Anthem Church

This world brings pain, loss, and emptiness - so how do we walk as the redeemed in such a broken place? We must embrace, fully, the truest hope of Jesus - a hope that will not put us to shame, but a hope that will be borne as we surrender our lives to our Heavenly Father through Christ.

Sometimes we need to revitalize our faith: we know who God is and what he has done for us, but we find ourselves in a season of apathy or sorrow, stuck and unable to shake ourselves loose. God is there with us, and invites us to return to our first love, remember his faithfulness, and receive our truer names, given to us by Him.

As we look out at the world, it is only natural for us to grieve the injustice rampant everywhere. How do we walk as redeemed people in the midst of an unjust world? How do we walk the line between passive indifference and frenzied vengeance? We look together at Jesus, who has made a way for all of us, in our inadequacies and failures, to be reconciled, forgiven, and freed.

It’s no secret: though there is great joy, love, and peace found in Christ, living out allegiance in this devotion is a challenge in this world. All of us wrestle with choosing God’s way over the world’s way. The question we must all ask ourselves today, in light of what God has done for us, is this: are we on the way that leads to life or death? It’s never too late to put the cross before us and...

Pastor Allen defines grace and details its hallmarks.

Surrender is not a favored American ideology. But it is a Biblical one. Surrender is the requisite posture to fully realize the promises of God and to fully experience the joy of those promises. However, with surrender comes a lot of fear. Pastor Allen reminds us that fear is the enemy of surrender on our path to raising the white flag of our hearts.

How much do you want to know yourself? How well do you know your desires? To do so is to expose otherwise, seemingly good desires, to the process and motives which may disqualify them. Here's the catch: that's exactly what you're going to have to do to be fully satisfied in this life. So are you ready for the test?

We often wait for our life to be perfectly ordered before we offer words, watchfulness, and faith in our lives and in the lives of others. However, we also know intimately that our lives will never be perfect this side of heaven; we are all imperfect people living in a broken world. So what do we do? By God’s grace towards us in Jesus, we offer what we can, that we may build one another up in the...

What is God’s will for my life? Often times this question can cause more angst, anxiety, and discomfort than assurance. In the absence of a clear answer, we can impose our own will, and in so doing we can overlook the truth, overlook others, and overlook consequences. Through the grace of Jesus, our mistakes are forgiven and we are able to humbly submit to his daily will as we wait prayerfully and...

This Father's Day we examine Abraham's legacy to, his son, Isaac. In doing so, we are reminded that each of us will repeat our father's mistakes, may run-short of our father's success, but most importantly, must reflect on our father's faith.

As we look to follow the leadership of others, there are a number of facets we must consider before pursuing their example. Are they living with a posture of self-sacrifice? Is their conduct worth imitating and learning from? Do they have a legacy of faithfulness? Most importantly, are they pointing us to Jesus?

Though we walk through a broken world, the confidence we have in Christ is God’s fierce faithfulness to his people and his purposes. Our lives have many twists and turns, victories and setbacks, but each moment is an opportunity to press into God and let his Spirit form us into the image of his Son. When our purposes align with His, all things do truly work out for good.

Our God richly disperses common grace to all humanity: goodness, benefit, and prosperity that none of us deserve. As good as common grace is, it’s insufficient. We all need the better grace and the love, fullness, and peace that it alone can provide for us.

The life and legacy of Abraham concludes with a ‘good death’. But what makes for a ‘good death’ these days? A life hallmarked by joyful change and service is a good place to start. But these are not more critical than a life where it is simply a joy to ‘be’.

We are not here to be noticed, to be shallowly connected, or to be complacent - we are here to live lives submitted to God, humbly serving him wherever we are and making the name of Jesus known. In this rich and practical sermon, Allen reminds us of the great I Am, who empowers and equips us to live as those who "are not."

Sarah, Abraham’s wife, has passed away - what can we learn from this? How does Abraham, the father of our faith, walk through this painful season? How does he honor God, his family, and others? A godly life is not certain, but we are called through the grace, mercy, and power of God to live honorably and look forward to our future hope.

God gives us tests, not for his benefit but for ours, that our faith and our affections may be examined. Will the tests find us faithful or fair-weather?

Our world longs for peace with one another. But what kind of peace are we really longing for? Do we just want quiet? Just a lack of conflict? Or do we long for a deeper, truer, more complete peace in our relationships? Pastor Allen gives us three simple takeaways to live at peace with those who are not peaceful to us.

Starting up again in the book of Genesis, we come to the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah in the birth of Isaac. This grace has much more to do with God’s character than the merit of Abraham and Sarah, and reveals much about the gracious character of God. If our hope is wrongly placed, our laughter is sick and shallow, but when it is rightly placed in God’s unfading promises, our...

It's been two years since our last in-person Easter together. Today, we take all this pent-up joy and give it full vent in celebration of the risen King Jesus. Pastor Allen provides some clarity on the importance, evidence, and confidence of Easter Sunday.

Every day you wake up, you have four main tasks on your to-do list: keep your mind focused, keep your heart fixed, keep your words free, and keep your hands full.

Our sin and domestication can lead us to be conceited and conflicted. Conversely, a content church preaches revelation over speculation, prioritizes grace over blessing, praises weakness over strength, and promotes Jesus over everything.

In our early days of following Jesus, our faith is more “free-range”; we are excited, motivated, and eager to live to Jesus. Along the way, our faith can become domesticated, not by the gospel but by religious expectation. Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, he came to make bound people free.

When a Christian reflects on their life, very often, they will find it has been lived in light of three ghosts: (1) the ghosts behind, (2) the ghosts ahead, and (3) the ghost within. Pastor Allen applies this paradigm to the experiences of his own life and brokenness. Through his story, we can see how Jesus can save anye haunted and condemned person because He has been conferred the authority to d...