Chestnut Mountain Church

As we continue our walk through James, we see in James 2, that James is teaching that faith without works is dead. This is not to be confused with James saying that our salvation is based on works. Instead, James is talking about two types of faith: dead faith and saving faith. Our salvation is not based on works. Saving faith produces works. If faith has no action, then this faith is dead. Faith...

We want to cultivate a culture where you can come home and just be you. We desire for everyone who steps on our campus to know that they can belong to God and feel they have a family they can belong to at CMC. As church attendance continues to decline in America, though, what is our role as the lighthouse in this community to change the trajectory of the church? Looking at the principles Paul writ...

Prayer is oxygen for the Christian. Prayer is our means for communing and communicating with the one who made us. Its importance cannot be overstated. There is a price and a prize of prayer. The price is persistence. The prize is His presence. When Jesus teaches the disciples how to pray, He continues and reminds them to keep on asking, to keep on seeking, and to keep on knocking. Jesus is teachin...

Satan tempts our flesh in order to hinder our spiritual. Jesus sympathizes with us because He knows the temptation we face each day; Satan did the very same thing to Jesus. In 2024, we are going to experience seasons of exhaustion. In those moments of weakness, the enemy is going to show up and try to appeal to our flesh to satisfy us temporarily. How do we fight the ways of the enemy? We look to...

During the Christmas season, we focused on the first advent of Christ. When He first came, He was born, died, resurrected, and then ascended back to Heaven. However, Jesus promised that He would come again. The second advent of Jesus will be very different than the first. In the first advent, God poured out His wrath on His Son. When He comes again, God will pour out His wrath on the unbelieving p...

During the Christmas season, we focused on the first advent of Christ. When He first came, He was born, died, resurrected, and then ascended back to Heaven. However, Jesus promised that He would come again. The second advent of Jesus will be very different than the first. In the first advent, God poured out His wrath on His Son. When He comes again, God will pour out His wrath on the unbelieving p...

In Isaiah, it was prophesied that one of the names of the Messiah would be the Prince of Peace. As Jesus was preparing for the cross, He told His disciples that He was leaving them with peace and giving them peace. The peace that the world gives us is completely different from the peace that Jesus gives. The world teaches that peace is a life of no worries, a relief from pressure, problems, trials...

Not only did Jesus come to display the attributes of God, but Jesus also came to talk about Him. Jesus preached. Jesus talked. He continued to talk about the attributes of who our Heavenly Father is. The reason Jesus speaks about the Father so much is because He wants us to understand what the Everlasting Father is all about. The enemy is at work because if he can break up our relationships with o...

We all have a name, and our names each carry weight because the lives that we live are building the meaning of our personal names. Names are a big deal, and the same goes for the names of Jesus. Immanuel defined the purpose and the mission of who Jesus is. Isaiah tells the children of Israel that this son that God will give to us will be called Wonderful Counselor. Jesus gives wisdom to His childr...

When the angel appeared to Joseph and told him that Mary was with child, the angel told Joseph not to be afraid and that this child was to be named Immanuel, which means God with us. This wasn’t the only time in the Bible that the Messiah was referred to as Immanuel, as this was prophecy fulfilled from what God conveyed to His people through the prophet Isaiah not to fear because He was sending Im...

James is calling out the believers he is writing to and calling them out over the guilt of showing favoritism. He writes of a situation between a rich man and a poor man in a synagogue and how the rich man would be favored. However, there is no room for favoritism in the House of God. When we stand in the presence of God in the context of showing favoritism to the rich and the poor, what we realiz...

James defines what true faith, true religion, and true Christianity should look like. In James 1:26-27, James is writing about two religions—one religion that is useless/worthless and one religion that is pure and undefiled. James tells us that if we can’t control our tongue, it is a religion that’s useless and worthless. Are we performing religion to get something from God or to get closer to God...

