Heritage Press Sermons: Recent Episodes
Heritage Press
Presenters: Amanda and Dan Lancaster, Asahel Adams and Gabe Barbieri
There is a power in expectation, in believing the best of one another. We can believe the narrative of the accuser of the brethren and the correct interpretation of facts. Or we can know the God who is truth and who sees each of us as a new creation in Christ.
Presenters: Rita Jreijiri, Gabe Barbieri, Howard Wheeler & Asahel Adams
We can’t just declare ourselves to be in right standing with God; we have a mandate to manifest His reality through the expression of His corporate people. Our individual identities can be transformed as we see Jesus in the unveiled faces of His body. Additionally, our service to God cannot substitute for a relationship with Him. As a community facing a generational transition, our roles of service may change, but our most important role remains that we are our Father’s child.
Presenter: Asahel Adams
As individuals, we are inherently incomplete and need each other, trusting in God's voice as it comes to us through imperfect people. Jesus is the cornerstone, the rock of offense we must fall upon. As we each submit to the relational expression of humility, we find our places as lively stones relative to all the other stones.
Presenters: Kevin Durkin & Asahel Adams
There are two spheres or categories in our lives: God’s domain, or the givens, and our domain, which is our responsibility to change. When we find ourselves in personality conflicts, we think we need to change the givens of our circumstances. Instead, we need to change our attitudes, lowering and humbling ourselves so that we see how great God’s people and purposes are, and how small we are.
Presenters: Regina Adams, Howard Wheeler & Asahel Adams
Many nominal Christians teach a message of identity change, based on claiming what they have not actually received. But our baptism into Christ must correspond to the reality of a new life lived under the authority of the Spirit. The Spirit gives us the exousia or power to become God’s sons, not as individuals but as part of the community of believers. Our sonship is demonstrated by the dominion and leading of the Spirit in our lives.
Presenter: Asahel Adams
We need God’s acceptance and favor in our lives. When we feel His abiding presence leading us, this is His grace. We each have only a portion of the Spirit, so we must continually seek, grope and thirst for more. As we reduce and silence our flesh through humility, we break down the firewall that separates us from God’s presence. Then He is able to intercede through our prayers and anoint and animate our decisions.
Presenters: Simeon Adams & Dan Lancaster
God wants His people to be possessed by a zeal for His kingdom that will motivate every area of our lives. We can overcome fear and pride as we focus on God’s purpose and seek the anointing of His Spirit. Anointing usually expresses itself in these three ways: inspiration, indignation, or compassion. The anointing of compassion is what animated the Lord during His ministry on earth, and He desires to fill His people with that same love.
Presenters: Howard Wheeler, Asi Adams & Dan Lancaster
Glory, the radiant reputation of God, is revealed when the divine is joined with the mortal. Just as the fullness of God was incarnated in Christ, the church's mission is to become the corporate tabernacle where God can dwell on earth. Each member of Christ’s body receives a deposit of only a measure of the Spirit when we are born again. Then, we must embark upon a lifelong course as the fivefold ministry equips and disciples each of us to fit into that corporate tabernacle.
Presenter: Gabe Barbieri and Asi Adams
As believers, we are loved and accepted by God as His children when we experience spiritual rebirth. However, if we desire to receive our full inheritance as His children, we must be adopted and placed as sons. This process requires us to undergo discipline, which marks us as legitimate heirs. Our initial experience of conversion is analogous to the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel, while the crossing of the Jordan represents us finding our designated places of inheritance. In the period in between, we must go through a wilderness of training and discipleship.
Presenter: Brother Blair Adams
From a Sunday service on August 14, 2005. In contemporary Christianity, faith has been reduced to a mere mental assent to certain creeds and doctrines, which are believed to eradicate the need for an ongoing dependence on God's Spirit. However, the examples of faith in the Bible are marked by an unfolding walk of obedience. The people of God trusted in God's promises in spite of failures and seemingly insurmountable circumstances. Despite not receiving the ultimate promise of the Holy Spirit, these BIblical heroes paved the way for us to continue on the path they have charted for us with steadfast determination and unwavering faith.
Presenters: Howard Wheeler, Kevin Durkin & Asi Adams
We will be safe from the attacks of the enemy if we do not lose the light of complete openness with God and each other, the love that binds us and a regard for the anointing. Faith is the escape velocity that frees us to run the race; pride—our ego, our images—is the weight that inhibits and entangles us. God wants to possess us to the extent that His power is demonstrated in the extremity of our weakness, a power that swallows ego.
Presenter: Brother Blair Adams
Preached July 26, 1978, Brother Blair discusses life's challenges and temptations that can lead one to become bitter or cynical. He highlights the necessity of remaining open to God and trusting within the Christian community, urging that this trust is the secret to experiencing joy, brotherhood, and love within the Body of Christ. He presents the spiritual pilgrimage of learning to trust and grow into a mature expression of the Body of Christ as the "last frontier," wherein we assail spiritual mountains and promised lands and finally possess our inheritance.
Presenters: Abraham Adams, Asi Adams & Dan Lancaster
Only through the suffering and affliction God allows in our lives can we bring to birth the ministry and purpose He has for each of us. A great cloud of witnesses—even the Lord Jesus—have gone before us and have persevered through discipline and pain. In the fire of our trials, we encounter His reality, and He teaches us to depend on Him as we recognize our weakness.
Presenter: Brother Blair Adams
From a Sunday service on September 25th, 2005. The light of God shines through a community of people who reflect Him to one another with unveiled faces. However, to become a part of this collective light, we must first let go of the individuality that creates pockets of darkness that tarnish the image and glory of Christ. We must surrender our identity and independence to His collective image by making a covenant commitment that binds us to His sacrifice.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Dan Lancaster & Randy Brim
Envy and human rationalism separated from God form the essential bulwarks of man’s pursuit of godhood. The only way to change this mechanism is by repenting of our perspective of who God is and trusting that His plans and design are inherently good.
Presenter: Asi Adams
As members of God's body, we are all deficient in ourselves and dependent on the other members. We must humble ourselves to trust other imperfect people who bring discipleship into our lives. However, we can only trust them to the same extent that we distrust ourselves. Although we are accepted as God's children because we are born into His family, we can only become true sons by taking initiative, being responsible, and persevering in our relationship with our Father.
Presenter: Asi Adams
As we walk in the light, we experience a shared fellowship with God’s people and have communion, which cleanses us in the blood of Jesus. The original sin was suspicion, which gives rise to mistrust. To discern the body is to live in the light of an unsuspicious love. We continue to eat His flesh and drink His blood as we give and receive the spiritual gifts that cleanse us. During communion, we remember what Jesus did for us and recommit ourselves to actively embody His love and forgiveness towards each other.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Humans are hardwired to crave harmony between what we believe, think, say and do. When we recognize inconsistencies in ourselves, we feel the tension of cognitive dissonance. Excuses are artificial attempts to correct that dissonance, rather than face our need to change. God would empower us to engage in the difficult task of transformation by choosing humility and consecration of every thought and word.
Presenter: Asi Adams at the Texas Mini-Conference (Day 04)
When Nicodemus visited Jesus at night, Jesus understood that the reason for the meeting was to discuss the Davidic kingdom. Although Jesus' response to Nicodemus may have confused some, it should have made his audience happy because the promise of kingdom power had been foretold for centuries and all Jewish believers should have been anticipating it. Even today, this power is available to those who seek God's promised kingdom—a kingdom that is not of this world.
Presenter: Asi Adams at the Texas Mini-Conference (Day 04)
Peter, who first introduces believers' baptism in Acts 2, clarifies its meaning in his epistle when he compares baptism, not to a bath, but to the Noaic flood. As in Noah’s flood, where the waters both judged the ungodly and saved the obedient, baptism represents our voluntary submission to the judgment of sin on the cross and the subsequent resurrection to spiritual life. This act of baptism is a vow of commitment to the saving relationship with Jesus that constitutes salvation.
