First Baptist Church Washington Illinois

As I was studying to preach over these verses, one thing I do is I typically read a lot of commentaries to see what they say, and I kept noticing over and over again the same thing relating to these verses. Most of the commentators noted in one way or another that these verses are […]

Have you ever wondered how to have a heart for people? You know, as I was reading this passage of scripture and breaking it down, I realized just much Paul had a heart for people. How he genuinely had a love for the body of Christ. I also wondered if anyone is ever surprised because […]

Are you proclaiming The gospel of God to the nations for the glory of God? if someone were to ask you how it is that you are serving the Lord, what would you say to them? Perhaps you would tell them something that you are doing in the church. Maybe it would be “I teach […]

Who is the gospel of God? You might look at the title of this message and think that I really do not know what I’m talking about or what kind of crazy English interpretation do I have going on to say, “who is the gospel of God” shouldn’t it be what is the gospel of […]

What does it mean to be slaves for the gospel of God? As I began to study Roman more deeply for this series, I became incredibly aware of my inadequacy to preach through this book. We will discover profound theological truths in the book. I genuinely believe that if the Lord will give us just […]

This morning in our final message on the church, I want to ask the question, so what? What I mean by that is when it comes to our relationship with Christ and discipleship, what difference does it really make in our life? Do you ever come to church or Bible study, and you fill your […]

We worship a glorious and great God. He is deserving of all of our praise and all of our adoration. However, we all have this problem, and it is the same problem for each and everyone one of us. People are sinful. Every people, everywhere, are sinful. O sure it may look different at different […]

What is the gospel, have you ever asked that question? Doesn't everyone know what the gospel is? Well 91% of the world’s population has heard of coke a cola 74% have seen coke a cola 51% have tasted coke a cola 10% of the world’s population has heard the Gospel Moody Monthly, in October 1993, […]

Don’t be deceived by emotions. Several years ago I was reading something by John Piper, and I came across this line that has stuck with me ever since. Your emotions are to be your gauge, not your guide. In other words, your emotions should tell you how you feel about certain things, but we should […]

Have you ever asked yourself how should I spend my Sunday? I wonder what your typical Sunday looks like? If I were to ask you to tell me your typical Sunday, what would you say, and perhaps a follow-up question would be is your typical Sunday any different than our ideal Sunday. So we can […]

Have you ever wondered what Biblical church discipline is? I wonder when you hear the word discipline, what are your first thoughts? Perhaps you envision a parent disciplining their child, and even that form of discipline can take on many different things for different people. Some children have been abused, so they may think in […]

What do you think is one of the most common complaints that nonchurchgoers have against the church? “The church just wants my money.” Often those complaints are justified, arent they. There are all kinds of churches where every Sunday, the pastor stands up and pressures the people to give more to the church so […]

What is a deacon of a church – The Deacons Role In this message, we will see that whether you are a deacon or not, if you know Christ as Savior, then you are His servant. It is not optional; we don’t get to say, well, I am not going to serve; it is required. […]

What does the Bible say about Church elders? What church elders verses are in the Bible?  How do we know if someone is qualified to be an elder, and what does the Bible say? An elder is a spiritually mature man of integrity as seen in his home life and in his character, who holds […]

This morning we will attempt to tackle a question that plagues many people, including the church, and that is this question “who’s in Charge.” If we were to ask the average person who is in charge of the church, no doubt we would get a plethora of different answers. Perhaps some would answer that the […]

Paul says that there were factions in the church that were contending for predominance. Some of these people were involved in sexual immorality, some of them were drunkards. While this church in Corinth should have had some sort of influence on the pagan culture that surrounded them, the reality was the culture had infiltrated and […]

one of the sad realities of church history is that a subject that should be a unifying one for believers is actually a dividing one. Paul told us in Ephesians 4:5 that there is “one faith, one Lord, and one baptism.” Yet we find ourselves and many godly believers differing on many aspects of “one […]

How many Christians have this thought, “Why join a church? Why not just attend and check it out for a while what’s the point of joining?” Some churches do not even have formal membership; in many of these churches, pastors and elders make all the church decisions. There are never any congregational meetings, and if […]

