Cambria Pulpit

It seems as though society has reached a tipping point into evil. Any thought to argue against the LGBTQ agenda cannot be tolerated. Last week Former President Barack Obama stated with shock that he could not believe people were still arguing about it because that ship has sailed. The political sphere is as divisive as it has ever been. Young people are seen as completely out of place if they main...

What is the gospel? How would you answer that question?   As we walk through this book, we will continually be confronted with the Gospel! We will be forced to clearly define the Gospel. We will be challenged to live the gospel in our everyday life. And we will be encouraged to share the gospel. So I invite you to join me on this journey by turning to Romans 1.    As we begin, we begin with the ma...

Today we begin a new adventure together as we walk through the book of Romans. This is a fantastic book of the Bible. Many have called this Paul’s Mangum Opus (great work). It is considered this because of its amazing depth of theology while maintaining an incredible practicality. In this book, Paul presents one of the clearest presentations of the gospel. And then presents what this means for eve...

Today we reach the end of another journey. For the past several months we have worked through Paul’s final letter: 2 Timothy. We chose to work through this letter because it presents for us the measurement of a faithful ministry. As Paul faced the end of his time on earth and looked back over his ministry, he sought to convey to Timothy and to us the most important things the church and pastor mus...

Many feel worn down. The challenges life brings cause us to become weary and faint. Sometimes, these struggles cause us to question our calling to follow God and even our faith in God. As God’s children, we expect that life should be a little easier. We expect that the struggles should be less. However, it is not long into our Christian lives when we discover that this is not the case. Life is har...

A few weeks ago, we spent time looking at the reality that all Scripture is inspired by God. Because that is true, all Scripture is therefore profitable. Yet, as we read through the Bible, we quickly come across texts that don’t seem to be very profitable. We come to the fourth fifth chapter of Genesis, or the first nine chapters of Chronicles, or the first chapter of Matthew. All of which contain...

A reality of life that we all must face is the reality of death. Death will come for us all. We don’t like to think about death. We spend much of our lives ignoring death. But death is coming. One reality I have observed is that as a person comes closer to death, they begin to evaluate the life they lived a little differently. We can see this in the final statements of several people.  As Napoleon...

Churches across America are doing a lot of different things today. Some have inspiring dramas. Some have amazing concerts complete with the lights and fog. Some even have circus flying trapeze artists flying across the stage. But many, like this one, take a massive amount of time every Sunday to have a guy get up and talk about a passage in the Bible. Why would a church do that? Isn’t that kind of...

You don’t’ have to be around here very long to figure out that we make a big deal out of the Bible. Even today as you sat in the pew: you sang some songs that came from the Bible, you listen to the Bible read twice already, and you heard prayers with the Bible in them. Perhaps you have wondered why do Christians make such a big deal out of the Bible? Maybe even as a Christian you have wondered, wh...

The Apostle Paul understood what living in a wicked world was like. As he writes 2 Timothy, he is in prison, condemned to death, solely for being a Christian. Paganism reigned around him. The government was absolutely corrupt and ruled by a man who was insane. While he was about to die, Timothy was not. So in chapter 3, Paul gives Timothy instruction about living in a wicked world. We discovered i...

Missionary Ryan Pennington (a translation consultant with Bibles International) presents the needs of Bible translation around the world and the way the Word works in lives. 

Last week we began the second half of 2 Timothy. Chapter 3 details for us the things we need to be aware of and to do in order to live in a wicked world. We noted that, as believers, experiencing this wicked world can be frustrating, discouraging, and even scary. We see society around us degrade, and we worry about the kind of world our children will inherit. We watch the news, and we wonder how m...

All one needs to do is watch the news, look at the magazine rack in the store, or spend any time on social media to be reminded that we live in a wicked world. As believers, experiencing this can be frustrating, discouraging, and even scary. We see society around us degrade, and we worry about the kind of world our children will inherit. We watch the news, and we wonder how much worse it can get....

A couple of years ago, I purchased a couple of washcloths to use in my office so that I could clean off dishes after eating lunch. Being cheap, I purchased them from the Dollar Tree. The first time I had the opportunity to use them, I discovered a problem: Thy didn’t retain water. The water simply ran over them and they didn’t really get wet. I thought, What use is a washcloth that doesn’t get wet...

What should you expect from your pastor? What is a pastor’s role? What is to be a pastor’s focus? What should you expect and demand from me? There are a variety of opinions on this matter in the church today. Some view the pastorate like a chief administrator. His priority is to ensure that the various ministries of the church are organized. Some view the pastorate like a visitation guru. His prio...

Today, as we celebrate the founding of this country, we do so, understanding that it is a country in trouble. Secularism has pervaded the culture and modern American Christianity has proved ineffective. With the advent of modern media, we have access to more preachers than ever before, but there are few powerful preachers. Churches abound across the country, but few are truly changing the culture...

We live in an unusual time. I think that we can all agree on that. As secularism continues to gain hold in this country, the influence of Christianity continues to wane. But what is so unusual about this that the prevalence and availability of Christianity. Through modern media, there are more popular preachers today than at any time in church history, but few powerful ones. There also are more po...

In the late 1800s Charles Spurgeon commented, "Everywhere there is apathy. Nobody cares whether that which is preached is true or false. A sermon is a sermon whatever the subject; only, the shorter it is the better." He went on to warn that the Church was drifting away from the purity of the Gospel. Instead of boldly proclaiming the truths of Scripture, Christians were candy-coating the...

We don’t like to think of death, but have you ever thought about what you would say if given the opportunity to utter your last words? What message would you convey? We think of final words that have been said over history. Some have been unfortunate. General John Sedgwick, a general in the union army during the civil war, said to his men who were ducking from a confederate sniper, “They couldn’t...

Whenever we finish a book, it is like saying goodbye to an old friend. We have spent almost seven months in 1 Timothy and today we bid it farewell. This epistle is a vital epistle for the church to understand. If we can understand this epistle, and obey it, we can avoid many of the challenges which split churches today. As we worked through the book, we learned that the church is the visible pictu...