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Pray Thankfully

Churches from Idaho to Wyoming will share the same theme this Sunday: Pray Thankfully. Our text is David’s last great public prayer, 1 Chronicles 29:10–20.

The scene is easy to miss. The gold and silver for the temple have been piled high. The people have given freely. Solomon is about to take the throne. You might expect a strategy meeting. Instead, David stands before the whole assembly and praises the Lord.

He does not begin with the gifts. He begins with God: greatness, power, glory, majesty, splendor. “Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.” Only after he has told the truth about God does he say, “Now, our God, we give you thanks.”

Then comes the sentence that is transformative: “Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” Thanksgiving is not a polite habit. It is the confession that we are not owners. We are stewards and strangers. Our days are a shadow. The abundance in our hands was already His.

David is glad not only that the treasury is full, but that the people gave willingly and with honest intent. God tests the heart. Thankful prayer includes that honesty. It also includes a plea that the desire would last: “Keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you.”

Last Sunday we heard Paul say, “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” This Sunday David shows us what that sounds like when a whole congregation finds its voice. He turns to the assembly and says, “Praise the LORD your God.” And they do.

Bring your Bible. Come ready to see again who God is and how much of what we call “ours” came from His hand. Next week we will pray boldly.  Bold prayer grows best in the soil of thanksgiving.

Special Prayer Emphasis During October

During the month of October, we will be participating in NW United in Prayer. This is a grassroots movement to highlight prayer and unity in the NW churches of Christ. Each week of October will have its own focus:

• October 4          Pray Thankfully (1 Chronicles 29:10-20)
• October 11        Pray Boldly (Acts 4:23-31)
• October 18       Pray Honestly (1 Samuel 1:1-20)
• October 25       Pray Willingly (Matthew 26:36-46)

• Each focus will be explored in our weekly preaching ministry.

• Every family will be given a weekly themed brochure to explore resources at home for children and family.

• Life group leaders will be provided with resources to emphasize the focus in their groups.

• Children’s and Youth classes will be given teaching ideas to incorporate in their weekly lessons.

• All adult classes are encouraged to emphasize prayer alongside their normally scheduled lessons.

• Most importantly, we will pray in unity for our church, individuals, families, community, nation and world.

More resources can be found at https://www.ccdnw.org/ All resources are downloadable for use.

This Sunday, my message will be an introductory lesson to prepare us for our month of prayer, Devote Yourselves to Prayer (Colossians 4:2).- Joey

Raising Men When Manhood Is Mocked

A word for fathers, mothers, and the whole church

There are seasons when the church must preach what used to be obvious. Boys still grow into men, or they do not grow up at all. Fathers still matter. Strength under control is still a gift. Yet we live in an age that often treats masculinity as a problem to be managed rather than a calling to be formed.

Two loud voices meet our sons, and both of them lie. One says manhood itself is toxic—that the trouble is not fallen men but maleness. The other answers with a counterfeit: manhood as swag ger, contempt, and unaccountable appetite. One voice castrates. The other caricatures. Neither can raise a son. Into that confusion the apostle Paul speaks a better word to a chaotic church:

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of

courage; be strong. Do everything in love.”

—1 Corinthians 16:13–14

Five verbs. One aim. Watchfulness, because wolves and screens are real. A spine in the faith, because applause is a poor creed. Courage, not volume. Strength that can carry a burden. And love— so that strength serves rather than consumes. This is not a personal ity type or a political tribe. It is what grace produces in a man who belongs to Christ.

Scripture begins earlier still. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Male and female are gift and calling, given before the Fall, called very good. The first man’s first failure was not that he was too strong. He stood by while the serpent spoke. The gospel does not erase manhood. It redeems it. Jesus worked with His hands, wept at a grave, washed feet, told the truth that got Him killed, and laid down His life for His sheep.

Psalm 127:3-5 does not call sons souvenirs. It calls them arrows: shaped, aimed, and released. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). You cannot outsource that charge to a youth minister or a better school. Bless your son out loud. Open the Book at the table. Finish one hard job with him. Repent of anger or absence. Late is not never.

