jeff Bezos, or trying to get an appointment with Facebook’s Mark ...

Easter 2023

Introduction James 5-1 Peter 1 Well today is three things. It’s 1. Easter Sunday, it’s 2. the last message in the book of James and it’s 3. my last message as preaching pastor here at FCBC. This is a hard message for me to preach. Because on the one hand I have deep, deep, deep sorrow that this is my last Sunday with you all in this way. I mean my heart is bleeding on the inside. I was talking to my dad this week about what I was experiencing. I was like, “Dad, I don’t know what’s wrong wi...

Powerful Prayer from Normal People

r this message is available Introduction James 5 We are in our penultimate study of the book of James. One more to go after this. We end the book of James next week on Easter Sunday. Now if you were with us last time, we looked at the beginning of this concluding paragraph of James. James is concluding his letter with a call for prayer. Why? Because in a letter that is all about giving us evidences of faith, he closes with the greatest evidence. He closes with the slam dunk. What is it? ...

The Choices that Determine Our Future

MEDITATION: The Choices that Determine Your Future PASSAGE: Proverbs 2 Our unfaithfulness is often the result of cultivating foolish desires in our hearts/minds rather than setting our hearts/minds on the Lord/his ways/purposes. So how can we live in order to avoid walking away from the Lord? The Clear Progression in Proverbs 2 “IF” you prioritize God’s Word, 2:1-4 “THEN” you will understand the fear of the Lord and the proper way to live, 2:5, 9 AND this wisdom will deliver you from ev...

Righteous Prayer

Introduction James 5 Well, FCBC, after today we’ve got just a couple messages left in the book of James. The Lord has taught me a lot in this book. I’m pretty changed because of it. And today’s message is no exception. And the way things line up, we are going to actually end the messages of James on Easter Sunday which will also be the last Sunday I’m officially preaching here at FCBC. A lot of emotion in that for me. Maybe you come today with a lot of emotion about something. Well James is...

Patience and Prayer

I thought we'd begin this week with a bit of Trivia. You want to know what this is? This is considered the oldest known complaint in the world. It's 4000 year old Akkadian cuneiform tablet written by a man named Nanni who complains about a substandard ingot of copper he received by the hand of his servant and in the letter he demands a refund. Complaining, as it turns out, is one of the oldest art forms in history. We can complain about anything from copper ingots to cold weather to people...

The Righteousness of Patience

Well this is one of three messages left in the book of James. Then Palm Sunday and then Easter. One of the comments I've heard over and over through our study of James is this: "Man I love James because it's so practical." And it's true. James talks about so many aspects of everyday life, the tongue, money, trials, etc... Well if you like practical, it doesn't get any more practical than today. When we attend a funeral, perhaps one of the greatest compliments that can be said of a person du...

Corrosiveness of Self-Indulgence

Introduction - James 5 Today the Bible is going to talk to us about money and our attitude toward acquiring it. In every modern society there have always been three classes of people: The poor, The middle class, and The wealthy. And for as long as those classes have existed people have bemoaned the economic disparity between these classes. Now, interestingly the Bible doesn't comment very much about the systems which create the economic disparity. The Bible almost feels carelessly indiffere...

Why Worry is Wicked

We’ve been in the letter of James the last few months—a letter written to us to underscore the difference that faith makes. James is incredibly practical. He insists that faith is more than merely head-bobbing—something we confess we believe but otherwise makes little difference practically in our lives. Instead, James gets disturbingly real with us. He assumes we will face problems and won’t know what to do. But then he doesn’t tell us how to live trouble-free, but how to live when troubles ...

True Humility

Finding the root cause is important because if you aren't treating the root cause you aren't treating the problem. You'll never get better.  Now in this series we've probably said a dozen times or more that James is giving us true tests of saving faith. What do you do if you fail the test? How do we interpret the test results? What does the failed test result say about us?  What it says is that we lack faith. That's the root cause. That's the cause of the cause of the cause of the cause. If...

The Humble Path of Peace

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction James 4 Review So we all have bucket lists, things we want to do before we die. For years, I had on my bucket list to race in the baja 1000. So not many of you know this but four years ago I actually did exactly that. I competed in the Baja 1000 in the class 3 division which is short bed lightweight truck category and after a grueling 23 hours I crossed the finish line in 4th place. Now what I just told you is complete fiction. I would ...

The Power of Wisdom to Sow Peace

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Power of the Tongue to Give Life

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction James 3 We are in the book of James and we are on a journey to discover the nature of true saving faith. James has really opened our eyes and helped us to distinguish between CLAIMS of genuine faith and genuine faith itself. Just because someone claims something doesn’t make it true. It’s the difference between claiming that that an APPLE tree is an apple tree and claiming that a MAPLE tree is an apple tree.We need to evaluate all claim...

Power of the Tongue to Destroy

Faith and Works – Part 2

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction James 2 So we are in James chapter 2 looking very closely at this relationship between Faith and Works because, because, as we have come to discover, having a faith that works is in fact the only kind of faith. There is no other kind. A faith that doesn’t change a person, is in fact, no faith at all. James is looking for that change. He’s looking for that fruit, the evidence of that internal transformation. He’s poking, prodding, pushin...

Faith and Works – Part 1

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction James 2 Happy New Year, Faith Community Bible Church. Welcome to 2023. Today we return to the book of James and we are in James chapter 2 verse 14. So turn with me there. Now it’s been about a month since we’ve been in the book of James and today we come to the heart. Everything James is trying to say revolves around the hub of chapter 2 verses 14-26. There could hardly be a more important section of the Bible to understand if you are...

Faith – The Peace of Things on Earth

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction Luke 2-3 Merry Christmas, Church. Merry Christmas kids! It’s so good to see you all this morning. If you’ve been with us the last couple of weeks, you know we’ve been talking about this command issued three times in the Christmas Story: do not fear. The command was given to Mary. It was given to Joseph and it was given the shepherds. We noticed that every time the command was given to not fear a reason to not fear was given with it. We ...

Faith – The Blessing of Things Believed

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction Luke 1-2 So we are in advent and last week we talked about a command in the Christmas story issued three times, “Do not fear.” In our lives, there are all sorts of reasons to fear. Financial reasons, health reasons, relational reasons. Fear of losing something we love….The applications are numerous. We applied that to where we are as a church right now. Pastoral transitions can be hard and fear-inducing. What does the future hold? But G...

Do Not Fear

Assurance of Things Hoped For

The Assurance of Things Hoped For! Faith Community Bible Church 12/4/22 Dave Gibson The Second Sunday in Advent: “Advent” is from a Latin word that means “coming” and refers to the coming of Jesus. The Latin word is a direct translation of the Greek word “parousia” and means “coming”—most often in the Bible applied to the coming of Jesus. Guess what? I’m planning on giving myself a heart ablation! (I don’t think so!) Some things we need come through diligence, perseveranc...

The Triumph of Mercy

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction James 1-2 We are in James 2 and part two of a passage dealing with the sin of partiality. You will recall from last week that the literal translation of the word partiality is to “receive the face”. It’s the idea of looking merely on the outside. Man looks on the outward appearance. God looks on the heart. It’s a warning of being compromised by the superficial. Partiality has a positive and a negative aspect to it. Positively, it’s fav...