The Heights Baptist Church

What is an abundant life? It seems the universal desire of every soul is to be loved, to matter, and have purpose. And here is a hard, but daily proved truth: any identity, love, meaning we find in this life can be lost in a moment without warning, creating incredible insecurity. Only in Christ do we have these things permanently.

The Gospel is the power of God for us. It is our power in this world. And, it is our answer, our hope, our identify, our life and life eternal, our job, our worth, our everything – the Gospel. We are a people of the Gospel.

If I were to talk about baptism today, and almost all of us have already done that, would that make this message unnecessary for most? I wonder though if we talk about it enough. We have a great commandment from our Lord to love Him with all of our heart, soul, and strength. And we have a great commission from our Lord, our marching orders if you will until He returns.

My focus today is why does Jesus say you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood to be saved, and then give us the Lord’s Supper. Does the act of what we are doing here today, save us? No. Jesus’ teaching here is incredibly practical and insightful about what it means to put our faith in Him.

As we look both back over the past 18 months and ahead to what lies in front of us, we know that people are suffering in ways we cannot imagine. Today, the church needs to be the church. It needs to there to offer a shoulder to cry on, a word to comfort, a hand to lift each other up.

What do we look like when we are what a Christian, a Christ follower, a disciple ought to be - Equipped, grown up, and built up so that we can do the work of the ministry.

No no matter what have go through, we should never give up, give in, or lose hope. Continue to look to the Lord Jesus, and keep faith in Him. Time soon coming when *Won’t have cry no more*.

The only way we can be made righteous is not by keeping the law, but by being covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God is different than the world's definition of righteousness.

We know worrying accomplishes nothing, and yet . . . And it is not just that it profits us nothing. It puts us in a deficit. There are a significant number of serious health issues directly related to worry, and then there are the spiritual health issues.

As we continue our series today in 1 John, we find ourselves in chapter 5 where John reviews one of the most basic ideas of Christianity. It is the idea in which our faith is anchored and the idea we share with the world: Jesus is the Son of God. Today we are looking at something a lot of us don’t probably feel like we need proved, but what we always need is our faith encouraged and emboldened; an...

I am not sure we could put together a simple definition of a good American that would get every American’s approval. But good news for us: we only the need the approval of One. What a blessing that is! It’s a tricky road to travel getting the approval of everyone

You can know you have eternal life. The only way that is possible is if it is based on something other than me. If it based on my performance, my goodness, my resume it feels to me like there would always be reason to doubt. I am, we are inconsistent. We have bad days. But my faith is not in me, and the reason it is not in me is because God told me not to put it in me, but in Jesus.

We are to be measuring up to the standard of Christ who was true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable. And the ability to do that has to do with how we control our thoughts.

There are people sharing truth and there are people deceiving. While that has always been true, what is different today is the rapid speed with which truth or deceit, an idea can cover a nation, even the whole world because of the internet and social media. Great masses can be deceived in but a moment.

Love one another. Not a command that would seem to take a lot of explaining, but John is going to go on about quite a bit in our passage today. And not only has he already covered this, but he will again. As a matter of fact, eight times in this short letter he is talking about loving one another.

What we do in America on this day serves us well as we turn to 1 John to continue our series. We could call every one of our gatherings a memorial service, a remembrance that Jesus died for us. And that remembrance should result in careful living of that which He won for us. Let’s turn today to 1 John 3:4-10.

What I love about John is there is no sugar-coating… compromise… wishy-washiness when comes to what he had to say. Everything was pretty much black/white when it comes where we are in our walk with the Lord. In these days & times the same thing is needed. He had love for people, which why this epistle often referred to saints as little children, a term of endearment which reflected his love…care…...

I am guessing most of us feel comfortable walking in the dark in our own home. We know where things are, we trust our senses. But take that same level of dark in surroundings not so familiar, and you pull the toes in a little, put the hands out. We’re not as comfortable or confident so we are much more careful. John has been warning us of the darkness. It seems that he is concerned that we are too...

We can’t bond with the way the world does things and have a bond with God. Now when I think, Why not? it is because we believe we have our hate or love for the world under control; and don’t we always think we have things under control, until there not. But the reality is, even under control hate is the antithesis to God. The world is an antithesis to God. How can I love that which hates my God an...

The Bible reveals so much: who is God, what is He like, what is life about, where are we going, good vs evil – and yet with all there is to know and learn, it kind of comes down to what we learn in the kindergarten of spiritual life: love God, love people, be like Jesus. Whatever you know or don’t know, just be sure you are doing that. And when we miss that mark, we have an Advocate.

God’s forgiveness is there for us when we fall, but not there so we can jump safely into fellowship with the darkness. Turn on the light. Build a bond with God, His word, and His people who speak His word into you. Our lying heart needs that.

The word fellowship used in the New Testament is koinonia. While that is a Greek work, it is a Greek word one might actually hear today. Probably that and agape, for love, are the two Greek words a lot of Christians will have heard. Fellowship in the New Testament is not really about a get-together as much as it is conveying an intimate, mutual participation in a life shared with one another.

Today we are beginning a 12-message study of 1 John. It is called first, because it is the first of three letters he sends. It is hard put an exact date on 1 John, but with what we have most put it around A.D. 90. And that would roughly be the age of John.

There’s a lot of similarity to how the virus and vaccine walks through humanity and how sin and the Savior walk through humanity. There is a very real virus of sin. 100% of humanity is affected and the death rate is 100% in this life and the life to come. The virus means I am a sinner and I will die. I can say I have good news, and the response is similar to that of a vaccine. It is not good news...

The focus of this meal is bread and wine, the body and blood. The product of a broken body and spilled blood is fellowship, a new intimacy with God and with others. Did you catch that, and others? This body and blood does not just produce a righteous relationship with God, but also a new family of God. Jesus saw past the suffering and saw us relating with His Father and each other in a new covenan...