First Baptist Church, New Castle, Indiana: Recent Episodes
Jerry Ingalls
Harvest workers must “go” in God’s grace through prayer and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
We build relationships, truly and sincerely caring for the maturing people around us, just as others care for us.
What is required of you, the faithful farmer? Just that, it requires faith! The kind of faith that reminds you to sow seed everywhere you go because it’s good seed.
Until all worship, let us continue to be faithful to the Lord of the Harvest and respond to His call upon our lives to be hard-working farmers!
In the easy yoke of Jesus Christ, there is great joy to be found in laboring with Christ, rather than working for Christ alone and by your own strength.
God wants to first produce a harvest of spiritual fruit within us so that as we go to make disciples of all nations.
We are called to manage the household of God well, and that begins in our own lives, in our own relationships and marriages, and with our own parents and children.
We must learn to trust our training so that we obey God's Word according God’s intent when it matters the most.
We need to learn to put God first in all we do. Pursuing godliness in your finances is an inside-out process of bringing all things into submission to Christ so that all that you think, say, and do points to Him, including how you utilize the resources God has provided for you
God enlisted you to be all you can be – an image bearer of God, the reflection of His Son Jesus Christ for all the world to see!
Joy is not a response to circumstances; joy is the rock of our well-being – a firm foundation from which we can experience all other emotions and respond in covenant faithfulness to God, according to His promises for our lives.
This Christmas, I am inviting you to surrender your heart to be Christ’s home so that your home may become a home of hope, love, joy, and peace – a place where the weary of mind and body, a place where the heavy-burdened of heart and soul, can come and find rest
Hope is a right expectation in God – I wait upon Him knowing that He will show up in my situation.
Learn discernment to make wise decisions by deciding to apply what you have learned from Jesus, doing what He would do in each of your circumstances and difficult situations.
May you start seeing every circumstance and every challenging situation as an opportunity to become more like Jesus until your very life proclaims the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God has given every believer the same power that gave Jesus the resiliency to live His life on mission for God, without distraction, and to face His own death for the glory of God, without compromise.
Today we will look at the third of the three Pilgrimage Feasts which God commanded Israel to celebrate: The Feast of Tabernacles. It has a past, now and "not yet" aspect which we will explore.
While appearances, positions, and education can make a positive impression up front, it is your character and conduct in the everyday situations of real life that builds your reputation.
You have a choice to make – to trust God and His ways or to take matters in your own hands.
You are to declare it (the Gospel) in word and deed; therefore, you are to prioritize peace as your way of life – vertically with God, internally within your own mind and heart, and in your relationships as you extend the gospel peace of Jesus Christ to all people, regardless of their ideologies and perspectives.
The church has a mission that depends on every member of the body of Christ to do his or her job, regardless of the circumstances.
Let me be clear from the beginning that the joy of the Lord is not a response to your circumstances, it is the posture of your heart in your circumstances, it is the firm foundation upon which you can biblically respond to your circumstances as a good soldier of Jesus!
How we handle our deep levels of disappointment is a critical decision point on the person we are to become. Being faithful is a trained behavior! It doesn’t happen by accident, and you must learn to train it daily.
We need to examine our lives to make sure that we are serving properly and not sitting back waiting to be served!
Rejoicing is a choice that we each must make moment by moment because of our faith, not in consideration of our circumstances!
As a Christian, you are not who you once were (Point A) and you are not yet who God desires you to be (Point B), you are sailing to the destination, on the journey of life. Along the way there are calm waters and there are stormy seas, and in every circumstance, we must train ourselves to keep control of the rudder of our lives.
Walk in the Spirit, not in the flesh. Be slow to anger and you will reflect God in how you conduct yourself, even when you are experiencing the very real emotion of anger, just like Jesus Christ did in very real situations.
In time of war a false report easily leads to confusion, friendly fire, and even death. The same is true within the Church of Jesus Christ in our mission to seek and to save the lost.
I believe there are mission priorities that every good soldier of Jesus Christ must know and train themselves to identify and engage successfully, first, regardless of the stressful conditions. You are defined by that which you prioritize so be wise and discerning in what you put first in your heart.
It was not for lack of wisdom that Solomon fell, it was from his disobedience to God’s ways in the most intimate places of his life – he didn’t watch over his heart with all diligence!
There are three of Jewish Pilgrimage Festivals: Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot. I believe these ancient times of celebration foreshadowed the three greatest days in the life of the church AND that they are the greatest evidence the Bible is the Word of God, and Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.
I want to do 3 things in this sermon time today. I want to look back at the early church and see how the first Christians did friendship and community. I want to address how different friendship and community are in our own current culture. and I want to see how we can actually obey God's design for us and have the kind of friendships He intended for his people to have.
Regardless of your level of training, if you don’t trust your training at the moment that it matters then you will allow the circumstances, your feelings, or your nervous system to determine your response.
“Put your hope in the Living Hope – the Hope above all hopes; the Hope over all other hopes.”
The Passover happened in such a way that they would act as a pattern, a type, a template for the death of Christ.
