Anthem Church

Is Jesus king over every sphere of your life? The workplace is one of the areas where we really find out how compartmentalized or comprehensive our faith is. This week, Pastor Allen invites us to fully examine our orientation to those we work for and places we work at.

Children are a blessing from the Lord, but how do we steward this blessing? How do we love them well and prepare them to be men and women who understand and live out the gospel? Scripture guides us in the ways of love, discipline, and the bringing up our children in the way they should go, as families and as a church.

Marriage is already hard without us making it harder. Yet that's exactly what we do, especially in a time when competing views of gender roles abound. And while this topic seems out-of-touch with the culture, it is not out-of-step with God's design for flourishing and joy. Isn't that what we all want? When Jesus is king over our marriage, husband and wife find freedom from harshness and disrespect...

During this incredibly divisive time, we need to pay careful attention to how we engage with lovingly and truthfully with the world around us. In observing this portion of the book of James, we learn that real kingdom wisdom has real effect in our lives. Are we engaging others with the heart of God or with earthly goals and passions?

Atonement and propitiation - two words that sound big, complicated, and esoteric. However, these words represent beautiful and intimate truths for all of us, truths that bring us true freedom from sin and from slavery to our desires. Our sin is not just covered once and for all by Christ, as incredible as that is, but his very righteousness is given to each of us through faith in him, that we may...

What does it mean for Jesus to be king over our lives, over the way we conduct ourselves? How does his work for us affect our growth? What role do we play in seeking and growing? This passage reveals to us that God has provided us with glorious position, but we have practices that we pursue. We don’t earn any love or salvation with our efforts, but growing towards Christ requires our humble and ac...

As created beings, we are all designed to worship - to pour out our affection and our devotion on something or someone. The object of this devotion is of the utmost importance, and affects how we view ourselves, treat others, and live our lives. We are reminded in the book of Colossians of the necessity of keeping our affection for Christ foundational in our considerations of ourselves and others....

As we receive Christ and his forgiveness, we learn to then walk in him as well, rooted in him and abounding in gratitude. Walking in Christ requires a watchfulness for false freedom that we may avoid it; walking in Christ also mean our adherence the fullness of the freedom purchased for us. It is only in the love and grace of Christ that true freedom and life, for which our souls crave and ache, i...

In the gospel, God beckons us in Christ into relationship with himself. As we rest in God for our salvation, we lean into him for our further maturation into the image of Christ. Maturity is rooted in the person and work of Christ, is modeled by us and others, and has definitive markers in the life of a believer. May we grow together in maturity, building one another up along the way.

This week’s text (Colossians 1:15-23) is the crown jewel of the book of Colossians, perhaps even of the whole new testament or all of Scripture. It is one of the most powerful and rich descriptions of Christ’s person and work. Texts such as these cause us to stop, to pause, and to marvel at the King of kings. May he reign over us in every way, changing us more and more into his image and filling u...

If we are all honest with ourselves, we often hold others to standards that we ourselves don’t even meet. We aren’t as far along in our growth as we often think we are, and this in turn affects how we view and treat others. Colossians reminds us that our posture must be marked by patience. We need to thank God as others progress, ask God that others would exceed expectations and limitations, and t...

Colossians reveals to us some of the truest realities of each of our lives: we all have struggles to overcome, we all face villains that need proper opposition, and we all need a hero to cling to. Jesus is the true hero, the one who brings joy when he is properly seated on the throne in each of our lives. God desires our whole heart; may we surrender fully to the only King who is worthy of worship...

As we finish the Foundations series with our final meditation, we turn to a very important question: what do I do with this anxiety that I’m carrying? The most frequent command in Scripture is “fear not,” and far from a cold commandment to diminish our problems, this is an invitation to step into the grace and mercy Christ has purchased for us. We can take our anxiety with confidence to the God wh...

We are experiencing a distinct loss of presence during this time. We are physically apart, to be sure, but for all of us the deeper loss of presence is relational, emotional, and spiritual. This separation leads us to ask: where is God? Is he truly near to us in our hardship? The gap between God’s promises and our experience is a real one; in this sermon we examine the meditations that help us bri...

This is a season of loss and anxiety for all. As we are present to this suffering, we begin to ask questions as we are faced with ourselves: “Who am I in light of all of this loss?” Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection purchased for us not only forgiveness of sins, but adoption as sons and daughters. As we look at Psalm 131, we can see and meditate on the great privilege it is to be fed, susta...

Though we live under the sun, facing opposition from Satan from behind the veil, in the end we claim and praise a resurrected Jesus. All of our theology and practice find foundation in a victorious Christ; he is victorious over death, victorious over disobedience, and victorious over the devil. In our present darkness we can rejoice in marvelous light. Our Savior lives and reigns!

We are engaged in a very real spiritual battle, and Holy Week reminds us of this; we can either eject from the battle like Judas or engage in the battle like Jesus. In examining the vehicles, forms, content, and objectives of Satan’s schemes, we develop an even greater awareness of our enemy in this battle. However, awareness is not enough. When we avail ourselves to the armor that God provides, p...

Satan has a plan to oppress everyone, and demons have a plan to possess someone. Our very real enemy is seeking to diminish our joy in God and our effectiveness for God, but what if, in some way, we are our own worst enemy? What if our unchecked behaviors and our untethered thoughts are leaving us vulnerable to the burden of heaviness and weight of oppression and attack? Listen in as we address th...

We find ourselves surrounded completely in this season by the effects of COVID-19. While much of the focus has been on the physical realities and dangers this virus brings, there is also a very real battle raging on for each of our minds and hearts. Neglecting the person and work of Jesus during this season through passive drifting or active distraction creates space for our spiritual enemy to gai...

Our old self has passed away in Christ, but there is still a quivering of the flesh in our life, reminding us that we are not home yet. Followers of Christ are not defined by perfect, sinless lives, but by an inner battle of the Spirit and the flesh, evidencing that the Lord is at work within us. Scripture provides us with instruction for participating in this battle as we keep in step with the Sp...

What God creates in heaven, Satan counterfeits in the world. How do these worlds intersect? How do we navigate as kingdom citizens in this present darkness? The kingdom is the future, eternal, comprehensive reign of God on earth as it is in heaven, where every mind is transformed in Jesus and every desire is satisfied by Jesus. This future reality is lived out in the world with present faith by tr...