The home is the first school of manhood. It is not the only one. This church must be thick with fathers and brothers—men who pray without embarrassment, work without complaint, and stay. Some boy among us needs to see that. Some man among us needs to become that.

We will not raise better men by hating manhood or by worshiping it. We raise men by pointing them to the Man. Take the charge home. Say it to your boy until he can say it back: Watch. Stand. Act like men. Be strong. Do everything in love.

The God Who Calls Things That Are Not

Abraham believed “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). This is a portrait of God and a testament to his power.

Nothing is impossible with God. Omnipotence means no real thing lies beyond His power when it accords with His holy will. No circumstance can veto Him. No promise is too large. “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” God asked at Sarah’s tent (Genesis 18:14). Jeremiah answered from a city under siege: “Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). Job confessed, “no plan of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Gabriel said to Mary, “For nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Jesus told the stunned disciples, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

That power first appears in creation. God did not rearrange leftover material. He spoke, and what was not became what is. The same voice later named a childless man “father of many nations” while Sarah’s womb was still dead. When God calls a thing that is not as though it were, he is not pretending. He is creating.

That same Lord still governs the world he made. History groans. Nations rage. Providence does not call every event good, but it does confess that nothing slips outside His reach. “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him” (Psalm 115:3). “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46:10).

Most of all, this God is enough for the human condition. Our deepest need is not merely food or safety, though he is also present there. We are dead in sin and cannot raise ourselves. The law can diagnose, but it cannot create life. So God does what only God can do. He gives life to the dead. He calls the ungodly, “righteous”. He raised Jesus “for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Abraham was “fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:21). Power and promise belong together.

What does that mean when the world looks too far gone, when your own needs feel overwhelming, when your sin feels final, and when forgiveness itself seems too much to ask? That is where this truth comes home. The God who spoke a world into being still speaks life where there is none. Trust the God who can.

Growing in Grace:

The Urgent Need for Spiritual Growth

When our youngest son was a baby, we worried about him because he was always below the pediatrician’s projected growth chart for children his age. The pediatrician wasn’t really concerned, but we as parents couldn’t help but worry. Growth is the natural expectation of life. When it stalls, we take notice. Thankfully, he was just small for his age and he is now taller than me (big accomplishment, ha!).

The same is true in the Christian life. Spiritual growth is not a special calling for the unusually dedicated. It is the expected pattern for every believer. A faith that remains infant-sized year after year is not healthy. Near the end of his life the apostle Peter wrote with urgency: God has already given us everything we need for life and godliness. Now we must make every effort to grow.

This Sunday we will examine 2 Peter 1:1–11 and hear Peter’s clear call. He begins with God’s generous provision—divine power, precious promises, and a share in the divine nature. Then he issues a strong summons: “Make every effort to add to your faith” a growing list of Christlike qualities—goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. These are not optional extras. They are the evidence that grace is still at work.

Peter is realistic about the alternative. The believer who neglects this growth becomes spiritually nearsighted and forgetful of the cleansing he once received. But the one who continues in these things will never fall and will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom.

One practical means of growth we will consider is the gift of Sunday school and Bible classes. Systematic study of the Word in community builds the very knowledge Peter places near the heart of Christian maturity. It is one of the ordinary ways God forms extraordinary fruit.

Come ready to examine your own growth chart. Where are the qualities of 2 Peter 1 increasing in your life? What steps will you take this week to make every effort? Bring your Bible, bring an open heart, and join us as we hear God’s call to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

No Other Name:

The Exclusive Claim of Jesus Christ

In a culture that celebrates countless paths to God, one ancient declaration still cuts through the noise with startling clarity: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

These words were spoken by the apostle Peter under intense pressure. Standing before the same religious authorities who had recently condemned Jesus, Peter did not soften the message. A miraculous healing had just taken place and the leaders demanded an explanation. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter pointed directly to Jesus of Nazareth—crucified by them, raised by God—and then made the bold, exclusive claim that still challenges every one of us.

