Tom Messer - Trinity Baptist Church

Can you ever truly outrun your past? In this message, You Cannot Outrun Your Past, Pastor Tom Messer walks through Genesis 31 and the difficult relationship between Jacob and Laban to reveal how God brings healing to the deepest wounds of our lives. Relational pain, betrayal, disappointment, and unresolved hurt have a way of following us wherever we go. But God doesn’t call us to ignore our past—H...

Have you ever sensed God calling you to something more—but found yourself held back by comfort, fear, or the familiar? In Renewing God’s Call, Pastor Tom Messer walks through Genesis 31 and the life of Jacob to reveal a powerful truth: God’s call is persistent. Even when we’ve grown comfortable, distracted, or hesitant, God continues to draw us back to His purpose. Jacob’s journey reminds us that...

What are you hoping will finally make you happy? In this message, A Lesson on Misplaced Hope, Pastor Tom Messer walks through Genesis 29-30 and the lives of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel—three people searching for fulfillment in places that could never truly satisfy. Jacob believed Rachel would complete him. Leah longed for the love and acceptance of her husband. Rachel thought having children would fin...

Why does God sometimes take us the long way around? In this message from our Genesis series, The Long Way Around, Tommy Carr walks through Genesis 29 and the next chapter of Jacob’s journey. After a dramatic encounter with God at Bethel, Jacob finds himself facing disappointment, delays, difficult relationships, and years of waiting. Like Jacob, many of us place our hope in things we believe will...

Have you ever felt like your past mistakes, failures, or shortcomings have disqualified you from God’s plan? In this message, An Encounter with God’s Grace, Pastor Tom Messer walks through Genesis 28 and the life-changing moment when Jacob encountered God at Bethel. Jacob wasn’t a hero. He was a deceiver, a manipulator, and a man running from the consequences of his own choices. Yet in one of his...

Many of us spend our lives trying to earn acceptance, prove our worth, or become someone we think others will love. But what if the blessing you’ve been searching for isn’t found in your performance? This week in Family Matters, Pastor Tom Messer walks through the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 27—a story filled with brokenness, insecurity, deception, and family dysfunction. Yet in the middle...

In this message from Tommy Carr, we continue the Family Matters series by walking through Genesis 26 and the life of Isaac—a man who faced famine, conflict, pressure, and opposition, yet continued to trust God through it all. This sermon is a powerful reminder that faithfulness is not built in comfort, but through testing. When culture shifts, pressure rises, and life becomes uncertain, God still...

Family conflict may be common, but it was never meant to define us. In this message from Daniel Riddick, we continue the Family Matters series by looking at the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25 and discovering how generational brokenness, dysfunctional patterns, and misplaced priorities can shape our families for generations. But through Jesus, cycles can be broken. This sermon is a powerful...

This Mother’s Day message is a powerful reminder that parenting is not about holding on forever, but faithfully preparing the next generation to follow God on their own. Through the picture of a Carolina wren building a temporary nest, we’re challenged to see our homes as launching pads for faith, purpose, and independence. This special family panel conversation explores prayer, parenting, disappo...

In this message, Pastor Tom Messer launches our new family series by walking through Genesis 24, the story of how Isaac met Rebekah. Through one of the most detailed chapters in Genesis, we see God’s design for covenant marriage, faithful obedience, and generational faithfulness. Pastor Tom reminds us that marriage is more than a relationship, it is a picture of Christ’s love for the Church. In a...

This sermon from Pastor Tom Messer addresses the spiritual strongholds that imprison believers through lies, distorted thinking, and negative attitudes formed from unhealed hurts and unbroken habits. Pastor Tom emphasizes that these strongholds are ingrained patterns of thinking not based on truth that create a prison which eventually feels like home. The core message is that spiritual problems re...

This sermon from Pastor Tommy Carr addresses the universal struggle with sinful habits and how believers can find freedom through Christ's finished work on the cross. He emphasizes that habits begin as choices but eventually become chains that control us. Sin promises freedom but delivers slavery, often masking deeper pain, emptiness, or anxiety. However, through Christ's death and resurrection, b...

