Pillar of Truth: Radio Podcast: Recent Episodes
Travis Allen
The teaching ministry of Travis Allen, Teaching Pastor of Grace Church in Greeley, CO. Pastor Travis Allen teaches through the Bible on KRKS. Weekdays - 94.7FM @ 5:00am & 9:30pm | 990AM @ 10:30am
Learn more about Pillar of Truth Radio at our website at https://pillaroftruthradio.com You can learn about Grace Church in Greeley, Colorado at https://gracegreeley.org
In this message you will be challenged to take a critical look at your own worship. In Mary’s song of praise, she is focused on bringing all glory to God. This message will also talk about embracing a type of Christianity that allows you to continue and even contribute to living for yourself, but just maybe in a religious kind of way.
In this message, Mary looks back at what she knows to be true about God. Many people are content to let the study of the attributes of God be done by pastors and theologians. Why is it so necessary to understand the attributes of God when it comes to bringing God glory with our lives?
In this message you will be learning exactly who God is. Take time as you listen to determine if you have a HIGH view of God and do you have a high view of your sin that makes you ‘undone’ like Isaiah was.
This is the second message in our study of Mary’s song of praise to God. We are learning how to follow her example of glorifying God. Mary’s song is directed toward God which honored Him. Worship is often equated with music…but how else do we bring God glory?
In this first message you will get an introduction to Mary’s song as she praises God after learning she was to be the mother of Jesus.
In this message, we will see that Peter failed to completely understand Jesus's call to discipleship. Sometimes Peter follows immediately and excitedly, and sometimes he argues and doubts. Travis helps us understand some keys to being consistent in our discipleship.
Discipleship is a process of both listening and obeying. Learning from Jesus and then following Him! Reading and studying the Bible puts ourselves in a position to listen to Jesus’s words and to obey His teaching.
Jesus instructs these believers and perfects their imperfect faith. Our faith is tested, so that the weaknesses, the imperfections, and the impurities in our faith may be exposed and dealt with, removed by the Lord.
In this message, we will look at the imperfect faith of Jairus as he receives the news that his daughter has died. We see Jesus turn to a frightened father and teach Him who God really is so that his faith can mature and grow.
Today we will continue to hear about the woman healed by Jesus after being sick for twelve years! In the message, Travis points out that Jesus knew this woman by name and knew of her faith in Him. Travis states that she had been chosen from before the foundation of the world to be His. How is this possible?
We will look at the life of the woman who was sick for twelve years, and learn that she was unable to join in any type of worship during that time. Many people have become comfortable just privatizing their Christianity at home since COVID, and thus they don’t really understand why this would be such a big deal. Yet Hebrews 10:24-25, we should not neglect meeting together to learn, love, and edify each other.
We continue our series with a message where we will look at a man who comes to Jesus asking for healing for his sick daughter and we will see that, though this man had an imperfect, weak faith, Jesus responded with love and a lesson in trust!
In todays message you will hear the importance of listening to God’s wisdom – His words – during a trial. But if your initial reaction to trials is to lash out in anger, become bitter, blame others or any other sinful response, open your Bible and learn wisdom from God – begin to understand His purposes in using trials to reveal and strengthen an imperfect faith.
In this and the next days lesson, we are going to be looking at a couple of sections of Luke 18 and seeing how God uses difficult and frightening circumstances to increase the faith of His people. There is this general truth throughout scripture, that God uses trials for our growth.
God shows us what godly widowhood looks like through the saint Anna. Anna was widowed very early in life and she had no children. But instead of her painful situation making her bitter and angry, Anna chose to worship and serve the Lord every day for the rest of her life!
The Bible teaches that whatever the shame, rejection or loss in this world – it’s worth it to be on Jesus’s side when He comes in judgement. We tend to be “in the moment” people. We want instant gratification; we are not good at waiting. What does waiting well look like, and what do we need to change in our thinking in order to do this?
In the message today, you talk about the believer being motivated by looking forward to the return of Christ. You explain how scouring the headlines and searching for worldly signs of Christs coming is different than believers being motivated by the return of Christ.
Two reasons to deny yourself and follow Jesus. The first reason for following Jesus’s command...when we lose our life for Christ’s sake, we get God! A second reason for obedience, let go of this world to save your soul.
