Advancing Word Podcast

In Joshua, Chapter 17, verses 14-18, the descendants of Joseph, namely the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim, approached Joshua with a grievance regarding the distribution of land in Canaan.  This meeting transformed into a profound lesson, as they gleaned invaluable insights on the blessings of faith through the wise and considerate guidance of Joshua, their leader and kinsman.  The timeless princip...

Despite having different last names—Tyus, Middleton, Reed, Simmons, Jarrett, Turner, Vasquez, Foster, Holloway, Stewart, they are one family.  They live in towns and cities across our country.  Since October 2012, this remarkable group has connected every Saturday for a prayer teleconference.  Truly, they are a family that prays together!  For the past eleven years, Dr. T. D. Stubblefield has insp...

Faith in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the foundation of the believer’s sense of well-being.  This message based on Chapter 7, verse twenty-five of the Book of Hebrews, offers four assurances that encourages anyone who is facing a crisis of faith.

In this New Year, because of God’s perfect plan for our lives, we each are “pregnant with potential.”  If you are truly a child of God, you are wearing spiritual maternity clothes because God has placed inside the womb of your very being something that the world didn’t give to you and the world can’t take away.  This sermon reminds us of “promises to remember” in the New Year!  

Do you feel like your life is moving in the wrong direction or things aren’t quiet working out as you imagined they would?  The holidays have only exacerbated your disappointment.  What can you do?  You can do like Ruth did in the first chapter of the book of the Bible that bears her name.  You can “face north when life is going south”.  This sermon tells you how.  

Biblical scholars agree that an innumerable multitude of angels; indeed, an angelic army were singing in The Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2 verses 13 – 14 on the night Jesus was born.  Their singing and majestic, moving and melodious music announced, affirmed and acclaimed the birth of the Savior.  But their compelling cosmic concert raises a question as well.  What is the message in the music?  If you...

In the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2, verses eight through twenty, shepherds watching their flocks in the field at night were summoned by the angel of the Lord to be witnesses of the birth of Jesus.  Viewed as common laborers by some and ostracized by others, they still teach us by their example how to observe Christmas.  

The Gospel writer Matthew uses the story of the wise men in Chapter 2 and the Great Commission in Chapter 28 like conceptual bookends to sound a universal note in his Gospel.  The birth of Jesus was not just a Jewish affair.  Even as a child, Jesus faced hostility at home but received homage from afar.  Wise men came from afar to seek the Savior that was born as an infant child in Bethlehem.  Whet...

The first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke narrates the events surrounding the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There we meet Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus. She is a model of grace. Mary is special! This sermon reveals four reasons why. 

In the first four stanzas of Psalm 145, the author reminds us that whatever else worship is it is infectious, viral, virulent, transmissive, and highly contagious!  When infected people worship, it is not just transformational but GENERATIONAL!  Contagious worship is characterized by its motivation, mechanics, measure, and ministry.  

We do not know who wrote Psalm 100.  The anonymous author pushed through doubt, disillusionment, desperation, disappointment and arrived at a place where, in a magnificent, melodic and moving anthem of praise and thanksgiving, he affirmed that God is good!  In stanza five, he tells us why.    God is good because of His exalted essence, matchless mercy and amazing availability.  

Wouldn’t it be great if when we experience a reversal, a setback or find ourselves in a difficult place, to have the ability to grab a remote and fast forward through the pain, the sorrow, the tears, the disappointment or difficulty?  So often we find ourselves in life at worst "stopped" and at best "paused" as we experience and endure the inevitable reversals - the trials and...

In the spiritual realm, storm chasers are rare. We don’t go looking for a storm!  Rather, most of us are like the author of Psalm Fifty-Five who, while looking for an exit ramp from the storms of life wrote, “Oh that I had wings like a dove!  For then would I fly away and be at rest.” The compelling storm narrative recorded in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter Four, communicates Jesus’s dominion over no...