Presenter: Asi Adams at the Texas Mini-Conference (Day 04)
Repentance is an essential step in paving the way for God’s kingdom. Any false teachings that suggest repentance is merely a feeling of remorse or a decision to change one’s ways are nothing but deceptions. In reality, repentance requires acknowledging and removing the tyranny of self-will and submitting to the authority and lordship of Jesus. By demolishing the rubble of our own plans, ambitions, and control, we create a suitable environment for God’s kingdom to reign without any competition from other demigods.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster at the Texas Mini-Conference (Day 03)
Satan's promise of godhood to Adam and Eve pivoted on a singular axiom: "You shall know for yourself, good and evil." This promise has been central to mankind's efforts to displace God. Yet how do we really know what we know, and what assumptions must predicate our decisions?
Presenter: Asi Adams
The promises offered to the Jewish people were predicated on their ability to hear and obey the voice of God, in keeping with the example of the patriarch Abraham. The primary purpose of this cultivated people was to prepare the way for the Messiah. Yet this promise was not intended to be exclusive to the Jewish community, for God clearly states that through them all the families of the earth would be blessed. What was God’s purpose in creating this special family, how do Gentiles become a part of it, and what is God’s purpose in allowing the Jews to return to their homeland in Israel?
Presenter: Asi Adams at the Texas Mini-Conference (Day 01).
God has granted every member of His Body a measure of His Spirit. However, this poses a challenge as the size of each individual measure restricts the ability of each member. But God has provided a solution to overcome this limitation: the fivefold ministry. In this arrangement, the weakness or smallness of one member is compensated by all the other members, filling the gaps and making up for what is lacking.
Presenters: Simeon Adams, Asi Adams & Randy Brim
We fear vulnerability because we fear disconnection, weakness and our own frailty. But as we lower our egos within the kingdom of God—as we lower the walls that separate us from each other—we will step into the Great I Am and into His walls of salvation. We will find the courage to tell the stories of our lives with all our hearts.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The collapse of western civilization will be a catalyst for the birth of the final revelation of the church. Through the tribulations precipitated by the fracturing of pillars of justice, God will raise up a remnant of Christians who will be willing to come under the yoke of true unity. God is preparing us now—in the years of plenty— to be a Joseph people who can share a plan of exodus. He has called us as a Zionist camp to help prepare others for the day when the mountain of the Lord is exalted and the church is a holy nation.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
Marriage forces us to look at our selfishness and lovelessness as does no other union on earth. It requires increasing vulnerability and self-sacrifice beyond what many are willing to give. Yet God doesn’t merely intend that marriage be survived—as if the passing of time were itself the purpose. He desires instead that marriage would stretch us into the dynamic, ever-expanding vessels of His love that He created us to be. So don’t fear the changes and adjustments; fear instead that they might cease and thus abort the very purpose of the union.
Presenters: Dan Lancaster, Howard Wheeler & Asi Adams
As a church, we are in the midst of many dangerous transitions that poise us for either unprecedented victory or equally potential derailment. Transition is an awful time, filled with intense pain, yet unavoidable in order to bring something to birth. In these times, the natural propensity is to imagine the pain is a result of our circumstance, and to believe that a change of environment would make the process easier. In this message, God is telling the church: it is supposed to be this hard.
Presenters: Howard Wheeler & Asi Adams
The enemy cannot counterfeit the unity God has for His people, so he attempts to fragment us by accusing our brothers and sisters so that we categorize and judge one another through our carnal minds. But God has provided an antidote to the fracturing of categorization. God wants to fill our hearts with a love for His people that is radiant hope in the midst of darkness and isolation.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The collapse of western civilization will be a catalyst for the birth of the final revelation of the church. Through the tribulations precipitated by the fracturing of pillars of justice, God will raise up a remnant of Christians who will be willing to come under the yoke of true unity. God is preparing us now—in the years of plenty—to be a Joseph people who can share a plan of exodus. He has called us as a Zionist camp to help prepare others for the day when the mountain of the Lord is exalted and the church is a holy nation.
Presenter: Josiah Wheeler
Today’s western culture is marked by depression, anxiety and loneliness. As marriages fail and loneliness becomes an epidemic, it may be good for us to question the basis of our view of commitment. Western culture suggests: look out for yourself—become who you were meant to be—and then find the relationships that will support your purpose. Yet God’s plan flips this equation on its head—He created us with an innate need for connection that is best met by reaching out and offering love-service to someone else. As we fit our individual lives into the concentric circles of marriage, family and community, the ripple of our choices will start to reverse the culture of loneliness and isolation all around us.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Whenever human beings face difficult times, we grapple with the question of sovereignty. Yet in what sense is God sovereign?—in the micro details of everyday life or in the macro design of an eternal plan? Some of God’s sovereignty depends on us: in our willingness to submit our response to circumstances beyond our control. This voluntary submission to God’s sovereignty is our opportunity to experience glory otherwise never revealed.
Presenter: Asi Adams at Enoch and Hallel's Wedding
The ancient Greeks theorized that humans were initially created with two faces, four hands and four legs, but were subsequently divided into two separate beings causing each individual to search for the rest of his life for his other half. Yet according to Genesis, God had a two-part being in mind from the start. Only when a man and a woman came together could the two pieces become one whole again; only in their unity could the radiance and resemblance of God appear.
Presenter: Asi Adams
All false religions have the goodness of man as their root premise, claiming that we are the results of our environment. But God placed man in the perfect garden, with a perfect companion, and with Himself as the perfect parent, and yet man fell. Since then humans have sought to blame and to change every external circumstance, from geographical location to gender. God instead offers us the freedom to recognize our culpability, repent and allow Him to change our hearts.
Presenter: Asi Adams
When Jesus instituted communion at the last supper, He spoke of the covenant which comes through His blood for the remission of sin. Using the same phraseology, Peter instructs the crowd of the day of Pentecost to repent and be baptized for the remission of their sins, showing how Jesus’ blood is applied to a believer’s life. How is Jesus’ blood applied to our sin through baptism? Is it merely an outward sign of an inward change (as some teachers claim) or does it somehow inaugurate our saving relationship with Jesus Christ?
Presenter: Asi Adams
Jesus says that truth provides the path to sustained victory over sin. We assume that God accepts us based on our performance or perfection; instead, He accepts us because of our relationship with Him. Our victorious status with God as His child remains dependent on us accepting the correction and discipline that cleans our dead branches, increases our fruit and cures our instabilities. This corrective word of truth ensures our place as adopted heirs for whom the inheritance is destined.
Presenter: Asi Adams
As this community celebrates the completion of fifty years, we stand as a testimony to hope. The founders and first generation members of this community believed in a dream that God would raise up a people, even when that seemed impossible. They had faith to take every small step of exodus that God spoke to them.
Others all over the world who feel like dry stumps have smelled the scent of water, and they too have begun to believe in the dream. If we each continue to honor our inheritance of faith by taking the steps God speaks to us, God’s dream of a restoration of spiritual Zion will come to pass. Where will we be in 100 years if we value our inheritance by persevering in the faith that was passed down to us?
Presenter: Asi Adams
God’s Word is a promise of creation, a miracle in the works, and the labyrinth of our natural thinking represents the most likely place for opportunity to die and the miracle to stall. The mind’s calculus of unbelief can result in a type of spiritual bulimia, distorting the nature of our battles and deceiving us into pursuing false, even harmful, solutions. But God provides us with enabling grace, through His people, to escape the deadly bonds of self-deception.
Presenter: Asi Adams
All godly authority is derived from love, and without authority, love cannot be effective. Oftentimes, God’s word proves ineffective because those listening have misplaced their honor for God and placed it in self. But God is merciful and will allow the circumstances of life to pulverize our pride until we can once again be supple to His loving authority.
Presenter: Asi Adams
In Matthew 9, Jesus said that we cannot pour "new wine into old wineskins." This chapter portrays people who threw aside their perspectives and expectations of what God could do and so received unprecedented miracles. In the same way, God calls us to follow Him immediately, without consulting the flesh. This instant obedience is humility and faith.
