First Baptist Church Thomson, Ga

Dr. Matt Ward preaches a sermon about bringing God the best of our treasures. Using the story of the Wise Men (Magi) from Matthew 1, we discover how we can bring God our treasures as a response to His gift of joy.

In the last sermon, we discovered that in exchange or hope, we can give the Lord our trust. In this message, we consider what we are to give Jesus in exchange for His peace? While it's not usually a good gift-giving practice, Jesus wants us to give Him something we don’t want—We can give Jesus our fears.

This Advent season, I want to invite you on a journey to think about the gifts we can bring to Jesus, not just at Christmas, but with our whole lives? I hope these sermons can help us prepare our hearts as we reflect on how we can honor the King of Kings with the gifts we bring to Him. This first Sunday of Advent, we focus on Hope as a gift that is ours because of Jesus’ birth. But what gift can we give to Him in response? Because Hope is a gift of God available to us through Christ, we can give Jesus the gift of our trust. Isaiah 40 provides powerful reasons we can place our full trust in God.

G.K. Chesterton wrote, “It is only the fool who tries to get the heavens inside his head, and not unnaturally his head bursts. The wise man is content to get his head inside the heavens.” In this sermon from Jesus' Olivet Discourse in Mark 13, as we think about God’s future plans for us and the world, let’s just try to get our heads inside the heavens for some insight, perspective, and gratitude.

Last week we looked at the blessings of God’s faithfulness, His mercies that are new every morning, His fatherly love and care and even discipline on us, because God is our good, good Father, and we are His children. So another blessing we often take for granted is that we are part of God’s family—the Church! While we would say that we love, appreciate, and care for our families, what about our Spiritual Family? Are we taking our Church Family for granted?

We so easily take for granted the daily blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. Through this short series of messages, I hope to call us to remember and give thanks for some of God's greatest gifts to us. There is no greater blessing—and none we deserve less—than the blessings of God’s faithfulness to us. He is a God who is trustworthy and true, and full of grace and mercy.

Jesus empowers us to overcome our fears and He strengthens our faith when we choose to follow Him, stepping out of the boat of our comfort zones and safety nets, and dare to trust Him to help us through the storms we face. If we just focus on our circumstances, it’s always going to lead to fear and frustration, worry and anxiety. But if we focus on Jesus, He will empower our faith with confidence and courage, and show us a way through.

In Matthew 8, we find the story of a leper who approached Jesus for healing. It shows us Christ’s compassion and His desire to heal the afflicted, to transform our lives by His power through our faith. As we think about this story, I want to point out some aspects that can help each of us move from our place of hurt toward healing, wholeness, and holiness in Jesus.

We all start out life as sinners, spiritually broke, struggling with a sinful nature in a fallen world. But where we start out doesn’t have to be where we end up! God offers us the free gift of salvation, made possible by His grace. In this sermon, we’ll discover that no matter how lost you are, how far away from God you feel, God wants to move you from lost to living!

In this final message in this series, we look at a true story of an amazing financial miracle, from 2 Kings 4. I believe this passage teaches us that no matter our problems, God has a plan. Just as God took care of this widowed mother of two, He will take care of you, even when you are in a desperate situation. If we will seek after God, trust and obey Him, we will see God provide beyond what we can ask or imagine, all for His glory and our ultimate good.

Why is it such a blessing to help others? Because when we do that, we are becoming a part of God’s Story! He is a God who gives! He is a God who invests. He is a God who rewards our hard work and sacrifice. In this message, we look at a story Jesus told in Matthew 25 to see what it can teach us about how to be better stewards of what God has given us.

Continuing the "I Was Broke. Now I’m Not." sermon series that began last week, we are focusing on what God’s Word teaches us about money and stewardship. Last week Chad Aukland from Injoy Stewardship Solutions talked about the foundational truth to our understanding about finances and stewardship is that God owns it all! In this sermon, we answer the question, “What happens when we give?” And we look at that through a significant miracle that took place during Jesus’ ministry—the feeding of the multitude with a boy’s lunch.

In this last message of this series, I want us to go a little deeper, especially in how to dig in and study God’s Word to discover what God is saying to us, so that it can transform us from the inside out. We'll look at key principles to keep in mind when reading and studying Scripture, equip you with two methods of Bible study, and talk about how to take God's Word from our heads, to our hearts, and then to our hands.

Brother Jeff Harris brings a comforting and encouraging message from Isaiah 6 about what it means to trust in our Holy God when times in life are challenging and difficult.

When you approach the Bible, remember it’s more than a textbook to learn or a rulebook to follow…it is God’s Word to you, revealing His Mind and Heart. In this message, I'll share with you some ways we can get a good grip on God’s Word so we can handle it correctly. The more you use the Bible, the better a grasp you will have of Scripture and the better equipped you will be for life!

Ultimately, the doctrine of the Bible boils down to the question of its reliability and authority. As I said last week, if we can’t trust ALL of Scripture, how can we trust any of it? That’s why it is vital to be clear on what it means for God to inspire the biblical writers so that what they wrote are in fact the words of God Himself. That is our basis for the truthfulness, trustworthiness, and authority of the Bible. In this sermon, I'll unpack the implications of believing the that Bible is the Inspired Word of God.

The biggest question about the origins of the Bible are this: How much of it was inspiration, and how much of it was perspiration? How much of this is the work of God and how much is the work of men? We'll explore these questions in this sermon and discover how words written thousands of years ago, in ancient languages, on the other side of the planet became the Bible you hold in your hand today.

Given the crisis of biblical illiteracy in our churches, we need to rediscover the rich treasury of truth, wisdom, and life-changing power that is found in the pages of the Bible! This begins with us going back to the basics. Do we know, understand, and believe in what the Bible is? Do we truly trust the Bible, and know why we can trust it? How do we use the Bible for changing our lives, helping others, and knowing and following Jesus more fully? I hope this sermon series will help us answer those questions more firmly in our hearts and minds, and that it will equip us to confidently share these truths about the Bible with others. Let’s start at the most basic question: What IS the Bible? I want to answer that question from two perspectives—externally and internally. What do people say about the Bible, how can we as human beings identify what this Book is. Then, what does the Bible say about itself?

Psalm 107 is both a psalm of thanksgiving for God’s goodness and a song of testimony for the specific good things God has done for His people. It can help us understand that no matter what we face, regardless of life’s circumstances, God is faithful and true, good and loving, present and powerful. We can praise Him for His goodness, and we should proclaim His goodness to others. We all have a testimony of thanksgiving to share in our worship to God and our witness of God to others.

In Psalm 13, David helps us express the very real and raw emotions we may have in seasons where it feels like God is distant and doesn't hear our prayers. Through this song of lament, we can learn how to keep praying in faithfulness despite the frustration and doubt.