early church

  • 2 Timothy 4

    New Year's Morning Worship: Preparing to Celebrate Our 75th Year as a Church.

    It is worth celebrating the tenure of someone or something good. The long-lasting nature of something good means it was established on virtue which has been nurtured. All this year, Grace Church will be celebrating that which is virtuous in a spiritual sense and how we nurture it going forward. Those things which endure have been established on core principles and carefully maintained, and this is also true of the church. Jesus said that upon this rock (Him) He would build His church; and the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). The church endures because Jesus ensures that it will.

  • 2 Corinthians 8:16-24

    The Integrity and Character of Sharing Resources for Gospel Purposes.

    The primary application of this chapter is not an individual giving to their local church, but local churches helping one another meet needs for Gospel purposes.

  • Ephesians 4:14-16

    The Necessity of Interdependence to the Spiritual Life.

    Special Speaker: Pastor Matthew Walker from College Park Baptist Church in Cary, NC.

    God has ordained that the Christian life is to be lived not in isolation, but in conjunction with the community of saints. So how is it that Christians, particularly here in America, have become used to amputating limbs off of the body of Christ (which is the local church)? In 1 Corinthians 12:12-26, the Apostle Paul refers to the Corinthian believers as being eyes and ears and noses—body parts. This is the same kind of language that Paul uses in Romans 12:5 when he writes that we are members one of another.

    The Bible teaches that Christians are to be mutually reliant upon each other. This doctrine is incredibly important and should be a major heading in our ecclesiology (doctrine of the church). However, it has been almost entirely lost in American evangelicalism. Possible reasons include the American way of life that emphasizes independence and the rejection of denominationalism. American Christianity has become a complex collection of isolated congregations and an even more divided and isolated collection of Christians.

  • Selections from Acts

    Pastor Kent Hobi: Where Do We Go from Here?

    After the high excitement of Easter, a natural question arises: What now? After the resurrection, what does Jesus want His church to focus on until He comes back? He has clearly laid out our mission and given us the resources to determine the specific way to fulfill it. How does the church discern God’s personal will for a local body of believers?

  • Acts 14:8-23

    Introducing the Character of Timothy.

    Our theme for the year is Living Worship-Filled Lives. Romans 12:1-2 exhorts us to present our whole selves to God as a logical act of worship. This includes times of corporate worship and personal worship in prayer and reading God’s Word. But we also worship as we go about our lives, showing the fruit of what we’ve learned. The integrity of our lives should mirror how we worship on the Lord’s Day.

    As we prepare to study the Pastoral Epistles, we’ll begin by learning about Timothy, to whom Paul wrote two letters. Understanding Timothy’s character helps us understand the content of the letters written to him.