Presenter: Tim Anz
Unlike adults, children view the world with eager expectation, seeing the ordinary with the same wonder as the extraordinary. A child trusts realities beyond his understanding, allowing him to experience phenomena unknown to the proud. This childlike trust is ultimately rooted in a love known experientially—in a God who is love. That is why Scripture commands us to come to the kingdom as a little child, anchored in faith and trusting that God works all things for the good, for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
God is always calling His servants out to the edge of what’s comfortable for the flesh. Yet we sometimes expect that when God beckons us to a new step, we should automatically feel competent. However, the call of God comes to people who never feel ready or adequate. Does God intentionally choose men and women with weakness so that His power may become perfected?
Presenter: Jim Truax
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul instructs believers to bring up their children “in the training [paideia] and admonition [nouthesis] of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). Both these Greek words assumed broader connotations for Paul’s audience than would be readily apparent for us today. Paideia can succinctly be translated as “culture,”—encompassing every area of life.
Nouthesis refers to teaching and training by word and instruction, and is most effective when brought forth in the context of Christian paideia. This message follows “Don’t Leave Your Children in Egypt,” and explains the necessity of Christian education being rooted in a culture alternative to the world’s paideia.
Presenter: Jim Truax
This message is the first part of two sessions on child training and education from the 2017 Symposium.
Culture can be defined as one’s lived religion. Christian parents who desire to raise successful children, must ask themselves: what culture am I rooted in? Once children are trained to be successful in Egypt, they will refuse to leave. They may enjoy excursions into the wilderness to worship God, but their identity will remain firmly rooted in a hostile culture. This message poses a challenge: embark on a thorough archeological dig throughout your home to remove every artifact that remains from the counterposing culture.
Presenters: Howard Wheeler & Asi Adams
God’s grace appears to us in “various” and manifold ways; His invisible attributes are even seen in creation. But can we humble ourselves enough to truly see, receive and steward such grace, through the mundane and unexpected? This requires relinquishing control of our will in order to become transparent vessels of anointed grace to those who need it.
Presenter: Josiah Wheeler
When we reach the end of our rope, sometimes we must become a rope. When our gifts, talents and all the tools that have served us well in other situations, can’t quite reach the need facing us, something else must come from inside. It may be painful—it may even feel like it’s pulling-out our joints—but self-sacrificing love is always its own reward. And when faced with a friend’s need, each of us must, as the song says, “like a bridge over troubled water,” “lay me down.”
Presenters: Asi Adams & Howard Wheeler
The apostle James describes a type of wisdom that is earthly, sensual and demonic. This type of “wisdom” is activated whenever someone perceives that another has brought an acceptable sacrifice, fueling competition and envy. Conversely, the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit, without partiality and without hypocrisy. We see the counterintuitive wisdom of God exhibited at the cross, when Jesus overcame the authority of satan through the power of weakness and surrender.
Presenters: Kevin Durkin, Abraham Adams & Amanda Lancaster
The first generation of this church was a determined, driven bunch. Yet mere neglect could easily dissipate the fire that burned so hotly inside them. This message is a challenge: will you put off your own ambitions, plans and dreams and make a cross of them? And will you commit to wear the skis of the first generation and finish the journey they began?
Presenter: Asi Adams
Oftentimes, we face circumstances beyond our control where God requires steps of obedience that are humanly impossible to accomplish. Based on our human proclivities, this causes our control-freak nature to react in three primary ways: anxiety, depression or anger. Yet God demands we take responsibility for powerlessness, rather than pity ourselves. When we assume the posture of humility, we align ourselves with God’s grace.
How do we differentiate between the strength and power of God and the authority of human bravado? Counterfeit authority strikes poses and constantly clashes with those who seek to disciple us. Godly authority, although decisive, comes through tenderness—even weeping—so that the un-adulterated power of God becomes visible.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Howard Wheeler & Dan Lancaster
God has distributed His true riches—the ability to speak truth into our brothers’ and sisters’ lives—to every member of His Body. Failing to minister to one another will result in kingdom atrophy. This message is a call to action: we must stop asking for increased faith and begin using the gifts God has already given us to edify and build His Church.
Presenters: Eder Badilo, Nathaniel Klingensmith, Gretchen Deines, Dadi Lev-Cochav, Tsafrir Yarden & Warren Owen
Brother John was a man of integrity, genuine love for those around him and a faithful servant who diligently met the needs of those around him. As portrayed in Matthew 25, his life can be likened to the wise torch bearers, whose lamps were burning brightly at the coming of the bridegroom; the men who diligently invested the master’s money to bring a fruitful return for his investment; but maybe most tellingly, he quietly and faithfully met the needs of those his life touched as did the sheep in the final parable of this chapter. In the end, Brother John heard the words that every human soul wants to hear—well done, my good and faithful servant, because you were faithful in little, you will be given much. Enter into the joy of your Lord!
Presenter: Evan Birdsong
In an era now described as post-postmodern, we are beset on every side by perpetual revolution—a seemingly indiscriminate discarding of the old in relentless pursuit of the new. But in the age of “infinite progress,” some still ask, “Just what are we progressing toward? And how will we know when we’ve arrived?” Offering a glimpse behind the mask of modern culture, this seminar proposes an escape from the conveyor belt of constant change, and discovery instead of the enduring city of the God “who does not change like shifting shadows.”
Presenters: Asi Adams & Nathan Tittley
All of human society pivots on the question of sin's origins. Every major revolution has been founded on temporary solutions that man attempts to bring change. Yet the Biblical account of history begins in paradise to illustrate a pivotal truth: no matter how perfect man's circumstance is, he will choose sin because his nature is sinful. Repentance is the only path to true freedom.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
Each human being has the ability to recognize love and truth by the emotive response that resonates within our hearts. Yet how do we discern between all the competing voices, as well as our own appetites, and that of the Good Shepherd? Is it possible to encounter the Divine and be forever changed?
Presenter Zach Herbert
By default, each generation inherits the socio-economic structures of those who came before them. These unexamined cultural assumptions often result in an existence riddled with mental dissonance–especially for believers–as so many elements of daily life seem to interfere with their highest goals. Yet a pathway to meaningful change is not evident, and the pressure to go along with the current model of living can feel inescapable. Are the foundations of our economic models by design hostile to a life of faith? Is there a viable alternative?
Presenter: Evan Birdsong
The Industrial Revolution has been described as “the most fundamental transformation of human life in the history of the world.” The shift from the land to the city has shaped every aspect of human culture, from the way we live to the way we work and even the way we think. This message offers a brief historical survey of this seminal movement, underscoring its cultural consequences and spiritual significance.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The Founders’ generation, now considered religiously stilted and strict, initiated the freest government known to man. Conversely, the current age of moral release parallels unprecedented spikes in violence, depression, isolation and social breakdown, which have precipitated greater government intrusion and the consequent loss of Constitutional liberties. Were the freedoms afforded the American people contingent on a vibrant Christian society? If so, can America survive without a revival and recovery of the same?
Presenter: Asi Adams
How do we hear the word of God? Simply hearing words about God does not constitute salvation—only an encounter with God Himself will transfer us out of death into eternal life. What’s more, Paul says we are saved by faith—faith that comes by hearing God’s anointed word. As we learn to recognize God’s anointed word coming to us through imperfect vessels, we encounter and experience Jesus.
Presenter: Nathaniel Adams
The Bible is filled with parables that depict the kingdom of God taking longer than people imagined, promises from God that were only realized generations later and admonitions to not grow weary in well-doing. Yet, tragically, many people who lose out with God do so because they grow discouraged by the length of time between the promise spoken and the promise received. Do we expect God to move according to our own timeframe, or do we trust for what we cannot see?
Presenter: Nathaniel Adams
"It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression 'follower.' He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. No, He calls disciples." —Søren Kierkegaard
The person who says, "I am a Christian," but has no cross, is not a Christian—he may be an admirer of Christ, but his lack of sacrifice reveals his lack of commitment. Are we content to enjoy the benefits of Christian living (admirers) or have we surrendered our lordship in commitment to follow wherever He leads?
