Sermons by Dr. Abidan Shah

What should Christians do when culture rejects God's design for marriage and gender? Thirty years ago the message was tolerance. Today the expectation is agree with it, or else. Before we can answer the question, we have to ask how we got here. Let's go back to the Garden of Eden and the creation order God set from the beginning, and ask why God called out "Adam, where are you?&quot...

How were people saved in the Old Testament? It's one of the biggest questions in Scripture, and the answer shapes how we understand the seal Paul describes in Ephesians 1:13. Believers are sealed with the Holy Spirit after hearing the gospel and believing, but if the Spirit ever allowed a seal to be broken in the past, what does yours mean today? Let's work through hearing, believing, an...

Standing in a Churchill-era bunker, Dr. Abidan Shah realized: the Allies' plan against Hitler wasn't fiction, it was a covert operation. That's exactly the word Paul uses for God's plan in Ephesians 1:9 — mystery, or musterion, which traces back to the Aramaic raz and Hebrew sod: God's covert operation, unfolding across all of history. In this message, Dr. Shah works throu...

Nothing is ever really free — you get what you pay for. That's true of almost everything in life, and it's true of your salvation, too. It's free to you, but it was never cheap. In this message, continuing our series on the blessings of the Trinity, Dr. Abidan Shah turns from God the Father to God the Son, and what it means to be "highly favored" and redeemed in Christ. Wo...

A historic London cathedral just signed a four-year contract to double as a nightclub. Dr. Abidan Shah opens this message standing right outside it, warning that what's happening in Europe — secularization, empty church buildings turned into pubs and clubs — isn't as far from us as we think. His answer isn't panic. It's Ephesians. Beginning a three-part series on how the Father...

Why do we even have a time of singing before the sermon? In this message opening Ephesians 1:3, Dr. Abidan Shah asks the question directly: why worship? He defines worship as a time of wonder — marveling at the majesty, power, and grace of God — and traces the biblical pattern of blessing God all the way from Melchizedek and Abraham to David's 4,000-person choir of Levites. Dr. Shah makes the...

"You've Got Mail." If you remember that sound from the early internet days, you remember the excitement of checking your email. In this message, Dr. Abidan Shah opens a new stretch in our series through Ephesians by reminding us that the Bible is God's mail to us — not just Paul's letter to a church that existed two thousand years ago, but God's Word to you, today. Sc...

Have you ever shown up late — to a meeting, a moment, a whole season of life you feel like you missed? In this message, Dr. Abidan Shah looks at what happens when someone comes late to faith, using the believers Paul meets in Acts 19 who had never even heard of the Holy Spirit. Whether it happened through no fault of your own or through years spent far from church, this message is for anyone who f...

As we begin a brand-new series in the book of Ephesians, Dr. Abidan Shah starts where the whole letter points — with the church. Almost every major doctrine is found in Ephesians, and before we can understand how the church fits into prophecy and the end times, we have to answer a more basic question: What is the church actually? The Greek word is ekklesia — assembly. Dr. Shah traces it from the G...

As we come to the very end of the book of James, the letter closes on a subject you'd never expect — and it's one that touches almost every family. In this final message of our study in James, Dr. Abidan Shah preaches on backsliding: what it means to wander from the truth, how it happens, and what God calls us to do about the ones who have drifted away. Before he gets there, Dr. Shah mak...

Joseph Scriven lost two fiancées before either wedding and still wrote the words "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." A life of that much pain stood behind one of the most beloved hymns ever written — and it would have been far more tragic without prayer. In this message from James 5:13–18, the closing sermon in our study of James, Dr. Abidan Shah walks through what the Bible actually teach...

Have you ever been in a situation where you just did not have time to be patient? We all have. In this message from James 5:7–12, Dr. Abidan Shah walks through what the Bible actually teaches about patience — not gritting your teeth and trying harder, but tapping into the patience of Christ Himself. James points to the farmer who waits on the early and latter rains, and reminds us that the Christi...