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.
We are invited to learn how to train ourselves, according to God’s wisdom, to grow strong in God’s grace so that we can live on mission for God and not be distracted by that which is not God’s priority for our lives.
This passage is the foundation for a year-long journey of learning how to live on mission for God as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
Over 700 years before Jesus Christ was born, in a time of great darkness for God’s people, the Prince of Prophets, Isaiah, pointed to the Prince of Peace.
Our unity needs to rise above all human boundaries and distinctions, as well as all human fear and ambition.
It is clear in God’s word that peace and joy are deeply intertwined! How can we experience the joy of the LORD if we don’t first have peace with God first?
Today’s promise comes with hard practice and one that is counter-cultural, not just with the broader culture, but with most church cultures. The practice is to be still.
Trust that God will provide for you when you are obedient to the next step of faith! Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus...
Think of the campfire as a metaphor — each of us are the coals of the fire and the more of us that gather the brighter the fire.
You may think that the practice of serving would be to serve, and while that is true, the ultimate spiritual discipline is to think more highly of others than you think of yourself.
God’s Word teaches us that membership is a privilege and that being a healthy and functional member of the Body of Christ is an essential part of experiencing holiness and wholeness!
The victory you have been given has a 100% guarantee; it will be brought to its fullness because God will persevere in you until you reach the intended finish line of your faith!
There are three aspects to this peace that I will invite you to experience as the provision of God’s promise for you: (1) peace with God; (2) peace with yourself (mental health or peace of mind); and (3) peace with others (a peaceful heart). These three aspects of the promise of peace are a cord of three strands for us to experience the joy of the Lord and to fulfill His Greatest Commandments for our lives.
I am sure we all have had a favorite teacher growing up. But in our scriptures today, we are promised that the Holy Spirit will be our full-time teacher.
You must choose today which yoke you will put on and walk in. The yoke of slavery or the yoke of freedom!
Adoption is the Holy Spirit’s ministry of the Father’s grace towards His lost children.
The Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, pointing us to the example of Jesus and helping us become more like Him.
When you are anointed it means you are consecrated or set apart (chosen) as a person for a special work of God. Literally, you are declared holy by God. The anointing means that you have the presence and power of the Holy Spirit “abiding” in you.
partner, ministry, joy, serving, children, youth, Orange Model, exposure, media, faith,
Through the promised coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is keeping His promise to His followers that He will always be with us and that we will become like Him.
Right now, Jesus is at the right hand of God, in the throne room of Heaven, praying for you!
Jesus is inviting you to do life with Him, for eternity, which, oh by the way, includes every day of this life. Salvation is an all-encompassing reality—it may begin with your initial acceptance of this invitation and end with the fulfillment of it, but it also shapes your daily life.
THE DEVIL IS OUT TO STEAL YOUR JOY! In other words, he is trying to steal one of the most important promises of God from you. Why, you might ask? Because if he is successful, he has stunted the growth of the fruit of the Spirit and stifled His work in your life.
As we walk through the Easter Season we are invited to not only believe our own message, but to live in the power of our hope! We are invited to live as the new creation of God, as the Holy Spirit transforms us through the renewal of our minds.
This is the promise of spring! Even after the worst of winters, the spring brings new life!
Have you ever felt like you were in a pretty bad situation and could not see nor imagine what God was possibly doing to bring the promise of resurrection and life out of the situation?
Some people choose to avoid the Old Testament. Instead of avoiding the it, we need to spend more time studying it. We need to dig in and when we do, we’ll discover unexpected gems hiding in the pages of the first 39 books of scripture. I think you’ll be surprised by what we find!
You were saved by grace alone and the good news is that God’s grace never stands alone—grace always produces the results of God’s intention! You were saved by God’s good work so that you would live out your life of good works for His glory!
We are each called by God. This sounds simple, but it addresses a huge misunderstanding in the traditional church that must be addressed—the calling of God is not limited to being a pastor or missionary.
Faith is a gift given to you by God. It is His invitation to us to be in relationship with Him.
There are two types of covenants in the Bible: between two people and between God and Man. One such covenant, the Law, is a tutor that taught us two things: (1) God is holy and expects His people to be holy, and (2) we cannot live up to His standards. The Law makes it clear that we need a savior.
The promise of security was given to us to become our assurance of salvation, which then dictates how we live our lives—how we think and feel!
We are starting with the promise that, in many ways, is the greatest evidence of our Christianity: nothing demonstrates to us and the world the tangible reality of Jesus Christ crucified, risen and coming again more than our ability to forgive as we have first been forgiven
The heart of today’s message is to reinforce the bedrock of the promises of God as being God’s spoken Word to us.
We have the promise of eternity. This is an overarching truth for living a victorious life because this is the foundation of all our hope.
We are to be diligent in living our eternal life today by partaking in His divine nature.
The promises of God are both a future-focused faith (hope) and a present practice of our faith (behavior).
You already have been fitted for your super bowl ring, now you just need to trust that the victory is your’s and live like a champion and wait for the day when the ring is put on your finger.