Faith Bible Church Spokane

In the immediate aftermath of wildfires that destroyed hundreds of homes in Spokane, the preacher argues from Ephesians 1:17-23 that the same immeasurable, resurrection-and-ascension power God worked in exalting Christ as head over all things is now actively directed toward believers, sustaining and 'rescuing and rescuing and rescuing' them until they finally reach home with him.

Knowing the hope of our eternal calling; our future home with God and our forever family of saints; transforms how believers live now, giving them the strength to resist the false promises of lesser gods and lesser homes.

We should pray that we would know God better, being thankful for the hope, riches, and power we have in the exalted Lord Jesus, and asking the Spirit to open the eyes of our heart to believe what we already know to be true.

Believers can stay firm in worship through every storm of life because God has freely and eternally determined to make them his own inheritance in Christ, and what he starts he will finish.

God's plan revealed in Ephesians 1 is to unite all things; including America; under the lordship of Christ, so Christians should praise God for redeeming grace, receive the revealed gospel, and rejoice in Christ's coming reign rather than elevate national identity above Christ.

Because God chose and predestined his people before the foundation of the world purely out of his own loving will and not because of anything in them, believers should respond with humble worship rather than seeking identity or worth in performance, achievement, or others' opinions.

Ephesians teaches that salvation in Christ is never merely individual; being united to Jesus necessarily unites believers to one another across every ethnic, social, and economic line, and that shared union in Christ is what fuels worship and a worthy walk together.

God's grace, experienced by a church, produces an inward compulsion to plant and send out new churches; seen in the Antioch church's recognition of grace, their earnest fasting and seeking of the Lord for what's next, and their celebration of what God had already done through Paul and Barnabas's mission.

God's mission to gather a worshiping people for himself from every nation and language is not a modern program but the storyline of the whole Bible, beginning with creation, kickstarted through the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, and fulfilled in Christ's Great Commission; so if this mission matters to God, it must by necessity matter to every believer who is united to Christ.

Joseph's death in Genesis 50 reveals seven marks of a truly great life of faith; resolute obedience, promise-keeping, faithfulness to calling, humility before God, returning good for evil, instilling faith in the next generation, and pointing to Christ; that Christians should imitate so their own deaths testify to God's work in them.

In Jacob's final blessing over his twelve sons, God reveals that he sovereignly charts his people's story through both striving and blessing, so that whatever circumstance we find ourselves in; whether the consequence of our own sin or an undeserved trial; we are called to trust God's grace and direction rather than keep score of life as gain or loss.

God's blessing, given to Jacob and passed to Ephraim and Manasseh, is not earned but given entirely by grace, and having received it we are meant to spread it to others rather than hoard it.

Focusing on God's promises already kept gives believers joyful endurance to persevere through the long wait for the promises God has yet to keep, as seen in Jacob and Joseph's reunion, prosperity, and hope for resurrection.

The triumphal entry and cleansing of the temple reveal six realities about Jesus; his sovereign control, fulfillment of God's ancient plan, worship (rightly and wrongly directed), true worship, healing compassion, and his right to be worshiped as God; calling believers to reset whatever has displaced Jesus as the object of their worship.

Joseph tested his brothers to look for unmistakable evidences of God's true change; a change in guilt, heart, trust, and love; and these same four marks reveal whether someone is genuinely ready for reconciliation with God and with others.

In Genesis 42, God sovereignly orchestrates circumstances to expose the guilt of Joseph's brothers and move them toward true confession and ownership of their sin, modeling how reconciliation with God and others must be patiently entrusted to God's timing rather than forced.

Joseph's rise from prisoner to Egypt's prime minister shows that the way to pass the test of success; not just suffering; is to keep trusting the sovereign Savior, staying focused on God's revelation, God's given task, and God's grace rather than on self-validation.

Divine blessing is guaranteed when believers understand and practice seven biblical perspectives on financial giving, starting from the truth that God owns everything and giving is a response of worship, love, and gracious faith rather than mere obligation.

Because the days are evil and Satan wages a real spiritual war for our time, believers cannot redeem their calendars by willpower alone; they must apply Christ's wisdom by seeking wisdom, aligning priorities under Christ's headship, and relying on the gospel and the Spirit through prayer.

Stewardship of time and money is fundamentally a matter of love: because everything belongs to God and the gospel has redeemed us, the measure of good stewardship is not productivity or budgeting perfection but whether love directs our choices, so that whatever is done in love is never wasted.

Even when Joseph's faithful service seems to yield only more setbacks and forgotten promises, God is sovereignly directing every detail; including the fates of the cupbearer and baker; toward his own good purposes, and believers can trust God the same way through unjust suffering.

God sovereignly orchestrates even the sinful acts of jealous, hateful people to accomplish his saving purposes, as seen in Joseph being sold into slavery, which foreshadows how Christ was hated and killed by his own yet raised to bring salvation.

Because God is the all-sufficient El Shaddai who initiates relationship with sinners, his people must respond by exclusively worshiping him alone, putting away every idol, being purified, and clothing themselves in Christ's righteousness while trusting his providence through both blessing and loss.

Christmas is about the incarnation; God the Son taking on human flesh; as the necessary means by which Jesus, on a rescue mission, finds lost sinners and adopts them into God's family through grace, not performance.

When God is not the center of a life, city, or family, unbridled passions; for sex, wealth, or even justice; turn abusive, deceitful, and violent, as seen in the rape of Dinah and its bloody aftermath; only the gospel of Christ, who became both victim and Savior, can bring true peace to both the sinner and the sinned-against.