I want to let you know right up front that we will be looking at 10 traits of a good church. This means I will not be able to go into a great deal of detail on all of these points, but my desire is that we will have a good grasp of what a […]

The Bible tells us “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” in 1 John 5:19. According to John 8:44, he is a murderer by nature and intends to destroy those he holds captive. But “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John […]

We need to learn to deal with situations of differing personalities for several reasons. First and foremost, the command for us to love one another is no small command. It is the second greatest commandment, only after the love of God. If we do not love our brothers and sisters in Christ whom we have […]

I can’t predict the future or tell you what will happen tomorrow, but one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that if you are involved in the local church, you will have a conflict with another person at some point. That person may wrong you intentionally or unintentionally. In all likelihood, this conflict […]

What the Bible teaches about doctrinal differences. – What about doctrinal differences? Acts 15:1-21 Does the truth matter? If the truth really does matter, then doctrinal differences are to be expected. It is true that right doctrine can make an eternal difference. But when there are differences, how should we resolve them, or can we […]

There is a lot that could be said about unity and in particular church unity, however, in this message, we will focus on three areas. These are will be 1. Why is unity important 2. What unity is not 3. What unity is then we will look at applying the message.

What is the mission of the church? Working with the definition that the church’s mission is to glorify God by proclaiming the gospel to the lost and making disciples that make disciples. We will look at three specific ways the church glorifies God and what that means to our life.

So here are the three reasons the church is essential first, the church is essential because Christ promised to build it; second, the church is essential because Christ loves the church and gave Himself for her; and thirdly, The church is essential because Christ reveals His glory through it. Let me be honest with you; […]

In this series, one of my goals is to change our understanding of what church is. To take us from the prevalent consumer mindset to a Biblical mindset of the church so that we will fully understand the call to commit ourselves to a local church and that even though it is imperfect, it is […]

Peter is wrapping up his final epistle, and he is showing concern that the false teachers were plaguing the churches, so he wants the readers to persevere in their faith. I believe what we see here is that to persevere, we must guard against error, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and […]

Is it possible to be motivated by a coming judgment? The world in which we live seems to indicate that it is not possible to be motivated by coming judgment, but our concern, of course, should not be what the world thinks but what does the Bible proclaim? So here is the sentence sermon for […]

In chapter 3, verses 1-7, Peter showed that God’s day of judgment is certain despite men’s mockery. Then in verses 8-9, Peter gives two truths to help explain why God seems to delay the return of Christ to judge the world. I want to share two truths with you today: Christ’s return seems delayed because […]

Peter’s message is straightforward despite scoffers scoffing at Christ’s coming again. God’s word promises that He will come again in judgment of the whole world. Throughout these verses, notice that Peter’s emphasis is entirely on God’s Word. He mentions it in verse 2 as the authoritative message that we must remember. He refers to it […]

Peter focuses in on the sinful lifestyles of these false teachers rather than their false doctrine. We will learn in chapter 3 that one of their main errors, which always has moral ramifications to it, was they denied the second coming of Christ. If Christ is not coming back, then there is no need to […]

This text is like one giant if-then statement. Look at verse 4 that “if” could be rendered since because there is no doubt in what Peter is saying. What Peter is doing is building towards his conclusion in verse 9. The idea here is that “since God did not spare the angels when they sinned; […]

The four gospels do not leave us in the dark on the question of Who Jesus is. Repeatedly over and over again, they show us how Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecies, healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind. Raised the dead and calmed the stormy sea with a single word. Matthew begins by […]

What I believe Peter is writing here is this we need to be aware of false teachers because they will leave a trail of spiritual devastation, and Peter gives us seven reasons we should be aware, and what I am saying is THIS IS HOW we can spot a false teacher.

What I believe Peter is telling us in these verses is that what the apostles’ experience on the mount of transfiguration confirmed and clarified the truth of the Old Testament, that the Messiah would come again to judge the world and to reign in glory over His redeemed people. Therefore, we must pay attention to […]

In 2 Peter 1:16-21, the apostle gives us two proofs that our faith is not a fable. They are first the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ in verses 16-18 and secondly the written prophetic revelation of God in Scripture in verses 19-21. We have the apostolic witness in the New Testament, so these two elements […]