Faith Community Bible Church

Spiritual Espionage

IntroductionWe are in the story of amazing love, the greatest story ever told. So turn with me today to John chapter 3.The book of John as you will recall begins with this dramatic introduction to the person of Jesus Christ. We are introduced to him as creator of the universe; the creator of matter with all its complexity, power, design (all of it); all things were made by him and for him and through him. The opening verses introduce us to this omnipotent power!Then we are told in verse 14 th...

The Age of Zealots

Intro – Age of ZealotsGood morning! For those of you who I haven’t had a chance to meet my name is Brian Baughman. I’m a husband, a father, a Life Group leader, and we’ve been attending the church for roughly 6 years.Today’s message is titled Age of Zealots, and we will be in John chapter 2.Maccabean Intro2200 hundred years ago a group of men packed into a room with only a few flickering lights. Times were tough in Jerusalem, and the leader looked around and said, “Guys, you know why we are h...

Water to Wine to Worship

IntroductionWe are in the gospel of John, the story of amazing love. This story is structured around seven signs.Now notice the book of John doesn’t call them miracles, but rather signs. Why were they called signs? Because Jesus’ miracles were not just bare, naked exercises in supernatural power, they were commercials, supernatural commercials. They were commercials advertising the truth of who Jesus was.Jesus presumably performed hundreds of miracles in his ministry but the book of John hand...

Follow Me

We are in the Gospel of John, this story of Amazing Love. Now in seminary you are told to start every sermon with an introduction that kind of grabs your attention and then moves into the message. Can I ask you a question, “Do I have your attention?” Good, that was the introduction.We have lots to cover this morning so we are going to jump right into it. Last week was part one of the story of John the Baptist. We tried to overcome the unfortunate impression that many of us have: that because ...

Outranked!

IntroductionWell, we are in our new Series on the Book of John entitled “The Story of Amazing Love.”This is the story of love come to rescue. This is the story of the Love of God intersecting the rebellion of men. It’s the greatest story ever told. It’s a story, that if believed, will give you life. And we need life. Life is not just binary. Are you alive or dead? We speak of a quality of life.Do you feel depressed, hopeless, or lacking purpose? You need life!Do you feel sickly in heart? Are ...

The Power of Grace and Truth

We are in a new series on the gospel of John entitled “The Story of Amazing Love.” Last week we introduced the book from John 1:1-5.And we saw from this text two things. First, Jesus Christ did not have a beginning. In the beginning, was the Word. God had no beginning. In the beginning, God was wasing. In the beginning, God was already there and had always been there. Second, Jesus Christ was the creator. All things were made through him. All the energy in the universe, 10^70th joules of powe...

Life in His Love

## IntroductionWe are on the verge of a new year. I know a lot of you are going to be really sad to say goodbye to 2020. We’ve all really bonded with this year and as we say goodbye, we might experience some detachment, mourning, and grief associated with genuine loss. But with a stiff upper lip we’ll try our best to move forward and not just live in the nostalgia of Covid and masks, rioting, political debate. Now in all seriousness, 2020 will be part of your story. You will look back and tel...

Trouble to Peace

Each week in our Advent series we are talking about a transformation that has taken place as a result of the coming of Jesus Christ. Things were this way and now because of the advent of Christ, they are this way. We talked first about a change that happened to Christ himself, a change from strength to weakness. Last week, we talked about a change that happened to those who heard the announcement of that Messianic birth, a change from sorrow to joy. Today for our Christmas message we talk abo...

Strength to Weakness

We are into advent season and our theme is Love What Has Changed. Each week of advent we are going to talk about something significant that has changed because of the advent (the coming) of Jesus Christ. When Christ came into the world what changed? What was once this way and then after he came it became this way?Well, this week we want to focus on a change that happened to Christ himself. In becoming a man, Jesus went from strength to weakness. He went from being almighty God to an all-depen...

