Berea Baptist Church

Berea Baptist Church We are a body of believers that gather to do the Christian life together. We have Hope and we seek to share that hope at all times with everyone!

Berea is a friendly home for believers to gather and seek the Lord together. We realize the Christian life is hard and hope to join together to support and encourage one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24). Through Sunday School, Worship and mid-week study opportunities we hope to be a Family of Disicples who make Disciples who make Disciples.

09/06/2026

Message: Saved for What?
Scripture: Ephesians 2:8-10

09/06/2026

Day 249 Today’s Reading – Romans 8
Devotional:
To be condemned is to be found guilty. We often condemn ourselves by feelings of guilt that continue well beyond what they should. Guilt and remorse are certainly emotions that God has given us, they are good and they are beneficial. But, they have a specific purpose. These emotions are used by the Spirit to convict us of sin and lead us to repentance. But once we have accepted Christ and confessed our specific sins, they should be gone. Easier said than done. We all hold on to guilty feelings about past actions, but we shouldn’t. Paul said it as emphatically as he possibly could. If we are in Christ Jesus (and if we’ve read the last few days how could we not be?), then… “NO CONDEMNATION NOW EXISTS!” Our sin has been forgiven and we are no longer condemned. We are the only one still harboring feelings of guilt and regret, and we need to stop it.
God’s love is always with us. There is nothing that could ever separate us from that. Sometimes we think that we are separated from God’s love because we are suffering in this “life,” but He is still with us working things together according to His will. Sometimes we think that “death” will be the end and we will be separated from God, not true for the Christian. Perhaps we think that some “created thing” (a job, a relationship, alcohol, drugs, money) is separating us from God’s love, but that is impossible. Maybe we think that God is not with us because He is allowing us to endure “persecution” or a life of “affliction,” but even in these things God is with us (words in quotations taken from 8:35-39).
In all of these things God is working “for the good of those who love God” (8:28). Let’s consider this word “good.” Does it mean what we have heard in the modern gospel of prosperity? This “gospel” would suggest that God will always bring healing, wealth and possessions to those who love Him because that is what is “good.” No, clearly that is not the case. If it were then Paul wouldn’t have talked so much about “affliction, anguish, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and sword” (8:35). And he certainly wouldn’t have suffered those things himself. Instead, God wants us to see the bigger picture. No matter what may seem to separate us from Him, He is right there beside us, guiding us through. It is for our good. It may not seem like it, but in light of eternity it will certainly be for our ultimate good.


Pray for: Central Asian Peoples

Dustin, a believer, moved to a Muslim-majority village about a year ago, and making relationships there has been a very slow process. For a year, he has been walking the streets while praying and greeting all the men he encounters. Not long ago, one man whom Dustin often encountered began warming up to him, and that man, Gary, began greeting him enthusiastically whenever he saw him. Dustin stopped to talk with him one day, and when he learned that Dustin lived very close by, Gary invited himself over for coffee. Dustin learned that Gary is a for-hire laborer around the region, and often there is not a lot of demand for his work. Since then, Gary has welcomed Dustin into a local group of men who gather each day and swap stories and news while waiting for potential work. Please pray that as Dustin continues to talk with his new friend, Gary will become open to receiving the gospel. Also pray that God will open the eyes and hearts of all the men in the group to believe the truth of the gospel, and ask that they will one day soon put their faith in Christ.

09/05/2026

Day 248 Today’s Reading – Romans 7
Devotional:
Wait a minute. Did Paul just call himself “wretched?” Did he realize that the definition of that word is: “somebody miserable, a troubled or distressed person who evokes pity in others; in a state of great hardship, deprivation, and hopelessness” (Webster’s)? He must have been referring to himself before Christ. It’s true… he was a persecutor of Christians, he was present for the stoning of Stephen and likely many other Christian martyrs. No wonder he calls himself “wretched.”
Well, unfortunately Paul wasn’t talking about himself before Christ (although he surely would have used similar or worse terms to describe himself then). He was talking about himself in the moment, an apostle of Jesus Christ. He considered himself to still be wretched, to still struggle with sin and to still be losing the battle.
We will be able to make progress in getting our actions to follow our hearts, but we will not be successful until heaven. This is the tension of the Christian life that theologians have explained as “now, but not yet.” Right now we are freed from sin, but we have not yet been able to banish its presence from our lives. We have victory, but our victory continues to be won out of conflict. We still seek to make the hand (what we do) and the heart (what we want to do) align, but we won’t be completely successful.
This is good news. That means that in the same way that we were saved by faith without the need of works in the first place, we are sustained in the Christian life by faith without the need of works. We became forgiven Christians without the law’s help, and we continue as redeemed believers without need for the law.
“We do not defeat sin by obeying the law. Sin loves the law! Sin gains strength from the law! The law is what reveals sin because it reveals the righteousness of God. The law is good and the law is godly – and shows us that we are neither. And thus is born the conflict that rages in the heart of every maturing Christian” (Kenneth Boa & William Kruidenier).
Our sinful nature is a struggle. It is a hypocrisy inside us we just can’t overcome. But it reveals God’s greatness to us. It was hard to accept His gift of salvation without having earned or deserved it. Likewise it is hard to accept His sustaining guidance while still having not earned or deserved it.


