Grace Bible Church

Grace Bible Church Our mission to make and be disciples necessarily entails growing as a family around the Word of God

05/28/2026

Why is the gospel of Jesus Christ the only message that will produce the fruit of obedience? Because it is the one message that reattaches image-bearers to the one true Vine. Only in being attached to Jesus, the True Vine, can you and I do anything truly meaningful and lasting.
John 15. I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser (or Gardener). Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit… Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is who bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

from Romans 1:13-15
Hindered and Harvesting, Obligated and Obedient
https://youtu.be/5-nvdVnw2oY

05/26/2026

Beautiful and Precious Redeemer,
My thoughts of You have fallen infinitely short of the regard to which You alone are worthy. My love has amounted to but a glint of the ardor You deserve. I've allowed the world to vie for my deepest affections without the fervent fight that befits Your soldiers. My flesh has pursued empty things that will soon perish, becoming less than ashes and dust, making such pursuits not merely futile but an insult to Your eternal and unchanging preeminent perfections.
May Your Spirit ever enliven within me a passion that burns for You to the degree this frail and fallen co**se of a body is capable. Open my weak and wanting eyes to the boundless beauty and ravishing reality of Your Son and His works, that the glimmer of Babylon might grow dim beyond recognition. Ignite within my heart such blazing warmth and adoration for the Lord Jesus that the shiny allure of this world, both the material and the imagined, becomes increasingly dull. Overwhelm me with a knowledge of Your vast incomprehensible love that is too high, too deep, and too wide to contain or measure that it might engender a befitting response. To the fullest measure that this not-yet-glorified worshiper is able, stir within me such love and affection for Christ that all my performances, praises, and ponderings aim only to glorify the Name above all names.
Direct my heart evermore towards You, my Precious Savior. Amen.

05/22/2026

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL POEM
But creation wasn’t the Poet’s greatest poem.
Remember the Poem Tree? The greatest poem ever was indeed written upon a tree. You see. The Poet came down and entered His creation, and wrote out the greatest poem ever — with His own blood.
And that loved ones (I pray the Lord opens your eyes to see) is the only thing that will transform a rebellious heart that suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. O to see the love of God written out in crimson red upon the tree. This is the greatest love poem ever. Do you know that love?
Suppressing the Truth: The Great Exchange, part 2
Romans 1:18-23
https://youtu.be/5ubftGfIWfI

05/20/2026

Have you ever wondered what to do with all those cleanliness laws in Leviticus 11-15? In part, just like the rest of the Levitical law, they pointed to something greater, something spiritual. It’s no surprise the cleanliness laws fall between Nadab and Abihu approaching the Lord casually if not even cavalierly (Leviticus 10), and that of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), in which the Lord provides the necessary covering we need to approach Him. That’s actually what the word atonement means: covering.

Before the camp of Israel can set out, the Lord commands Moses something quite shocking to our fallen ears.

“Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.” (Numbers 5:1-3)

If honest, many of us are more than a little repulsed when we first read this. Is this truly a God of love? (I speak in a human way.) It’s important to remember that God does not change like shifting shadows. Nevertheless, He does intend to communicate something to us for us to see the fuller picture of His holiness, our unholiness, and what He has done to remedy it, so that we can indeed approach Him and dwell in the camp of His people.

Why leprosy, discharges, and contact with the dead? Each of these conditions points to some aspect of the flesh, our flesh, which has been tainted by our sin, and thus alienates us from God. God is holy and pure and cannot dwell, abide, or tolerate sin and uncleanness. It is the flesh that dies, the flesh that oozes and bleeds, and the flesh that is diseased and blemished.

Leprosy is an immediately visible disease of the flesh. But all these physical images point to a far greater spiritual issue. As unclean sinners, all of us, not just those with these physical ailments, walk in the flesh, which at its core is defiled by the sinful human heart. In our uncleanness, we cannot draw near to God. We are not even permitted into the camp of God’s people (see Revelation 21:27).