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
The joy of the Lord is not something peripheral or optional. Rather, the Bible tells us, "The joy of the Lord is our strength," connoting that without it we are weak and defenseless against the devil's schemes. This posture is integral for kingdom life—even something God requires—because childlike joy expresses our gratitude for what God has done and our eager expectancy of what He will do.
Includes: "I Still Have Joy"
Presenter: Asi Adams
The world doesn’t need more out-of-wedlock successes, shooting star ministries or test-tube babies. It needs the witness of ministries who will consider their flesh as good as dead but not grow weak in faith as they seek the birth of God’s recovered patterns for generational faithfulness. The miracle we pursue is the restoration of the spiritual family—a ministry whose light and witness will never be snuffed out.
Includes: "Our Father Is Alive"
Presenter: Nathan Tittley
This is a message Brother Nathan delivered at Joe and Caity's wedding.
Includes: "I Hope You Dance"
Evangel Life Ministries Asi Adams
Throughout Scripture, Yahweh portrays Himself as compassionate, abounding in lovingkindness and, above all, eager to forgive our iniquity. Forgiveness can be illustrated as the untying of a cord that is legitimately holding a debt owed. To withhold forgiveness is to entangle ourselves in the same knot, alienating us from the grace by which we are saved.
Includes: "Your Grace and Mercy"
Presenter: Asi Adams
Jesus heralded the church as the sole entity capable of withstanding the authority and power of hell. The church receives this promised power when all its members are aligned and united with each other according to God’s design. As recorded in Revelations, God is calling His people out of Babylon and consolidating them in order to fulfill His ultimate purpose for these last days.
Includes: "Rise Up O Man of God"
Presenter: Andrew Amador
Brother Andrew encountered many junctures along his journey where he made a decision to walk through an open door and take a step closer to God, rather than hardening his heart and remaining where he was. His testimony speaks of God's abundant faithfulness to those who respond to His voice.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
What does it mean to be a faith-filled person? Can we settle for a puny version of belief that only springs forth at momentary intervals (after all, didn’t Jesus compare faith to a minuscule mustard seed), and call that sufficient? Paul poignantly states, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14:23). So even attitudes and thoughts that are not faith-filled are sinful attitudes and thoughts. Another ditch of faith believes that God is obligated to answer our every wish because we asked for it. Maybe we call ourselves “realists” to avoid this ditch. However, God’s reality is framed by His Word, and faith is the assurance that because God spoke it, it must be. When it comes to believing for change in people’s hearts, do we invest ourselves unreservedly in the change and allow a faith that says, “This can and must be,” to possess us?
Includes: "He Believes in Lost Causes"
Presenters: Matthew Pressly, Dan Lancaster & Asi Adams
The writer or Hebrews points out that Moses’ first great act of faith was in refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing the reproach of Christ over the identity of a prince (Heb. 11:24-26). God has planted gifts inside each one of us for the advancement of His kingdom. However, the devil would squeeze us into a mold that is contrary to God’s calling for our lives. How much stock do we place in an identity that we think we have outside of being the Lord’s servant? Could we, as Moses did, willingly strip off our fleshly identity and assume the burden and mantle of the Lord’s purpose?
Presenter: Micah Bowden
This is the message that Brother Micah ministered at Zach and Abby’s wedding in Montana.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The harvest promised to this church nearly 50 years ago is upon us. Yet it is possible to remain fruitless and withered even amidst the outpouring of God’s grace. Those who feel sidelined on the perimeter of God’s purpose should consider: have we given everything for love, or have we given a faulty, grudging sacrifice? Do we look for what we can receive from the kingdom, or do we look for how we can give?
Includes: "For Your Kingdom"
Presenter: Asi Adams
When Simeon held the eight-day-old fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy in his hands, he foretold, “Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against … that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35). It’s easy to be a seeker until you come face-to-face with a new encounter of Jesus. We must ask: If Jesus stepped into our world today, how can we be sure He wouldn’t offend us terribly? A recognition of the Spirit’s lordship as utterly incompatible with our selfish objectives is key to cutting off every option but following God’s prompting.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
We are saved by faith. But how does faith come to us? Paul wrote that faith comes by hearing the Word of God, and also asks, “How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” We are saved by remaining and growing in abiding relationship with God through His Body—through those He’s sent—where His anointed word continues to wash and cleanse us. If we’re not planted in that Body God has composed, we cut ourselves off from access to His ongoing word. If we, as the members of Christ’s Body, fail to participate in serving that message of life to our brothers and sisters, we deprive them of their necessary food.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The founders of America’s system of government acknowledged something has to actively restrain man’s fallen nature if the liberties of the responsible would remain his birthright. They created a government that necessitated a robust church and faith present in the society. If faith fell, civil liberties would collapse with it. While societal restraints are crumbling all around us, we are seeking to be a community of intentional restraint. As the church, we must recognize that repentance is the foundation of civil liberty because it deals with the source of the problem—creating a community of unapologetic restraint on the baser nature so that we may enjoy the liberties of the sons of God.
Presenter: Micah Bowden
Jesus described the church as “a city set upon a hill which cannot be hidden” He does not refer to a geographical phenomenon, but a spiritual network of believers who comprise a city very different from cities of the natural world. Every city is built on a foundation. A dynamic of covetousness and greed serves as the motivating force (foundation) upholding all civilizations, which James called “demonic.” God has prepared a different kind of city with foundations for His Body. It is our responsibility as His people to ensure that the mountain of the Lord is preserved, and that the forces and spirits of this age do not pollute our bright city.
Presenters: Ralph Lattimore, Fleur Lattimore & Asi Adams
Brother Ralph and Sister Fleur have participated in the New Zealand fellowship since its beginnings just ten years ago. Here they recount their journey thus far in the Lord and the small keys of each decision which facilitated the opening of an effectual door in New Zealand. They both describe their toughest struggles along the way, give testimony to the greatest rewards and offer advice to those entertaining a similar path.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Many powerful encounters with God do not produce lasting victory because they are stifled in the vortex of the carnal mind. God’s convicting word is always accompanied by the faith to overcome. Conversely, the devil’s condemnation only produces a dead-end of hopelessness. In order to see lasting change, we must take steps of risky faith—faith that believes another’s words to the degree that we will do what our instincts warn will kill us because we trust the one who promises, “Life is found through dying!”
Includes: "Old Man's Rubble"
Presenter: Asi Adams
Slavish submission to the dominion of satan is no more evident than in the blind self-deception of our own carnal certainty. Many profess to follow God, but fail to make the shift from trusting self to complete trust in God’s perspective. Satan is always at work through desire, ambition and competition, yet the power of the Gospel is the ability to rescue those lost in the flotsam of human efforts and the darkness of our own perspective, to transfer us into the light of God’s reality. Now is the time of examination as to whether or not we are in the faith; our response to a visceral encounter with God’s Word will determine the outcome of that test.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Discipleship is a gracious reminder that the body of sin must remain in the grave. Someone who is heavily invested in their appearance will become panicked and frustrated with these reminders because they do not understand what constitutes acceptance. Acceptance before God is granted through our relationship with Him as His children—we know we are children of God because of His Holy Spirit in us granting us the right to calling Him daddy. As we come to recognize the fallen nature within us, we will gladly reach for the formative hands around us that will help mold us into God’s image.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
In order for human relationships to express the glorious reputation God has intended, they must become aligned to the blueprint He has given. This process requires chiseling, hammering and polishing in order for each lively stone to fit with all the others. Does the edifice of Western families more closely resemble the charred ruins of Jerusalem as in Nehemiah’s time than the glorious temple of Solomon? The glory will only return when fathers and pastors are willing to first submit themselves to God's design and then implement those patterns to those under their care.