Pray For: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

(dar es sah-LAHM) – The Dar Urban Team writes: “Please join us in praying for one of our Tanzanian home missionaries. He and his family have been doing work on one of the islands for two years. They have been successful in gathering new believers and also some seekers. Now they have been ordered to stop meeting and to vacate the premises. They are currently meeting under a tree in the bush. Pray that God will provide for all their needs. Ask that this family will remain strong and steadfast. Also pray for those on the island who are still walking in darkness because they have chosen to reject ‘the light of life’ (John 8:12 ESV).”

09/04/2026

Day 247 Today’s Reading – Romans 6
Devotional:
“It is absurd… for those who are called to reign with Christ to choose to be captives to sin, as if one should throw down the crown from off his head and choose to be the slave of a hysterical woman who comes begging and covered in rags… How is it that sin can reign in you? It is not from any power of its own but only from your laziness” (Chrysostom).
Water can be a deadly force. It is also one of the basic necessities for life. These two truths are joined together to form the symbol of baptism. Once someone has confessed their faith in Christ, they are taken to the baptismal pool to show a sign of what they’ve already done. In baptism we allow our old selves to be buried under the water (obviously any human part of us “buried” under water dies), then we are raised from the entombing water to new life in Christ (just like Jesus was raised from His death).
At salvation this is exactly what happened in our hearts. At baptism this is the picture we are hoping to reenact for all to see (that would suggest a full immersion under the water would produce the clearest symbol). These are truths, but we don’t tend to live our lives like they are true. We tend to pull the “old self” out from under the water to live one more day. We tend to deny the power of the resurrection on our lives to give us new life apart from the strangle hold sin used to have over us.
But this is not the way it has to be. We used to live a life of sin. Just like a job where we expect to earn a certain wage for every hour worked, sin mounted a wage with each transgression committed. That wage is death. An eternal, spiritual kind of death that describes the reality of hell. This used to be our future, the truth about us.
Now we have accepted God’s gift of eternal life. Have we ever brought our wallets to the Christmas tree? As we opened our presents have we ever calculated in our heads the exorbitant cost of our loved one’s gift and offered to “pitch-in” to help pay for it? No, we haven’t. If we did, it would no longer be a gift, would it? That is the kind of gift our salvation is. If we have accepted this gift we now live a life that is set free from sin. Now we live a life that is no longer bound to iniquity, rather it is alive to Christ. We still do serve Him, but not as a debtor trying to be released from a financial bond, rather as a child seeking to honor the one who has paid all their debts.


Pray For: Libyan Arabs of Libya and Northern Africa

(LIH-bee-un) – Summer is in full swing. The days are long and hot, while the nights are short and warm. To break up the monotony of the summer, many Libyans gather with family and friends in the evenings. This is a time of socializing that, for many, gets them through the day. As Libyans gather around tables, sharing meals, or sit in their cars on the side of the road with friends, enjoying a cup of tea, coffee, or some other refreshing beverage, ask that believers will share Jesus with those around them. Pray that the conversations had during these social times will be centered around Jesus and what He has done for each one of them. For those who don’t know Him or anyone who does, ask that Jesus will reveal Himself to them in the presence of others.

