Faith Community Bible Church

2022 Church Theme – Unity in Christ

Slideshow for this message is available Welcome this morning. We just finished up our advent series, Unto Us a Life is Given. What a wonderful Christmas season! Introduction I’m truly grateful to God for the inexpressible gift of life in his Son, Jesus Christ. Well today is the last Sunday of 2021. And we are going to crack open the door of 2022 by introducing our church theme. Every year the elders have a retreat where we go away and pray and we brainstorm about the culture’s problems, wh...

The Gift of Life

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction 1 John 4 We are in a series leading up to Christmas entitled, “Unto Us a Life is Given.” There are three meanings packed into that title. Unto us, a life is given. The life is the little life in the manger. Unto us, a life is given. The life is Jesus’ life given to us on the cross. Unto us, a life is given. The life is what we receive as a result of Jesus’ work. Well today we want to kind of bring these three ideas together in Ch...

The Price of Life

Good morning, Church! My name is Trent Houck, and I am one of the pastors here. This is our second message in our advent series entitled “Unto Us a Life is Given.” “Life” in this sense has three meanings: the incarnate life of Christ (the Gift of Life), eternal life (The Type of Life), and the “cross hung life” (The Price of Life). We’re examining Jesus’ life from those three perspectives to prepare our hearts for Advent. Last week, Jason brought us face to face with Cain, the cold-blooded s...

The Type of Life – 1 John 5:11-32

Slideshow for this message is available  Introduction 1 John 5 Today we really launch into the heart of our advent series. Unto us a Life is Given. There are three meanings packed into that title. Those three meanings will be the next three messages. Unto us, a LIFE is given. Meaning #1: The LIFE is the LIFE of baby Jesus in the manger. This little life, little hands, little body was given to us. Unto us a life is given. That sermons will be titled, “The Gift of Life.” That’s represented i...

The Way of Life

Introduction John 13-14 Well, open your Bible’s to John chapter 14. When I was in high school my parents took us up the Puget sound to go sailing. My uncle knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who was ‘really good’ - one of those confidence inducing relationships. So we set out and the wind was stiff but we were nicely protected by this large peninsula that was jutting out into the open water. Everything was going great until we lost the shelter of that peninsula. As soon as we hit the...

Weaker Than We Think

Slideshow for this message is available  Introduction John 13:1-14:7 Latency is the gap that exists between reality and the moment you are able to perceive that reality. So for example, we all know that the sun is a long ways away. It’s about 93 million miles away which means that if the sun somehow disappeared instantly it would take about 8 minutes for us to realize it. There would be 8 minutes of latency between the reality and the perception of reality. In the medical field there a...

Ultimate Power through Ultimate Service

We live in a culture that has completely lost its bearings. Everybody is searching for answers. It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, democratic or republican, rich or poor. Nobody is looking at the world and giggling with glee saying, "This is playing out EXACTLY as I had hoped." We have unity over one thing: this is not utopia. And everybody is trying to fix it in their own way. Everybody is trying to suggest solutions to the problem. And when one way doesn't work, the next ...

The Mystery of Unbelief

Introduction People see what they want to see, especially when it relates to the image that we have of ourselves. For example, a person might think they are pretty smart. Then they run across someone who is leagues more intelligent and super well-read. And that creates this mental discrepancy because the view of self isn’t matching reality. As so that person might resolve that dissonance by saying, “I’d read way more if I had more time.” Or a person might think of themselves as a really good ...

The Goodness of Affliction

The Goodness of Affliction (Frasers background) It matters little what the work is in which we are engaged so long as God has put it into our hearts. The faithful doing of it is of no greater importance in one case than in another. The plain truth is that the Scriptures never teach us to wait for opportunities of service, but to serve in just the things that lie next to our hands.’ -- James O. Fraser – Mountain Rain Looking back over the years, we see how true these words are in our life an...

Lose Your Life to Find It

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction John 12 Last week was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. You will remember from John 8 to John 12 there were three death threats on Jesus’ life leading up to passover. That increasing pressure and mounting danger caused people to ask, “Do you think he’ll come to the feast at all?” And so there’s this incredible suspense because on the one hand you have this incredible miracle working messiah claiming to be God which has the crowds clam...

Save Us!

Introduction John 11-12 Now today we are studying what is traditionally known as the triumphal entry. But its not triumphant at all. It’s actually tragic. It’s depressing. It’s grossly carnal. That may surprise you. Maybe you’ve only thought of this event as a high point, a ministry mountaintop for Jesus. Why are we using words like tragedy, depressing and carnal to describe an event in which the nation of Israel pours out of the city to welcome Jesus as King. Well, let’s take a closer look....

