Memorial Baptist Church Jefferson City

You're surrounded by desire generators — feeds, ads, algorithms, comparison. But coveting isn't just a problem with wanting too much. It's a worship problem. In this final message of our Ten Commandments series, Pastor David opens Exodus 20:17 to show that desire itself is a gift from God - but unchecked, it rewrites history, undermines relationships, and leads us straight back to the garden where...

Don't lie. That's how we've summarized it. But that weakens the depth of it. The ninth commandment wasn't written for polite conversation. It was written for the city gate - the ancient courtroom where elders weighed witnesses, established truth, and handed down verdicts. And bearing false witness in that context wasn't just dishonesty. It was violence. Proverbs 25:18 says it plainly: a false witn...

Do not steal. Simple enough, right? But the biblical definition of stealing goes further than most of us want to admit — taking without consent, yes, but also defrauding, deceiving, and withholding what is rightfully owed. And underneath all of it is the same mentality: there isn't enough, so I better take what I can get. In this message, Eric walks through the eighth commandment and makes the cas...

Two Hebrew words. "You shall not commit adultery." But God isn't merely guarding sexual behavior. He is guarding a covenant union He designed to tell the truth about Himself. In this message, Pastor David traces four movements through the seventh commandment — the boundary God protects, the blessing He reveals, the covenant He keeps, and the love He sends. From Genesis 1's picture of one-and-many,...

Last week: contempt, two paths, a better word. This week: Jesus goes deeper. He's not after the spark of anger. He's after the fire we keep. In Matthew 5, Jesus connects lingering anger to murder - and then uses a word nobody expected: Gehenna. Not a metaphor. A real valley south of Jerusalem where the kings of Judah once burned their children alive. A valley so defiled that by Jesus' day it had b...

You shall not murder. Easy enough, right? But Jesus doesn't stop at the act. He goes upstream - to the anger, the insult, the quiet contempt. And He stacks them, not because they're three levels of a grading system, but because they all come from the same root. There's an English word for that root: contempt. Taking the judge's seat over another image bearer and declaring them worthless - with you...

We hear "honor" and think respect. But the Hebrew word is kavod — something that is weighted, heaped upon, heavy with significance. That changes the whole commandment. The fifth word is the hinge of the entire ten. The first four go up- how you relate to God. The last five go out -how you treat people. And right in the middle, bridging both directions, is this: honor your father and mother. In thi...

We are the most productive, connected, efficient, and exhausted people in history. We wear our busyness like a badge. We brag about how little we sleep. We're proud to break the one commandment we need most. God built a rhythm into creation itself - work and rest, pointing to Him. But somewhere along the way, we kept the words and lost the melody. We have rest, PTO, vacation, self-care - but they...

We've simplified it to: don't use God's name as a curse word. But the Hebrew word isn't "take" - it's carry. And that changes everything. When Moses built an altar in Exodus 17 and called it "The Lord is my banner," he was saying: God's name is what we carry into battle. Before the commandment was even given, Moses understood - the name isn't a word you say. It's a banner you bear, a life you live...

Everybody came from a family. Some good. Some hard. Some you're still healing from. Here's what the whole Bible keeps saying: family was God's idea first. And He has never stopped building one. This Sunday, Pastor David brought the church together to celebrate kids and youth camp - and to show from Genesis to 1 Corinthians 12 that God has always been gathering His children. Kari (18 years in child...

An idol doesn't have to be carved from wood or melted from gold. The most dangerous idol is a God made small enough to understand, control, and never be afraid of. Israel stood trembling at Mount Sinai — fire, smoke, a trumpet blast shaking the whole camp. Then 40 days later, they made a calf. The same people. The same God. Now small enough to hold. In this message, Pastor Jimmy walks through what...

Fire. Smoke. Thunder. A trumpet blast shaking the whole camp. And the first thing this mountain-shaking God says is not a command — it's a relationship. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Rescue before requirement. Character before command. That's the shape of everything that follows — including the first commandment. In this message, Pastor David walks through Exodus 20:1–3 in...