Presenter: Asi Adams
God’s dominion is a spiritual reality that exists everywhere kingdom citizens operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to move in the gifts of the Spirit? Do not ask for more power. Instead, learn to care for God’s people, and when you encounter the taunts of the devil, an indignation will arise within you that God will empower to cast out the enemy.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
The pivotal characteristic of Abraham’s life and status before God was his ability to hear and obey. Disregarding his past successes and failures, he left everything behind to follow a voice that only promised to show him the destination once he was committed to the path. Being a child of Abraham does not merely mean being naturally descended from Abraham, or all the sons of Ishmael would also be considered Jews; rather it is reserved for only those who sensitize their ears and resolve in their hearts to follow God in the footsteps of faithful Abraham.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The gospel is the good news that a saving relationship is now possible through Jesus Christ. We obey the gospel by dying to our willful sin-nature in repentance, bury it in baptism and are resurrected through the life-giving spirit that Jesus poured out on the day of Pentecost. God desires a relationship of love, as in a marriage covenant, with His people wherein they become increasingly one with Him. Tragically, many today seek a reductionist gospel that views God as merely a legal problem to overcome by checking off formulas.
Presenters: Jed Owen, Tsafrir Yarden, Amanda Lancaster & Asi Adams
Studies show that babies who don't perform simple actions such as rolling over or crawling, failed to make further brain connections. These simple brain actions are what caused the brain to mature; if they are missed, the child will have learning difficulties. The same is true for our journey of faith. Do you feel stalled in your spiritual development? An encounter with God's word will give you the opportunity to take a small step of obedience that can provide the catalyst for change.
Includes: "I Surrender"
Presenter: Asi Adams
"Lest We Serve a Mute God," is a message that was ministered at the 2022 Exodus Conference.
Presenter: Rory Groves
Rory Groves, a Minnesota computer programmer, bought a small hobby farm with his family. As they worked together caring for plants and animals, Rory realized his “hobby” was much more fulfilling than his “real” job. As he began to share about building a family economy, he heard from hundreds of families who recognize that our global system is fragmented and unsustainable. Rory called for us to build resilient family economies that would serve as building blocks of close-knit communities.
Presenter: Abraham Adams
Brother Blair gave his life to share the revelation of the alternative culture God has ordained for the church to be. Just before he died, he questioned whether God’s people were too content in Babylon to desire the truth. His son, Brother Abraham, assured him that this fellowship has received his vision and that ripples from his obedience and message have already begun to reach across the world. Now it’s our turn to embrace and transmit the vision that has been entrusted to us.
Includes: "There Is a Road"
Presenter: Asi Adams
In His high priestly prayer, Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Baptism is the commitment that binds us to the relationship that saves us. The relationship God has for us can be analogous to a marriage relationship and, as such, it requires a vow that can hold the content of His love. This requires an identity change as we take on the Name of our heavenly husband and become one with Him—burying our old identity of sin and bondage in the baptismal waters.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
Edward Abbey’s famous catchphrase succinctly describes our postmodern culture with the term: "Question Authority." Yet this oversimplification fails to bifurcate the two forms of authority—compulsory authority backed by brute force vs. relational authority that is motivated by love. What are the underlying motivations behind this statement and, is there a Biblical mandate for Church authority?
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
The dichotomy of Israelites and Samaritans has been an ongoing rift since the fall of the Northern Kingdom. A people never able to completely part ways with their pagan idols, they created an amalgamation of Judaism with their former gods and were forever outcast from the Israelite culture. Yet when Jesus came, He seemed to ignore this cultural rift continuously. Does that mean He simply ignored their pseudo-pagan religion or did He bring a message of reconciliation that we can still learn from today?
Presenter: Asi Adams
God’s core nature is love and He desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance and find eternal life. Many would try to abdicate their personal responsibility in choosing this path of life by claiming it is available only to those who have been predestined for it. Yet God does not arbitrarily choose some for eternal life and others for damnation. Instead, He has predestined a place where salvation can be found—His Church and desires that all would freely choose it.
Presenter: Evan Birdsong
Every ancient religion depicts a tree in the center of a garden with a promise for a certain type of enlightenment for those who would partake of that trees’ fruit. This knowledge is depicted as as something altogether positive with the one exception being the narrative of the Old Testament. This session focuses on the impact State sponsored education has played in imprinting this type of knowledge on its citizens and the disastrous ramifications this has caused throughout history.
Presenter: Howard Wheeler
An encounter with Christs’ authentic Body is a challenge to the carnal will which insists on preserving its autonomy and “space.” This is expressed in a clash of wills and desires. Truly coming to God unavoidably manifests this conflict. Scientific psychotherapy seeks to surrogate the power of Christ coming through pastoral ministry, and consequently, becomes its foul-smelling substitute. This lie was introduced to deliver Christians from the guilt of sin by a superficial balm that merely pacifies the flesh and has thoroughly infiltrated the modern church. God’s ministers should be confronting, exposing and ridding their churches this lethal malady.
Presenter: Zach Herbert
When a warring nation seeks to offset the power of their enemy through a battle of attrition, they often flood their enemy’s economy with false currency—rendering the opposing currency useless. Satan has a similar strategy in mind: he seeks to dilute God’s Word and render it ineffective for bringing down strongholds and tearing-down arguments. Yet God’s unadulterated Word will bring power and authority back to His Church.
Presenter: Zach Herbert
"Hijacking the Kingdom" is a message that was ministered at the 2022 Exodus Conference.
Presenter: Asi Adams
When Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, he came laden with natural kingdom expectations in the hopes that Jesus would be the leader of the Jews. Jesus’ counterintuitive response still baffles Christians to this day. Was Jesus merely trying to set up another institution of man ruled by the same forces of fear and death or did He have something truly revolutionary in mind?
Includes: "Build Your Church"
Presenter: Asi Adams
When God wanted to demonstrate to all principalities and powers His manifold wisdom, He created the Church. This is an institution that surpasses all unity, love and power of any other, not by coercion, but through the power of truth and love. This is only possible through the energizing power of the Holy Spirit, active in each member of the fitly framed temple. Yet each member only contains a measure of Christ's gift (His Spirit), making them dependent on the gifts and ministry of all the other members.
Includes: "Your Will O Lord"
Presenter: Asi Adams
Do you want to die the death of a righteous person? Then you must live a life of complete submission to God. Our will is the only offering we can freely give to God because it is the only thing we can ultimately keep for ourselves. We submit to God as He speaks His word of discipline through people. And as we subordinate our opinions and will to God’s, He can change our minds. Recent studies have shown that to change our minds is to change our lives.
Presenter: Zach Herbert
The ancient Hebrews viewed salvation as an unfolding journey of relationship with God; this stood in sharp contrast to the Greek perspective. They purported that human-centered reasoning was the only similitude mortals held in common with the divine, thus exalting their fallible minds to the place of God. How has this Greek mindset invaded the church, and does it even matter?
Presenter: Josiah Wheeler
This is the message that Brother Josiah ministered at Amos and Devorah's wedding.
Includes: "The Water Is Wide"
Presenter: Asi Adams
God has a mission and His goal is nothing less than new creation. John Wesley rightly believed that the grand stumbling block to the general spread of the gospel is the lives of Christians. When Christians retain a form of religion but lack the power therein, they become the stumbling block that dissuades those who Christ would call. This is ultimately a failure of community. In his own words, Wesley said, “The church has become nothing but a rope of sand”—destroyed by the first waves and storms it encounters. Yet when God’s people are bound by the power of The Spirit, they form an inseparable bond that constitutes His Church—which is what the world is longing to see.
Includes: "He Is Lord"
Presenter: Rowan Gill
Following God requires that we take steps of risky faith without seeing the ramifications right away. Yet through Brother Rowan's story, we glimpse God's faithfulness and promise once we commit ourselves to the journey.
Includes: "How Can I Keep from Singing?"
Presenter: Simeon Adams
Brother Simeon battled a false narrative—one that says, "I am different from everyone else." Simply, he was not cut from a different cloth; he battled against the same flesh that every man has to overcome. His testimony shows how the perseverance of his family in prayer and hard circumstances can decrease the flesh so that Christ may victoriously increase.