Lessons from the Dying

IntroductionWe have a longer text to go through today, so I’m just going to read it and then we’ll dive in.The HourglassI have an hourglass here that is going to represent our life. When a man or woman is born, that moment when that baby slips out of the shoot and takes it’s first breath represents the turning of the glass and the sand begins to fall. With every minute of your life, a grain falls through that tiny crack. You can see the pile accumulating at the bottom of the jar. But here’s t...

Rejoice. Pray. Give Thanks.

1 THESS. 5:16-18  --  REJOICE. PRAY. GIVE THANKS.   Video RecordingShared some of this with Cru students recently. Challenging season we’re in!I want to look at one really short passage in 1 Thessalonians 5. Memorized in college. Helps me to this day!Whole letter is awesome; take 15 minutes to read itToday – just 3 tiny but powerful versesRead 5:16-18 “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”Right aw...

God’s Good Keeps Giving – Genesis 46:1 – 47:27 – MISSIONS FOCUS

God’s Good Keeps Giving

Good morning! My name is Kirk and I serve as one of the pastors here at FCBC. It’s an absolute privilege to gather with our church family this morning, sing, and set our affections on Jesus together. This week in particular I’ve remembered what a privilege I have to get to be employed to serve this church body. And one reason I feel so privileged is that one of my roles in my pastoral calling here is oversight of our Outreach efforts. And as part of that I also serve on our church’s global mi...

The Revelation of Purpose

Good morning, and let me just add my greeting to the ones you’ve already had today, especially if you are visiting with us in person or online. My name is Kirk and I’m one of the pastors here at FCBC. One of the things I do as I feel to serve our church family in my role on staff is to oversee our Life Groups. So I want to give you a bit of an update about our Life Groups before we dive into the Joseph story today.Sunday worship gatherings are vital to our growth in faith in Jesus, but the Bi...

Testing or Torture

We are in a series on the life of Joseph. But actually, it’s kind of misleading to say that. It’s not less than that. But it’s definitely more than that. Yes, Genesis 37-50 is the story of Joseph but it’s also the story of Reuben and Gad and Asher and Naphtali and Rachel and Leah and Jacob and Potiphar, Potiphar’s wife, and Pharaoh. Whenever God is doing one thing, he’s doing 1,000 things. There are so many threads at work in the narrative. We know about some more than others, but God is work...

The Sorrow of Genuine Loss

Well, I’m so excited to be back in the narrative this morning and to introduce the main point, I want to read the opening line from Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina. It begins this way:By that, Tolstoy meant that for a family to be happy, it had to succeed in several key aspects. And for that reason, every happy marriage looks similar. They communicate well, they work out conflict, and they are self-sacrificing. All good families share these traits. Bad families will be bad in a million differen...

The Sorrow of Genuine Lo

Well I’m so excited to be back in the narrative this morning and to introduce the main point, I want to read the opening line from Tolstoy’s novel Anna Kerenina. It begins this way:By that, Tolstoy meant that for a family to be happy, it had to succeed in several key aspects. And for that reason every happy marriage looks similar.They communicate well.They work out conflict.They are self-sacrificing.All good families share these traits. Bad families will be bad in a million different ways. Th...

Rotting in Regret

Good morning church! I want to briefly give you a Youth Update, and let you know that some of our youth leaders will be in the foyer after each service if you’re interested in finding out more information about this ministry. A few high-level facts to praise God for:First, the Gospel is being proclaimed: We just finished a year-long series on the book of Acts called, “What is the Church?” and now we’re headed into three months looking at Genesis 1-11. What we want our kids walking away with m...

Forgiveness Never Ends

So we are deep into the Joseph story and we have arrived at what I think represents the power climax in Joseph’s life. Last week’s message was entitled “The Greatest Promotion of All Time.” And I really think this might be true. What man in history could have been promoted faster, further, and higher than Joseph? For 13 years of his life, he had either been a slave or a prisoner. And when you are in either of these positions your job is to simply listen and do. You do not exercise your will. ...

