The Heights Baptist Church

Last week I made the comment that the only thing we are here to do, alive to do, is a be a witness for the Gospel. Today we continue our What Is? series by looking at what is the Great Commission and before we do, let’s look at the Great Commandment. Can we obey the great commandment without obeying the great commission? Can we love God, love our neighbor without the great commission? Why would th...

The message today is not about a particular form of government. The follower of Christ follows Him under whatever government they find themselves. Throughout history, most Christians have not only had no say, they didn’t even think about having a say in the government that they followed Christ under. We continue our 'What is series' today with what is government? A lot of ways to approach this: bi...

Graduation. Marriage. Parenthood. A new job. A hard diagnosis. An unexpected loss. Retirement. Every one of those moments turns our hearts toward the future and makes us ask what comes next. Now the answer may look different in different seasons. What comes next after high school is not the same as what comes next in retirement. But I believe there is an answer to that question that fits every sea...

In case you don’t know me, I’m Mike Osborne, and I’ve had the privilege of serving here at The Heights as Executive Pastor. Or at least I will for the next 16 days. At the end of this month, I’ll be retiring after 23 years in this role and nearly 47 years in full-time ministry. So today, I’m not standing at an ending as much as I am standing at a crossroads in a long journey. If you’ve ever walked...

In this series we’ve been asking some big theological questions, like: What is the Bible, What is God the Father, and what is God the Son, what is God the Holy Spirit. And over the past couple of weeks we looked at the questions What is Sin and Salvation and What is Eternal Security. Today we’re looking at another ‘What is…’ question—What is The Great Commandment—a question that is asked of and di...

Loss can come at a moment’s notice and strike anything we have. Most of the time, the chance we would lose our job or marriage or health, tomorrow, seems so slim, it isn’t real, but it is. Ask anyone who has experienced it. We can lose anything and everything without seeing it coming. That is why it is such good news that God has something for us we don’t have to fear losing. We continue our 'What...

Today’s question is: What Is Sin and Salvation? The Bible teaches that every person—regardless of status, personality, or background—needs salvation because humanity has a problem we cannot fix on our own. Our culture often denies that problem, but without recognizing our condition, we’ll never seek the help we desperately need. To truly understand salvation, we first have to understand sin—and th...

Today we continue our series, 'What Is', a series to deepen our faith and understanding in and of God. Last week we looked at What is the Church and continue that today with what is baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Let’s start in Galatians 3:1-3.

What comes to you mind when you hear the word church? I assume for a lot of us it is something positive. We do have a lot of people in culture today talking about church hurt, so it is an assumption. But what comes to your mind? A church you grew up in? A place of family memories: weddings, baby dedications, a funeral? The place you came to Christ? I hope your thoughts of the church are good. I fe...

Today we come to an interesting What Is question. They’re all interesting but today adds a little spooky to the interesting. What is Satan? Yes, there is a personal being devoted to opposing God and opposing God in and for you. To not believe in Satan is to reject the clear and consistent teaching of Jesus and the Scripture. Connected to this would be a study of angels and demons which we are goin...

Jesus is not absent or distant from His people; He is actively working for them right now. In this message, we explore three present realities of Christ’s ministry: He represents us before the Father, welcomes us to draw near with confidence, and rules over all things for the good of His church. Because of what Jesus is doing now, believers can live with security, approach God boldly, trust Him fu...

This is our third week looking at 'What Is the Son of God' and today we will look at His pre-existence and the prophecy surrounding Him. Next week we will look at what Jesus is doing right now. We can give ourselves to no greater pursuit than the knowledge of our Savior. It quickens the heart, strengthens the resolve, and purifies the soul.

My message today is about the most unappreciated person to ever walk this earth: Jesus Christ. We continue answering our “What Is?’ questions. Today is the second of four messages answering, 'What is God the Son?' Last week we looked at His death and resurrection, next week pre-existence and the prophecies pointing to His life. Today we look at the humanity and deity of Jesus. The Scripture teache...

Happy Resurrection Day and let me add my welcome to The Heights! It is so wonderful to celebrate our resurrected Lord and Savior together. Today arrives in the middle of a long series we are doing at The Heights called What is? We are answering questions like what is God, what is the Bible, what is heaven, what is Israel, what is sin, what is salvation? We want to deepen our faith, our understandi...

God loves you. What a precious and simple truth. And there are many other wonderful and simple truths to know about God. But God is not simple. There are truths about who He is and how He works that is just beyond our ability to grasp. And that’s okay. Wouldn’t He be really limited if He could only be and do what fits in our understanding. I need a God bigger than my understanding. And indeed, He...

Today we come to our second message on What is God the Holy Spirit? First, we looked at who the Holy Spirit is and what He does. Next week on Palm Sunday we will look at What is the Trinity? If you are new to our church we are spending a lot of this year walking through doctrine, beliefs. We are learning to think about God, to deepen our faith because it is a deep world of problems and suffering....

Names and faces are important. And we do run to them. We have names that we run to. What name comes to your mind when you have good news? Who do you want to share that with first? What about when you are angry? You’ve been wronged. You want to process. When you’re alone, what name comes to mind that you want to call or text? When you’re in trouble, what’s the name you need? When you just need help...

The tithe is giving 10% of your income, the product of Your work, to the Lord and His work. Contributions are anything beyond the 10%. This is often referred to as a gift, but it’s not a gift. It is His and that is why He uses the word 'rob' when we do not give those tithes and offerings. It is not robbing someone to not give them a gift. Robbing is when we take what is theirs. 100% of what we hav...

We have not always done a good job with the Holy Spirit, maybe even tended to ignore Him. Some of that might be the difficulty of understanding the Trinity; and even in that the Father and Son are more concrete images to us, but not as sure what the Spirit is. We just tend to be more unfamiliar with the third person of the Trinity. That is a shame. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be our Helper. The...

There is a common idea in history, in humanity that we are all seeking the same God. We have different names, different ways of getting to this God; but in the end we are going to find out we were all working toward the same God. It is a polite and tolerant idea. It is just not true. The person who affirms this idea knows very little of the god they follow or that others follow. He is God the Fath...

Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised! - Psalm 113:2-3 ESV The gospel is not merely what God gives, but God Himself. Through His revealed names, God shows that He is the One who meets our deepest need by drawing us into covenant relationship with Himself.

God’s call has never been about how impressive we are. It has always been about His grace at work through ordinary, willing people.

Today our 'what is question' is, 'What is God Like?' We are looking at His attributes. We will use the Bible to answer these questions. We have established its authority and trustworthiness. This book originated from God’s mouth. He gave us the Bible so we could know Him. Man did not research and find God; but rather God revealed Himself through the living word, Jesus, and the written word, the Bi...

For so many in our world today, the Bible is not valid for proving anything. People are quick to dismiss the Scripture even though It has NEVER been disproven scientifically, historically, archaeologically, or spiritually. Disagreeing with it, doesn’t prove it wrong. There were times in history when people said, 'We have no record of that king or that city the Bible refers to', so the Bible is wro...

When you hear the word theology, what comes to your mind? Is it something done in the halls of academics, the discussions of people not living in the real world? Last week we learned that the word theology is made up of two words in the Greek: theos and logos. Theos means God and logos means words, content, ideas. So theology is words, contents and ideas about God; and everyone has thoughts on and...