In Joshua Chapter Three, the Israelites receive instructions from God about crossing of the Jordan River.  Before they encountered the towering fortress that was the city of Jericho, they faced the turbulent flooding of the Jordan River!  The crossing of the river at this time of the year and their location was risky and fraught with danger and disaster.  But God uses this situation not only to va...

In Second Kings, Chapter 4, a single mother whose husband had died faced an insurmountable debt.  Failure to pay would result in her two sons being sold into servitude.  The prophet Elisha challenges her to do an inventory of her household possessions.  She found nothing to resolve her crisis but “a little pot of oil.”   God miraculously turns her little into a lot!   In this sermon, preached duri...

October is Clergy Appreciation Month.  Once again, we share this classic sermon by Dr. T. D. Stubblefield on the biblical office of Pastor -Teacher based on Jeremiah 3:15. “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching” (1 Timonthy 5:17).  Send the link to this inspiring message this month to your pastor, or s...

According to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 4, verses 16-20, Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah to mark the official commencement of His public ministry.  In the synagogue, Jesus uses the prophet’s words to communicate the character of His ministry to this broken world.  Dr. T. D. Stubblefield leverages this passage as a lens to look through and view the providential joining together of Pastor-Elect...

During the Retirement Celebration of Dr. & Mrs. Joseph L. Owens of the Shiloh Baptist Church Lexington, Kentucky, after twenty-five years of faithful service, Dr. T. D. Stubblefield encourages his friends and the church. He draws timeless truths from the historical and experiential setting of Isaiah Chapter Fifty-Two, verses 12 – 13.  This sermon is a compelling reminder that “God can be trust...

In the soaring crescendo of Galatians Chapter Two, verse 20, Paul declares the essential fact of the Christian Gospel, “The Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.  The Apostle’s life was powerful, prolific and productive because it was secured, anchored and stabilized by two irrefutable truths.  Dr. T. D. Stubblefield in the concluding sermon of the series, “The Power of a Changed Life...

A “changed life” is the standard and bar to which every child of God must by grace assent and ascend to.  It requires commitment, courage and consistency.  These characteristics are in short supply in the contemporary church.  In Part 2 of this series, based on Galatians 2:20, the “changed life” is viewed through the lens of surrender.  The Christian life is not about dying but about letting Jesus...

The Apostle Paul’s compelling affirmation about the spiritual life in the Book of Galatians, Chapter 2, verse 20 is formative, informative and transformative.  In the first of a three-part sermon series focused on “The Power of the Changed Life,” Dr. T. D. Stubblefield explores the first implication of this pivotal passage in the Word of God for believers today.  The “changed life is a sacrificed...

What makes the church so special?  This question is implicit in the Apostle Peter’s compelling commendation of the church in Chapter 2, verses 9-10 of his first epistle.  The question is still relevant considering the increasing pressure on the contemporary church from within and from without to cave, compromise, and capitulate to a secular culture.  This sermon exposes the movements in the text t...

In Psalm 73 Asaph, a worship leader in the Temple during the reign of King David experienced a crisis of faith as he observed around him "the prosperity of the wicked".  When he worshipped, he faced his crisis, found clarity, and framed a confession of his renewed faith in God.  His experience still provides insight for the uptight.  

While pursuing perfection, the Apostle Paul was in a war. The battleground was within him, and the adversaries were the flesh and the spirit.  For those who are struggling with sin today, we learn from Paul’s words and experience that, we cannot win the war with human reason, resolve or resources but only with and through the Heavenly Redeemer, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Book of Acts, Chapter Three, verses 1 – 10 is relevant to anyone who occupies residence, domicile, territory, and hiatus in holy places.  The primary character in this narrative had settled on the premises.  Yet, when his story concludes, he is standing on the promises.  Dr. T. D. Stubblefield has preached all around our country and abroad.  In this classic sermon preached during revival at th...