In the first 52 chapters of the Bible, God never gives a name. Then Moses asks — and everything changes. I AM WHO I AM. Not a title. Not a proper noun. A verb. The only being in existence with the power and authority to completely self-identify. In this message, Pastor Nathan walks through Exodus 3, the meaning behind Yahweh, and the moment Jesus stands in the temple and says — before Abraham was,...

Every ancient culture had a creation story. In most of them, the gods are at war. Creation comes from violence. Humans are an afterthought. Then Genesis opens. God speaks. No conflict. No chaos. He simply speaks - and calls it good. This God is different. He speaks to His children, not as slaves, but with blessing. He gives boundaries not to cage them, but to keep them. And when they broke those b...

When musk oxen are threatened, they don't scatter and fight alone. They form a tight, outward-facing circle — every animal protecting the one beside it. That's closer to what Paul had in mind in Ephesians 6 than anything Hollywood has given us. Paul wasn't writing to lone soldiers. He was writing to a family- the church. And the armor he describes was never a private kit. It's God's own armor, wor...

"There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan." — C.S. Lewis Paul opens Ephesians 6 with a command: be strong. Not in yourself- in the Lord and in the strength of His might. The same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power available to you right now. But you need to know what you're up agains...

Paul doesn't give us a code. He gives us wisdom. In Ephesians 6:1–9, he addresses children, parents, slaves, and masters - not with an equation, but with a posture. A direction. A heart. And two words that sound similar but mean something very different: obey and honor. One is for a season. One is for a lifetime. In this message, Pastor Jimmy unpacks what it means to listen under your parents as a...

We used to ask marriage to help us survive. Then to make us happy. Now we're asking it to complete us - without the time, investment, or foundation to carry that weight. Paul wrote Ephesians 5:21–33 into a first-century Roman world where wives were property and household codes told everyone their place. What he said instead was a bomb detonating in that culture - and it still is. In this message,...

Music is fascinating. Singing lowers cortisol, raises oxytocin, releases endorphins, and bonds strangers faster than any other group activity. God didn't invent singing for humans - He built it into the human body and wired it into every culture on earth. And Paul says: when you are filled with the Spirit, you sing. In Ephesians 5:19–21, Pastor David walks through what a Spirit-filled church actua...

We live in the most entertained, most medicated, most connected moment in human history. And we are emptier than ever. We reach for things to fill us. And they don't. Paul saw this same pattern in Ephesus two thousand years ago - a city drunk on wine and the worship of Dionysus, chasing fullness in all the wrong places. And into that world he wrote: don't be drunk with wine. Be filled with the Spi...

We live in a culture that worships sex. And honestly? So did Ephesus. Temple prostitutes. Sensual parades. Fertility rituals. The city Paul was writing to wasn't so different from the billboards lining the highway today. And into that world, he writes: be imitators of God. That's an impossible standard. And that's exactly the point. In this message, Pastor Jimmy walks through Ephesians 5:1–16 and...

Last week: put off the old self. Be renewed. Put on the new. This week Paul gets specific. The new self has to show up somewhere - in your words, your anger, your hands, your forgiveness. It has to have a face. In Ephesians 4:25–5:2, Paul gives a list. But this is not random moral advice. Every command is anchored to one controlling truth: we are members of one another. What you do in the body eit...

Everything is technically there. Nothing is missing. But the order is completely wrong - and it changes everything. That's the image Pastor David opens with. Socks over boots. And it's the perfect picture of what disordered desire actually does to a human soul. Johnny Cash wrote "I Walk the Line" as a pledge to himself - play it straight, be faithful, hold the line. Then came the pills. The drinki...

We throw the word diversity around a lot. But what if we've been thinking about it all wrong? In Ephesians 4:7–16, Paul picks up right where unity left off — and then pivots. He says: yes, we are one body. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. We're not just united. We're uniquely, individually equipped. In this message, Pastor Jimmy traces the language o...

What if the greatest threat to the church isn’t from the outside- but from within? In Ephesians 4, Paul calls believers to “walk worthy” of their calling by maintaining unity in the Spirit. This message from Pastor Adam reveals why unity is not secondary- but essential to the life and mission of the church. 🔥 In this message, you’ll discover: ✅ Why unity carries weight in God’s eyes ✅ How Satan...