Whether you're a longtime member or just visiting, this message offers a deeper understanding of why strong leadership matters—and how every believer plays a role in preserving it.

This sermon explores the angel’s announcement of “good news of great joy for all people” and why that message still matters when life feels heavy. We unpack the difference between good advice and good news, the deep and steady joy that comes from knowing who Jesus is, and why His birth marks the beginning of the end for everything broken in the world.

From shepherds in a field to people wrestling with anxiety, injustice, or guilt today, this message points to a Savior who stepped into the mess on purpose—bringing hope, peace, and joy that doesn’t depend on circumstances. Even when it feels like the bad guys are winning, Christmas reminds us that God is still at work, and the story isn’t over yet.

Through the story of the paralyzed man in Gospel of Luke 5, we see four friends who wouldn’t give up until they got their friend to Christ. Jesus healed more than a body that day — He forgave sins and revealed who He truly is.

A simple challenge: trust Jesus, bring others to Him, and rejoice in what He’s done.

Through the truth of Scripture and the reality of the empty tomb, this sermon reminds us that “good enough” isn’t the standard—because none of us can meet it. That’s why the resurrection of Jesus Christ matters so much. It’s not just a story we celebrate once a year; it’s the foundation of our hope. Jesus didn’t just die—He rose again, proving He is exactly who He said He is.

Looking at the evidence of the empty tomb, the eyewitnesses, and the changed lives that still testify today, we’re brought face to face with a decision: do we believe it? Because eternity is real, and what we do with Jesus matters more than anything else.

In the end, this isn’t just about being a good person—it’s about knowing the risen Savior and trusting Him with your life.

But this isn't just theology. The same God who flung galaxies into existence and filled the seas and skies with extravagant variety also knows your name and has a purpose for your life. Drawing from the story of Job, this sermon reminds us that even when life doesn't make sense, we worship a God of abundance, not scarcity—a God whose ways are higher than ours. Look up, slow down, and let creation point you back to the Creator who made it all.

Continuing through Genesis, Daryl works the Hebrew word tselem, the king's statue marking his territory, and what it means that God placed his image bearers in every quarter of creation. He draws on Viktor Frankl on meaning in the camps, John MacArthur on the moral, rational, relational, and creative shape of imago Dei, JC Ryle on the dignity of every soul, and John Calvin on the seed of faith planted in every person. He closes on three plain charges: life is sacred, you bear the image of God, and that's reason to rejoice.

Series: Genesis

Continuing the Genesis series, Daryl works through the divine deliberation of verse 26, four characteristics that set humans apart from every other creature (erect posture, upward gaze, facial expression, articulate speech), and the creation mandate to cultivate and have dominion. He draws on John MacArthur on divine deliberation, John Piper on covenantal delight, Henry Morris on the image of God, and Michelangelo's chisel as a picture of how God still shapes the people he calls very good. You are not an afterthought, you are a forethought, and the God who called creation very good is not done with you yet.

Continuing the Genesis series, Daryl works three Hebrew verbs from the text: kala (finished), Shabbat (rested), and Barack (blessed). He connects God's "it is finished" in creation to Jesus's "it is finished" from the cross in John 19:30, and leans on Kent Hughes to show why the seventh day in Genesis has no evening and no morning. The first thing God ever called holy was a day, not a place, an altar, or a person. If rest feels optional or even guilty to you, this one reframes it as a statement of trust and an invitation Jesus extends in Matthew 11.

Series: Genesis

In this Genesis series, Daryl builds the case that Genesis 2 is not a second creation account but a zoom in on the first, moving from the broad sweep of chapter 1 to the intimate act of verse 7. He draws on creationist scholar Andy McIntosh's warning that every major Christian doctrine rises or falls on the Genesis account, and he traces Thomas Huxley's 19th-century strategy of discrediting creation as a way to discredit Scripture entire. The sermon lands on three applications: you were designed with purpose, not assembled by chance; your daily work is worship, not a secular detour from it; and the breath God put in Adam was not a one-time event. It is what you carry.

