FBC Haw River Sermons

Following Jesus means counting the cost. "Your will be done" is an easy prayer on the mountaintop and a hard one in the valley. Jesus taught His disciples to pray it, and in Mark 8 He called anyone who follows Him to take up a cross. In Acts 21, Paul sails toward Jerusalem knowing chains are waiting. Believers in Tyre, and then the prophet Agabus, warn him what is coming, and his friends beg him n...

"I love Jesus, but I don't like the church." Plenty of people say it, and the Bible has a lot to say about how Jesus feels about the people who make up His church. Pour out your life for the people Jesus poured out His blood for. In Acts 20, the Apostle Paul says goodbye to the elders of Ephesus, a goodbye so painful that they weep, embrace him, and follow him all the way to the ship. At the cente...

A guy falls asleep during church, falls three stories, dies. Then everybody just goes back upstairs and keeps eating and talking. There's something almost comical about that sequence, and Luke tells it completely straight, no rebuke, no lesson about staying awake during sermons, just what happened. But underneath the strange, slightly awkward story is a full picture of what an ordinary Christian g...

Everyone has a next step to take with Jesus. Talk to any airline pilot and they'll tell you about the 1 in 60 rule, being off course by just one degree puts you a mile off target after 60 miles. Over a long enough distance, a tiny miscalculation lands you somewhere completely different than where you meant to go. But there's a worse problem than drifting off course, a plane that starts its engines...

Jesus wins. That's not a spoiler, that's the whole point. There's a strange thing that happens when you already know how a story ends, you actually enjoy it more, not less. Studies on this back it up. And that's exactly the confidence running underneath this message. We know how the story ends. Jesus wins. So when the story gets messy along the way, and it gets messy fast in Acts 18, that's not a...

You were not born in the wrong generation. You were not a mistake. In a culture that runs on comparison and anxiety, both of those lies are easy to believe. But when the Apostle Paul finds himself stuck in Athens, just waiting on friends who haven't caught up yet, he ends up preaching one of the most famous sermons in the New Testament, and it starts with a simple, massive truth: God has you where...

Being His witness is worth it. In the movie 1917, a company of soldiers rests in a forest the night before a doomed assault, and one of them starts singing an old hymn about a world with no more sickness, toil, or danger. It's not a scene the filmmakers invented, men facing death have done this in real trenches. Centuries earlier, two men did the same thing in a Roman prison cell, with no idea if...

Not every disagreement is a reason to leave. Carl Trueman calls the automobile the most damaging invention in the history of the Western church, not because cars are evil, but because for the first time, an ordinary Christian could drive past a dozen good churches looking for the one that suits them best. Church stopped being the body you were placed in and started being a product you shop for. C....

Grace alone saves. 500 years ago, Martin Luther heard a friar named Johann Tetzel selling forgiveness for a coin, and his blood boiled. It was a false gospel of Jesus plus money. But in Acts 15, we see the very first time the church had this exact same fight. Men came to Antioch demanding Jesus plus the Old Testament law. Paul and Barnabas realized this was a fight they couldn't back down from. Th...

The point of God's power is his praise. In Lystra, Paul heals a man who has never walked a day in his life. The crowd sees it, calls Paul and Barnabas gods, and shows up with oxen and garlands. They saw real power and completely missed the point. Days later the same crowd picks up stones. This message walks through Acts 14:8-23 and asks what we do when God puts his power on display. God has the po...

What is the tenth commandment really about, and why can't we stop wanting more? In this final message of our Ten Words series through the Ten Commandments, Pastor Justin Stevers walks through Exodus 20:17, "You shall not covet," and shows that our deepest problem is not that we want too much, but that what we want is too little. Learn how the sins of covetousness, envy, jealousy, grumbling, and co...

Are you running away from God or trying to earn His love through your own good works? In Luke 15, the parable of the Prodigal Son reveals that while sin leaves us empty and pride keeps us distant, the Father is always waiting with open arms for us to simply surrender and come home. Stand Alone Sermon - Luke 15:11-32 - Michael Guiton 7/26/26 fbchawriver.org Sermon Overview: Whether you feel like yo...

