Watson Baptist Church

06/02/2026

God Is Greater Than Our Heart

Dear Christian,

Ever have those midnight moments where your own heart starts reading the charges? Listing every failure, presenting all the evidence, until you’re second-guessing whether you even belong to God at all?

If so, 1 John 3:20 might be the most comforting verse in your Bible:

“For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.”

The first half is pure relief. God is greater than our heart. So when that accusing voice spirals, He overrules it.

But the second half—“and knows all things”—is where we brace for the hammer. He knows the version of me behind the locked door. He knows the mess no one else sees.

And yet the hammer never falls.

Because Calvary wasn’t God getting caught off guard by your sin. It was God answering it. All of it.

I think about my own kids. I know things about them nobody else does—and there is nothing they could ever confess that would make me love them less. It would just make me hold them tighter. That’s the faintest glimpse of the real thing.

God knew the absolute worst about you—every failure behind you and every one still ahead—and went to the cross anyway.

Here’s the comfort: a love that depends on Him not knowing can be lost the second He finds out. A love that already knows everything can never be lost.

He will never wake up one day and say, “I didn’t realize you were like that. I’ve changed My mind.”

He can’t.

He already knew it all when He called you His.

So rest, Christian. God is greater than our heart. And He knows all things.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.” -Tim Keller

06/01/2026

"He honored me by the size of what he asked for."

That's what Alexander the Great supposedly said about a soldier who asked him for an outrageous fortune.

Here's the story: One of Alexander's soldiers came to him with a request, and the king — feeling generous — told his treasurer to give the man whatever he wanted. So the soldier asked for a staggering sum. A fortune. Enough, the legend goes, to throw the largest wedding celebration in the history of Greece. Alexander's men were shocked.

A lieutenant beside him blurted out, "My lord — why would you give him that much?" And Alexander said: "He honored me by the magnitude of his request. He didn't insult me with a small ask. He recognized who I am by what he was bold enough to request."

I can't stop thinking about that. Because I'm convinced one of the things we'll discover in heaven is that small praying was an insult to a big God.

Now hear me — not "big" in the selfish sense. I'm not talking about asking God for a yacht. I'm talking about asking God to draw back home that prodigal child your heart has been aching over. Asking God to bring renewal in that marriage everyone said is already dead. Asking God to break that addiction your friend has been chained to for years. Asking God to bring healing that everyone else said was impossible.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it will be given… seek, and you will find… knock, and it will be opened." James said it even more bluntly: "You have not because you ask not."

Some of us are living with empty hands — not because God is withholding, but because we never had the nerve to ask. And again, this isn't a blank check. All through Scripture the condition is the same: we ask within His good and perfect will, not our own (usually self-destructive) greed.

But here's what I've noticed — the truly big things, the things worth bringing to a great King, are almost never things money could buy anyway. You can't purchase a prodigal's return. You can't buy back a marriage. You can't fund your way to revival.

Only the King can grant you those far more precious things. So ask Him. You will never embarrass God by asking too much. You only dishonor Him by asking too small.

He is a great King. Pray like you believe it.

Matthew 7:7 — "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."

"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God." — William Carey

05/31/2026

This morning's sermon from John 3:17-21, The "Why Not?" of the Gospel...

05/31/2026

Apologies for lack of a livestream this morning. Hope to have a recording of the sermon posted later today.

05/31/2026

We’ve spent weeks in John 3, watching Jesus answer the three great questions of the gospel — the What, the How, and the Why.

This Sunday, the last one. The hardest one: Why Not?

If the rescue has already come… why does anybody stay in the dark?

“Out of the Dark” — John 3:17–21

05/29/2026

The God of Colors You’ve Never Seen

Dear Christian,

My big brother is colorblind.

And growing up, I was the "typical" brother. I’d hold up a random object and ask, "What color is this? Ha, gotcha." I thought I was so special with my eye for color.

Then one day my buddy Bryan Tadlock told me about the Mantis Shrimp. See we humans have three color receptors in our eyes. Dogs only have two.

But the Mantis Shrimp? It has sixteen.

Scientists believe these creatures perceive shades and frequencies of light that we don't even have words for. Right now, across the ocean floor, there is a literal explosion of color—neon hues and shimmering light—that no human eye has ever seen. Our eyes simply weren’t built to receive that much data.

I was teasing my brother for missing a few colors. But the truth is? We’re all missing most of them.

And that’s exactly how it is with God.

What you can see of His goodness right now is real. The grace that got you through this week? Real. The peace that found you in the middle of that storm? Real. But it is only a tiny fraction of the spectrum.

There are layers of His beauty, frequencies of His glory, and depths of His love that your soul hasn't been "upgraded" to perceive just yet.

Right now, we are all trying to describe the majesty of the Creator using only the three crayons we have in our box. But one day, the "eyes of our heart" will be fully opened. You will see Him as He is

—in colors you never knew existed.
There is more of Him than your eyes can hold.
And one day, Christ follower, you’ll see all of it.

1 Corinthians 13:12 — "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face."

"God is an infinite ocean of lovely glory, and we have only begun to wade in the shallows." — Edwards

Press On,
Bro John

05/28/2026

Dear Christian,

Did you know a pearl is a wound that never got infected?

A grain of sand slips into the oyster—an irritant, an injury it can’t expel. So the oyster coats it, layer after layer, with the same material that lines its own shell. Years later, the most beautiful thing it ever makes is wrapped around the thing that hurt it most.

God does that with pain.

He doesn’t always remove the grain of sand. Sometimes He makes a pearl out of it. His grace is sufficient for our weaknesses.

Romans 8:28 — “All things work together for good to those who love God.”

“God does not waste a wound.” — Joni Eareckson Tada

Press On,
Bro John

05/27/2026

Youth School’s Out Blowout tonight:)

05/27/2026

The enemy knows he can't steal your salvation, so he will try to steal your effectiveness.

He will remind you of your past to keep you paralyzed in your present. When the devil reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.

You are entirely forgiven, radically loved, and empowered to serve.

Romans 8:1 — "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

"I am not what I ought to be... but by the grace of God I am what I am." — John Newton

05/26/2026