Pastor Tom Messer addresses how hurt leaves lasting marks on our lives, shaping our emotions, relationships, and spiritual walk. Pastor Tom Messer explores Isaiah 61:1-4, the same passage Jesus read at the beginning of His earthly ministry, to reveal that the gospel is specifically aimed at healing our deepest wounds. Rather than minimizing, managing, or masking our hurts, Jesus offers complete fr...

This Easter sermon from Pastor Tom Messer explores how the resurrection of Jesus Christ transforms lives from despair to hope, using the account in Mark 16. Pastor Tom Messer emphasizes that we live as "Saturday's children"—stuck between loss and hope, between what was and what could be. Despite living in a world filled with technological advancement, many people experience quiet struggles, broken...

This Palm Sunday sermon explores the profound meaning of Jesus' crucifixion, moving beyond the historical facts to understand the spiritual significance of the cross. Pastor Tom Messer emphasizes that Jesus died in supernatural darkness to bring humanity out of spiritual darkness and into God's light. He traces how humanity was created to live in God's presence but was exiled into darkness through...

Pastor Tommy Carr explores Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane as a model for Christian surrender. As part of the "Road to Redemption" series leading to Easter, the message emphasizes that true surrender requires confronting our deepest desires, trusting God without understanding, and recognizing our weakness. Jesus' prayer "not my will, but thy will be done" demonstrates the ultimate act of...

Pastor Tom Messer explores three interconnected events from Jesus' final week: The Triumphal Entry, the cursing of the fig tree, and the cleansing of the temple, to reveal Jesus as the true and rightful King. Pastor Tom Messer emphasizes that Jesus is not the political deliverer the crowds expected, but something far greater: the King who brings spiritual transformation, restores access to God's p...

Pastor Tommy Carr explores the transfiguration of Jesus as a pivotal moment that reveals God's glory and prepares believers to handle life's suffering and evil. Pastor Tommy emphasizes that encountering Jesus in His glorified state gives us access to God's presence and provides the strength needed to face trials. The transfiguration demonstrates that Jesus is not merely reflecting God's glory but...

Pastor Tom Messer's exploration of the afterlife confronts us with one of Jesus' most sobering teachings: the story of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke 16. At its core, this message challenges our assumptions about eternity and forces us to reckon with two fundamental truths: our souls are immortal, and there are only two eternal destinations. The rich man's torment wasn't punishment for wealth...

Pastor Tom Messer addresses how Christians should engage with politics while maintaining gospel unity within the church. He emphasizes that while politics is important, it is not ultimate; only the gospel of Jesus Christ can truly transform hearts and society. Pastor Tom Messer warns against both political idolatry and political despair, teaching that Christians can disagree on political issues wh...

Pastor Tom Messer provides a comprehensive teaching on biblical marriage, emphasizing that marriage is both a divine institution (the "doing of God") and a divine revelation (the "display of God"). Pastor Tom Messer addresses the cultural attacks on marriage while affirming that God, not culture or courts, defines marriage. Using Matthew 19, he explores Jesus' teaching on marriage as an exclusive,...

This sermon from Pastor Tom Messer addresses the critical question of what the Bible teaches about sin, emphasizing that sin is not merely about breaking rules but about rejecting God's wisdom. Pastor Tom explores how sin is deceitful, destructive, and leads to darkness, while contrasting it with the path of wisdom and righteousness. Drawing heavily from Proverbs, he emphasizes that victory over s...

What governs our lives? This exploration by Pastor Tom Messer from 2 Peter 1:16-21 challenges us to examine the ultimate authority we allow to direct our choices, relationships, and futures. We live in a world where truth feels relative, where social media, culture, and our own feelings compete for control over our decision-making. Yet Scripture presents us with something far more reliable than pe...

Pastor Tom Messer takes us to the shores of the Sea of Tiberias where we encounter one of the most transformative stories in Scripture—Peter's restoration after his devastating failure. Through John 21, we discover that our failures don't have to define us or disqualify us from God's purposes. Peter, who denied Jesus three times, found himself returning to his old life of fishing, believing perhap...

Join Pastor Tom Messer as he explores God's new covenant with His people as described in Jeremiah 31, contrasting it with the old covenant of law. Pastor Tom emphasizes that the new covenant transforms our relationship with God from external obedience to internal transformation, writing God's law on our hearts rather than stone tablets. The core message is that all human problems stem from forgett...