Risen Church NC

As Paul continues to detail how the grace of God has a transforming work in every believer, he turns his attention to his critics. They had attempted to discredit his ministry, and cited his meekness and gentle nature as proof of his weakness. Paul uses this as an opportunity to boast of these "weaknesses", pointing to how Spiritual strengths stand in contrast to what this world celebrates. It's o...

Worship services are meant to do more than just make us emotional. They're meant to inspire us and lead us in response to God. Many of the psalms showcase the goodness of God, but also lead us in making vows and commitments to Him. In this message, we hear from Psalm 19 about how worship services aren't contained to Sundays and Sanctuaries. Nature around us is constantly praising God and reminding...

How much more blessed is it to give than to receive? Well, we will never know until our lives are more defined by giving than they are receiving. That sounds simple, but it's also so striking. Most of our lives and the goals we set in this life are all about gaining, saving, taking, and having more. But if we are to take Jesus' word for it, then if we want to get the most out of this life - and pr...

Perhaps you've only ever related to God on the basis of truth. As in, it appears that God only cares about us knowing what's true and behaving for truth's sake. While for certainty, God and His Word reveal truth and what rightly honors Him, this isn't His only intention for reaching out to us... It could be argued that God is as interested in - maybe even more so - in our finding and sustaining tr...

From the very onset, Jesus intended on His followers representing Him to the rest of the world. Just after recruiting His first disciples, He cast a vision over them as to how they might reach and impact their world. These many years later, that same vision remains over us... In this message, we hear how Jesus positioned His Church as Keepers of His Kingdom and sent us on a mission to make discipl...

The Bible tells many stories, from God's perspective and humanity's. From Genesis to Revelation, the overarching narrative is one about kingdoms, rising and falling. God's Kingdom has always ruled over all, with His realm spanning from the highest heaven to the depths of the earth. Since the fall, man has attempted to build its own kingdoms, set in opposition to God. While we may not realize it, a...

The work of Christ on the cross offers a change to the human race at our core. Our sin was placed on Him, so that His righteousness might be received by all of us. In this message, we discuss this great exchange that took place on Calvary and learn the true and full nature of our salvation. We talk about what it meant for Christ to bear our sin and what it looks like for us to embody His righteous...

In order to take hold of our full inheritance as believers - sons and daughters of God - we must be fully awake. Ephesians 5 and 6 call us to wake up from our sleep so that we might know where exactly God is leading us and where His blessings are found. We are often exhausted and strung out, going about half-asleep, with a lack of awareness. If we are not resting in Christ, we won't be able to be...

The heart of Ephesians is God's desire for us to take hold of our true and full Spiritual Inheritance in Christ. As personal and individual based as our salvation is, Paul shows us that our full participation and experience in God's Kingdom comes through belonging to the community being built by God. In this message, we hear Paul's invitation to see ourselves as part of Christ's body, which is a d...

To be a follower of Jesus is to be an evangelist for Him. Every disciple is called to make disciples. We've all heard these points before, over and over again, but do we really understand how every Christian is called to spread the Good News? Should every salvation lead to evangelism? In this message, we hear Paul implore every believer to join him on mission, and we unpack why we should all serio...

Jesus performed many miracles during His earthly ministry, exercising Heaven's power over nature, disease, and all kinds of misfortunes. Most assumed these were previews of a coming, earthly reality, however Jesus meant them as signs of something even greater... In John 6, Jesus shows us how all of these signs were tastes of the full, abundant, and spiritual life He came to give us. He called the...

Capping off the trilogy of Christian Holy Days - Pentecost should be just as celebrated as Christmas and Easter. Whereas Christmas means "God With Us" and Easter proclaims "God For Us", Pentecost brings us the promise of "God Within Us". In this message, we learn about the origin story of the Church and the work that the Holy Spirit has been doing through it and within its members ever since. Just...

