First Baptist Church Cola: Recent Episodes
First Baptist Church Cola
Delivered on 9/6(1) The son has eternal life (1 John 5:20)(2) If I have the Son I have life (1 John 5:12)(3) Knowing Jesus is eternal life (John 17:3)(4) I can know that I have life (1 John 5:13)(5) If I am in fellowship with Jesus then I have life (1 John 1:7)(6) I can know I have fellowship with Jesus by the fact that I do what He did (1 John 2:6)
Delivered on 9/3"Christians" produces many different outcomes, where people think of themselves as disciples and followers of Jesus these things happen:Where disciples are need is revealedWhere disciples are needs are metWhere disciples are the mission doesn’t stopWhere disciples are the next generation is given opportunity to lead Where disciples are people are deployed for ministryWhere disciples are the mission is accomplishedJesus calls us to be students of Him not christianity!
This life is not an eh, its not a whatever! Life actually becomes sweeter when we say that I matter, that I matter to this world. I matter to my friends. The things that I do matters to myself. Life gets sweeter because there are stakes. It matters when I pursue my friend who is struggling. It really matters, because if you don't pursue them then no one else will...God is trying to teach us that He wants us to be invested in this life in a way that you haven't before. And that you matter in this life way more than you think you do...My life matters whether I mean it to or not!
Sunday Seminar: Effort and the Spiritual Disciplines | 2 Peter 1:3-10 by First Baptist Church Cola
"As long as we think we are better guides for our life we will not let God guide our life."
God's Heart for People, Your Heart for People | Luke 15 1:10 by First Baptist Church Cola
Holiness is something that we think God is, but struggle to see ourselves as anything other than positionally Holy. Paul's words in Romans 6 challenges us to consider our lives as new and transformed, and that we need to learn to walk in this new life toward the image of Holiness that is conformity with Jesus.
A testimony of faith is a person sharing what God has done in their life. It is a first-hand account of who God is. Knowing this, it is also common for that testimony to be devoid of the unmistakable supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in that person's life. That is something that needs to be corrected. We need to highlight the supernaturalness of "being born again." This would be much more helpful in our understanding of participating in God's salvation and would help others understand what God wants to do in them. Paul's testimony in Acts 22 is prescriptive for us as we consider how to share our own testimony better.
We are either urgent or complacent. If we are urgent are we urgent for the right things? Paul testifies that his life is about participating in the gospel and making known the gospel so that others can participate in what God is doing in the world. Most people I know aren't urgent for this, and we need to be. We need to be challenged to be urgent about what God is urgent about...and if we are then God can use us to proclaim His name and mobilize others for His mission.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? Emotions are a huge part of our lives. We are emotional creatures. Circumstances, relationships and personal makeup are usually drivers of emotions, but the biblical authors seek to teach us that negative emotions should not be drivers of our actions. We do not have to respond to emotions as our habits dictate. It is possible to feel one way and act another. This is such an important lesson that God seeks to teach us as we seek to be obedient to God's commands.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? Sin is a word we use a lot, but don't spend a ton of time thinking about sinning verses not. Sin is missing the mark that God has designed and created us to hit. So we can sin by doing, just like we can sin by not doing. This conversation will hopefully help you situate and think about sin better. We don't simply need to continue to fall into it but need to understand that it is something that Jesus died to free us from and we need to consider ourselves dead to it and kill it.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? Conflict in this life is inevitable, but it doesn't have to mean the relationship is over. Far to often, that is exactly what it means. As we engage with one another, and experience conflict what does Proverbs teach us about moving forward in love?
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? To be honest, we don't really understand sexual temptation. We need to unmask it and sit with what God's wisdom has to say about how sexual temptation traps us and leads us to the grave.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? Who are my parents supposed to be to me? What has God put them in my life to do? How can I view parenthood or sonship in light of the teaching of Proverbs?
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? When it comes to seeking wealth and the comfort it brings, proverbs warns us about this pursuit and extols the virtue of contentment, and reminds us that we can't take it with us.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? Diligence is being consistently obedient to the stewardships that we have been given. Obedience is intention and effort applied. Diligence is learned and needs to be advocated for. How can we be more diligent about the things that God says matters?
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? We care about our friendships but maybe we don't know what they are for and how we should engage with them. Proverbs has great instruction for both.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? We speak more than we do anything else. We know our speech has power, so we want to learn the principles that Proverbs teaches about how to use our speech wisely.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely? We speak more than we do anything else. We know our speech has power, so we want to learn the principles that Proverbs teaches about how to use our speech wisely.
Practical Life is hard and we need better instruction to listen to. How does Proverbs speak into our everyday lives and how can I learn better about living God's life with skill, expertise and competence? In other words, how do I live God's beautiful life wisely?