Presenter: Nathan Tittley
Studies have proven that people who choose the the path of least resistance in hopes of finding happiness are actually the ones who feel the most unhappy and unfulfilled. As we travel down the path of salvation, we will find times where we face setbacks and uncertainty, yet this is not the time to draw back but to remember that we may be going through a time of testing and we must remember that God’s faithfulness will see us through every difficult, even seemingly unjust circumstance.
Includes: "Not My Will"
Presenter: Brother Blair Adams
This is a brief message that Brother Blair preached on January 20, 1979, when the church remained in New Jersey. He invites the congregation to move beyond fleeting inspiration over new revelations and commit to the sacrifice of love that alone makes God’s promises real in their lives. By the end of that year, they would prove their obedience to this word—putting “shoes” on their faith and make the exodus from the East Coast to Grand Junction Colorado, with many attendant tests and trials.
Presenters: Kevin Durkin & Asi Adams
Do we seek to build an immortality project for self, or are we willing to take the risks to follow the invisible God? Our doubts can paralyze us, or we can choose to walk as He leads us on a narrow path. In the end, our works will reveal where we have truly put our trust.
Includes: "There Is a Road"
Presenters: Zach Herbert & Asi Adams
A true Christian pilgrimage is a search for the sustained presence of God on this earth. This requires a repentance so thorough that a sustained hunger can be met with the sustained word that will lead to the place of His dwelling—His temple. This temple is comprised of lively stones, which are people ordered in right relationship with God and each other, manifesting His image and presence throughout the earth.
Includes: "Lord Prepare Me"
Presenter: Asi Adams
"David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam .… And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him" (1 Sam. 22: 1-2) In order to realize God’s kingdom here on earth, we must press through tribulations, discouragement and battles because the current church world is terminally ill. Many today are content with superficial cures because they are afraid of the radical interventions necessary to bring lasting change. Are we willing to risk our comforts in pursuit of a kingdom?
Includes: "The Motions"
Presenter: Harry Argo
Only through love for God and others can we fill the need we are created with for relationship. Media provides a counterfeit satisfaction that renders us incapable of relating to real people. Our duty as Christians is to reject the distractions of this culture, finding the specific ways God would have each of us to reach out to the lost and to build up the Lord’s sacred community.
Presenters: Amanda Lancaster, Dan Lancaster & Asi Adams
The changes God would have us make begin by capturing our thoughts, by focusing our minds on God's word and obeying it. Often times we think we know what will make us happy, but this is only an illusion. This is why God asks us to surrender our thoughts and allow him to give us new desires. As in the story of Naaman, only when he was able to surrender the way he imagined God would work in his life was he able to experience the true miracle—a change of heart.
Includes: "Speak to the Mountain"
Presenter: Danny Seifu
When Brother Danny realized that every awful thing in his life was due to his reliance on his own will, and conversely, everything good was a result of another’s love and sacrifice, God changed him forever. This realization unlocked the prison of depression he was in and set him on a path of promise.
Includes: "I Had to Come Back"
Presenter: Asi Adams
Every chronic breakdown in the church can be traced to a lack of godly Fatherhood. This type of authority is based in love and sees the eternal consequences of a child’s attitudes and motives, in contrast to managing outward behavior. When God set out to change the world, He called one man and taught him how to be a father, showing us that nothing is more revolutionary than God’s vision of what a family and community should be.
Presenter: Andrew Zimmerman
Brother Andrew’s longing to devote his life to God led him on a journey of discovery, from his first encounter with the Lord at summer camp, to a group of men seeking God in a coffee shop and finally to a community of committed believers in Texas.
Presenter: Asi Adams
God will not add accessories to a life incompatible with His purpose; He desires to transformis the process through which He changes us—allowing us to participate in the process. This is only possible when we are convinced of the necessity for a complete change. As we submit our lives to discipleship, He transforms us into something useful for His kingdom.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert, Kevin Rumsey & Dylan McMahan
In order to see the kingdom of God, we must each experience a transformation so total it cannot be attributed to human achievement. This is what Jesus described to Nicodemus when the latter attempted to make Jesus a political leader—contrasting the earthly kingdom Nicodemus hoped to see to the spiritual kingdom He was building. This encounter must then become a precedent for the rest of our lives.
Presenters: Asi Adams & Gabe Barbieri
God’s provision will prepare us for every crisis, even if we don’t see the results of our obedience immediately. When God prompts us to move, we must disentangle ourselves from the shackles of indifference and passivity in order to seize the fleeting moments of opportunity. This require that every one of us take responsibility for our places on the Lord’s battlefield and that we each strike the enemy until we see complete victory.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
This is the message Brother Dan gave at the beginning of this year's Christmas program. It is based on the true story of Abbie Burgess, a young girl who tended the lighthouse at Matinicus Rock during a severe storm The entire program can be seen on the Homestead Heritage YouTube channel.
Presenter: David Bernard
Paul said that his teaching was “not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” Gods intervention depends on whom we have put our faith in, rather than how much faith we have. If we want to see miracles, we must take that risky step of moving our faith from man to God. We may not see immediate results, but we are commanded to ask, seek and knock until God’s will is accomplished.
Includes: "Believe For It"
Presenter: Asi Adams. In Matthew 23, Jesus said He was incapacitated by the people’s unwilling hearts, indicating that human will is the determining factor in whether one receives the grace of God. Anyone can accept opinions or suggestions, as long as these are based on human authority; yet whenever someone comes in the authority of God, people take offense. But an examination of scripture reveals that God almost always chooses to dispense His grace through anointed words of truth delivered by imperfect vessels—people.
Includes: "Draw Me Close to You"
Presenter: Zach Herbert
“Dishonor stands as one of the straightest roads to perdition and apostasy that exist. Conversely, honor is the foundation from which all other elements of Christian character arise. Honor refers to a heart and mind condition, an inner attitude that inevitably manifests in expressed words, actions and demeanor. Honor recognizes an indebtedness, an obligation to those whom we honor.” —Brother Blair Adams
Presenters: Asi Adams, Dan Lancaster & Zach Herbert
God’s glory filled Solomon’s temple when every constituent piece came together according to the pattern given by God. The same is true in the church. Paul describes the Philippians’ investment in his ministry as a partnership in which they all shared in the reward. When God’s people are completely united in His Spirit, the world can see tangible proof that God incarnated Himself in human flesh.
Includes: "Glorified"
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert, Kevin Rumsey & Nathan Tittley
The steps of radical faith can seem unnecessary to those who are unwilling to follow God with all their heart. Instead of following, they will dismiss these steps of obedience as commendable but not essential for salvation. Yet the way of the cross leaves no exemptions; it requires everything.
Presenters: Asi Adams & Howard Wheeler
God requires that we cultivate a relationship of dependency on Him. Our carnal minds would deceive us into viewing the deposits of God’s grace as unnecessary. But God allows circumstances in our lives that cause us to see our inadequacy without Him. Do we place our trust in the carnal mind, (which Paul explicitly states is at enmity against God) or in the Spirit that God has given us?
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
Every reduction that comes into our lives is a gift from God. At every step we must progressively surrender more of our lives. This is only because God is trying to prepare us for what is coming in the future. Yet someday we’ll look back and say, “If I had known then what I know now, I would've been all the more willing!”
Presenter: Nathan Tittley
This year in Florida, a disaster occurred when a luxury condo collapsed on itself, crushing over one hundred unsuspecting victims. Investigations found that the builders had cut corners in the structural support, leaving the building vulnerable. This is why we must build our lives and communities precisely according to God’s design, to create a place of refuge for the day of trouble.
Presenter: Tsafrir Yarden
God allows suffering in the lives of His people to help us become pliable and soft so that He can change us into vessels of honor that are able to withstand pressure. In the crucible of crisis we can draw much closer to God.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The devil’s plan is to create fragmentation. But God desires to bring wholeness to every area of our lives. God has given us patterns for relationships that create a context where all aspects of life can be woven together to form the image of Christ.
