Greenfield Church of Christ

09/07/2026

"Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies." Before the real test came, Daniel had already made his decision.

Andy opened our new series, Overflow, this week, and I am grateful to him for standing in the pulpit while I’m away. Over the next few weeks we are walking through five lives that found the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10 and Andy showed us the story of a teenager named Daniel who was offered the good life (the best food, connections, education, etc.), but he turned it all down because the good life will never be as good as the overflowing life.

By the time the king's food was actually sitting in front of him, there was nothing left for Daniel to decide. He had settled the question long before. We tend to read that verse as a moment of courage, a young man standing up under pressure, and it is that. But the courage in the moment was only possible because of a decision that had already been made in private, with nobody watching and nothing yet at stake.

Almost nobody makes a good decision in the middle of pressure. James says that pressure does build character in us, but more than anything pressure reveals the character in us. It brings out what is already inside us and sharpens and refines it.

Babylon was very good at pressure. The whole system was designed to reshape Daniel. They gave him a new name, new food, new education, and new gods, and all of it was offered as a promotion rather than a punishment. Nobody was threatening him. They were feeding him. That is a far harder thing to resist than a sword.

But Daniel purposed in his heart what he needed to do long before the pressure came, and when it did, he was ready. Are you?

08/31/2026

They lived in the shadow of riches.

Every day the Christians in Ephesus walked past wealth most of them would never own: marble-lined roads that caught the light, a temple so grand people crossed the empire just to stand in front of it, and ships coming into port loaded with goods from the other side of the world. They knew what wealth looked like, but they were far from it.

Some of them were slaves. Some were day laborers who cut and set the very stone that other people rode over. They built the beauty of that city but weren't the ones enjoying it.

And it's to them that Paul writes the letter announcing that they were the richest people in the world.

He explains that more than any earthly riches, they had unrationed grace, the same power that raised Jesus out of the grave, mercy that made us the poetry of God, a unity all the money in that city could never have built, a revealed mystery even the angels strained to see, and a love so wide and long and deep and high that Paul ran out of words trying to measure it.

That's what God has put in your account. And that is why Paul ends the way he does. He tells them to stand. Put the armor on and stand, because everything you need has already been handed to you.

Few of those believers ever walked the marble streets as owners, but they were heirs of something Ephesus could not buy.

So are you. In Jesus, you are richer than you think. Will you live like it?

08/30/2026

Whatever this week tried to tell you, you are not the underdog barely hanging on. This morning we finish our summer series in Ephesians with the strength that already belongs to you in Christ. Worship with us at 10:45am.

08/27/2026

We’d be lion if we said this Sunday’s not a great time to come to church.

08/27/2026

If you wrote Abraham's eulogy honestly, it would be a complicated one. He lied about his wife twice. He tried to manufacture an heir through Hagar. And here at the end of his life, after Sarah dies and he knows the promise will only come through Isaac, he takes another wife and has six more sons, with concubines in the mix.

That is not a tidy story. The Bible does not clean it up. It records the mess without pretending it was God's design.

But watch what Genesis 25 does with it. Abraham has a houseful of sons now. And the text says he gave everything to Isaac. The others received gifts and were sent east. Because here is the thing the whole Abraham story has been driving at. The many wives did not make Abraham the father of nations. God did. The son of promise came to a barren woman and a hundred-year-old man, decades into the waiting, by promise and not by Abraham's own scheming.

Abraham dies at 175, and this is the eulogy Scripture gives him: "He died in a good old age, an old man and full of years."

Despite all the highs and lows, the lying and the doubting and the waiting, Abraham died full.

Faith is not about a spotless record. It is about a life that keeps walking toward God all the way to the end.

Join us Sunday evenings at 6pm for In the Garden, a year-long journey through Genesis.

08/24/2026

This week we were in Ephesians 4, where Paul finally turns the corner from what you have to what you do with it. Walk worthy, he says, and then he lists four marks of that walk: humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love.

It would be easy to hear those four and file them away as nice character traits to work on. Be a better person. Four more items for the self-improvement list. But look a little closer. Paul named the exact four things that would hold God's church together.

Walk it through with me. When has a church ever really split over the color of the carpet? It never has. What actually splits a church is pride, someone who has to be right, has to win, has to have their way. So the very first mark is humility.

What splits a church is sharp words, strength used to wound. You have the power to win the argument, to say the thing that ends it, to put someone in their place. So the second mark is gentleness, all that horsepower kept back on the bridle because you decided the person mattered more than the point.

What splits a church is a short fuse, one offense traded for another until somebody finally blows. So the third mark is patience, the long fuse, the place where the chain reaction stops because somebody absorbed the hit instead of firing one back.

And what splits a church is people quietly writing each other off, deciding they are done and slipping out the back to find someplace easier. So the fourth mark is bearing with one another and staying at the table.

Do you see it? Those four marks were never a self-improvement list. They are the four keys to unity of the body. You literally cannot walk humble and gentle and patient and bearing with one another and split a church at the same time.

So this week, set down your pride. Find one conversation where you could choose the long fuse. Think of one person you could show gentleness and patience too. And make a decision to stay at the table, bearing with others even when it's easier to walk away. That is what it looks like to walk worthy of everything you have already been given.

08/20/2026

Have you ever looked back on something and realized God was arranging it the whole time, when in the moment it just felt like an ordinary day?

Genesis 24 is the longest chapter in the book, and it is built around that exact experience. Abraham sends his servant hundreds of miles to find a wife for Isaac. The servant has no roadmap, so he stops at a well and prays a strange, specific prayer. "Let the right woman be the one who offers to water my camels."

Before he even finishes praying, Rebekah walks up. She gives him a drink. Then she waters ten thirsty camels by hand, which is a staggering amount of work. The servant just stands there, watching, wondering if the Lord has prospered his way.
When he tells the family the whole story, even Laban can only say one thing: "The thing comes from the LORD. We cannot speak to you bad or good."

There was no doubt. God clearly orchestrated all of it. The well, the timing, the girl, the heart willing to serve a stranger. And yet when the moment comes, they still turn to Rebekah and ask her directly, "will you go with this man?"

And she says three words that the whole future hangs on: "I will go."

God orchestrated the whole situation, but still waited for her yes. Most of us will never hear a voice from heaven. We get a well, a decision, a chance run in with someone who needs our help. Perhaps God has put you in that moment for such a time as this.

Where is God asking for your "I will go" this week?

Join us Sunday evenings at 6pm for In the Garden, a year-long journey through Genesis.

08/19/2026

Have you ever felt discouraged?

These balloons have been floating in the North Wing since June and they teach us an important lesson. No matter how many times the fan knocks you down, you can float back up.

Or maybe in the better words of Paul: “Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” -Galatians 6:9

08/18/2026