In the Genesis series, Daryl traces a four-stage strategy the serpent uses: question God's Word, discuss it instead of obeying it, contradict it outright, then promise something better. He leans on JD Greear, who says Satan's great lie is not that God doesn't exist but that He doesn't have your best interest at heart, and Matt Chandler on how temptation takes a genuine, good desire and redirects it toward what God forbade. He closes with three plain charges: the enemy is real, the fall came from unbelief rather than ignorance, and there is reason to rejoice, because the last Adam, Jesus Christ, answered every temptation with Scripture and reverses the curse.

Series: Genesis

Working backward into 1 John 1:5-10, Pastor Brian stacks up benefit after benefit: the Holy Spirit living inside us, complete forgiveness, peace in an anxious world, clear guidance for the decisions we face, and authority over the enemy through the full armor of God in Ephesians 6. The benefits come with conditions. Faith is a knowing, not a hoping, like Abraham climbing the mountain sure that God would provide. Pastor Brian closes on three plain charges: walk in the light of truth instead of chasing perfection, treat confession as the path back to fellowship, and reject the lie that hiding sin costs nothing. The people God draws closer are the honest ones.

Daryl walks through the fatherly pitfalls Paul warns against, selfishness, inconsistency, favoritism, hypocrisy, broken promises, drawing on John MacArthur, JD Greer, and Kent Hughes, whose image of parenting as holding a wet bar of soap lands the point. He turns to the gospel, where Christ traded his righteousness for our sin, and then to the call to bring our children up, to nourish them tenderly over a lifetime. He closes with three thoughts: imperfect fathers are not disqualified, the goal is children who trust God completely, and every father can rejoice in a perfect Heavenly Father.

Daryl reads the serpent forced onto its belly as a picture of Satan's defeat, then traces the enmity of verse 15 to the one who crushes the serpent's head at the cross. He connects the passage to Revelation 12:9, Luke 10:18, and Romans 5:12, where Paul explains how Adam's sin reaches every one of us. The claim lands plainly: we are enemies of God by our sin, and God still moves to make enemies into friends, even children. If you have read this chapter as an old story about a snake, Daryl shows why it is the story of you.

Working through the Genesis series, Daryl uses the Japanese art of kintsugi, where a broken pot is repaired with gold that runs through the cracks, to picture what God does with a fallen world. He walks the curse of the woman and the curse of the man, ties the word "desire" in verse 16 to sin crouching at the door in Genesis 4:7, and refuses to soften what the curse still costs us. He closes on the ground itself: the same cursed earth is where Christ walked to the cross at Golgotha, so the new creation overcomes the old. If the effects of the curse have worn you down, this one names the pain honestly and points past it.

Working through the Genesis series, Schaffer ties Cain to Korah and Balaam, the men Jude 11 says "walk in the way of Cain," religious on the outside and self-serving underneath. He sets Abel's faith from Hebrews 11:4 against Cain's resentment, reads "sin is crouching at the door" as a warning we cannot answer on our own strength, and points to Matthew 5:21-22, where anger already carries the weight of murder. His close is mercy: God knew what Cain would do next and still pleaded with him, and he pleads the same way with anyone who feels too far gone to come back.

Working through the Book of Genesis series, Daryl shows that Cain's problem was never a lack of information. It was righteousness, and righteousness is a gift, not something we earn. He leans on Jude's phrase the way of Cain, Paul's charge in Romans 6 that sin should not master us, the Passover blood on the doorpost, and Leo Tolstoy's Confession, where a famous and wealthy man found everything meaningless until he found God. The real test, Daryl says, is your compassion for the lost. Don't answer God with Cain's lie. Turn instead to the cross.

Daryl works through Cain's city and what he calls the city of worship. Cain builds a town and names it after his son, a claim to permanence God had already told him he would never have. His descendant Lamech takes two wives and sings a song of vengeance, boasting seventy-sevenfold revenge, the same number Jesus later turns on its head when Peter asks how often to forgive. Then come two quiet verses about Seth, whose son is named Enosh, meaning frail, and in that family people begin to call upon the name of the Lord. Daryl closes on resume virtues against eulogy virtues, and one question: which family are you a part of now?

In the Book of Genesis series, Daryl works through the one exception in the list. Enoch lived the shortest life of the ten men named, 365 years in a world where people passed 900, and he is remembered for a relationship rather than an achievement. Daryl sets steady faithfulness against what he calls a pogo stick walk, here on Sunday morning and gone until the next one, and he brings in Joshua's charge at Shechem and the woman caught in adultery in John 8. He ends with a plain question for students and adults alike: will it be said of you that you walked with God?