What does it mean that salvation is found in no one else? In a world of spiritual options, interfaith dialogue, and “many ways to the same God,” Peter’s words sound almost intolerant. Yet they flow from the heart of the gospel itself. The early church did not invent this exclusivity; they received it from the risen Lord who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

This coming Sunday we will examine Acts 4:12 and explore the exclusive claim of Jesus Christ. We will ask hard but necessary questions: Why is Jesus the only name that saves? How should we speak this truth with both conviction and compassion in a pluralistic age? And most personally—where is your hope resting today?

The answer Peter gave that day was not theoretical. A man who had been lame for more than forty years was standing beside him, living proof that the name of Jesus still carries power. That same name continues to save, heal, and transform lives today.

Whether you have walked with Christ for decades or are still searching, this message matters. The gospel leaves no room for rival saviors, yet it opens wide the door to anyone who will trust in the only name under heaven by which we must be saved.

Join us as we consider the most important name in human history—and the life-changing invitation that still comes with it. There is no other name. And that is very good news.

The Great Commission:

Our Mandate Until He Comes

In the closing scene of Matthew’s Gospel, the risen Jesus meets His disciples on a mountain in Galilee. Some worship Him. Some still doubt. Into that mixed company of faith and hesitation, the Lord speaks words that have shaped the church for nearly two thousand years:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20

These four verses form what we commonly call the Great Commission. They are not a suggestion for the especially committed, nor a program for professional missionaries alone. They are the risen King’s marching orders for every believer and every congregation until He returns.

Notice the foundation first: “All authority… has been given to me.” The One who sends us is the One who already rules. The mission does not rest on our cleverness, resources, or courage. It rests on His absolute sovereignty. Because He possesses all authority, the church is free to go with confidence.

The command that follows is simple and sweeping: make disciples of all nations. Disciple-making involves both the initial response of baptism and the lifelong work of teaching obedience to everything Jesus commanded. Evangelism and spiritual formation belong together. We do not merely win  converts; we form followers who learn to walk in the ways of the King.

Finally, the promise that undergirds the entire enterprise: “I am with you always.” The presence of the risen Christ is not reserved for the successful or the fearless. It is given to ordinary disciples who keep moving outward in obedience, even when the task feels too large and the opposition too strong.

This Sunday we will open these verses carefully. We will listen again to the authority of the risen Lord, the clear call to disciple the nations, and the unbreakable promise of His presence. May the Spirit give us ears to hear—and hearts ready to obey. 

Backpacks, Bus Rides, and

the Greatest Commandment

The calendars have flipped. New backpacks sit by the door. Supply lists are checked off. Some of you are already rehearsing the morning drop-off line in your mind. Others are packing boxes for a dorm room. Whether you are sending a kindergartner or a college student, this is a season full of excitement, logistics, and more than a little nervous energy.

This Sunday we open God’s Word to a passage written for just such a moment. In Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Moses stands with Israel on the edge of a new chapter in their national life. The wilderness is behind them. Cities, fields, and daily routines lie ahead. The question hanging over the people is simple and urgent: Will the next generation know the Lord?

Moses answers with the words that became Israel’s daily confession—the Shema:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Notice the setting. God does not restrict the teaching of His Word to formal classes or special occasions. He places it right in the middle of ordinary life—sitting at home, walking along the road, lying down, getting up. In other words, the carpool, the breakfast table, the bedtime conversation, the morning rush. The very rhythms that will soon fill our days with school schedules are the same rhythms God claims for discipleship.

This is not a call to add one more program to an already crowded calendar. It is a call to let the love of the one true God shape the atmosphere of our homes as the school year begins. Grades matter. Friendships matter. Safety matters. But the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Everything else is secondary.