The Greatest Promotion of All Time

Every time I leave downtown there’s this big billboard that says what the winning lottery prize is: $300 million. And I know I’m not supposed to fantasize about this as a pastor, but I think, what would I do with 300 million dollars? And it’s such an intriguing thing to think about because right now we are all limited by our finances. We want to do things, but we can’t because we don’t have the power to do what we want. Money is just liquid power. You can get a lot done if you have a lot of p...

A Dream Come True

We are deep into the heart of the Joseph narrative. Joseph has gone from mountain high to valley low to mountain high to valley low. Last week we spent some time with Joseph in that valley. Joseph had been unjustly thrown into a dungeon for a crime he did not commit. He was accused of attempted rape and was punished without trial. Last week we talked a lot about how Joseph dealt with his dungeon trouble. We are all in the dungeon at times in our life, but very few will suffer as much as Josep...

Dungeon Academy

We are now several weeks into the story of Joseph and we have watched him go from mountain high to valley low to mountain high to valley low. Joseph started at the top. He was dad’s favorite. Everyone else got thrift store hand me downs and Joe got the Louis Vitton shoes and the Supreme hoodie. But then tragedy strikes and he descends into the valley. And it’s deep. His brothers strip him of his swag and he’s tied to the back of a pooping camel, drug south deep into the nation of Egypt, and s...

Faithful Without Hope

I love survival stories. One of my absolute favorites is entitled “The Endurance,” and is about Earnest Shackleton’s attempt to cross the Antarctic Continent from 1914-1917. And what makes it so gripping is the cycles of hope and despair. You’re reading along and they are enduring unbelievable catastrophes. They are getting stuck in ice, their ship sinks, they are in open seas on an iceberg. They run out of key supplies. And you think to yourself, “Wow, I can’t imagine this getting any worse....

Flee for Your Life

 We have been following the narrative of Joseph and we have watched Joseph go from basking in the privileges afforded to the favorite son of a doting father, to an object that is auctioned off at a slave market to the highest bidder. We have watched his brothers strip his coat from his body like skin from an animal. And that began a process by which his entire identity was just as violently stripped away from him. His language was stripped, culture stripped, values, name, reputation, influen...

The Favor of God in a Foreign Land

Introduction Okay, so we are in this incredible story which narrates the life of Joseph. And I use this word incredible in the most literal sense of the word. In-credible. Not credible. I mean who would believe this story. How does a Hebrew slave in Pharaoh’s prison rise to the most powerful station in the Ancient Near Eastern context? Statistically speaking this is an impossibility, socially, economically, and politically. Impossible. And you’d think that if something like actually did ...

The Pit of Hate

Introduction Life is hard. Do you agree? We all struggle with disappointment. I’ve never heard anybody say, “My family met and actually exceeded my highest expectations.” Parents disappoint their children. Children disappoint their parents. Spouses disappoint one another. We all have to choke down the bitter consequences of poor choices we’ve made that might last for months, years, or decades. Serious health problems, financial problems, and political problems constantly plague us....

Jealousy and a Big Dream

Introduction So in our studies so far this year, we have tried to re-enforce our theme, “Change What You Love.” We began with wisdom literature in our study of Ecclesiastes. We did two topical summer series, love the commandment and love the church. And now we are going to end the year with narrative. Today we begin a 16 week series on the life of Joseph that will take us to Christmas. In our study of Joseph we see in narrative fashion how love changes. We see the bad love behind j...

Love, Jealousy, and a Big Dream

## Introduction So in our studies so far this year, we have tried to re-enforce our theme, “Change What You Love.” We began with wisdom literature in our study of Ecclesiastes. We did two topical summer series, Love the Commandment and Love the Church. And now we are going to end the year with a narrative. Today we begin a 16-week series on the life of Joseph that will take us to Christmas. In our study of Joseph, we see in narrative fashion how love changes. We see the bad love behind jea...