Jesus explains why you should deny yourself, put your wants and wishes to death and focus your life on following and obeying Christ. There are three important reasons, based on Luke Chapter 9; 24-27, for choosing to live in this very counter-cultural way.
The more you truly love Jesus, the more the world hates you. Jesus never sought the world’s approval, it makes sense that those who call themselves His followers would do the same. Caring more about pleasing the Father than pleasing the world is taking up your cross, dying to yourself.
Jesus makes three demands of each of His followers, to deny self, take up your cross, and follow Him. And if you choose to obey these 3 commands, you will discover that you are delivered from three enemies – your flesh, the world, and the devil.
This message is about how important, really, imperative, it is for us to follow Jesus’s pattern of evangelism in Luke 23: 9 and tell our friends and neighbors the whole truth about what it means to follow Christ.
A continuation of Travis preaching from I Corinthians Chapter 9 where Paul is challenging us to run our race to win and to discipline ourselves as we run this race. But Paul recognizes that this directive to run to win is hard! So he gives us encouragement and motivation.
This message discusses the Trinity, and points out were in the Bible we see all three persons. In this passage you will also see a refutation of the trinitarian heresy of Modalism, a heresy that seems to be making a comeback today in many Christian circles.
Jesus prayed often and we will see the subject of those prayers. It is both, encouraging and convicting to hear how our Lord prayed. We, too, are commanded to pray. Travis will give us insight into what it looks like, practically, in our daily lives to be in an attitude of prayer as the Lord has commanded.
This message will be looking at the baptism of Jesus, and we will see why it was significant in comparison to the other baptisms that John the Baptist was doing at the time. It also tells you what baptism is and means for Christians today, on the other side of the cross and empty tomb.
In this message Travis talks about how Jesus came to join the Old and New testament or the old and new covenants. He will help us to understand what is meant by the word covenant.
A continuation of Travis preaching from 1 Corinthians Chapter 9 where Paul is challenging us to run our race to win and to discipline ourselves as we run this race. But Paul recognizes that this directive to run to win is hard! So he gives us encouragement and motivation.
It is easy for us to begin to find our identity in a lot of things, sometimes good things, and not realize that we have taken our focus off of the most important things – eternal things.
When we get to the very end of this life, we want to look back on a life well lived! We want to hear Jesus say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” But a life well lived is a life that has the right priorities in place.
We’ve spent the last few broadcasts showing what God says in His word about God’s design for men and women. This broadcast, we are going to see why understanding these truths is so important. Whether male or female, we are in a spiritual battle and we all need to be ready. How do we do that? By knowing and obeying God’s word!
Today we will continue hearing about God’s good design for women. As a quick review, we have come to understand that God designed men and women, both, as image bearers of our God. He designed them both to rule over His creation. But in that rule, He gave them distinct roles. Men are designed to lead and teach. Women are designed to be man’s perfect compliment. In this broadcast, Travis will help us understand how women are unique in their ability to learn and he will define what it means for women to help and to submit.
If you go by advertising and what you see on TV and in movies, our culture seems to call women to be corporate ladder climbers, to focus on themselves, their careers and ambitions, with success being defined as actually moving far away from God’s very different high calling for women. The world pressures women to place all their focus to be on their beauty, their net worth, their position in a company. But God has a much better plan! The Bible teaches us that God has a high calling for women. They are image-bearers of Almighty God and are called to care for His creation. They are called to be helpers, as well.
God created men and women equal, both are His image bearers, and both are to rule over His creation, but God also gave them different roles. Our culture passionately, and sometimes even violently disagrees with that statement and does all they can to try and confuse what should be a simple issue. If your desire is to follow God, then today’s message will help you cut through the clutter of the entertainment culture and understand exactly what men are designed by God to do! Biblical manhood is all about being a leader and a teacher. That is what God designed men to do!
Our culture has much to say on male and female, but is actually completely unable to even define what a man is, and wouldn’t dare to say that men or women should try to fit into a certain expected role. Since there is no point in looking to the world for a definition of manliness, let’s look to the Designer of man, God Himself! When we do that we can clearly see two main points for today. First, God made man and woman equal in value, but He also made them to fulfill distinct and different roles. Secondly, God made man to lead!