Parents, grandparents, and students of every age are invited to hear this word together. We will also look ahead to next week’s special Back-to-School Outreach Barbecue—an opportunity for our church family to open the “gates” and invite neighbors and classmates into the same life-giving truth.

Come this Sunday ready to listen. Come ready to consider what it means to impress the commandments of God on the next generation in the ordinary moments of a new school year. The backpacks will be filled with pencils and notebooks. The more important question is whether our hearts—and the hearts of our children—will be filled with the Word of the living God.

Join us as we open Deuteronomy 6 together. 

“I Can’t Die Now”

Just a few weeks ago, the nation was stunned by the sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham. In the hours before he passed, he reportedly joked with someone who urged him to seek medical help: “I can’t die now. I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization.”

He never made it to the next day.

That single sentence lingers because it feels so familiar. Most of us carry our own version of that list. “I can’t die yet—I still need to finish the project… see the grandkids grow up… make things right with that person… get my spiritual life in better order.” We speak as if tomorrow is guaranteed and our plans are firmly in our hands.

This Sunday we will open God’s Word to a story Jesus told about a man who thought the same way. In Luke 12, a successful farmer looks at a bumper crop and begins making long-term plans: bigger barns, years of ease, a comfortable future. Then God interrupts with four sobering words: “This very night your life will be demanded from you.”

The parable is not just about money. It is about the dangerous assumption that we control the calendar. It is about the difference between storing up things for ourselves and being “rich toward God.”

Death does not wait for us to clear our desks or complete our agendas. It rarely arrives when the list is finished. The question is not whether we will leave unfinished business—we all will. The question is whether we will leave this life prepared for the only appointment that truly matters.

As you prepare for worship this week, take a quiet moment to consider your own “I can’t die now” list. What sits at the top? What have you been postponing under the quiet assumption that there will always be more time?

Come ready to listen. Come ready to let Scripture examine the plans we make and the security we place in them. Come ready to hear again the good news that the most important work has already been finished—not by us, but by Christ.

We will walk carefully through the parable, look at supporting passages that call us to number our days and hold our plans loosely, and consider what it means to live ready—neither anxious nor presumptuous, but rich toward God.

Death will call. It always does. May it find us already belonging to the One who conquered it.

See you Sunday.

Freedom in Christ

From Sin’s Wages to God’s Gift: Life in the Spirit

We have seen powerful truths unfold in our Freedom in Christ series as America celebrates its historic 250th anniversary celebrations. In Week 1, John 8:31-36 revealed the liberating declaration that if the Son sets us free, we are free indeed—from sin’s crushing slavery. Week 2, from Galatians 5:1-18, called us to stand firm in that gospel freedom, refusing any yoke of legalism and using our liberty to serve one another humbly in love.

Week 3 (Conclusion) – Freedom to Live by the Spirit (Romans 6:15-23 & Romans 8:1-4)

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:22-23).

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2).

This climactic message unveils the positive, forward-looking purpose of our freedom. Having been released from sin’s dominion, we now enjoy a new allegiance as willing slaves to God. The old master paid deadly wages; our new Master gives the gift of holiness that leads to eternal life.

Romans 8 explodes with hope: there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. The Spirit’s life-giving law has broken the power of sin and death. Christ fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law in us so that we no longer walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. This is freedom at its fullest—not merely pardon from the past, but transforming power for daily victory, peace, and fruitfulness in the present.

As our nation reflects on 250 years of independence, this final sermon reminds us that true liberty is internal and eternal. It equips us to live as citizens of heaven while we are still on earth—producing lasting fruit instead of shame, walking in step with the Holy Spirit instead of being controlled by sinful desires.

Thank you for journeying through this series. Do not let these truths remain theoretical. Continue applying them daily. Share testimonies of God’s liberating work in your life. Read Romans 6 and 8 prayerfully this week and ask the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh with His empowering presence.

“Lead us into the fullness of freedom. Produce Your fruit in us — love, joy, peace — and guard us from the lie of condemnation. Empower us to walk in newness of life for Your glory.”