James emphasizes the importance and weight of God’s Word. As a follower of Christ, there is a difference between being a doer of the Word and a hearer of the Word. It’s one thing to hear the Word, but it’s another thing to listen to it and do it. If you believe in the Word, you should be a doer. This involves submitting to the Lordship of Jesus and submitting to His authority. When we do, we will...

James moves from writing to believers about temptation to the danger of anger. He reminds us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to answer. This isn’t natural for us. This is something that has to be learned. How do we do it? It’s been modeled to us by the character of God, and He has given us His Word. We should walk in the righteousness of God. We have to learn to receive the gospel d...

While trials are sent to cause us to run to God, temptations are used to pull us or lure us away from God. The two go hand in hand, but there is also a very distinct difference between trials and temptations. Temptation is the opportunity to choose something other than God. This idea of temptation and being lured away from the safety of God will be a constant war that we face every day. God will g...

If God has called you here to CMC, He has a purpose for you here. We want to help you find your direction. We want to help you find the lane and the place that God has called you. We want you to discover why God has sent you here. You have to make yourself available. When you say to God that you are here and ready to be used, God will provide the opportunity. He wants the posture of your heart to...

As James continues his letter, he is giving instructions of what to ask God for and how to ask for it when facing trials. We have to acknowledge that God has something that we need, and that is wisdom. Once we acknowledge that we need it, we need to ask God for wisdom. When we ask God for wisdom, we need to trust that He is going to give it and that what He gives is right. God is going to give wis...

In his letter, James is writing to Jewish people who are recent Christian converts who are facing persecution and poverty from other Jewish people due to their recent Christian conversion. James writes them to encourage them. In the beginning of his letter, he immediately tells them that they are going to face trials but to count it as joy. This applies to us today as we are going to face trials a...

In a special service, we take time to remember all that God has done through communion and celebrate all that God is continuing to do through worship and baptism. As we take time to remember and celebrate, we focus on what communion is and who it is for. Remember God’s faithfulness and what got us where we are today. Listen to this special message about communion as we take the Lord’s Supper as a...

God has established truth and love together. They don’t exist apart. God has established a standard, and He does not shift. The standard is established in truth and in love. Love and truth exist in perfect harmony together. As Christians, we have to live our lives differently. Our willingness and discipline to operate within truth and love matters. Truth is who Christ is, and He does not change. G...

According to the Scripture, it is deep within your soul to wrestle with what is right and wrong because that is how God created you. Satan simply wants to reprogram the way God has made us. He wants God’s creation to rebel against Him instead of surrendering to Him. That’s the enemy’s plan. That’s the enemy’s attack on Truth. The attack on Truth all began in the Garden of Eden when Satan came as a...

When Adam and Eve were created, they were given God’s truth and given the standard of how to live. Because of man’s pride, they chose to step outside of God’s standard. Complete chaos ensued. The perfect relationship between God and man was severed, but God provided a way for reconciliation. God established the truth and the standard not to control us but because He loves us. He established the Wo...

The Word of God will stand forever, and our number one core value at CMC is biblical teaching. Why do we value biblical teaching? Because we believe (1) the Bible is God’s Word, (2) God’s Word is Truth, and (3) God’s Word is alive. Listen to this sermon about how we know that the Bible is God’s Word, the Bible is Truth, and God’s Word is alive. Check out our video version of this episode: https://...

Our mission is to saturate the world with the Good News by making disciples. How we accomplish this mission is our strategy: belong, become, and build. The wider we go, the more people we can reach with the gospel. This is why we go out and build the Kingdom of God. We must make God’s priorities our priorities, and Jesus’ last words on earth were a command to the disciples to go; this includes us....

After you belong to God, it is our desire that every child of God becomes a mature disciple of Christ. No matter where you are in your journey, we are all a part of the process and in the journey together in our faith to become a mature disciple. Even with Jesus’ own disciples during His earthly ministry, every disciple’s journey begins with an invitation from Jesus. Once you accept the invitation...