In our day to day lives we experience a culture that asks us to embrace its values without a second thought. If we are Jesus followers we have a new Kingdom that is now ours through the new birth. We have three main issues that keep us from seeking God's Kingdom and embracing its values as our own. Those three issues are: love of the world, idolatry, and disobedience. We work through those issues in this study.
In our day to day lives we experience a culture that asks us to embrace its values without a second thought. If we are Jesus followers we have a new Kingdom that is now ours through the new birth. We have three main issues that keep us from seeking God's Kingdom and embracing its values as our own. Those three issues are: love of the world, idolatry, and disobedience. We work through those issues in this study.
In our day to day lives we experience a culture that asks us to embrace its values without a second thought. If we are Jesus followers we have a new Kingdom that is now ours through the new birth. We have three main issues that keep us from seeking God's Kingdom and embracing its values as our own. Those three issues are: love of the world, idolatry, and disobedience. We work through those issues in this study.
What are good prayer practices? Nehemiah's Prayer in Nehemiah 1 gives us an excellent framework for understanding the why and the how of prayer. His example will challenge us.
Do we want to do what God calls us to? Each year we are faced with what we want to be about, thinking that we need to reinvent ourselves, when all we need to do is start doing or keep doing the thing that God called his Church to in the first place. He wants us to be serious about making disciples.
This is a discussion about faith in Jesus the Saving King, the nature of it and what it means to have a faith in Him that is sincere, genuine and without hypocrisy. I think this is an important and neglected discussion that the Biblical Authors talk about much more than we do. May we examine ourselves to see if we are in Christ (2 Corinthians 13:5).
The Goal Of Our Instruction...Love From A Pure Heart | 1 Timothy 1:5 by First Baptist Church Cola
We know that we should guard our hearts, but how should we care for it? How do we maintain a healthy heart with the guidance of the Holy Spirit?
The Author of Proverbs tells us to guard our hearts above all things, for from it flows the well-springs of life. How do we do this? What does it mean and not mean?
We so need to define our hearts because it is the center from which we live. Some of the material is borrowed from Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard and With All Your Heart by Craig Troxel.
What Does Assurance Have To Do With Suffering? - Romans 8:14-17 by First Baptist Church Cola
For Christ Followers there are many days we don't like to be obligated except to our own comfort. In Romans 8:12 Paul reminds us that our obligation is not to ourselves and our preferences but to the Holy Spirit, who we are given to lead us into the life of Christ.
Paul is emphatic that we are in Christ if we have the Holy Spirit. If God has given himself to us somehow then that "should" make a huge difference in our lives. So why doesn't the Holy Spirit make more of a difference? Because we don't understand His role in our lives, we have wrong expectations for what comes next.
We very seldom think that the indifference we show God through our priorities are actually viewed as hostility. I am in charge of myself and I give some time to God, what else does he want from me? Paul, points out that this mind is hostile to God because it does not submit to God's law and is unable to do so. As followers of Christ, how do we recognize this mindset and come to understand what God finds pleasing?
Paul says that those whose life is according to the world set their minds there and the result is death. So why do we do that? What are the conditions of my life that result in this life away from God? To move away from that life to a life characterized as according to the Spirit we must learn what keeps me in my own personal pig pen, never quite reaching the life and peace with God in the Spirit.
Leahan Doar, a Licensed Professional Counselor, speaks to a group of College Student at First Baptist Church Columbia about Anxiety. She talks about understanding what is happening when we experience anxiety, how is it different from stress, strategies to control it and how to think about it Biblically.
Dr. Estep's Sermon on the day First Baptist Church of Columbia celebrated his 30th Anniversary. 8-14-16
Dr. Estep preaches from Luke 5 about how God doesn't look for the many, but He looks for the committed.
Dr. Estep preaches from Isaiah 2 about the influence of a Christian as well as other influences in our culture.
5 - 1-16 Student Pastor Rev. Philip Turner preaches for Graduation Sunday, delivering a message from Micah 6:8 that's applicable to our graduates as well as the rest of the congregation.
Dr. Estep preaches about the "Strange Fire" in Leviticus 10:1-3 that Aaron's sons wrongly offered to God and how our worship should be obedient.
For Senior Adult Appreciation Sunday, Rev. Richard Humphries preaches "The Gospel of the Good Finish."
Dr. Estep takes us into the story of Jacob and Esau with his sermon, "A Moment in Time."
The last sermon in the Family Matters series, Dr. Estep preaches on Samuel and discusses how we are to raise our children as well as how God can use our children.
Dr. Estep continues the Family Matters series by addressing married adults who have been married 10+ years. How do you keep the marriage alive and well? Listen to find out.
Dr. Estep preaches the second sermon in the Family Matters series about being Happily Unmarried and single, explaining all of the gifts and benefits of living the single life.