09/03/2026

Day 246 Today’s Reading – Romans 5
Devotional:
Peace seems like an impossibility in our world. We are surrounded by nothing but turmoil. Wars rage the world over. Financial hardships make peace unattainable. Natural disasters wreak a havoc on our world that stamps out peaceful lives. The trouble goes much deeper inside of us. We realize that peace is more than just a feeling based upon outward circumstances. It is something that we yearn for from the depths of our being. It is only available from God.
If we came to God yesterday (and hopefully many times before) in a faith that is not at all based upon works, there is peace. It may not always feel like it, but instead of being at war with God because of our sin problem, we are now at peace with Him. We have a peace treaty signed by the blood of Jesus. We have been declared righteous and we have been reconciled with Him.
Before our acceptance of Jesus our future fate was sealed by our ancestor Adam. Because Adam (and Eve and all the rest of us since then) introduced sin into this world, we were all going to die. Think back to those tedious genealogies from the Old Testament. What did all the people mentioned have in common? They all died (except Enoch & Elijah). But because of Jesus, life has returned. Even though we may still die Adam’s physical death, Jesus’ spiritual life awaits us for all eternity. We can now know for certain that we will be saved when that time comes (this is the way Paul always says it, he wouldn’t have called himself “saved” like we do, he would clarify that he “will be saved,” from God’s wrath, but it hadn’t happened yet).
This is how we have peace, and peace is the reason why we can rejoice in our afflictions. Because our afflictions (by way of endurance and proven character) produce a sure hope that salvation is coming. Afflictions don’t do this for someone who does not have peace with God. A non-Christian isn’t even sure if there is an afterlife, much less whether or not they will be on the good side of it. So when their life is afflicted they are hopeless because this is all they have. For us, however, afflictions are only temporary and they serve to remind us that we have a future coming which will have no affliction. Next time life starts to get us down we should stop and think about the good life to come. We have peace and will have it forever!


Pray For: Mongolian Peoples of Outer Mongolia and Russia

(mon-GOHL-yun) – Ask God to fine-tune all the details for a camp for children who have had heart surgery outside of Mongolia through a heart project. Camp for 6- to 12-year-olds will be on August 17-21, and camp for 13- to 18-year-olds will be on August 24-28. Ask God to bring many to salvation, and pray that follow up will be effective.

09/02/2026

Welcome to as we continue our by studying …

Wednesday Nights are BACK!!!Awana - 6:15-8 for age 3 (fully potty trained)- High SchoolAdult Bible Study - 6:30-8 drop o...
09/02/2026

Wednesday Nights are BACK!!!

Awana - 6:15-8 for age 3 (fully potty trained)- High School

Adult Bible Study - 6:30-8 drop off your kids, have a cup of coffee, a snack & study Ruth

09/02/2026

Day 245 Today’s Reading – Romans 4
Devotional:
How was Abraham saved? He lived before Jesus, so he knew nothing of His sacrificial death. He lived before the Mosaic Covenant, and the Law therein, so it wasn’t through obedience to the law. He was even declared righteous before circumcision was an act of obedience. So what did he have going for him? Was his life so righteous before God that God took notice and chose to make him the father of all nations? No. While the Jews believe Abraham was the most righteous person to ever live (some of their writings falsely declare him sinless), he was still unworthy to have relationship with God on his own. But there was one thing he did have…
Saving Faith. This is the only thing required for salvation. Faith. A belief in God that surpasses everything else. Every single religion in the world, every cult and many distorted sprouts of Christianity are built on a works-based salvation. But they are all wrong. Our works amount to nothing. They aren’t enough to pay off the debt that we tallied by our sin.
After all, if we could pay off our own sin debt then we would be free to boast about how good we are. But that’s not what heaven is all about. Heaven is all about how good God is. It’s about how gracious He is to not charge our sins against us.
It’s like there was a spiritual bank account for each of us. Our sins regularly make withdrawals from this account leaving it with a negative balance. No matter how much good we do to make works-based deposits into the account (be reminded of Isaiah 64:6), the debt remains insurmountable. After a long time of making these “work deposits” but being unable to make a dent in our debt, we go to the spiritual bank one day only to find out that our balance is zero. We didn’t do it, there must be a bank error. Perhaps, we should tell the manager so it can be properly resolved. But no, our debt has been forgiven by grace.
What are the good works we still hold onto in an attempt to “pay” for our salvation? Do we go to church hoping that God will put an extra deposit in our account? Do we read our Bibles (or these devotionals) hoping God will take notice? If our hopes for salvation are based upon ourselves, we don’t stand a chance. Instead, come before God today, with nothing but faith in Him, and receive the free gift of His grace!


Pray For: Muslims of Northwest India

A group of believers are working together to discover what people groups in their area have not yet been reached with the gospel. Who is not hearing the gospel and why? What barriers are preventing them from hearing? Please pray for these believers as they begin sharing information and looking for people who are divided by geography, language, and culture. As they begin seeking out these people, pray for them to find “households of peace” (Luke 10:6) that are ready to accept Christ. As these people groups are identified, pray for the believers who will take up the task of planting churches among them.

Address

2033 N Road St
Elizabeth City, NC
27909

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 2pm
Tuesday 9am - 2pm
Wednesday 9am - 2pm
6pm - 8:30pm
Thursday 9am - 2pm
Sunday 8:30am - 12:30pm

Telephone

(252) 338-8128

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