Love the Church- Part 3

Week 3: Love the Church… because it’s a community fighting for authenticity in a world of hypocrisy Let’s pray: God we come to you this morning and admit our weakness. We admit that in the battles of life we often fail to fight for truth and love like we ought to. We’ve laid our swords and shields down and we have suffered as a result. We thank you that you sent Jesus who fought on our behalf to deliver us from all our enemies. We pray now that you would truly give strength in this moment ...

Love the Church- Part 1

The sermon transcript is available to view or download HERE.

Love the Church

The sermon transcript is available to view or download HERE.

Love the Commandment – Consider

Our theme for the year is "Change what You Love." And the original idea behind the theme this year was to confront the idea that the things we love are somehow fatalistically, genetically hardwired and therefore impossible to change. Our love can change. And it's a choice. We all came in this morning with love that needs changing. And we emphasized three things. - It possible to change. - You have control over that change. - It's the main thing God wants you to do with your life. The gre...

Love the Commandment – Serve

Well, we are in our summer series entitled "Love the Commandment" and we'll begin this morning by showing you four images. Each of these are related but slightly different but all will help illustrate where we are going this morning. The first is a picture that will trigger PTSD in some. I think almost every parent at some point in their child's development tries to get their kid to learn some musical instrument. Perhaps you have been on the receiving end of this cruel and unusual punishme...

Love the Commandment – Seek/Guard

Announcements As we begin this morning, I want you all to realize that God is using FCBC to bless many people in India in some very significant ways during Coronavirus. Let me read an update from the pastors we support: We believe that our staying back due to Covid-19 lockdown, served its purpose well. God makes no mistakes! Through your giving, we extended the help to more than 220 people. We extended our help with kind and cash, from needy at the Mission Field to the poor in the slums ...

Love the Commandment – Believe/Repent

Introduction Well, last week we introduced our summer series entitled "Love the Commandment." And we said last week that this series was connected both to our study of Ecclesiastes and our theme for the year. Last week we mostly talked about how this series related to Ecclesiastes. We described how Solomon was this lusty stallion that wanted it all. He was the great hedonism experimenter who left us his conclusion, the last page in his journal, and at the very end of his life, he said, "Wa...

Why God Gives Us Commands

## Introduction Well, today we begin a new 7-week summer series that both connects to the book of Ecclesiastes and our theme for the year and we are titling this series "Love the Commandment." Today is an introduction message to the series so it's more conceptual in nature. Here's how our new summer series ties into the book of Ecclesiastes. If you back out and just look at the man Solomon, you really have to admire him. He was serious about being happy. He was willing to work to be happy. ...

Ecclesiastes 12:9-17

The sermon transcript is available to view or download HERE.

Remember God To Enjoy Your Life and Your Death

Remember God to Enjoy Your Life and Your Death I don’t know about you, but Ecclesiastes has proven to be even more of a blessing than I had anticipated when we first dove into this book. First of all, let’s just stop for a minute and see the goodness of God’s providence in bringing this book to us to be explored, read, studied, and applied during this uncertain season. Think about it, none of us could have predicted what 2020 had in store for us with the COVID-19 pandemic. In an instance we...

Remember God To Enjoy Your Life and Your Death

Stability in the Unknown

We are in the penultimate chapter of Ecclesiastes and man, it's been a ride. What an amazing book God has preserved for us! Solomon has given us a lot of help in this book. - He's helped us come to grips with the vapor-like nature of life. - He's helped us to see that God's gifts are meant to be enjoyed but were never designed to ultimately fulfill. - He's helped us appreciate the value of wisdom. The book of Ecclesiastes has functioned as a mirror to help us see God, ourselves, and real...

How Will You Lead

Introduction Okay, so we return to our study in Ecclesiastes, and today we tackle the second part of chapter 10 so jump in your Bible to Ecclesiastes 10. I'm hoping that even though we are still not able to meet together corporately, many of you are gathering in homes, with another family or two. Today, there are a few human beings in the room with me. I can't tell you how cool that is! So let's get after it. Get your eyes on the pages of your Bible so you can see it for yourself. Here's an...