John 12:12-19 (Save Us)

Introduction John 11-12 Now today we are studying what is traditionally known as the triumphal entry. But its not triumphant at all. It’s actually tragic. It’s depressing. It’s grossly carnal. That may surprise you. Maybe you’ve only thought of this event as a high point, a ministry mountaintop for Jesus. Why are we using words like tragedy, depressing and carnal to describe an event in which the nation of Israel pours out of the city to welcome Jesus as King. Well, let’s take a closer look....

Mary Anoints Jesus

Slideshow for this message is available John 12 Introduction Today we are in John chapter 12 and this passage immediately follows the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Now if you remember how that story ended, you had some who fell on their faces and worshiped in belief. Others determined to kill him in unbelief. Chapter 12 is this masterful inclusion to show us just how POLARIZED things are becoming in the minds and hearts of men. Chapter 12 doesn’t have a miraculous sign. The point of ch...

Dr. Tedd Tripp

The Sovereignty of Unbelief

Slideshow for this message is available Introduction Two weeks ago we looked at the miraculous resurrection of Lazarus. This is one of the few miracles in the Bible that is recorded where God intentionally contrives to make the miracle itself more dramatic. You will recall that Jesus had fled to Perea and he gets word that Lazarus was sick. And Jesus says, "This is not a sickness that leads to death." And that runner presumably carries that message back to Mary and Martha. Your brother, e...

Jonah

John 11:17-44 (The Raising of Lazarus)

Introduction Well today we get to tell the story of the raising of Lazarus. This is a fun story to tell. There’s no outline today. There’s no real sermonizing to speak of. The goal is to just let the story out. To just let the characters come to life, to feel the drama, to fill in the context so that there’s no longer pages of text. You are there. You are one of the characters living in the narrative itself. And if we do that well, then you will believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of Go...

1 Timothy 1:15-17

No sermon transcript available.

Loved to Death

Introduction As a society we disagree. With so many people, so many backgrounds, perspectives, religions, this disagreement is inevitable. Now, resolving factual disputes, in theory, should be relatively easy: find a group of experts to collect the data and ask them to lay out the conclusions. This approach works fabulously when the issue at stake is the atomic weight of helium. We hear the expert opinion and we have no reason to question it. It’s settled. But what if those FACTS have impli...

Challenging The Divine

Introduction We are in the Book of John. And as we have pointed out, belief is a huge theme. The word “believe” in it’s various conjugations occurs over 110 times in the book. John wrote the book so that you might believe. Believe what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God. Why would he care if you believe this? Because by believing you may have life in his name. You want life, ZOA, meaning, purpose? Then believe what Jesus says about who he is. And in that moment of belief thi...

Challenging The Divine (John 10:27-42)

Introduction We are in the Book of John. And as we have pointed out, belief is a huge theme. The word believe in it’s various conjugations occurs over 110 times in the book. John wrote the book so that you might believe. Believe what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God. Why would he care if you believe this? Because by believing you may have life in his name. You want life, ZOA, meaning, purpose? Then believe what Jesus says about who he is. And in that moment of belief this MI...

The Miracle of Unbelief

Introduction So a few years ago, my friend Nate and I were experimenting with alternate forms of energy. I’ve been interested in this from my earliest days as a child. And one of the things we stumbled across was people making methane generators from cow manure. So we thought this would be a good idea to try. Now the first experiment was to just see if we could capture the methane gas. All we needed for the experiment was three things: We needed a container We needed a slurry of the m...

The Good Shepherd – Part 2

Introduction Last week we talked about the good shepherd. A good shepherd is one who BOTH provides and protects the sheep. He takes us to still waters, restores our weary, aching heart, and fends off the evil predators. A good shepherd is somebody who takes care of everything. We are all born with a deep desire for that kind of shepherding. Additionally, we are all born with tremendous optimism that we will find this good shepherd. We invest a lot of time and energy looking for someone who ...

The Good Shepherd – Part 1

Introduction I want to begin this morning by considering power. One of the ways of looking at history is by observing the construction and destruction of power. There are periods of history where power is consolidated and then other periods of history where power is dispersed. There’s this constant ebb and flow. And the cycle works like this: First there is a very small, very powerful group of leaders who begin to abuse their power. And the people who suffer, chafe at it. And they say the pr...