We need a cure, a cleansing, and a covering which God Himself provides in the spotless, pure, undefiled Lamb of God. Jesus provides the only covering that enables us to draw near to God and dwell in the camp of the righteous made perfect — a covering made available by the One whose skin was marred, whose blood was discharged, and who died in our place.

05/16/2026

THE POEM TREE
In preparing for today’s message, I was specifically looking for an image of a poem carved in a tree. I was thinking how lovers will often carve their names into a tree, along with a little heart. And I wondered if perhaps I could find where someone carved an entire love poem into a tree.
And I came across this tree called the Poem Tree, fitting enough. The Poem Tree was a 300-year-old beech tree in Oxfordshire, England, where, sometime in the 1840s a man by the name of Joseph Tubb carved a 20-line poem into its trunk.
The tree is now old and decaying. But here’s the thing. For there to be a poem carved into a tree, obviously, it didn’t get there by chance. There had to have been a poet. Someone had to have taken the time to carve each and every letter.
Why do I bring this up? Because one of the things we’re looking at this morning is the evidence of God’s glory in creation, and how, despite all the evidence, we tend to suppress the truth, as if we could look at a tree with a 20-line poem carved into it and deny the fact that there’s some great poet who put that there.
But that’s our condition. That’s a part of every human being’s fallen condition. We tend to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

from Suppressing the Truth: The Great Exchange, part 2
Romans 1:18-23
https://youtu.be/5ubftGfIWfI

05/11/2026

Death Carried Away: No one had carried Jesus away; it was Jesus who carried death away (John 20:15)
And hear the desperation in Mary's voice. (John 20:15). Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.
This word carried is the same word used in Matthew 8:17, where he quotes Isaiah. Surely he took our infirmities and carried away our diseases. It’s the same word used a chapter earlier. John 19:17. And Jesus went out carrying his own cross.
O what she didn’t yet know. No one had carried her Lord away. If anything was carried away, it was the Lord himself who carried it away to the cross and then to the grave.

John 20
The Resurrection: Death Laid Aside, Garden Reopened
https://youtu.be/Al-tkglznt4

05/08/2026

They stooped to look into a grave that should have been theirs ... a grave that should have been ours. But someone else had taken up residency there in our place, in order to pay the penalty of our sin.

from: John 20
The Resurrection: Death Laid Aside, Garden Reopened
https://youtu.be/Al-tkglznt4

05/05/2026

STOOPING TO SEE
There's a progression that takes place in John 20:5-8 that begins with the word stoop. "And stooping to look in..." (John 20:5). The word simply means “to bend beside” or “to stoop to a thing” often with the intention to check something out.
It’s used to describe an earnest, humble, investigation of a thing. It’s a disposition of humility and reverence. It conveys a desire for understanding and an expectancy to understand.
Speaking of the glories of Christ and the gospel, Peter will later write, these are things into which angels long to look — same word! Literally, these are things into which angels long to stoop. O to stoop and see.
PRIDE AND UNBELIEF
Loved ones, this is the only posture that will lead to belief.
Because the only thing in the way of belief is not a lack of information. Your friends and family don’t need more details or data. Only one thing stands in the way of belief — pride.
The disciples ran to see. They stooped to look. They inspected the evidence, recalled the words, and believed.

from: The Resurrection: Death Laid Aside, Garden Reopened (John 20)
https://youtu.be/Al-tkglznt4

04/29/2026

The gravecloths that had once bound Jesus' dead body have been left behind. And the folded face cloth proclaims in a picture the very words Jesus proclaimed from the cross: "It is finished." While the work was finished upon the cross on Friday, it's Sunday that reveals just what Jesus accomplished.

The face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, was not lying with the linen cloths, but had been folded up in a place by itself. (John 20:7)

John 20
The Resurrection: Death Laid Aside, Garden Reopened
https://youtu.be/Al-tkglznt4

04/29/2026

Jesus Christ is the Door. And because of His sacrificial death on the cross, the tomb of death has been opened.

John 20
The Resurrection: Death Laid Aside, Garden Reopened
https://youtu.be/Al-tkglznt4

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