Edwards Lake Church: Recent Episodes
Adam Shanks
God's Word is mighty, moving, and motivating. We want to open God's Word together and use it to change our lives. These sermons are delivered weekly at Edward Lake Church in Birmingham, AL.
We often struggle with not only knowing what we should be doing as Christians, but struggling with where we are and how far we need to go. A quick look at "the north star" will help everything.
"But what about..." is typically the response I get when I talk about being confident in our salvation, and generally they point to one of three passages in the book of Hebrews. We discuss those passages, truly understanding the argument for confidence in the case of most Christians.
We struggle with being confident in our salvation. But so many passages in the New Testament make it clear that this is exactly how we should feel and how we should understand our destiny.
In track 25 of the Mark Your Bible series, we learn about the urgency of obeying God now. We should not put off obeying God until some later time when it is good for us, because the only way that is good for us is to obey Him now.
When we realize that life is not about us, we should learn to keep our eyes on God and trust in Him for everything.
Instead of feasting on the Word of God, we often treat it like a snack. We should learn to have higher expectations of ourselves and our work in God's Word.
Before we decide what to believe, we must decide if we are willing to believe anything at all.
Seeing with eyes of faith open our hearts to truths that we cannot see unless we want to see them. Sometimes, we must see to believe. When it comes to faith, we must sometimes believe to see.
Putting God back on the throne of your life is essential to having the perspective that will make life more purposeful. God deserves His pedestal.
Bad things are going to happen, especially for God's people. This entire world is against us if we're truly living like Christ. But, those bad things have good results and we can take courage from such truths.
We take some time to look back over 2021, including the good and the bad. As we see God's faithfulness in the past year, it is easy to believe He will be faithful in the new year, and we discuss some great things coming in the year 2022.
As we finish up our study of the book of Acts, we find Paul standing trial before King Agrippa and being shipped off to Rome to stand before Caesar.
Too often, we can see that our primary focus is not on the things of God but on the worries of man. Instead, we should spend more time praying for the issues and future of the kingdom.
We are living in this world even though we are not part of this world. Yet, we tend to try to be as much a part of this world as we can and still claim to be Christians. The Bible is clear that this is not God's plan.
We must learn to wield the Sword of the Spirit better, and specifically on ourselves first.
Because we know we can sin, does this mean we cannot know that we are saved? Absolutely not. The Bible not only teaches that we can, but that we should, be confident in our salvation.
Paul goes back to Jerusalem to face more persecution, arrest, and ultimately some errors in the justice system.
We can examine the prayer habits of Jesus and learn much about how we should also be praying.
Various churches worship in various styles and with various practices. The Bible is clear that there are things we should do in worship.
We all sin. And we all have a tendency to hide our sins. We must learn to admit our sins, confess them to God, and be willing to even confess them to one another if we want to be provided with the strength to overcome these failures.
A survey of the prayers in the New Testament help us better understand how we should pray.
Christians are redeemed from sins, but they still find themselves sinning. The way to stop sinning is to learn to master temptations.
Paul continues his missionary journey, leaving us great lessons and examples for how we should be as Christians.
A quick look at the many prayers in the Bible establishes a great pattern for us to model our prayers, and that model is a far cry from what we often pray.
The Bible is clear that God wants His people to be one people, with one hope, one baptism, and one Lord.
What's Heaven worth to you? Everything? For most of us, that's exactly what we'd say, but then we'd give it up for each opportunity to sin. We must reevaluate how much value we place on heaven versus our sin.
Paul's journeys were often depressing and discouraging, yet he kept going. He worked for the Lord. What can we learn from Paul's continued devotion?
Prayer is a common idea and a regular practice for most Christians. Yet, it hard to get just right. Learn more about prayer as we start a series on better understanding this great privilege.
A continuation of our sermon from the morning. How can we grow deeper in our relationship with God?
How deep can we go as Christians in our faith? How deep can we go in our relationships with God?
The stories of Paul in Philippi capture our imagination and let us know what sharing the Gospel is really like. Would we be willing to stay focused like he did?
As Christians, we have a regular opportunity to focus on Jesus and His sacrifice. Do we use it for this?
We have a meal in heaven to which we can look forward, if we will walk with God and love His appearing.
God is clear in Jeremiah 2.13 that He is the only source of living water, yet we have a habit of creating new gods, new saviors, or new ways to fill our cisterns. When we recognize what we are doing, we must turn back to God.
Raising Children is difficult at best, but with God's directions, it is understandable and achievable.
God's presence is often associated with water. Water from the throne. The Spirit is poured. We come to God through water. Each image reveals much about our relationship with our Father.
Breaking Bread is an idiom that can mean a lot of things. But what does it mean in Acts 2.42?
Fellowship is easy to talk about but doing it is another thing. Here are some practical helps in becoming better at fellowship.
Track 17 gives the unpopular teachings of the Bible about the roles of men and women in the home and in the church. Yet, while unpopular, this is still the only way these relationships work.
The gospel is a story that changes everything. Understanding how stories work though can help us as we try and understand the Gospel and what God is telling us through this story of all stories.