The Rights of a Believer

Love In The Furnace of Trial

Life in His Love Summer Series

From Sighing to Singing

Blinded by the Light

## Introduction Today, we get the privilege of telling the story of John 9. The story is one of my absolute favorites. It has conflict, politics, miracles, threats, sarcasm, deceit and irony as thick as molasses. Today is one of those days when the most important job I have is to not get in the way of the story. So that’s the goal. Let’s begin by re-reading from last week: That’s basically where we stopped last week. We were given this insight into God’s sovereign purposes for suffering. We d...

Blinded by the Light (John 9:13-38)

IntroductionToday, we get the privilege of telling the story of John 9. The story is one of my absolute favorites. It has conflict, politics, miracles, threats, sarcasm, deceit and irony as thick as molasses. Today is one of those days when the most important job I have is to not get in the way of the story. So that’s the goal. Let’s begin by re-reading from last week:That’s basically where we stopped last week. We were given this insight into God’s sovereign purposes for suffering. We discov...

The Purpose of Suffering

IntroductionThe longer we live, the more we realize how unfixable certain problems are and how broken this world really is. Infertility can’t be fixed by empathy, compassion, and kind words. All the counseling in the world can’t erase the effects of your parents divorce, a terminal illness, or an unplanned pregnancy. The miracle of medicine can’t fix your child born with down syndrome, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophe, or a host of other problems.All of this falls under the c...

I Am Everything

IntroductionSo we are going through the book of John line by line, paragraph by paragraph. Why do we do that? Because we believe these words of God reveal Jesus to us.John reveals the nature of Jesus. And under this heading of the nature of Jesus, there are many interesting things BUT one main thing.The main thing we learn in the book of John is that Jesus is God, and today we see perhaps the most clear declaration of that anywhere in the Bible.Now before we even move an inch into this text, ...

The Proof is in the Pudding

IntroductionLet’s begin this morning with an egg.What can you tell me about this egg by looking at its shell? You can tell me its size: medium. You can tell me its color: white. But there are all kinds of invisible things just beneath that shell that are super significant and really, really matter.For example, it could be a freshly laid egg, ready to eat.It could be a six month old rotten egg filled with salmonella.It could be hard boiled. You can’t tell.Now I’m going to claim that this is ac...

Freedom and Truth

IntroductionLast week we celebrated Memorial Day. Thank you to the many who have served our country to provide us freedom. In less than a month we get to celebrate the 4th of July which is America’s Independence Day. This holiday is set aside to remember when we as a nation declared our independence from England and established self-rule. Now that’s a good thing, right? If anything is truly American it’s freedom.The answer isn’t as obvious as we might hope because the message of the Bible is ...

Sin and Death

IntroductionMy house was built 30 years ago; the original roof was shot. Every windstorm that came along, more and more shingles went missing. That big windstorm this spring really did a number on it. So in my mind, I knew that for sure it needed to happen this spring. I’ve replaced several roofs in my life and so I was planning on doing the work myself. But, let me just tell you, that kind of work is not easy and I was dreading it; I have been psyching myself up all winter to put in a series...

Follow the Light

Follow the LightJohn 8:12–20IntroductionC.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”I love that quote because what he’s saying is that Christianity not just an abstract truth, it’s also something that brings sense to the world.Maybe C.S. Lewis took this from Ps 36:9, which says, “In your light we see light.”When you turn on the TV, pull up YouTube, or look at a Twitter feed, you’re in...

The Text, its Transmission, its Translation, and the Truth

IntroductionWe are in John chapter 8 this morning. And today is not your normal sermon and you’ll see why in just a second.Let’s begin in Samuel.When you read through the book of Samuel and Kings you very quickly pick up on a pattern. Here’s the pattern: when the author introduces us to a new king, he uses this formulaic introduction that looks like this:So hopefully you are seeing the idea. This formula is used at least 16 times that I could find. Now, there’s an interesting problem when you...

Rivers of Living Water

We are in John chapter 7. If you’ve been with us, you’ll recall that in chapters 1-6 Jesus has been ministering in and around Judea and Galilee for the better part of two years. He’s been healing, preaching, and casting out demons.And all this activity has thrust Jesus into the public eye. His ministry is well-known and his controversial claims are circulating and percolating in the minds of the masses.John chapter seven paints this wild portrait of the swirling, unstable nature of that contr...

Decision Point

IntroductionThe definition of controversy is – prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion. Controversial political policies, controversial interest groups and best of all controversial people.In our modern era, one of the ways to objectively identify a controversial public figure is to track the number of times their entry on Wikipedia has been modified. Since anyone can suggest an edit to a Wikipedia entry, the number of edits reflects how much we care about the content of a Wikipedi...

