Advertise on podcast: First Fairhope | Sermons

The family is one of the most overlooked forces in the world, and yet when Christ is at the center of a home, it becomes an unstoppable force for good. Drawing from 1 Peter 3:1-7, four qualities make a Christ-centered home unbeatable: sacrifice, humility, grace, and mission. Wives are called to invest in inner beauty, use words wisely, and trust God as they yield to their husband's leadership. Husbands are called to truly know their wives, use their strength to serve and protect, and lead their homes spiritually through prayer and intentional love. When both spouses follow their God-given roles, the home becomes a powerful witness to a world that desperately needs to see what love and grace look like in practice. The family is hiding in plain sight, and with Christ at the center, it changes everything around it.

Living faithfully in a world that opposes the Christian faith requires something far more radical than retreat or retaliation. Drawing from First Peter chapters 2 and 3, believers are called to bless the very people who oppose them. True freedom, as Peter describes it, is not the freedom to do whatever we want but the freedom to serve, love, and bless even in difficult circumstances. This calling is expressed through four practical ways: honoring others, treating them with gentleness, extending mercy without retaliation, and enduring faithfully over time. The ultimate example is Jesus Himself, who forgave from the cross and entrusted Himself to the Father even while suffering. God has set us free not to pursue our own comfort but to be a blessing to His enemies.

Christians are called living stones, connected to Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, and built together into something far greater than any individual believer. The church is not a building but a community of people whose lives together make the power and reality of Christ visible to the world. Rejection and opposition are not signs of failure. They are actually confirmation that the gospel is doing its work. Like Jesus, who was rejected and yet became the cornerstone of salvation, believers are called to show up in hard places and proclaim the goodness of God. The impact of your life reflects the quality of your foundation.

Holiness is not about moral superiority or a self-righteous attitude. At its core, the word means 'set apart,' specifically set apart to a singular, sacred purpose. God is holy in every sense, and remarkably, holiness is an attribute He desires to share with us. Through the blood of Jesus Christ, the barrier between a holy God and sinful people has been removed. That redemption does not pull us away from the world but actually sends us toward it with a genuine, redemptive love. A life fully devoted to God becomes one of the most powerful forms of witness imaginable. Holiness is not a burden to carry. It is a resource to live from.

Living as a Christian in today's world can feel like being the away team, but God has not sent you out empty-handed. His Word secures, serves, saturates, sustains, and sanctifies every believer. The Bible is not a new idea or a cultural invention. It is the oldest truth there is, rooted in centuries of prophecy that all point to Jesus Christ. The same Word that comforted exiles and outlasted empires is alive and active today. It does not simply inform your mind. It invades your life and grows something new from the inside out. When you consistently take in Scripture, it will show up in how you talk, how you treat people, and how you live.

Spiritual maturity and emotional maturity are inseparable. A person can know Scripture inside and out, yet still be reactive, difficult, and destructive in relationships. Acts 6 shows us what genuinely mature believers look like through the story of the first deacons and the life of Stephen. Mature Christians bring calm to fury, focus to fear, and impact to frustration. They are not thermometers that simply reflect the temperature of a room. They are thermostats that change it. The goal is not just knowing more about God, but becoming more like Christ in the moments when life gets hard.

The visible world is not the whole story. According to Hebrews, everything we can see is temporary and derivative, made out of something greater and pointing toward something eternal. Faith is not simply agreeing that God exists. It means aiming your entire life toward the highest reality, which is the suffering and risen Christ who holds all things together. Every person places their trust in something, and the only question is whether that something is worthy. When life gets hard, the call is not to search your circumstances for hope. The call is to fix your eyes on Jesus, consider who He is, what He endured, and where He now sits at the right hand of the Father.

What does it really mean to become a new creation in Christ? In this message from 2 Corinthians 5:17, Rev. Tanner Lee explores the life-changing work of the gospel and the transformation God desires to bring in every believer. Discover how God's mercy makes us new, how we grow through worship, His Word, and prayer, and how a transformed heart begins to love what God loves—His people, serving others, and reaching those far from Him. Whether you're just beginning your walk with Christ or have followed Him for years, this message will encourage you to embrace the new life that is yours in Jesus and live it out every day.

If You Can Keep It explores the biblical responsibility of passing our faith from one generation to the next. Looking at Deuteronomy 6:1–9, this message reminds us that parents are the primary disciple-makers, the church is called to come alongside families, and genuine faith begins with a heart fully devoted to God. Discover how everyday moments become opportunities to shape the next generation and build a lasting legacy of faith.

The relationship between a pastor and a congregation is one of the most important dynamics in the life of a local church. Jesus is the Great Shepherd, and every earthly pastor serves under His authority as an under-shepherd. Pastors are called to lead, teach, and care for their people with faithfulness and integrity. At the same time, congregations are called to follow well, be a joy to shepherd, and pray consistently for those who lead them. If you want a better pastor, the best place to start is by being a better sheep. Good sheep and good shepherds, working together under the lordship of Jesus Christ, is the context in which God does His greatest work.

In this Father's Day sermon, the pastor explores Romans 8:12-17 to unpack what it means that God is our heavenly Father. Using the image of a child jumping into a parent's arms in a pool, the sermon addresses the fears we carry about whether God is strong enough, loving enough, and trustworthy enough to catch us. Just as Israel struggled to trust God through the wilderness, we often hesitate to fully leap into the life God has for us. The central message is clear: do not be afraid, because the Father will catch you. The pastor outlines three ways the Father catches us. First, He catches us with His strength, having already provided salvation through Christ and making us co-heirs with Him. Second, He catches us with His Spirit, who pours God's love into our hearts and testifies that we belong to Him, echoing the intimate relationship Jesus had with the Father. Third, He catches us with His sovereignty, reminding us that even suffering is part of the Father's plan to shape us, glorify Himself in us, and draw us into deeper trust and love.