Includes: "Shine Jesus Shine"
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert & Kevin Rumsey
If salvation is based on a static faith, discipleship is totally useless. Yet if salvation is an ongoing relationship of trust, stagnation is our biggest enemy. Therefore we will see loving criticism (discipleship) as the means towards progress and change. Those who hate discipline mistake it as rejection, when in fact it is proof that God accepts us and desires to make us like Him.
Presenters: Dan Lancaster, Tsafrir Yarden & Asi Adams
The world is controlled by fear: either the fear and awe of God or the fear of man. Trust bridges the chasm of the fear of man. When we trust and embrace the Word God is speaking, it has the power to deliver and change us.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert & Kevin Rumsey
We believe that a relationship with God constitutes eternal life and everything in our lives is defined by that relationship. We build our understanding of justification and sanctification upon this saving relationship.
Includes: "Broken Things"
Presenter: Kevin Durkin
The people of God have always been on the move. Pressing through unimaginable hardships and often without knowing the final outcome of their journey, they continually seek to live on the edge of God’s frontier. This attitude is what constitutes a true pioneer and is the lifestyle we commit to in baptism.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Howard Wheeler, Zach Herbert & Dan Lancaster
The greatest faith we can ever exercise in our Christian walk is total obedience. And although God is sometimes unequivocally clear on some issues, He oftentimes requires us to have meticulous, careful obedience even when we don’t see the total picture. Yet, if we insist on following our formulas instead of walking by risky faith, we will be caught in the devil’s trap.
Includes: "Not By Might"
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert, Kevin Rumsey & Dylan McMahan
A knowing relationship with God is eternal life, which Scripture implicitly says is not merely a mental assent. If it sometimes seems as if Scripture contradicts itself, it is instead because God wants us to look at these scriptures within the wholeness that constitutes life.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert & Kevin Rumsey
In recent days, we’ve received numerous challenges that we’re not preaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ. So we are devoting this session to a discussion of the gospel. What is it? How does it save us? How do we believe it?
Presenters: Howard Wheeler, Leslie Lindsay & Asi Adams
In His parable of the wedding feast, Jesus describes a category of people unable to enter the kingdom of heaven because of their natural distractions and obligations. As Jonah prayed in the belly of a fish, “Those who cling to worthless idols [their stubborn will] forfeit the grace which could be theirs” (Jon. 2:8). In His providence, God sees ahead and extends His grace to enable us for every trial. However, by doggedly clinging to our own will, we forsake His mercy. Then, when calamity strikes, we’ll be asking, “Where was God?”, while in our day of visitation God was asking, “Where are you?”
Presenter: Asi Adams
Eph. 3:10: “God’s purpose in all of this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was His eternal plan….” The church is called to be the “city on a hill that cannot be hidden.” Everything in our lives that is competing against this stated goal is selfish ambition. This implies a life of sacrifice that will constrain us to accomplish God’s purpose. And, although this vision definitely includes agriculture and a simple life on the land, if it doesn’t include a burden for God’s people and purpose, it is not God’s vision.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert & Kevin Rumsey
Those visiting our community gatherings or events often find it difficult to articulate the questions that arise as they encounter this different way of life. Yet when they’ve had time to reflect on their experiences, they can express those questions. These sessions are an opportunity to consider—and try to answer— the questions we are frequently asked. We hope that these sessions will be a place where those who are grappling with these questions can feel the resonance of God’s Spirit leading them into all truth.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert & Kevin Rumsey
Those visiting our community gatherings or events often find it difficult to articulate the questions that arise as they encounter this different way of life. Yet when they’ve had time to reflect on their experiences, they can express those questions. These sessions are an opportunity to consider—and try to answer— the questions we are frequently asked. We hope that these sessions will be a place where those who are grappling with these questions can feel the resonance of God’s Spirit leading them into all truth.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Zach Herbert & Kevin Rumsey
Those visiting our community gatherings or events often find it difficult to articulate the questions that arise as they encounter this different way of life. Yet when they’ve had time to reflect on their experiences, they can express those questions. These sessions are an opportunity to consider—and try to answer— the questions we are frequently asked. We hope that these sessions will be a place where those who are grappling with these questions can feel the resonance of God’s Spirit leading them into all truth.
Presenter: Greg Godsey
This is a message where Brother Greg shared the story of God's transforming power in his life.
Includes: "Many Will See It"
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
A fatalistic mindset causes us to consider our life’s course as predestined so that our actions cannot change that course. While this viewpoint purports to be realistic, it actually absolves us of responsibility and precludes the possibility that God can change us. But if we reject this mindset and believe in a reality that include God‘s miracle working power, we will be transformed!
Includes: "Redeemer"
Presenter: Bob Fu
A prominent voice for the persecuted church in China, Bob Fu’s journey with the Lord began after being imprisoned for his involvement with the Tianamen Square demonstration and led him to become active in the House Church movement. He describes the foundation of this ministry (Prison Theology) to be just what Paul and Silas experienced while bound in a hostile jail: an opportunity for kingdom expansion.
Includes: "Give Thanks"
Presenter: Asi Adams
When we see the truth about ourselves, it causes us to abhor what we see. James says that looking at God’s truth is like looking in the mirror. He uses this analogy because we use a mirror multiple times a day in order to make appropriate adjustments. Only if we continually face the ugliness of ourselves that we see in the mirror can we live within the appropriate grace God has for us.
Includes: "Come Sweet Water"
Presenters: Asi Adams & Howard Wheeler
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). The New Testament is filled with warnings of false prophets who attempt to deceive and confuse God’s people. But it also promises that we can know whether a ministry be of God or not: we can judge by the fruit it produces.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
This is the message that Brother Dan ministered at Blair and Melony Lancaster's wedding.
Includes: "Miracle"
Presenter: Asi Adams
The floodgates of heaven’s miracles and blessings are held back by a tiny peg: our obedience. As in the story of The Syrophoenician Woman, God always requires that we participate in our miracle. This is not because He seeks to demean us, but rather, He knows that we can only receive His blessings in the proper position. Yet, what is the spiritual posture that evokes God’s miraculous power?
Presenters: Abraham Adams & Asi Adams
“They are of the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us…” (1 John 4:5-6). Those who conform their lives to the viewpoint of this world will always accept dead truths or “truisms“ about God, so long as they are detached from His authority. Like the people in the Nazareth synagogue, they will applaud what they recognize to be gracious words but will be filled with hatred when confronted by the decision God’s word necessitates. But Jesus promised we will find His acceptance if we will forsake the praises of men and love His authority.
Presenters: Nathan Tittley & Asi Adams
The Bible provides multiple examples of Jesus and the apostles treating sin in a manner that many in today’s Christian circles would consider too severe. Yet, if God views covenant-breaking sin as an existential threat to our relationship with Him—which John says constitutes eternal life—then He is going to be very direct with us, so that we may overcome.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Satan knows that separation from the world infuses God’s people with an unstoppable power. As in the story of Balaam, it is only when the people of God compromise their consecration that they become vulnerable to the enemy’s schemes. So when God’s people experience persecution, we can be assured that satan sees God’s powerful blessing upon us. When satan employs his murderous tactics to derail us from working together with God to accomplish His purpose, we should rejoice!
Presenter: Howard Wheeler
This is the message that Brother Howard ministered at Josh and Susanna Wheeler's wedding.
Presenter: Asi Adams
In Luke 10 we see Jesus send forth His disciples to perform miracles and acts of love. Whenever God’s people move in obedience to the Spirit, Satan loses his stronghold on this world. Jesus was full of joy when his disciples returned, and He said, “ I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. As the church approaches the end times, we must not cling to traditions of men or relegate the works of the Spirit to a trophy shelf. Rather, we must increasingly seek to be consumed by God’s Spirit of love. Only then will we begin to see His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Includes: "Power in the Blood"
Presenters: Nathan Tittley, Zach Herbert & Asi Adams
Our enemy intends to drive a wedge between God’s people when we encounter trials. In the recent sickness, many people suffered from mental confusion and instability. In their weakened state, satan tried to destroy people’s faith by redefining love. God’s love is conditional and is rooted in His authority. Only by our obedience to God and by abiding within the place of relationship He has given us can we receive His love. And this love will empower us to overcome even the darkest trials.
