The Heights Baptist Church

It looked like baby Moses was as good as dead when Pharaoh commanded that all the Hebrew male children were to be thrown into the Nile river to die. However, Moses was miraculously saved when he was, by faith, placed in an ark. Find out how we, too, can also be saved by placing faith in our ark of safety, Jesus Christ!

THE END! Shut the book! For many, maybe even most, that is where the parable ends because that is what we think the parable is all about. Looking at it from our vantage point, we tend to come to the celebration of the lost son coming home and feel good and warm hearted. That is especially true if we have experienced salvation ourselves, realizing that we who rebelled against God and tried to go ou...

As we continue to look at the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus in telling this parable, goes to the worst-case anyone in the audience can imagine. He paints a picture of rebellion and dishonor beyond what His collected audience can even imagine. This story He tells is not just attention-getting, it is shocking. It is gasp-worthy!

Beginning today, we are going to do a 3-week sermon series on this parable of the prodigal son, looking at it each week from a different vantage point, through a different character. And in doing so, I am willing to guess that many will find they didn’t know the story as well as they thought.

Today we come to the end of a 3-month journey to remind ourselves of the commands, renew ourselves to the commands of God. And end is probably not the right word. End of a series, yes, but not the end of seeking a growing understanding of the goodness and rightness of God’s commands for our life. As I study these, I grow in awe of God: His understanding of us, of life, so perfect. And of course, i...

Lying is a unique sin in that one lie almost always demands another. If I steal, I don’t have to steal again. If I lust, I don’t have to lust again. But if I lie, it often calls for more lying. Lying is kind of the protector of all sin. To cover all the sins out there, usually involves lying along the way. And we think of lying as a little sin. Let’s read Exodus 20:1-17.

And here we are at number 8 and heading to the barn. We started this series on commandments, the great commandment and the ten commandments back on May 1; with the first message entitled, Loving God, because that is what all these commands are about: love. Today’s command can be a little like the murder command. Today is about stealing, and I think we run out there to the big examples of stealing...

Today we are going to focus on the seventh commandment: *You shall not commit adultery*. What is adultery? Adultery is typically defined as sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse. This is perhaps the commandment that many of us will struggle the most with while on this earth, especially as we understand the heart of the commandment. It’s a struggle be...

I just read a long passage (Exodus 20:1-17) to get to a short command. Four words: you shall not murder. Or, said positively: You shall value life. How can Jesus say, in Matthew 5:21-22 that anger brings the same judgment as murder? There is a simple logic here. Life is so precious, is to be valued so highly, we don’t even get on the road that leads to murder.

We continue our series on the commandments today. We have studied the Great Commandment, and today brings us halfway through the Ten Commandments. Today’s command has everything to do with whether or not you can make it in the world. It is all about authority.

Today we look at the Fourth Commandment on the Sabbath. What is the Sabbath? We see its genesis, no pun intended, in Genesis 2:1-3. It says in 2:2 that He rested, and the word is Sabbath. It means He ceased His work. He did not rest because He was tired, for He is omnipotent. He can have powers flow out of Him that create the universe and He doesn’t even need a drink of water. It was His delight t...

This week we continue with the 3rd commandment. When we are told not to take the Lord's name in vain, what does that mean exactly? On the surface it appears like it's talking about our language of swearing/mocking the Lord's name. But I believe that the commandment may also be referring to something more than verbal expression.

Last week we looked at the first one of the Ten Commandments: nothing before God. And while we learned that God tests, we came up with a self-test: Can I give this to God? We also said last week that while the *Thou shall nots* can sound foreboding and ominous, they are words of kindness. We need to know what is wrong and what is right. We need to know how to really love. And maybe the most import...

Today we begin our study of one of the most well-known passages in the Bible throughout the world and across religions: the Ten Commandments. I am not saying everyone can recite all Ten, but we know the idea. Some of us remember seeing them posted in schools and various government buildings. Then began the legal battles to take them down, to keep them up. Believe it or not, most Americas still tod...

At the Heights, Our mission is to be a church that the 804 can’t live without. It’s a phrase that if you’re here for any amount of time you’ll hear a lot. Many of us may have ideas of what that looks like, but this morning I would like to look at a church in the New Testament that gives us an example of what it looks like to be part of a church that’s influencing its community in such a way that t...

All commands can be put under two categories, two great commandments: love God and love others. Last we talked about loving God, and that topic is interesting to most of us. It doesn’t frustrate us to think about it, doesn’t raise questions. We want to love God better. But loving others. Now indeed, there are some others that we want to love better and love more, but the command to love others is...

Last week we began a new series on commandments. We are going to spend 3 months studying the two great commandments, then the Ten Commandments, as well as others that come from these. We also introduced the idea that this is all about love. Studying the commandments is studying how to love God as well positioning our lives to best experience His love and presence and blessing. So today we start wi...

Possibly the wisest person that has ever lived concluded that life is meaningless. It was Solomon who said that, and it was not a random thought after a bad day, a bad experience, or a bad life. This is his conclusion upon purposely studying all that we put our hands to, to find life and meaning. God put this conclusion of Solomon here in His Word. God wanted us to see this. Why? The key to unders...

The time of the Judges was one of the lowest times in the history of Israel. During this time, they turned away from God to the worship of idols, and God allowed their enemies to overcome and enslave them. God did not leave Israel completely without hope. Whenever the Israelites cried out to the Lord, the Lord would raise up judges to deliver them.

Happy Easter, and welcome to The Heights Baptist. What an honor to gather with you here in person and online, and to do so for one reason: He is alive! He is alive! Easter is a Sunday we usually turn to the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and look at His crucifixion or resurrection, but today is a little different at The Heights. Today is the 9th message in a series where we have walked verse by ve...

Rabbi Paul Klassen from Aliyah Foundation leads in a Seder service. Through this, we have a better understanding of Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the promised Messiah.

Why were the disciples not so filled with anticipation, that they were at the tomb waiting for Jesus? Is it because they were overwhelmed with grief? Scared of the Roman guards? Okay, that’s real. But when the women tell them Jesus is alive, His body is gone, they’ve seen angels – the disciples treated their report like nonsense? Shame on them. Yes, they do go and see what is going on at the tomb,...

What was a painful moment for you? Can your memory feel that pain right now? I can’t imagine any of us has any kind of experience with pain that would help us understand what Jesus endured. Let me read Luke 22:66-23:46.

When I think of Jesus bloodied and beaten on the cross, it is easy to put that on mean Pharisees, Pontius Pilate, the Roman guards, Satan! And indeed, they did that! But so did His friends, so did you and I. His friends betray Him and deny Him. There is no reason to assume you or I would have fared much better. Let’s look at a little closer as Jesus steps into the most difficult night ever lived.

One thought on this for today though is Judas. What happened to him, why did he do this? He is chosen to follow Jesus, along with 11 others. That takes place early in Jesus’ ministry so we can assume Judas would have seen almost all of Jesus’ miracles. He would have heard almost all of Jesus’ teachings. He would have enjoyed the friendship of Jesus on a daily basis. We might even say, Judas knew J...