What do you do when you are trapped in a 3 a.m. mental loop of anxiety and God feels distant? In Psalm 77, Asaph shows us how to stop drowning in our "what ifs" by making a holy pivot, revealing that we must shift our focus from our pain to God's past faithfulness to find true peace. Stand Alone Sermon - Psalm 77 - Pastor Jonathan Jenkins 7/19/26 fbchawriver.org

Your words are never neutral. When we think of the ninth commandment, we often reduce it to a simple rule: "Do not lie." But by commanding us not to "bear false witness," God targets the courtroom of our everyday lives. From flattery and gossip, to half-truths and strategic silence, we constantly use our words as weapons to protect ourselves and destroy others. In this message on Exodus 20:16, we...

Are you a giver or a taker? In Exodus 20, "you shall not steal" cuts far deeper than shoplifting, exposing the greed in every heart and pointing us to the God who became poor so that we could become rich. Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:15 - Pastor Justin Stevers 7/5/26 fbchawriver.org

Is God trying to keep you from joy, or trying to protect it? In Exodus 20, "do not commit adultery" reveals that God's boundaries are not a cage but a fireplace, guarding the good gift of marriage and pointing us to a faithful Bridegroom who buys back His unfaithful bride. Ten Commandments Series 2026 - Exodus 20:14 - Pastor Justin Stevers 6/28/26 fbchawriver.org

Have you ever really broken the sixth commandment? In Exodus 20, "do not murder" reveals that we are worse than we think and worth more than we can imagine, exposing the hatred in every heart while pointing us to the blood of Christ that speaks a better word. Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:13 - Pastor Justin Stevers 5/21/26 fbchawriver.org

Have you ever felt like your life is too broken and belongs in the scrap heap? In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul reveals that God doesn't just patch up our wreckage; He trades our sin for Christ's perfection, making us an entirely new creation and sending us right back out into the world as His ambassadors. Standalone Message - 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 - Pastor Justin Stevers 6/14/26 fbchawriver.org

Are you searching for something extra to make your faith complete? In Colossians 2, we are reminded that believers lack absolutely nothing. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Jesus, and having Christ in you provides everything you need to stand firm against the persuasive arguments of the world. Stand Alone Sermon - Colossians 2:1-7 - Jake Smejkal 6/7/26 fbchawriver.org

Does how you treat your family reveal how you really feel about God? The fifth commandment takes worship out of the sanctuary and puts it in your living room, showing us that honoring the people closest to us is where love for God gets lived out. Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:12 - Pastor Justin Stevers 5/31/26 fbchawriver.org

Are you too busy to rest, or too restless to stop? In Exodus 20, the Fourth Commandment challenges our modern obsession with busyness, revealing that our restless hearts will only find true peace when we surrender our schedules to Christ. Ten Commandments Series 2026 - Exodus 20:8-11 - Pastor Justin Stevers 5/17/26 fbchawriver.org

Are you really honoring God's name, or just avoiding a few words you know you shouldn't say? The third commandment is bigger than your vocabulary- it's about who you represent and how you're representing Him every single day. Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:7 - Pastor Justin Stevers 5/10/26 fbchawriver.org

Are you worshiping God, or just a version of Him you can control? In Exodus 20, we see that God doesn't just care that He is worshipped, He cares how he is worshipped. The Second Commandment challenges our deep instinct to reshape God into something visible and manageable, calling us instead to be transformed by His Word to reflect His perfect image. Ten Commandments Series 2026 - Exodus 20:4-6 -...

Are you trying to earn a rescue that God has already freely given? In Exodus 20, God reveals that His grace comes before and through His law, showing us that true allegiance is a joyful response to the Commander who loved us first. Ten Commandments Series 2026 - Exodus 20:1-3 - Pastor Justin Stevers 4/26/26 fbchawriver.org

Is your church aiming for seating capacity or sending capacity? In Acts 13, the Holy Spirit calls the church in Antioch to send out their absolute best leaders, proving that the true mark of a healthy church is that it goes. Acts Vision Series - Acts 13:1-3 - Pastor Justin Stevers 4/19/26 fbchawriver.org