No matter how much of this world we obtain or what we may accomplish in this life, deep down we all fear exposure. Our flesh is terrified of coming up short one day, where and when it really counts. However, our sinful nature tries its best to sway us with remedies that are proven to be insufficient. After pleading with us to embrace our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, as mere jars of clay, the Ap...

To have access to something great and not take advantage of it or even to underutilize it is such a shame. We would all agree that if there's a path for us to obtain something that can be ours and should be ours, we are only shorting ourselves to not pursue it. Yet, this is exactly the case for many Christians who fail to receive the fullness of spiritual blessings which God has deeded to us. In t...

Our greatest temptation or at least our most often one is to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Since the serpent first came after humanity in Eden, we've all struggled with the allure of becoming like god, being independent and invincible. We scoff at the notion that we might rely on or trust in something more than we do God, but our actions suggest we are rather quick to shift our wei...

So many lose heart in serving the Lord and doing ministry. It's so easy to burn out or grow weary and walk away from doing what we've all been called to do. When we maximize the antagonizing words and efforts of the Enemy and minimize the encouraging, empowering words and provisions of Christ, this is the common, expected result. In this message, we hear the Apostle Paul plead with the Corinthians...

Paul's final contribution to the Bible was a letter to his young protege, Timothy. He chose to use this send-off as a way of reminding Timothy what had driven his ministry for years, with hopes of grounding Timothy's in the same convictions. His opening words are so very poignant in that he reminds Timothy of the gift that he had been given, from both his maternal and spiritual families. This doub...

There is in all of us the ability to endure, persevere, and press through the most challenging of times. However, like with most things concerning our fallen world, what was meant to be doesn't always come about. What was meant to produce hope within us, often leads to the opposite - pessimism and negativity. Genesis 37-50 features a story that shows what happens when we don't abandon our faith wh...

In 2 Corinthians 3, we finally begin to understand the sort of opposition the Apostle Paul had been facing in his ministry. In a full defense of his doctrine and beliefs, Paul launches into a powerful message about how the Gospel of Jesus Christ was not a mere off-shoot of Judaism, but was something brand new. While the influence and scriptures of ancient Israel would always be a priceless foundat...

The Scarlet Thread of Redemption is an undercurrent throughout all of history. From the very beginning, we see God's intent to save the human race that rebels against Him. In this message, we discuss how God certainly knew the decisions that the first people would make, and yet He poured everything into creating the perfect world for them anyways. It becomes clear that God was unfazed by the Fall,...

In 2 Corinthians 2 we hear Paul reflect back on the troubles with sin that the Corinthians had struggled with, yet rejoice at the hope of the Gospel. While many in Corinth had not yet experienced the power of repentance and restoration, Paul encourages the church to pass along the grace and forgiveness that he had shared with them. In this message, we talk about how Paul's commitment to the people...

In this message, we hear Paul testify of his own ministries integrity and sincerity, while emphasizing how our own works must be validated and authenticated by these same virtues. As he tells the Corinthians about many of the unexpected twists and turns he'd faced in his efforts to serve them, he stresses that he refused to allow these things to disrupt his commitment to the Lord. Listen as we see...

In the early days of America, Benjamin Franklin was asked outside the Constitutional Convention what sort of government he and the other founding fathers were seeking to establish. Famously, he responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." That is, the American ideal would require a great amount of responsibility and care in order to maintain and preserve it past its inception. When God first creat...

It's been said that in order to truly appreciate and fully understand something you need to know where it comes from. There is so much that can be discovered and revealed through learning the origin story. When God was rescuing the children of Israel out of Egypt and preparing them for the Promised Land, He wanted them to know their history. They were generations removed from their forefathers, an...

Why do we fall? So that we might learn that it's God alone who raises us up and gives us true, lasting strength. So that we might not put our faith in unstable, unproven foundations, but place our hope in Christ alone. In Paul's introduction to 2 Corinthians, he reminds us of God's sovereignty over and faithfulness to His own, before launching into a larger conversation about sharing in Christ's s...