As we finish up our study called How We Wait for Christ’s Return. Today we will learn that MANY people will NOT be ready when Christ returns .Just like in the days of Noah and Lot. Travis will share with you some of the real practical things that they can be doing that would be a mark of faithful waiting in their own lives?
Are YOU ready for Christ's return? What is your pattern of life? What do you think about, spend time on, spend your money on? Does your life show your devotion to our glorious Savior or does it show devotion to yourself…your family…your job, or even just entertainment and comfort? Your devotion to God, or lack thereof, has eternal ramifications.
In todays message Travis mentions concerns over movies like The Passion of Christ, and The Chosen which are examples of distractions from Biblical teaching.
Today we are beginning a series called How to Wait for Christ’s Return. Questions to ask yourself. Are you waiting well? Are you waiting in hope for Christ’s return and serving Him cheerfully. Until He returns are sharing the gospel and obeying Him gladly while you wait?
Travis continues this message with specifics – showing us how the gospel of a resurrected Christ doesn’t allow us to continue in sin. Isn’t that SO encouraging! The Bible teaches us that we don’t have to continue to sin!
Many people love the idea of having eternal life, because it means not going to hell, and being in paradise and being free of physical pain and sorrow. What you don’t hear often is excitement or joy about our being totally free from sin.
A lack of fear of God is at the root of our hypocrisy. Therefore, cultivating a fear of God in our lives is the remedy for fighting against the sin of hypocrisy, a sin that many of us have discovered, through this study, is much more prevalent in our lives than we had previously thought. Thankfully, as we will see today, hypocrisy is a sin that we can and must confess to God, a sin that can be forgiven in Christ, and a sin that we can walk away from as we faithfully follow our Savior.
We will take an in depth look at Luke, Chapter 12, verses 2 and 3 where Jesus reminds us that nothing is hidden from God. This is the key for us as Christians to avoid hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is essentially living behind a mask. You show others the person that you want them to see, while what you really believe is revealed when you think no one else is watching. While we may not see what others do in the dark, God does, and Jesus says that the secret things will be revealed.
Travis will continue to teach us how to stay alert in our world and keep watch for hypocrisy, because, as we have said before, it is everywhere in our culture, even within American evangelicalism. And since it is so important to our Lord that his disciples be on the alert, it must be important to us also.
Boiled down, the root of hypocrisy is the fear of man. We know from Galatians 2 that when the apostle Peter was eating with Gentiles, he “drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.” For fear of what others might think of him, even the apostle Peter fell into the sin of hypocrisy, and had to be rebuked by Paul.
Hypocrisy is a disease, it’s a sickness and its influence is everywhere. In the passages we’ve been looking at we have seen it in the Pharisees and in the lawyers. And Jesus has pronounced some strong condemnations on them because of the plain truth that those who live hypocritical lives, no matter how impressive they might look to us, those people are headed to hell.
The Pharisees were the men who studied God’s law and then had the responsibility of teaching it to others. Jesus had even stronger words to speak against these would be teachers of the law. God holds those who teach to a higher standard. Here Jesus condemns the lawyers because they enjoyed their position of power and influence to the neglect of their responsibility to clearly teach God’s Word.
This is a continual critique of the Pharisees. However, the Pharisees were actually doing what the lawyers in Jesus’s day taught them to do. That brings up an absolutely critical question that each of us need to take very seriously: who is teaching you? Are the teachers in your life teaching you the word of God or are they teaching you the word of man?
Asking yourself, as I continue maintaining this profession of love for Christ above all else, does my life demonstrate that? What do I spend my time on, what do I like to talk about? And even if the answers to these questions look pretty good, we still ask the even deeper question of why am I living for God. As Travis will say in his message today, “Can you draw a line from your practice on the outside down to a deep internal conviction in the truth?”
When we hear that word, hypocrisy, we naturally tend to immediately apply it to the way others act? Sadly, it’s always easier to see sin in other people rather than in ourselves, it’s the whole speck in their eye while we have a log in ours. But a study of hypocrisy becomes much more difficult when we turn the focus on ourselves! So as we begin this study let’s start out by putting our own guard down and be willing to apply the hard lessons to our own lives.
