Line Upon Line

Working through 1 Peter 3:13-16, Pastor Miles confronts our deep fear that submission and meekness will lead to harm, showing that Christians are all but guaranteed suffering yet are called to fix their hearts on Christ and the hope of eternity. Because Christ's suffering secured our salvation, a believer can face persecution with a peace that confounds the world and opens the door to share the go...

Drawing on 1 Peter 3:8-12, this Resurrection Sunday teaching calls Christians to seek and pursue peace (Hebrew *shalom*) by reflecting the compassion, mercy, and grace of the Prince of Peace. Because Christ extended grace to us who reviled Him, we are called to repay evil with blessing and to do good, with the promise of greater reward in eternity.

Pastor Miles teaches 1 Peter 3:1-7 on submission within marriage, defending the biblical call for Christian wives to honor and respect their husbands against modern objections while grounding it in the equality of men and women. He shows that submission is a form of worship and a witness, then turns to husbands, who must dwell with their wives with understanding, honor, and respect as equal heirs...

Drawing on Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi and his rebuke by Jesus, this teaching from 1 Peter 2:18-25 calls believers to submit to authority—even harsh employers—because submission to earthly authority reveals the degree of our submission to God. Christ's unjust suffering becomes the example and ethic we are called to follow, with the promise of eternal reward.

From 1 Peter 2:11-17, Pastor Miles teaches that Christians—citizens of another realm—are called to submit to every human governing authority, even corrupt ones, because all earthly power is ordained by God for His sovereign purposes. This submission, far from being weakness, is a witness to God's ultimate authority and requires an internal war against ungodly desires like anger, malice, and bitter...

Tracing the Old Testament "stone" imagery into the New Testament, this teaching from 1 Peter 2 shows that the stone is Jesus Christ—rejected by men but chosen by God—who is the only foundation of the church and the only way to taste God's grace. Believers, made into living stones, are built into a holy priesthood whose acceptable service is to proclaim the praises of God who called them out of dar...

Drawing on 1 Peter 1:6-16, Pastor Miles teaches that joy in the midst of trials and persecution for Christ's sake is possible because Christians look beyond present suffering to a coming, indescribable salvation. God allows such trials to prove and purify believers' faith, producing holiness and culminating in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Using Jesus' seaside conversation with Peter in John 21, Pastor Miles shows how an encounter with the risen Jesus transformed a fearful denier into a faithful martyr, and applies this to believers facing increasing opposition in 21st-century America as he introduces a new series in 1 Peter.

Drawing from 1 Peter 1, Pastor Miles examines how believers maintain faithfulness amid opposition, tracing Peter's life and the early church's persecution to show that faithfulness—not giftedness—is what God requires. He grounds that faithfulness in God's electing mercy, the living hope of the resurrection, and an incorruptible inheritance kept by the power of God.

Drawing on 1 Peter 1:6 and its surrounding verses, this teaching contrasts the political "better future" every candidate promises with Jesus's call to follow Him through suffering toward an eternal salvation. Pastor Miles shows that the hope of heaven makes joy in trials possible, that God uses trials to prove and purify our faith, and that faithful endurance will be rewarded with praise, honor, a...

Drawing from the creation account in Genesis 2, this teaching shows that God never intended us to live in isolation; sin destroyed the oneness God created, but Jesus destroyed sin to restore community, which now finds its expression in the church. Pastor Miles outlines six practical ways believers grow in connection with one another at Cross Connection.

A Christmas teaching tracing the biblical story of joy from creation through the fall, the prophets' promises, and the advent of Christ, showing that Jesus came to bring "good tidings of great joy for all people." The church is called to experience, express, and extend that joy to a misery-filled world.

Opening a three-part series on the church's vision—"life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus"—Pastor Miles traces from Genesis how humanity was created for communion with God and community with each other, how sin brought disconnection, and how Jesus came to restore the broken connection so we can experience the abundant life.

A year-end message reflecting on the marvelous things God did through the church in 2015, then turning to Isaiah 43:18-19 to challenge believers not to get stuck in past failures or past victories but to be ready for a fresh work from the God of the impossible in 2016.

Drawing on Colossians 2, Pastor Miles teaches that Christ alone is the focus and sufficiency of our faith, warning against four counterfeit dangers—deception, religious seduction, judgment by the religiously righteous, and spiritual fraud—that shift our attention away from Jesus. The call is to lose vain religion and grow strong in a Christocentric faith.

Drawing on the Copernican shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism, Pastor Miles teaches from Colossians 3 that righteousness is found only in Christ, not in religious effort, and that the Christian life must orbit around Jesus as its center. He shows how the believer, raised and transformed by Christ, is to put off sinful attitudes and put on Christlike virtues through four practical means: the Wo...

Continuing the Christocentric series in Colossians 3, Pastor Miles teaches that heavenly mindedness—a Christ-centered focus cultivated through the Word, fellowship, worship, and mission—produces earthly goodness as Christ transforms us from the inside out. He then walks through Paul's practical instructions for righteousness in the home, the workplace, and the church's mission.

Drawing from Colossians 1:28–2:3, this teaching examines the Apostle Paul's agonizing struggle to present every person complete in Christ, and shows that the most Christ-centered and Christ-like form of that struggle is prayer—the first agonizing step in evangelism.

Every human being longs to be right, and religion is humanity's failed attempt to achieve that righteousness. From Colossians 1:15-29, Pastor Miles shows that Christ alone—the image of the invisible God, the first cause and sustainer of all things—makes the unrighteous right and is our only hope of glory.

Opening a series called "Christocentric" in the book of Colossians, Pastor Miles teaches from Colossians 1:3–14 that a centered, balanced, and joyful life is maintained by thanksgiving to God and built upon faith focused on Christ, which in turn shifts our love toward others and secures our hope for heaven.

A walk through Micah 5, showing how God used the judgment of Israel by Assyria and Babylon to purify a remnant and prepare the way for the Messiah, who was prophesied to come from Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and who will one day return to reign in peace, security, and purity.

Pastor Miles works through Micah 4, showing how God answers the devastating prophecy of Jerusalem's destruction (3:12) with a series of promises marked by temporal stamps—future restoration and Christ's righteous reign, exile to and redemption from Babylon, and judgment on Israel's enemies. The fulfilled prophecy of Babylon (foretold 150 years in advance) gives confidence that the yet-unfulfilled...

Through Rich Gary's testimony of miraculous healing from stage-four cancer and the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, this teaching calls believers to let God adjust their focus from the fleeting means of this life to the eternal ends of His glory, so they can be salt and light in a dark world.

Opening a new series in Colossians, Pastor Miles argues that the Bible is not merely interesting but irrelevant; it is living, powerful, and proven true in transformed lives. The central theme of Colossians is that Christ is the foundation and center of life, so that a life without Him is incomplete and lacking.

Through the story of Philemon, Onesimus, and Paul, this teaching shows that the forgiveness we receive from God in Christ is pure grace that must in turn make us gracious and forgiving toward others. Drawing on Philemon 1, it argues that forgiveness is the fitting response of the forgiven sinner, that grace makes us more useful to God, and that eternal outcomes outweigh temporal difficulties.