In the Book of Genesis series, Daryl lays out the three main views of who the sons of God were before landing where the text lands. He walks through God's declaration in verse 3, the grief and regret attributed to God in verses 5 through 7, and the one conjunction that turns the passage, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. He connects it to 1 Peter 3, Jude 6, and the demoniac of Mark 5, then closes on three plain thoughts: praise God for His grace, remember that His patience has a limit, and rejoice that favor comes from God's goodness rather than our record.

Daryl walks through the judgment God announces, the blueprint for a box with no rudder, no captain, and one door, and the century Noah spent building it while his neighbors laughed. He uses John MacArthur on the scale of the ark, and tells the story of George Mueller, who prayed more than fifty years for five friends and died before the last two came to Christ. The close is a question straight out of verse 22: Noah did all that God commanded him. Do you?

Continuing the study through Genesis, Daryl works the passage as two halves, God's command and Noah's obedience, and keeps returning to the refrain that carries the chapter, Noah did all that God commanded him. He reads Hebrews 11:7 on the faith behind 120 years of building, and Matthew 24, where Jesus says his return will look like the days of Noah. He closes with three charges: ordinary faithfulness, be a herald in your own world, and rejoice that the same flood that drowned a world carried the ark. The faith of one can become the shelter of many.

In the Genesis series, Daryl reads verse 16 closely and shows how Moses switches from Elohim to Yahweh at the exact moment the door is sealed. He makes the case for a worldwide flood from the language of the text and from Peter, who treats the flood as a precursor to the judgment still to come. The 2018 Thai cave rescue carries the point home: the boys were sedated and carried out, with no part at all in their own rescue. Daryl closes with three plain thoughts and one question. Have you gotten in, or have you only heard the warning?

In the Genesis series, Daryl reads the chapter against what the fear of the Lord actually looks like, from John collapsing at the feet of the risen Christ in Revelation 1 to Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Josh and Kayla Bray join him on stage and talk plainly about three years of infertility and the waiting they are still in. Daryl shows that when scripture says God remembered, it never means he forgot. It means he is ready to act on a prior commitment. He closes with three thoughts and one turn of the question. God remembers you. Do you remember God?

Continuing the Genesis series, Daryl traces the re-creation language back to Genesis 1:28, the same be fruitful and multiply spoken at the dawn of creation, now spoken again on washed ground. He walks through Noah's altar, the pleasing aroma, and the verse he keeps returning to: while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. He sets it against Matthew 24, where Jesus says his return will come as the flood did, on people who were not ready. The close is plain. Worship should cost you something, the heart still struggles after deliverance, and God chose grace for a man whose heart had not changed.

In the Genesis series, Daryl walks through five blessings in the passage: procreation, prominence, provision, a prohibition on blood that quietly points to Calvary, and protection rooted in the image of God. He quotes Alistair Begg calling the Christian family an endangered species and reads Judges 2:10 as a warning. Leroy Franklin joins him to tell how becoming an intentional Christian grandparent brought him back to Illinois and is bearing fruit in his family. Daryl closes with a question worth carrying into the week: who are you passing the baton of faith to?

Filling in while Daryl Evans is away, Brian works outward from Peter to Psalm 133, Romans 14, and John 13, where Jesus takes off his outer clothing and washes the feet of the men at the table, Judas included. He tells about washing Guatemalan pastors' feet on a mission trip, and about Joshua and Caleb holding up Moses' arms in Exodus 17, which is what he asks this church to do for its own pastor. He closes on the gift list in 1 Corinthians 12 and three plain steps: serve on purpose, ask God what your gift is, then be still long enough to hear the answer.

In the Genesis series, Daryl walks the three speeches God gives in the passage and shows why this covenant is unilateral, universal and unconditional. He traces what cultures have made of the rainbow, from the Greek goddess Iris to Theodoric of Freiberg's work on refraction around 1304, then points at the Hebrew word itself. It is a battle bow, the weapon Exodus, Habakkuk and Zechariah put in the hands of a warrior God, now hung in the clouds and pointed away. He closes with four charges. Stop trying to earn what God has already promised, remember the one holding the bow, do not presume on the patience of God, and keep short accounts with him.