State Road Church

What human heart doesn't rise with hopeful longing to the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for […] The post Is Following Christ Hard or Easy? appeared first on State Road Church.

Last message we introduced the paradoxical truth that the Bible calls Christians both to judge one another within the church and to judge not. We studied 1 Corinthians 5 which describes how Paul responded to a difficult scenario that was playing out within the Corinthian church by calling that church to confront a man’s unrepentant […] The post Neither Do I Condemn You appeared first on State Road Church.

This Sunday, we’ll be blessed to have Greg Moody return to State Road’s pulpit. If you’ve only recently begun attending State Road then you may not have met Greg yet, but for longtime attenders he is obviously a very familiar figure. Greg served on staff at State Road from 1993 until 2017, first as associate […] The post God’s Spirit at Work appeared first on State Road Church.

As we continue our study through some of the paradoxical teachings of the Bible, we'll be taking up the Biblical doctrine of the trinity, which teaches that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Down through the years people have employed a number of analogies to try […] The post The Three-in-Oneness of God appeared first on State Road Church.

Have you ever noticed that the word “down” is rarely associated with anything good in the English language. We've all heard of things in decline described as “going downhill,” and we've also heard of the “down and out” and the “downtrodden.” We're familiar with words like “downfall,” “downscale” and expressions like “feeling down in the […] The post The Downward Path to Greatness appeared first on State Road Church.

The Bible often confronts us with paradoxical truths that require us to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in tension. The trinity is a famous example of this. The statement that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons is inherently paradoxical. We might ask, “Is God one or is He three?” The answer, […] The post A Fool and His Folly appeared first on State Road Church.

In Acts 2 we read the following about the early church: 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were […] The post Loving God, Loving Others, Love in Action. appeared first on State Road Church.

One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. Psalm 145:4 C.S. Lewis once wrote this about God, “For He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in the […] The post Mother’s Day appeared first on State Road Church.

We’ll be spending time in the twentieth chapter of John where we find the account of Thomas’ post-resurrection encounter with Jesus. This account is interesting to read in conjunction with Hebrews 11:1, which famously defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” If you have […] The post Thomas appeared first on State Road Church.

Jere Vincent of Family Builders Ministry will be bringing a message on Deuteronomy 6:4-9. He writes, “What has your heart? Is it your family, friends, your hobbies, or your career? Maybe it's a passion for travel, music, entertainment, or food. It's easy to find ourselves living with half-hearted devotion to God. Jesus is inviting us […] The post Our Relationship with God appeared first on State Road Church.

Paul’s conversion to Christianity is unique. Not only did Jesus Himself take the lead in seeking his conversion, but Paul’s change of mind was nearly as sudden as the flipping of a switch. One minute he was breathing threats and murder against the church, but then came the voice on the Damascus Road, “I am […] The post The Changing Mind of Paul appeared first on State Road Church.

There’s something gripping about an eyewitness account, isn’t there? It’s one thing to hear a news anchor report on some far away happening, but it is quite another to listen to someone give a firsthand account of what they actually witnessed with their own two eyes. After Jesus was raised from the dead He appeared […] The post The Road to Emmaus appeared first on State Road Church.

I can recall witnessing the baptism of a young man while I was on staff at Camp Maranatha in Southern California. The young man had put his trust in Jesus for salvation that very night following an hours-long conversation with his youth pastor, a man named Jack Williamson. I don't recall the exact time, but […] The post Easter appeared first on State Road Church.

The way Jesus entered Jerusalem on His way to the cross on that first Palm Sunday was very deliberately done to fulfill a prophecy that we find in Zechariah 9:9. 9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is […] The post Palm Sunday appeared first on State Road Church.

Ever since last fall, I have tried something different in my personal devotions. Rather than reading my way through books of the Bible I selected ten blocks of scripture and set out to memorize them over the course of the winter. I printed them out and stuck them in my car, the pockets of my […] The post Abounding in Every Good Work appeared first on State Road Church.

Genesis 22 records some unexpected words that God spoke to Abraham. He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” Now, those words are surprising for […] The post The Sacrifice of Isaac appeared first on State Road Church.

Repetition is something we see a lot of in the Bible. Joseph had duplicate dreams with the same meaning. Pharaoh did too. Jesus told the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep and the lost prodigal son all in a row to communicate the same, singular truth. On two separate occasions two different […] The post Here We Go Again appeared first on State Road Church.

Today, “Sodom” and “Gomorrah” have become almost bywords for unchecked depravity and divine judgment. The author of Genesis highlights the sexual immorality and violence of these cities, and the author of Ezekiel highlights their pridefulness and their fat-hearted disregard for the needy. (Ezekiel 16:49-50) We find the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18:20 […] The post Sodom and Gomorrah appeared first on State Road Church.

