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Ever been tempted to go back to your old life, or to an easier, safer version of faith? The first readers of Hebrews were. Life got hard after they started following Jesus, and the old way looked better. Hebrews 9 answers with one message: don't go back, because Jesus is better than anything you could return to. Pastor Phil Rittenhouse walks through Hebrews 9:11-28 and Hebrews 10 and explains the Old Testament tabernacle, the high priest and the Day of Atonement in plain words. He shows how every sacrifice was a shadow and a copy pointing to Jesus, the true high priest who entered God's presence with his own blood, once for all time. The old sacrifices treated the symptoms of sin; the blood of Jesus cleanses our conscience and opens a new covenant with God. Because Jesus stands before God for us right now, we can draw near to God with confidence, hold on to our hope and endure when following Jesus is hard. This message is part of The Gospel Story, our series through the Bible as one story that leads to Jesus.

What can we do to be right with God? Romans 3 gives a clear answer: we can't. But the good news is that God makes us right through faith in Jesus Christ.

What does it mean that Jesus "ascended into heaven?" Why does it matter for your life today? In this message we look at Acts 1:1-11 and see how the Ascension is more than a historical event: it’s the moment Jesus is enthroned as the true King and sends the Holy Spirit to empower us.

Jesus rose from the dead, and that changes how we face death. This week we're in Matthew 28 and 1 Corinthians 15, looking at why Christians don't have to fear death and what hope actually looks like on the other side of the grave.

Why did Jesus have to die? In this message from John 19:1-30, we look at the crucifixion of Jesus and unpack the real reason behind it, not Rome's fear of an uprising, not the religious leaders' charge of blasphemy, but the will of God from before creation. We trace the phrase "It is finished" back through Jesus' ministry, the Passover lamb in Exodus, and Isaiah 53, to see why this moment on the cross is the most significant event in history. Along the way we hear from Charles Spurgeon's classic 1861 sermon on this same phrase.

What does it actually mean to follow Jesus? In Matthew 16:13-28, Jesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, a place soaked in pagan worship, and asks them the question that decides everything: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter's answer, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," becomes the foundation Jesus builds his church on. But confession is only the start. Jesus goes on to tell his disciples what it costs to follow him: deny yourself, take up your cross, and lose your life to find it.

Jesus looks out at a massive crowd... and turns to talk to a much smaller group. Why? Because there's a difference between being curious about Jesus and actually following him. In this message, we dig into the opening of Jesus's most famous teaching and ask what it really means to be a disciple — not a checklist, not a performance, but a whole new kind of heart.

Israel came out of Egypt, passed through the waters, and failed the test in the wilderness. Jesus comes out of the waters of baptism, and immediately the Spirit leads him into the wilderness to face the same kind of test. He is faithful. In this message, we see how Jesus is the true and faithful Israel. He succeeds where Israel, and all humanity, fell short. We also discuss what that means for us: when you become a son or daughter of God, you're not just adopted into a family. You step into a battle.

Every promise. Every story. Every prophet pointing forward. It all leads here. In John 1, the whole storyline of Scripture finally comes into focus. The Creator God who spoke the world into being became human and pitched His tent among us, full of grace and truth. He is the new temple, the place where God meets humanity and sin is paid for. He is the one every Old Testament thread was always pointing toward. But John doesn't just want you to know who Jesus is. He wants you to trust Him with everything, and to receive the right to become a child of God.

Revival isn't something we manufacture. It's something God does. But every time God has moved in a significant way, it's been preceded by the same three things: prayer and fasting, confession and repentance, and a people shaped by Scripture. In Nehemiah 9, the people of Israel model this. They fast. They confess — not just their own sin, but the sins of their ancestors. They spend six hours listening to and responding to God's Word. This message walks through what that pattern looks like, and what it means for us today. Do you want to see revival — in your life, your family, this church, our nation? This is the ground we have to prepare.

Everyone's seen "seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly" on a coffee mug or sweatshirt. Politicians quote it. People pull it out in online arguments. But almost nobody knows the full story behind Micah 6:8, and without that context, we miss the point entirely. In this message, Pastor Phil walks through Micah 6:1-8 as a courtroom scene: God bringing his case against Israel, not with a list of broken rules, but with the language of a relationship gone cold. "What have I done to make you tired of me?" We look at what God actually did for his people, why their proposed solutions (offerings, sacrifices, even more sacrifices) still missed the heart of it, and what verse 8 is really asking of us. Here's the key: Micah 6:8 isn't a checklist for earning God's approval. It's a description of what a life in response to God's faithfulness looks like, a response only Jesus has ever fully lived out.

Every empire in history has claimed it would last forever. Every one of them fell. In Daniel 7, God shows Daniel four terrifying beasts representing four world empires, then pulls back the curtain on a throne room where one called "the Son of Man," is given authority, honor, and a kingdom that will never end. This is the title Jesus used for himself most often, more than 80 times in the Gospels. And when he claimed it in front of the religious leaders, it's the thing that sent him to the cross.

Most people think their problem is that they're bad — and if they just try harder, they can fix it. But the Bible says something far more confronting: you're not bad, you're dead. And dead people can't save themselves. In this message from Ephesians 2:1-10, we walk through what the gospel actually is — the good news that even when we were spiritually dead, God didn't leave us there. He came for us. He raised us to life. And now He's sending us out with purpose.

What do you do when staying faithful could cost you everything? In this message from Daniel 6, we follow Daniel — a man who spent decades in exile, rose to the highest levels of power in a foreign empire, and refused to cave when the pressure came. Not because he was a hero, but because he had been preparing his whole life. This isn't just a Sunday school story about lions and angels. It's about how private spiritual discipline shapes public witness — and how the same God who shut the mouths of lions is the God we can trust today.

What do you do when everything feels dead and hopeless? In Ezekiel 37, God shows the prophet a valley full of dry, scattered bones, a picture of a people who believed they were too far gone for God to do anything with. But God had a different plan. In this message, part of our journey through the whole story of the Bible (The Gospel Story), we walk through Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Ephesians 2:1-10 to see how God brings dead things back to life, and what that means for anyone who feels stuck, hopeless, or out of options.