Part 5 of The Rich Man and Lazarus where Travis talks about how Jesus provides clarity about death without our having to die. He lets us see what's on the other side of the veil without us having to pass through the veil. He shows us the only two outcomes after death.
Part 4 of The Rich Man and Lazarus where Travis talks about how Jesus provides clarity about death without our having to die. He lets us see what's on the other side of the veil without us having to pass through the veil. He shows us the only two outcomes after death.
Part 3 of The Rich Man and Lazarus where Travis talks about how Jesus provides clarity about death without our having to die. He lets us see what's on the other side of the veil without us having to pass through the veil. He shows us the only two outcomes after death.
Part 2 of The Rich Man and Lazarus where Travis talks about how Jesus provides clarity about death without our having to die. He lets us see what's on the other side of the veil without us having to pass through the veil. He shows us the only two outcomes after death.
In these messages Travis talks about how Jesus provides clarity about death without our having to die. He lets us see what's on the other side of the veil without us having to pass through the veil. He shows us the only two outcomes after death.
A heart focused on heaven is a heart at rest and a heart focused on earthly cares is a heart full of anxiety.
Having our focus on God’s Kingdom will replace our focus on our own kingdom, and focusing on our own kingdom is what causes anxiety.
Jesus knows what we need and when we need it. Being anxious will not fix things nor will it add to your life. In fact, it takes your life away – it takes your joy away.
Knowing that God holds every bit of our lives in His hands – how could we spend even a moment feeling anxious? And yet, this is one of the most common and accepted sins in our culture. The denial of self is not natural, yet, we must change our thinking in obedience to Jesus’s command to not fear.
God promises to sustain us. We don’t need to worry about what we’ll eat. We need to focus our thoughts on God and His Word instead. You have a Heavenly Father that cares for you and no amount of anxiety will change one single thing about your life, so – rest!
God is gracious – He not only tells us not to be anxious – He also tells us how to not be anxious!Do you realize that you can (and should) control what you think? You maybe can’t control what pops into your mind – but you can certainly control what you do with that thought!
What percentage of your day is truly about God, and how much of it is about yourself? If we want to overcome anxiety, God must reorient our thinking!
Have you ever felt anxious? Why? The Bible teaches that anxiety is a direct result of wrongly focused worship – it’s a direct result of a heart controlled by, and focused on, covetousness.
A continuation of Gladness in the house of the Lord - Part 1, where we look at how Psalm 122 shows us that David longed for the fellowship of believers, gave thanks for that fellowship, and prayed for that fellowship.
As you all know, back in March of 2020, many found themselves, for the first time, unable to gather together in our churches to worship God. It was a time where many of us really had our eyes opened to just how much we had taken the privilege of gathering as a church for granted. In this message we will see a similar longing in the life of David as expressed in Psalm 122. David says, “I was glad when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”
Two motivations for our obedience, love and focus. Love motivates us to share God’s good news both because we are amazed at the love God has for us and also because we love others! Our focus motivates us to share His glorious message because we see that affliction is momentary and glory is eternal.
God has mercifully given us a treasure, His good news of salvation! But if we are to obey His command to minister that truth to those around us, that obedience must start with complete confidence in God and His word.
When we follow God’s command to minister to those around us by telling them of the salvation Christ offers, we will experience suffering. We may be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down but, God promises that we won’t be crushed, despairing, forsaken or destroyed. What a wonderful encouragement from Him!
True ministers of this gospel are slaves of Christ who boldly proclaim His message, not their own version of that message! Paul also tells us that gospel ministers will suffer for the message they bring!
An encouraging message about what a successful ministry looks like. As we obey God’s command to share His gospel, we are offering sinners His mercy! Regardless of their response, they are hearing about His mercy!
The first of five exhortations, mercy toward sinners. We offer those around us such hope when we share the good news of Jesus Christ! That is our ministry and it’s a mercy for those sinners that we minister to.
A continuation of Why You Should Come and Pray, where Jesus is encouraging us to go ahead and pray, and to pray as a habit.
We are to address God as Father when we pray because we are God’s children. That is an amazing truth, and a great assurance, but how can we know that we are truly His children?