Some of you are undoubtedly wrestling with big decisions right now. According to a study cited in Psychology Today human beings make an eye-popping 35,000 choices a day. If that’s true, and I must admit that is a hard number to believe, then an average person makes 12,775,000 decisions a year. Multiply that over the […] The post Choices appeared first on State Road Church.

At Houghton College there is an indoor pool contained within the athletic complex. During my years there it was kind of a tradition for students to break into the gym after hours and go swimming in the dark. I was always kind of a stick-in-the-mud, rule-follower, and so I never took part in this particular […] The post Certain of What You Cannot See appeared first on State Road Church.

It was during my early teenage years that my parents gave me a devotional book by Chuck Swindoll entitled “Abraham…The Friend of God.” As I typed this sermon preview for the mid-week email that same dog-eared copy sits on the desk next to me. I read it through during my teenage years, and then once […] The post Before Jesus Came appeared first on State Road Church.

Here at State Road we have been called and set apart for the Great Commission purpose of making disciples of Jesus. That word, “disciple,” isn't used much outside of Christian circles. It's a Bible word meaning a fully committed follower of Jesus- a sincere, from-the-heart imitator of His example, and the way we go about […] The post Loving God appeared first on State Road Church.

George McLaughlin serves this morning as our guest speaker. George, of course, is well-known to many as he served for years as pastor of our sister church in Dunntown. He currently serves as chaplain and bereavement coordinator for Northern Light Home Care and Hospice. In this message he teaches from Mark 12:28-34. The post How Deep Is Your Love appeared first on State Road Church.

Last January I was with a team from State Road in Palenque, Mexico joining a team from Tijuana to run Brigadas in some remote villages with missionaries Craig and Kristi Libby from Mexican Medical. We had an unexpected stay at a hotel the first night we were in country and that first morning we all […] The post In Ordinary Times appeared first on State Road Church.

One of the things that impresses people when they study the Christmas narrative in depth is the way it mingles high and low things. We see a heavenly host of angels, with the glory of the Lord shining around them, but who is their audience? Simple, earthbound shepherds. Then the awesome spectacle of an angelic […] The post Christ appeared first on State Road Church.

John 3:16 tells us that it was because of His love for the world that God the Father gave His only Son. And what is that giving of Jesus except a description of Christmas? How appropriate that Christmas began with an act of giving. And the motive of the Giver was love. This messages marks […] The post Love appeared first on State Road Church.

Joy came bubbling up in me like it was under pressure and it would have broken out of my chest if I had not let it vent out through my mouth in singing. That's how I felt when I was a little boy, and my family would gather in our pew down at Chillum Community […] The post Joy appeared first on State Road Church.

This message marks the second Sunday of Advent when we light the Peace Candle. We will be celebrating the appearing of the One who was described in Old Testament prophecy as the “Prince of Peace” and whose birth the angels announced to the shepherds singing “And on earth peace to those on whom God's Favor […] The post Peace appeared first on State Road Church.

Anyone who was once a child on Christmas Eve knows something about waiting with hope. My brother, Job, and I shared a bedroom back then and it was an annual tradition for us to try and stay up and listen for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. I can recall after being sent to bed I […] The post Hope appeared first on State Road Church.

In this message we’ll be looking at the Festival of Booths (Tabernacles), which is, I think, the closest approximation in the Bible to our own holiday of Thanksgiving. It came annually at the conclusion of their harvest season and was a time of feasting and a time to express gratitude to God in worship. It […] The post Festival of Booths appeared first on State Road Church.

It was 160 years ago, at the height of the Civil War, that President Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. In his Thanksgiving Proclamation, issued on October 3, 1863 and published a couple days later in the New York Times, he spoke of the many ways that God […] The post Thanksgiving Dinner appeared first on State Road Church.

We turn our attention to the final greetings that mark the end of the letter (Colossians 4:7-18). At first blush these verses might strike us as being not particularly worthy of study and reflection. The main body of the letter, with its weighty exhortations and deep teaching, concluded in verse 6. These verses, by contrast, […] The post Grace Be With You appeared first on State Road Church.

We turn our attention to the final greetings that mark the end of the letter (Colossians 4:7-18). At first blush these verses might strike us as being not particularly worthy of study and reflection. The main body of the letter, with its weighty exhortations and deep teaching, concluded in verse 6. These verses, by contrast, […] The post Final Greetings for Colossae appeared first on State Road Church.

We continue our study through the New Testament book of Colossians by studying Colossians 3:18-4:1. This passage describes a number of relationships and how they ought to be lived out within a Gospel-shaped community. I hope you can join us as we spend time in this challenging portion of scripture together. The post Gospel-Shaped Community appeared first on State Road Church.

We will be continue our study through the New Testament book of Colossians by studying Colossians 3:12-17. In these verses we will see the important role that our church family holds as a means of grace in our lives to help us put on the new self. The post Church Family appeared first on State Road Church.

At the heart of these verses is the command to put off the old self and to put on the new.  That sort of talk from Paul raises questions in my mind. Like, how would one do that precisely? And, why does Paul use the analogy of putting on new clothes to describe our transformation […] The post Put On Christ appeared first on State Road Church.