You Can’t Win But You Can Be Wise

Welcome to our Livestream service. I wanted to give you an update on our phased approach to reopening. As was mentioned in our newsletter, starting Monday we will have sign-ups for live services in very limited numbers that will slowly open up as the city lifts restrictions. More on that later but for now I wanted to give a pastoral word regarding our plan to meet. There are two extreme polar positions represented in our society right now. On the one hand, you have those who interpret any b...

Reasons to Enjoy Life

Reasons to Enjoy Life Well, good morning, my name is Jason Wolin and I'm one of the pastors on staff here and it's great to be with you again today. We began with this video on biblical joy to set the joy of Ecclesiastes in its proper context. Today we continue where we left off last week. We saw Solomon commending joy to us. He's commending to us a simple formula of how to enjoy life. Enjoy what you understand. Trust when you don't. In order for us to really enjoy the good simple gifts of f...

The Blind Joy

Well, thanks for watching this morning. I’m sure many of you are wondering when we will be able to gather together corporately. Well, we do as well! There has been some communication from the governor that indicates that some of the gathering restrictions might lift as soon as next week. So please stay tuned via our newsletter and website satisfiedinjesus.org to find out the most recent plan. For now, we are back in the book of Ecclesiastes. Now last week we talked about the danger of saying...

Time Lapse Theory

Introduction Welcome to our prerecorded livestream. We are living in uncertain and unprecedented times, in fact so much so that people are getting really tired of hearing the words uncertain and unprecedented! All of us are asking the same question? How long will it be before we can gather again? How long will it be before we open up the economy? What are some metrics we can use where we can safely say, “Things are good.” We are all tired of relating to one another through screens. We ...

What Life Does to You

Introduction He is risen. He is risen indeed. It was so good to see all your faces this Sunday in that video and I just want to celebrate Jesus Christ today. What a Savior we have! Friday we remembered the death of Jesus Christ on a cross and while tragic it would be no different than any of the hundreds of thousands, even millions of other unjust torturous deaths in the history of the world were in not for what we are celebrating this morning. JESUS CHRIST, yes died…. BUT….. has risen from ...

Prone to Wander

Alright, well today is Palm Sunday which remembers the day when Jesus road into Jerusalem and was welcomed by the crowds shouting, “Hossana” which means, save us! It’s a cry for help. It’s an acknowledgment of need. It’s a cry that says, “You can provide something for me that I can’t provide for myself.” That’s what Israel was doing. They were saying, “Jesus, we have a need that only you can meet.” Now what is that need? It is often the case, that there is a pretty big difference between...

Loving & Living God’s Better Wisdom

LOVING & LIVING IN GOD’S BETTER WISDOM  - Eccl. 7:1-14 Well, good morning again to everyone watching online.  It’s good to have you joining us, whether you are a member, regular attender or someone “visiting” our live stream Sunday service today. In fact we have people from other parts of the world, including England and even India that tune into our livestream…so welcome all around the world! Now, before we start in our Bible passage this morning, I promised last week that we would give o...

Considering Our Heart’s Contentment

CONSIDERING OUR HEARTS CONTENTMENT Well, good morning to everyone watching online, whether you are a member, regular attender or someone “visiting" our live stream Sunday service today. As we enter into the second week of our “livestream only” gatherings, we pray you are able to enjoy God’s word through this gift of technology. We also pray that we will be able to be back to our “normal” gatherings very soon. Now, before we start in our Bible passage this morning, I’d like to give you a bit...

Evaluating Your Desires

PRAYER Lord we pray for our church right now to be focused on you and to be loving toward one another. Help us to be loving. There are those living in fear right now. I confess, I’ve not had a loving attitude. I’ve been dismissive and judged. Lord, help us to love your children, to love those who need the gospel, to be your hands and feet. Focus our minds on you. Drive our affections. Rewire what we care about. Change what we love. Amen. We are in the book of Ecclesiastes learning about t...