Do you give thought to whom you are approaching as you pray? We need to start our prayers by calling God, Father. In light of who God is, how do we have the right to address Him as Father?
Calling God, Father reminds us of our relationship with Him – he is our creator, we were created in His image and we were elected, redeemed, forgiven and adopted by God.
Prayer begins with God – talking to God, about God! Each of our prayers should start with focusing our minds on God and His interests – not allowing ourselves to start with a focus on us!
We have been given an indescribable gift in the ability to call the God of the universe “Father.” Does the name of God invoke your worship or is His name inconsequential?
As we learn about how to pray, it makes sense that we should start with God!Unfortunately, in our modern times, thinking about the act of speaking to God no longer causes our hearts to bow in reverence. Our culture has made God all too familiar, attempting to bring Him down to our level.
One of the privileges of prayer is Christian fellowship. We pray as a member of a community. Our prayers take into account the needs of the whole body of Christ – the church – not just our own individual needs.
Prayer offers us spiritual rest and refreshment. Prayer is where the immaterial needs of our soul are met. In prayer we find true rest!
In our very first radio broadcast, Travis Allen focuses on the name of our ministry, stemming from Paul's letter to his protégé, Timothy. The church of the living God is the pillar and buttress of the truth. Every faithful church is to be a pillar of the truth.
Who is God’s offer of salvation really for? Is it for the religious elite? For the wealthy? For the knowledgeable? For the “good person?”
How do you love others? Do you love in spite of how someone might treat you? So you lovie even if it means uncomfortable confrontation?
No matter who you are, you need the gospel. Do you compare yourself to others – looking down on them for their sin while overlooking your own? We are all sinners, but it is eternally important that you discern, “Am I a repentant sinner or a stubborn sinner?
We might be able to act pretty good most of the time but, knowing that we need be thinking good as well – that’s hard! That’s actually a lot of pressure.
Luke, Chapter 7 compares a Pharisee a woman whom the Bible labels as a sinner.The Bible teaches that all of us are like the woman – sinful in the presence of our holy God. We should all be learning from her attitude of worship for a Savior who looks at us in love and offers us salvation.
The Christmas story is a call to salvation, it is a call to believe, it is a call to worship. And it is with the concept of worship that we pick up the story today as we find the shepherds in the presence of the holy child. And as they share their encounter with the angel of the Lord, we come to see two possible reactions when confronted with the reality of who Jesus Christ is, one of genuine faith and joy-filled worship, and one of professing wonder that does not, however, actually equate to real faith.
In this message we look at the shepherds. They’ve heard the amazingly good news from the angels, and now the angels are headed back to heaven. So how do the shepherds respond to this news? The Bible tells us they hurried to find this baby so they could worship Him, they hurried to obey. That is the believing response of everyone who recognizes the words of God.
This was a message that was given immediately to the shepherds, but it is a message that is for each of us, it is the beginning of the gospel. The shepherds were told that Jesus was born to be their savior, but we also discover in Luke Chapter 2, verse 10, that the announcement is for all the people. The shepherds knew nothing of Jesus until this night but they believed and immediately dropped what they were doing to go worship their Savior and King. How has the news of Christ affected you? Are you, like the shepherds, so overjoyed by this glorious message that you will drop everything, follow and obey?
In this message we are taking a closer look at the shepherds and their visitor, an angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord says, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” The verb translated as bring good news is where we get the term evangelize! God is the very first evangelist – He is telling the shepherds the news of salvation! The gospel, the message of the historical event that makes salvation possible, begins right here, in the Christmas story.
Why did God pick common shepherds to be the first to hear of, and witness the birth of Christ? God has always required leadership that mimics a shepherd, and that’s how he reveals himself. The birth of Jesus Christ and the first witnesses of the shepherds help to identify Him as our shepherd King. As you hear the story of Jesus’s birth this season, listen with new ears and hear from God about His merciful, shepherding leadership. God’s heart is the heart of a shepherd.
The first of a six-part series that will examine the shepherd’s role in the amazing story of Christ’s birth which was planned by God before time even began! Over the next few days we will see the wisdom of God in making common shepherds the witnesses of the birth of the Messiah, and the amazing example that the shepherd’s provide for us in how we talk to others about the Christmas story.