Most people are hesitant to hear a sermon about money, and most pastors are hesitant to preach one. But the Bible isn't hesitant at all — Jesus gave sixteen of his thirty-eight parables on money, and Scripture references it roughly two thousand times. In this message from James 5:1–6, Dr. Abidan Shah takes on a passage that sounds, at first glance, like an attack on the wealthy, and asks a di...

Humility is one of those words that's easy to talk about and hard to practice. In this message from James 4:10–17, Dr. Abidan Shah walks through what real humility looks like — both in our relationship with God and with the people around us. The vertical aspect, humbling yourself before God and recognizing that every blessing you have comes from him, is the foundation. But the horizontal aspe...

James doesn't ask whether you have conflicts. He asks where they come from. And the answer he gives applies equally to a marriage struggling in the same house, a church fracturing from the inside, and two nations heading toward war. At the root of every battle, James says, is one four-letter word: envy. In this message, Dr. Abidan Shah works through James 4:1–10 and traces the full path from...

James asks a question that cuts straight through both confidence and insecurity: who among you thinks they're wise? It doesn't matter if you're book smart, street smart, or neither — what matters is whether your wisdom actually comes from above. In this message, Dr. Abidan Shah unpacks the difference between wisdom that's earthly, sensual, and demonic, and wisdom that's ge...

James doesn't pull any punches in chapter three. He starts by telling teachers — pastors, Sunday school leaders, anyone who opens their mouth to instruct others — that they will face a stricter judgment for their words. Then he widens the lens to everyone: our words control our actions, our words can cause real devastation, and our words reveal exactly what's happening inside our hearts....

Martin Luther once said he wanted to throw the book of James into the stove. He called it an "epistle of straw" — hollow, inferior, barely worth keeping in the Bible. The reason? James 2:14–26, the passage that says faith without works is dead. Luther thought James was contradicting Paul's gospel of grace through faith alone. He was wrong — and in this message, Dr. Abidan Shah walks...

James shifts gears in chapter two. Chapter one was about you — your trials, your temptations, your anger, your response to the Word. Chapter two is about how you treat everyone else. And the first thing he addresses is partiality: judging people based on what they look like, what they wear, and how much money they appear to have. The Greek word is prosopolempsia — literally, "receiving the fa...

James doesn't just tell his readers what to do — he gives them a mirror to look into. And the longer you've been in church without actually obeying the Word, the harder it is to look. In this message from James 1:21–27, Dr. Abidan Shah walks through one of the most practical and convicting passages in the New Testament: the difference between hearing the Word and doing it, and why one wi...

Most people do not like to admit they are angry. We use softer phrases, funny idioms, or other explanations to avoid saying what is really going on. But James gets right to the point. In this message, Dr. Abidan Shah explains how anger grows, why it often starts when we stop listening, and how careless words only fuel the fire. This sermon also shows why human anger cannot produce the righteousnes...

A lot of people blame the devil, their past, or even God for the sins they keep falling into. But James gives a much clearer answer. In this message, Dr. Shah explains how trials and temptations travel the same road, and how temptation begins when we stop trusting God and start turning inward. This sermon walks through the blame game, the seduction process of sin, and why the answer is not just tr...

A lot of people think that when life gets hard, what they need most is more information. But James says otherwise. In this message, Dr. Shah explains why knowledge alone is not enough when you face trials, instability, and painful decisions. Walking through James 1, this sermon shows that what we really need is wisdom from God—wisdom that helps us respond with faith rather than fear, steadiness ra...

A lot of Christians repeat the phrase, “God will not give you more than you can bear.” But that is not what the Bible teaches. In this message, Dr. Shah opens James 1 and explains why God allows trials that push us past our own strength. This sermon shows that trials are inevitable, unpredictable, and varied, but they are never wasted. God uses them to produce endurance, deepen our faith, and shap...

Some people grow up in church, spend their entire lives around truth, and still walk a way. In this message, Dr. Abidan Shah begins a new series in the book of James by looking at a surprising reality: the man who wrote this book grew up with Jesus—and didn’t believe in Him. This sermon explores how familiarity can lead to contempt, why many people walk away from faith after seeing hypocrisy, and...