Little Hills Church

We know we’re going to die—it’s as inevitable as buttered toast landing face-down—but Romans 6:5 asks whether that death has to mean the same thing it did before Christ.

A voyage to the moon can feel finished once splashdown comes and the pictures stop, yet those who flew it insist it is only the start. Romans 6 challenges us to see the same of Easter: we’re not at the end of our old debt, but the beginning of our new life in Jesus.

Easter is God’s profound statement that He not only listens, but He also saves.

We are good at recognizing what is wrong—and remarkably bad at fixing it. Isaiah 1 warns that the strong become tinder and their work a spark, exposing every human effort we trust to make life secure and lasting. What hope does Easter offer when the things we build, the solutions we devise, and even our own strength end in ash?

We begin a new series in the Psalms tonight, looking at David’s lament in Psalm 12. What happens when we feel like evil has triumphed and whatever good we do is fruitless?

We love to DIY it, and those efforts can look impressive on the surface—but surface polish gives false confidence. Isaiah 1:30 warns that a life cut off from God withers like an oak without water. The question is whether we are still building kingdoms that burn, or rooting ourselves in the One who lasts.

When a worthy cause demands everything, compromise feels reasonable—even necessary. As Paul delivers a charge to Timothy to continue the job, he gives an important qualification: fight the good fight while holding firmly to faith and a good conscience, because the good fight is lost not through open defeat but through the quiet erosion of integrity.

Whatever looks triumphant—the people and things we hold out as the absolute measure of concrete, dependable success—still meets death that tramples it. Isaiah warns that rebels and sinners will together be shattered, and those who forsake the Lord will perish. What then are we going to hold onto?

We too often forget that the source is joyful and accept the far more mundane or depressing secondhand source.

How does a people God has blessed so richly turn their backs on him? Isaiah 1 opens with God’s lament over Jerusalem—once full of justice, now a harlot filled with murderers—and brings the question home for Lent: when he looks at you, does he lament?

Two half-brothers leave for the same war; only one comes home. When rescue divides one person from another, “Why me?” can feel unanswerable—and salvation can raise the same uneasy question. In 1 Timothy 1:15–16, Paul refuses to ground his rescue in merit, calling himself the worst of sinners and pointing instead to Christ’s purpose and patience.

When we want vengeance, we want to get back—but Isaiah 1:24–25 shows a God who wants to get back to good , and that difference is harder to hold onto than it sounds when the anger is righteous and the wrong is real.

We tend to measure our worth by what we bring to the table, but Paul’s testimony in 1 Timothy 1:12 turns that calculus upside down. He could speak of his calling despite his failures because God’s strength doesn’t depend on ours.

How can those who have known God’s rescue still chase worldly compromise that looks so much like success? That is the exasperated cry of Isaiah 1:21 as the faithful city becomes a harlot—once full of justice, now only murderers, its silver turned to dross.

We need to know what things are for and use them in the right way in life. That’s true of God’s law just like anything else.

We’ve all tried to manage our relationship with God on our own terms—keeping up appearances, going through the motions, assuming good effort is good enough. Isaiah 1:18 cuts through that with a direct invitation: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord”—and the question it presses is whether we’ll actually stop and think about what he’s offering.

There are two different charges vying for our attention: love and pride. Which one will we answer to?

How much religious activity would it take to make up for the parts of life we still withhold from God? In Isaiah 1, Israel brings a multitude of sacrifices, gathers for solemn assemblies, and makes many prayers—yet God addresses his people as Sodom and Gomorrah and says their worship has become a burden to him.

It’s great to know about how amazing Jesus is and wonderful to find out that the angels are incredibly powerful creations He made, too. But, where does that leave us?

We’ve all charged after something we thought would finally set things right, only to watch it cost us everything we hoped to protect. That’s the dumb-ox pattern God confronts in Isaiah 1 when he asks his people, “Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel?”

It’s great to know about how amazing Jesus is and wonderful to find out that the angels are incredibly powerful creations He made, too. But, where does that leave us?

An ox knows who feeds it; a donkey knows its master’s crib. But what about God’s people — including us? We forget.

A vaccination can leave you feeling wretched for a week, tempting you to wish you could undo it and try again later. That’s the kind of pressure that hits when the gospel goes out in Acts 14—Paul and Barnabas meet rising opposition in Iconium, and the question becomes how we press ahead without quitting or compromising.

It’s great to know about how amazing Jesus is and wonderful to find out that the angels are incredibly powerful creations He made, too. But, where does that leave us?

We know if a business or sports team rebuild, there is a lot of uncertainty. So what about when God rebuilds the whole universe?