In this message we will continue to see the sovereignty of God in the lives of Joseph and Mary. It was ultimately God who decreed that there would be a census that would send Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for Jesus’s birth. And, it is the physical birth of Jesus Christ that reminds us of the full humanity of Jesus. This is a critical point of the gospel. Jesus Christ was fully God, but He was also fully man. The gospel story begins in Bethlehem because only one who is fully man can be a substitute for man. There is no gospel apart from the humanity of Christ.
In this message, we will get to see God’s sovereignty and care on an individual level when, in Luke 2:4-5, He is with Mary and Joseph. Our great God reigns over the affairs of kingdoms and countries, and also tenderly guides and directs the lives of each individual.
Confusion around Luke 2:2 has been used by some to challenge the inerrancy of Scripture, and as evidence that the Bible can’t be trusted. But in this message Travis will help us see the exact opposite is true of this text, that this passage actually gives us an even greater confidence in the Word of our sovereign God, we will learn how to find answers to critics and, in the process, be helped in our trust of Scripture alone, as the inspired word of God.
Our series, titled The Birth of Christ, will show us the sovereignty of God in every detail of Christ’s birth! This message we will look at the sovereignty of God over GLOBAL affairs then next time we will see His sovereignty over regional affairs.
In Psalm 119:1-8, the Psalmist teaches us so much about God! Specifically, he shows us the importance of not just knowing about God but truly knowing Him as your God!
Have you turned from your sin? If you answer is, yes – praise God! But you might say: "Now what?" Ask yourself - does your life bear the fruits of repentance?
If we just have an intellectual knowledge of Jesus – if we can state who Jesus is and what He came to earth for, but there’s no change in our behavior, then our “faith” is just like the demons'. They too know who Jesus is! But they don’t obey Him – they don’t repent!
John came with a message of repentance. That’s a part of the good news that’s often left out in the presentation of the gospel. Yes, Jesus came to pay the price for your sin and mine but there’s more! God requires repentance – repentance first. And since it’s something that God requires, it’s something that should grab our attention!
We must repent and have a right relationship with God. Then, we are called by Jesus, Himself, to share what God has done in our lives with others. It’s time to preach repentance to your family, your friends, everyone around you.
John showed his listeners how to repent. Our job, after we’ve repented in our own lives is to follow John’s example and teach others about repentance. What does that entail?
The wilderness from which John preached “repent!” was a picture of our own spiritual barrenness. Keep in mind Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In other words, blessed are those who understand that they are spiritually bankrupt.
Salvation belongs to the Lord. That means He gets to say how it is obtained. John the Baptist teaches us that repentance must come first – before salvation.
Many people have an intellectual understanding of who Jesus is but their understanding never reaches their affections and their will. Would you like to be assured of your salvation – did you know there is a way to truly know you’re saved?
The message of the gospel is the glorious good news of how sinful man can be reconciled to a holy God. Why is it then, that Jesus says that those who embrace this message will be few? The answer to this question largely has to do with a true understanding of what is meant by the word “repentance.”
A continuation of the discussion of the unbelief of the people in Nazareth as Jesus proclaims Himself to be the Messiah. Due to their blind eyes and hard heart and their misguided expectations, they see Him as simply “Joseph’s son.”
After Jesus shared the gospel with the Nazarenes in Luke 4: 29 we see that they got angry. Their dull, spiritually insensitive response to Jesus was due to their expectations.
Most of us know that Jesus came to evangelize, to set sinners free from the eternal, unpayable debts that we owe to God. There are two responses to this message, to reject it and continue to sin, or to accept it and repent of your sin.
In Ecclesiastes 7:2 Solomon tells us that, “death is the end of all mankind and the living will lay it to heart.” And in Hebrews 9:27 we are reminded that, “It is appointed for us to die once and after this comes judgment.” In this message we will look at the first few beatitudes in Matthew 5, and Travis will share four steps to take toward that narrow way that leads to life! Jesus tells us plainly that it will cost everything to embrace the life that He offers. And if we embrace that life, we will be able to confidently face the death that awaits us at the end of this life.