I remember a time when Sarah and I moved out of a crummy apartment and into a better one. While we were living in the old apartment, we had been full of energy, ideas and enthusiasm to improve the place, but once the decision had been made (or even nearly made) to move into a […] The post Things Above appeared first on State Road Church.

In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, the sirens were creatures who would sing in such an alluring way that sailors would be lured in and become shipwrecked on the rocks. In Homer’s Iliad, Odysseus saved his ship and crew by plugging his sailors’ ears with beeswax and giving instructions for them to tie him securely […] The post The Siren Song of False Teaching appeared first on State Road Church.

The Colossian church to whom Paul wrote the letter that we find in our New Testaments would have been comprised almost entirely of new believers. Most of them were likely recent gentile converts who were probably not even very familiar with the Old Testament scriptures of Judaism. In the language of Colossians 2:6, they had […] The post Learning to Walk appeared first on State Road Church.

During my recent vacation I read through the book of Colossians in my personal devotions. On July 31, I made the following entry in a journal of sorts that I keep, “This morning I spent time with God in Colossians. I struggled to concentrate though. I had to read portions over and over again because […] The post Christ’s Afflictions appeared first on State Road Church.

The portion of scripture that we’ll be studying, Colossians 1:15-23, contains lyrics (verses 15-20) from what was probably an early hymn of the church. Peppered throughout the New Testament we find fragmentary evidence of the church’s earliest hymns. John 1:1-5, Philippians 2:6-11, Ephesians 2:14-16, 1 Timothy 3:16, 2 Timothy 2:11-13, Hebrews 1:3, and 1 Peter […] The post Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing appeared first on State Road Church.

Unlike Corinth, Thessalonica, Rome, Phillipi or Ephesus which were large cities, Colossae was a small town. By the time Paul wrote his letter to the church in Colossae during the first century AD, the town had become a small and insignificant place located on the road between larger population centers. Today Colossae exists only as a heap of ruins near the modern-day Turkish town […] The post Colossians appeared first on State Road Church.

The average person will spend 90,000 hours at work over a lifetime according to Andrew Naber, (industrial-organizational psychologist and data scientist). That is roughly 10.3 years. Greg Moody shared with us a couple weeks ago that the jobs we work and businesses of our employ, have a mission statement that directs the efforts of its […] The post Living On Purpose appeared first on State Road Church.

From a historic perspective it’s fascinating to think of ourselves as the people of time who are between Christ’s first coming and his second. When we read through the Bible from a top down perspective we see that God has been at work through the ages and eras of time. From the great flood, to […] The post Carrying The Family Name appeared first on State Road Church.

Paul's letter to the Ephesians has always been a popular one for believers. It offered to the early Christians necessary guidance on Christian thought and devotion. We continue to need truth about the role of grace and unity, devotion and daily living in a culture that would try to disable our commitment to Kingdom principles. […] The post Our Christian Walk appeared first on State Road Church.

It’s kind of a murky tale that leaves a lot of readers wondering who to believe. It’s the case of Mephibosheth v. Ziba. For the full context you can read 2 Samuel 4:4, 2 Samuel 9, 2 Samuel 16:1-4 and 2 Samuel 19:24-30. The principal players of this confusing story are King David, Mephibosheth (a […] The post Mephibosheth v. Ziba appeared first on State Road Church.

As we worship God through the study of His Word, we'll be learning about a woman named Rahab. You can find her story in Joshua 2. It's an interesting story filled with spies, danger, double agents, and narrow escapes. Rahab was a resident of the doomed city of Jericho and her life took an unexpected […] The post A Woman Named Rahab appeared first on State Road Church.

In Luke 7:36-50 we find an account of 1st Century party crashing. A woman who was known around town for her sinful lifestyle entered the home of a pharisee named Simon who was hosting a dinner party in Jesus’ honor. She was uninvited and unwelcome in Simon’s house but she came anyway. I imagine it […] The post A Worshipful Response appeared first on State Road Church.

This Sunday is Father’s Day and what could be more appropriate than to continue our study through the parables of Jesus by studying that of the prodigal son. You’ll find this parable in Luke 15. That chapter begins, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and […] The post True Sonship appeared first on State Road Church.

Jesus is coming back. Maybe soon. Maybe even today. Perhaps last Sunday was my last chance to preach the Gospel from the pulpit and maybe, just maybe, it was the last chance for somebody to respond to it. The date of the promised day when Jesus returns has been set and is even now fast […] The post Maybe Today appeared first on State Road Church.

If someone asked us to explain what it is that we believe as Christians I doubt that we could go much beyond a sentence or two without speaking of forgiveness. It goes almost without saying, but forgiveness is an idea that is so central to what we celebrate as Christians that there is no virtually […] The post The Unforgiving Servant appeared first on State Road Church.