Misunderstanding Jesus

IntroductionI want to open by describing this knife here. This knife has a handle that is attached to this blade. And of course it is designed to cut. What makes the blade effective is two flat sides converging forging this sharp edge.What if you only had one flat side. You could imagine a blade that was in a half-cylinder sort of shape.This would be ineffective. Try to cut a tomato with that?!But as soon as you add another flat side at the perfect angle, you create an effective, razor sharp ...

Where Else Can We Go?

Where else can we go?John 6:60-71John 6:60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who ...

Eat, Drink, Believe

Missions UpdateI want to begin this morning with a missions update from our partners in India. We support two couples, Tia and Atula and Murry and Louivani.They have a two-fold mission. First, they train up students in a seminary and provide them training for the pastorate and the mission field. Recently they have moved their seminary from Bagalore which is the tech capital of the world to a more strategic spot in the north called Nagaland.It’s a little different up here. The reason they move...

The Bread of Life

What we just read is the background and context for the Easter message today. These are two of the most well-known miracles of Jesus. Even if you are only marginally familiar with the life of Christ you probably know that he multiplied bread to feed 5000 people (it’s the only miracle recorded in all four gospels) and you probably have heard this story about him walking on water.These two stories are recorded for us to focus our attention on a problem that only Jesus can solve. It’s what the s...

Jesus’ Witnesses

Witnesses to Jesus – John 5:30-47 – FCBCINTRODUCTIONAnd the older you get, the more you realize how silly it is when you’re younger to think you’ve got everything figured out. The older we get, and the more we experience and learn, it can either make us more humble and wise or more prideful and stubborn. I think spiritual maturity is similar. We can become more humble and wise related to spiritual things, or more prideful and stubborn, thinking we’ve got it all figured out.We’re going to see ...

God’s Life; Our Life

IntroductionSo my son Caleb was playing golf this week with two of his friends, Hudson Hughes and another one of his friends named Bradley. They approach the last hole and they are tied. All three of them tee off. All three hit it in the water. They all drop. Bradley hits next and rolls it up on the green to within about 15 feet. So it’s makeable but that’s a pretty long putt. Now, out of nowhere a seagull comes along and starts nudging the ball with his beak and it and moves like a foot or t...

The Pool of Bethesda

IntroductionAs we begin, open your Bibles to John chapter 5. You may remember, Jesus starts out his ministry in the region of Judea where we have the city of Jerusalem and the temple.Judea is where we get the ministry of John the Baptist, the temptation in the wilderness, the cleansing of the temple and the conversation with Nicodemus. This is a period of 4-6 months. And during this period we have building curiosity about who Jesus was.Now there is a point where John the Baptist is thrown int...

The Nobelman’s Son

IntroductionWe are in the book of John so open your Bibles to John chapter 4. Many of you know that we have a youth ministry here that has been artfully named.And it’s being led by our faithful youth and family pastor Trent Houck who we know and love. Last last week I inadvertently offended a certain unnamed group in the room. I was summarizing Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well and I said, “Jesus saves by eliminating thirst.” And I could see Trent’s eyebrow raise from 30 rows back...

Hungry and Satisfied

IntroductionWell we are now four chapters into the gospel of John and we have arrived at the story of the woman at the well. And one of the things we’ve tried to mention now a few times is that this book is written for a very specific reason. And because he’s got a purpose, he’s being very selective.We have to keep in mind that there are many things that could have been included in the book of John that are not there. Let me illustrate this way.Have you ever noticed that Mt, Mk, Lk, John and ...

Thirsty and Satisfied

Good morning church, it is a joy and a privilege to be with you today. If you are new here this morning and don’t know me, my name is Ryan Patterson and I am the pastor of worship and young adults. My exhortation usually comes in the form of singing or at least behind a guitar so I am praying that God would grant me the grace to put on display His glory from behind the pulpit this morning. It is such a joy to lead you in the singing portion of our worship week to week and my aim whether it’s ...

He Must Increase

We are in the gospel of John and today we continue in John chapter 3 so open your Bibles with me to this great narrative. As we begin, I want you to think about what makes a good mystery novel. Perhaps the mystery begins with a serious crime and the investigation team descends upon the crime scene and nothing makes sense. Suspects are identified but every suspect has a perfect alibi. There is contradictory evidence and giant gaps in the information. Where you think evidence should be there is...