Faith Baptist Church Birmingham

05/31/2026

05/24/2026

04/04/2026

Tomorrow is Resurrection Sunday. We call it Easter. But today is
Saturday. As I sit here in the comfort of my post Gethsemanie, post Crucifixion, post Resurrection, post Ascension chair, it is unimaginable what this Saturday must have been like for the followers of Jesus. Everything they thought they knew had been nailed to a Roman cross, and they had watched it die. Dark does not even begin to describe it.

The next morning, early, Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary (the mother of James) bought spices and went to anoint the body of Jesus. It was tradition. It’s what good women would do. It was duty. It was noble. Strong women do these things, no matter how painful or devastating the loss. It is just what one does.

But this time was very different. This time, these 2 “men” - angels of course- blazing like lightning, stood there. Frightening, they were. Huge in their presence. Overwhelming. They asked one question: “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” What followed was a pointed reminder of what Jesus had told them: He would be handed over to wicked people, be crucified, and rise again. But His slaughter was so horrible, and their grief so profound, and their minds so muddled by the reality of what had happened…. And what had never happened before in the history of humans. Someone so loved, so dead, yet now so alive. Astonishing.

It may be that tomorrow, or on another morning, we might just be looking in the wrong place. Some things are just dead. There is no life in them. No future. The abundant life Jesus promised us is not down among the dead men. Jesus is all about life. He died to make living - really living - possible for us.

So, in the morning, or on another morning, let us not go looking among dead things for the things that make for life. Let us look at the gift of living - really living- that Jesus bought for us.

04/03/2026

Just a few thoughts this morning:

In I Samuel 21, David was in trouble. King Saul had flown into a rage when David was not at a festival dinner, and he had vowed to kill David, accusing him of all kinds of outrageous things. Jonathan, Saul’s son and David’s dearest friend, warned David, and David ran. Fast. No sword. No food. No soldiers with him. Alone.

When David got to a place called Nob, he met a priest there named. Ahimalech. Ahimalech understood that David needed provisions, and provided him with extremely special things: 1. The Bread Of The Presence. The fresh baked bread that was to be presented in the presence of the Lord. And 2. Goliath’s sword. The one that David had taken from the Philistine giant at their famed face-off in which David had only a sling and Goliath (standing 9 feet tall!) had armor and this huge sword. David had killed the giant and cut off his head with Goliath’s own sword.

David gratefully accepted the bread. And the sword, saying, “There is none like it.”

My thought here is this: Sometimes, when you face a new challenge, you need an old sword, not a new one. Sometimes, a lesson we learned in the past, while facing some thing or some one much bigger than ourselves, is the very thing we need to pick up and use again. Goliath’s sword had been wrapped in a cloak behind the ephod. As if it had been waiting all that time for this moment. How do we know? Perhaps it had.

So today, maybe we need to unwrap that sword we fought for back in the day. That thing we learned when God showed us a thing or two at just the right moment. What was it David said, “To show that there is a God who sits in heaven….” And He does. And the things He did for us in the past, He meant for us to use today, because “there is none like it.” It came to you, my friend, just at that difficult place, that time you used what God gave you to do something you had never done before.

Maybe it’s time to unwrap Goliath’s sword.

11/18/2025

Please pray for Dale Ingram and his brother, Darrell, in the death of their mother, Sheila Ingram.

These are the funeral arrangements for Mrs. Sheila:

Life Celebration Service will be held at Grace Community Church on Deerfoot Parkway, Friday, November 21.

Visitation at 1 o’clock.
Service at 2 o’clock.

You may recall that their father, Lloyd Ingram, passed away just a few months ago. Please remember them in your thoughts and in your prayers.

10/20/2025

Thank you to everyone who came!! Homecoming Sunday was PERFECT because you were there!