Peter did some amazing miracles. Luke uses some of these miracles to remind us of some other amazing miracles and to introduce an amazing Gentile.
Worship, as described in Scripture, involves communing with God and communing with one another.
Prayer is a practice in which we all know we should engage, but probably few of us feel we come before God's throne as well as we should. Here are some helpful steps to help you in your prayers.
The conversion of Saul tells a great story of redemption, and is also a reminder that there were many amazing people in bringing about God's will in Saul's life.
To be devoted to fellowship, there must be a devotion to one another. This is clearly seen in the dozens of passages that tell us how we should act and feel towards one another.
Philip was called by the Spirit to go join a stranger in a chariot and deliver the Gospel. This willingness to go wherever God leads brought the Gospel to a whole new continent.
There's many activities we should be doing together if we are going to be in fellowship
Our sexualized world has made porn available to anyone. So many people have been trapped by its insidiousness. Overcoming a desire for pornography has overwhelmed too many because they don't do it's God's way.
We sometimes feel discouraged, which can leads to worse difficulties. This isn't wrong, but it is an opportunity to learn to lean on God.
Knowing how to be content, how to make good decisions, and how to avoid being indebted can set up far above the world around us and gain us influence in helping them see God's great truths and wisdom in Scripture.
God should always lead, but sometimes He leads from a place where we cannot see Him and must just walk by faith. But this is God's plan for us.
Stephen is known as the first marty, but he was also a great preacher of God's will. Listen to his sermon and learn how he confronts the leaders of his day.
The early church was known for its great relationships and unity. This all plays into their devotion to fellowship.
We all want to know what the unknown will be like. We all want to see what's around the next bend.
We know with confidence that we will be resurrected, but what will that be like? Can we know how resurrection works based on Scripture?
The story of the seven men chosen to serve the church is important because it helps us see the importance of servants in the Lord's body.
As God's people, we should be devoted to sharing God's story and His will with the world around us. If we are truly living like the disciples of the first century, we will be about God's business.
This touchy topic is important to study, because we must know what the Bible says before we ever get into this emotional and difficult situation. God's way must be pursued, and we must know what God says.
Often our plans get derailed. Even our plans to serve God and deliver His message can be detoured from what we expected. Here's the best way we can look at such moments.
The apostles face more opposition from the Jews, but they face that opposition face first knowing that God would take care of them.
Obedience is not enough for the mature Christian. Instead, God expects us to imitate Jesus, to emulate His character, and to be like Him.
Understanding how God made us as humans is key to understanding what God's intention for us is on this earth. Learn more about God's goals as we erase our presuppositions and explore some basic truths.
Understanding how God made us as humans is key to understand what God's intention for us on this earth. Learn more about God's goals as we erase our presuppositions and newly explore some basic truths.
Continuing our story from the book of Acts, we learn that Peter was arrested for preaching and healing the lame man. The Church responded in the best way possible - they prayed. They prayed for boldness, conviction, and God's success.
James makes it clear that we are not to just hear the word, but we are to do a great job at obeying the Word of God.
Another in the Mark Your Bibles series. If our speech reveals what overflows from our hearts, then we as Christians should be known for our amazing and encouraging speech.
Often our plans get derailed. Even our plans to serve God and deliver His message can be detoured from what we expected. Here's the best way we can look at such moments.
Peter healed the lame man in a hostile situation, having just witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus. Yet, he performed the miracle and preached with boldness.
The early Church valued hearing God's Word read in their assemblies. Today, we prefer to read on our own. Let's examine some benefits of hearing God's Word publicly read out loud.
Sometimes we feel like stray animals, with no home, with no provision, with no love. Yet, we find that we are loved. And we should be loving those around us, taking them in, and loving them. Like Jesus said, "As you have done to the least of one of these, you have done for me."
One of the hardest things for us as people is to speak in a way that other will want to listen. Yet, God demands that we speak to the world around us with gentleness and reverence. This lessons explores ways we can gain influence in our circles and gain influence for God's glory.
God's creation is filled with unparalleled beauty in the most unexpected places. What is the purpose of such beauty? The only answer that can be imagined is that they display the glory of our beautiful God.
The early Church began in Acts 2, with God's display of power, a group of men showing dedication to serving their Lord, an incredible sermon, and an even more incredible display of repentance as 3,000 were baptized to accept the gift of the Holy Spirit. This story is still amazing today.
The early church was "continually devoted to the apostles' doctrine." Understanding how we can do this today is critical in us being who God has designed us to be.
There's much disagreement regarding the audience of our prayers. Should we pray only to the Father? Are we supposed to pray to Jesus? Where does the Holy Spirit fit in to all of this? Listen in as we explore the Bible's answer.
The Book of Acts is a great place to go when seeking information about God's design for His Church. The story in chapter one shows us what the disciples did after they lost Jesus on earth and needed to pull together to accomplish the mission He left for them to share the Gospel as witnesses.
This sermon is the first of a bimonthly series on the design and purpose of God's Church.