Includes: "Abide in the Vine"
Presenters: Nathan Tittley, Regina Tittley & Asi Adams
Oftentimes, God asks us to surrender the promise He has given us to His timing and control. As He did with Jacob, God may even use Egypt as a provision for His people. Yet if we stubbornly cling to our principles, rather than follow the Spirit’s leading, we will hijack God’s plan.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Often the devil will wage a war of attrition. He will attempt to wear us down and sap our faith because he recognizes that God’s power is greater than his, and he fears a direct battle. The disease that has afflicted many of our people can bring confusion and even feelings of loneliness and depression. But we must recognize that although the enemy may be attacking our minds, God is in control of our souls. God’s grace will show up right when we need it if we hold on to God and His promises.
Presenter: Asi Adams
It is the devil’s intention to tempt us until we are bound in a place of faithlessness and doubt. There are myriads of ways to fall into temptation, but God has promised that we always have a recourse—a way of escape. If we will use the spiritual tools readily available to us, we will see the second most powerful force in the universe, the devil, fleeing from us.
Includes: "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand"
Presenter: Brother Blair Adams
Today, June 24, 2021, is our church's 48th anniversary. Listen as Brother Blair reads from his journal from that time. This reading is taken from a meeting in 2012. On June 24, 1973, in a tiny chapel amid East 14th Street's Manhattan slums, Brother Blair unrolled a narrow blue carpet and set up metal folding chairs for the first meeting. None could anticipate the great work, abundant life, and bright witness that those simple beginnings launched in those dismal surroundings.
Includes: "He's Given Us a Land/Our Father Is Alive"
Presenters: Abraham Adams & Asi Adams
The cardinal “Sin of Jeroboam” that tainted the entire future of Israel simply entailed viewing the patterns ordained by God as being “too much.” This resulted in calamity that ultimately was Israel’s downfall. Yet how are we to avoid this perilous sin in our day?
Presenter: Asi Adams
How can we have confidence that we passed from death to life? We know because we love our brothers with a self-sacrificial love of total trust and commitment. This love is the total opposite of the self preservation and fear that the enemy uses to hold us captive. We are set free from the fear of death as we learn to hear God’s word and see His Spirit reflected in His people. As God’s people come to this place of love and unity, the world will see God in His people. And they will believe that God sent Jesus.
Presenter: Nathan Tittley
God has a story and purpose for our lives that we will only discover when we completely surrender to His design. But in order to surrender, we must trust that God really has what is best in mind for us.
Includes: "Multiplied"
Presenters: Asi Adams & Amanda Lancaster
"The Power and Purpose of Suffering in Christ" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Evan Birdsong
"Modern-Day Apostasy and The Great Tribulation," is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Howard Wheeler
"Modern-Day Apostasy and The Great Tribulation" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenters: Amanda Lancaster & Asi Adams
"Bless All the Families of the Earth: Family-God's Revolutionary Answer to a Collapsing World" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Kevin Durkin
"What Kind of Culture—Economy, Polity or Society?" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
"Zeal For His House: Restoring God's Design for a Fitly Framed Temple" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenters: Asi Adams
"The Pledge of a Good Conscience: The Meaning and Purpose of Water Baptism" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Asi Adams
"You Hear Its Sound: The Promised Baptism of the Holy Spirit" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Zach Herbert
" 'You Have Heard It Said ... But I Say to You...'—A God of Wrath or Love?" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenters: Daniel Anz, Asi Adams & Dan Lancaster
"Dying To Death: The Missing Essential of Repentance" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Asi Adams
"Upon This Rock: Understanding the Nature of God as the Bedrock of the Kingdom" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Asi Adams
"Restoring David's Tabernacle-Hebraic Prayer and Praise," is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Includes: "Come Let Us Go Up to Zion"
Presenter: Dan Lancaster
"How Do You Know?—Trusting Heart or Head?" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Dan Lancaster, Zach Herbert, Daniel Anz & Dylan McMahan
"Justification By Faith: Overcoming Legalism" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenters: Asi Adams, Dan Lancaster, Zach Herbert, Daniel Anz & Dylan McMahan
"Justification By Faith: Overcoming Legalism" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Evan Birdsong
"What Happened to the Gospel?—Evangelism or Mass-Marketing Jesus" is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenters: Asi Adams & Dan Lancaster
"How to Start a Community Guaranteed to Fail," is a message ministered in the 2021 Solomon's Porch Symposium.
Presenter: Asi Adams
Those who evaluate the work and word of God through the carnal mind, like King David’s wife Michal, will be barren. If instead we commit to an irreparable distrust of self, we will receive the truth from those God sends to us. As we look intently into the mirror of that perfect law, we will find liberty.
Presenter: Asi Adams
The source of fear is misplaced trust. If our trust is in ourselves, fear will come when we feel that we’re losing control. But in fact, to be captive to fear is to be a subject of Satan, since fear is his currency. Jesus robed Himself in flesh and tasted death so that He could break the fear of death that holds us captive. Our trust in Him sets us free from our bondage to fear.
Presenter: Tim Everett
Brother Tim Everett gives his testimony. It is a message of hope and how our decisions can have a ripple effect for others.
Includes: "Spirit Lead Me"
Presenter: Asi Adams
The Israelites refusal to utterly drive out their enemies produced a perennial cycle of failures that was ultimately their downfall. Like the Israelites, we often are willing to subdue our flesh for a time, while believing we are entitled to a reward from God for our efforts. This lack of complete obedience produces a disappointed and unfulfilled life. This message provides the key to destroy this vicious cycle in our lives.
Includes: "Lord Prepare Me"
Presenter: Brother Blair Adams
In this message, “A Very Great Trembling,” we will see that although Isaac is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, God asks Abraham if he is willing to sacrifice this promise back to God. Has the promise replaced the Promise Giver as Abraham’s god? This willingness to sacrifice the very fulfillment of God’s promise requires unshakable trust in the One who gave the promise. God requires this same trust of all those who would follow in the steps and faith of Abraham.
The world’s greatest economists agree that trust forms the basis for every enduring society, even economy. When two Soviet prisoners were once placed in separate cells, their tormentors tried to convince them that their partner had betrayed them and capitulated to the state. Yet, their covenant with each other, their trust and mutual integrity, prevented this deception. Ultimately, the fabric of Christian community depends on the trust we can maintain in each other— a trust to love at all costs, never betray, and never break covenant.
None escape the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;” there is no discharge from the struggle that that ultimately culminates each individual‘s life on earth. Yet, is it possible for every blow, setback, pain or hardship to become part of a design and eternal purpose when placed in the hands of life‘s Master Architect? Then our daily vicissitudes might be seen as a cross, and the cross, as the art of life.
Some of life‘s choices must be taken in faith. You will not know the outcome before you commit to a lifelong course. If you delay decision until all future consequences can be assessed and known, then no decision can ever be made. We must trust the guidance of one who sees the end from the beginning, or else remain paralyzed, deprived of ever finding the risks or rewards of living by faith.
This podcast is adapted from chapter five of the book “Knowing God by Name” by Blair Adams, and is read by the author. Brother Blair is the founding minister of Heritage ministries and the Homestead Heritage communities. He has devoted his entire life to explaining and proclaiming the liberating word of God— in countless spoken messages and in scores of published books. In this message, “A Very Great Trembling,” we will see that although Isaac is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham, God asks Abraham if he is willing to sacrifice this promise back to God. Has the promise replaced the Promise Giver as Abraham’s god? This willingness to sacrifice the very fulfillment of God’s promise requires unshakable trust in the One who gave the promise. God requires this same trust of all those who would follow in the steps and faith of Abraham.