Winning the greatest contests of faith requires humble prayer that trusts God's protection and grace rather than one's own scheming, and Jacob's wrestling match teaches that our first and greatest struggle is not with our circumstances or adversaries but with God himself, who gives us a new identity when we cling to him for blessing.

There is a constant fight for undivided worship in the believer's life; the 'back pocket gods' we secretly rely on for daily provision, security, and justice always fail, but God alone is the true protector who keeps his people all the way home to heaven.

Preaching through Jacob's negotiation with Laban and God's call to return to Canaan, the sermon argues that just as Jacob's longing for home was met by God's provision through the unlikely breeding of the flocks and by God's renewed promise of presence from Bethel, every believer must set their heart toward their true home in Christ, trusting God's provision and presence through each stage of life until reaching the new heavens and new earth.

God's redeeming purposes for Israel; and for us; unfold not through the deserving but through pity shown to suffering, sinfully messy people; because of this, believers should take every pain point directly to God, whose promises and pity are abundant.

Even when every human party in a story is sinning, God's sovereign purposes and promises cannot be thwarted, and this should produce humility and sanctification rather than either presumption or despair.

God made a covenant promise to Isaac; 'I will be with you and bless you'; and kept it despite Isaac's fear and failures, and that same promise, fulfilled ultimately in Christ, belongs to everyone who trusts in Jesus today.

God's sovereign, unmerited selection of Isaac and Jacob over Ishmael and Esau in Genesis 25 illustrates the doctrine of sovereign grace, which produces contentment (seen in Abraham) and hopeful dependence (seen in Isaac and Rebecca) rather than pride or entitlement.

The dignity of work does not come from its pay, prestige, or status but from understanding all legitimate labor as worshipful service to God and to others, according to God's design.

When a believer dies, Christians are meant to hold aching grief and active hope together; admitting the double grief of losing a loved one while still being strangers in the world, then acting on God's promises just as Abraham did by purchasing a burial plot as a token of future hope, and finally anticipating the resurrection promises fulfilled in Christ.

God's test of Abraham in Genesis 22 exposes what we truly love, calling every believer to give God 'worship love' above all human loves, and to trust his promises of resurrection and provision rather than our own strength; provision ultimately fulfilled in God providing his own Son as our substitute.

Across four destabilizing seasons of life; prosperity, family strife, suffering, and national conflict; Abraham repeatedly calls on 'the everlasting God' who reliably keeps his promises, and believers today are called to the same confident, calling-on-God faith rather than being swept away by circumstances.

Romans 8:28's promise that God causes all things to work together for good is not a vague comfort but a specific promise, limited to those who love God and are called, that God is sovereignly using every circumstance; especially suffering; as a chisel to conform believers to the image of Christ for Christ's glory.

When hostility, criticism, and suffering come, believers must trust that God is training them as a loving Father through that pain; not removing it but using it to make them like Jesus and help them finish the race of faith.

Because God's wisdom is infinitely superior to ours and his purposes are always good, believers in the 'waiting room' of suffering should stop exalting their own understanding and start exalting God's wisdom, which produces peace and turns sufferers into comforters.

Drawing from Psalm 119:65-72, the sermon argues that God is good all the time; good in everything he does, good in his very being, and therefore his word is trustworthy and worth treasuring; so that this truth about God's goodness, not our circumstances, must be the anchor believers cling to in affliction and adversity.

God's sovereignty is not limited to grand cosmic scale but extends with persistent care to every small detail of life; stars, weather, animals, and personal circumstances; so believers can trust him even in confusing or painful providences.

God's sovereignty over the 'big things' in life; shown through his justice, his coming, his word, his rule, and his power in Isaiah 40; means his people are never hidden from him or disregarded by him, and so can trust him even when life hurts.

Genesis 20 shows Abraham repeating the same fear-driven lie about Sarah that he told 25 years earlier, proving that even long-time believers carry old, besetting sin patterns; the gospel answer is to watch for those old sins, listen to God's gracious intervention, and walk in the eternal grace and promises God made before the ages began.

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah calls hearers to trust God's message about sin and coming judgment, flee to the deliverance he provides, and rest entirely in his sovereign grace, since Lot and his family were saved not by their own merit but by God's mercy fulfilling his promise to Abraham.

Sodom and Gomorrah stands as the Bible's warning of God's righteous and just judgment, and God opened his heart to Abraham to teach him; and us; that a right response to that judgment is fearing God rightly, fleeing to Christ's mercy, and then living out righteousness, justice, and compassionate intercession for others.

God shows up personally at Abraham and Sarah's meal to reveal that nothing is too hard for him, and believers should drive doubt from their hearts by trusting God for the greatest things; faith, fellowship, and holiness; not merely their pressing daily concerns.

A genuine saving relationship with God is not generic religiosity but a covenant relationship marked by mutual commitment, a sign to remember it by, extraordinary blessings, and inclusion in a community; one now fulfilled through Christ's circumcision of the heart rather than physical circumcision.

Using the example of Timothy's mother Eunice and grandmother Lois, faithful parenting means pursuing your own sincere walk with God, modeling and teaching that faith to your children, treasuring Scripture as God's powerful word, and trusting God's larger kingdom purposes rather than measuring success by immediate outcomes.

When we're waiting on God to fulfill his promises, we're tempted to take matters into our own hands and trust false saviors like Sarai and Abram did with Hagar, but the story shows God is the God who sees, hears, and cares, and waiting well means trusting his character even when we don't know what's true about our circumstances.

Genesis 15's covenant ceremony shows that God alone walks through the sacrificial pieces and takes the curse upon himself, proving that the security of salvation rests entirely on God's unilateral commitment, not on the believer's faithfulness or works.