Marion Church of God

09/10/2026

09/09/2026

Just This Once: The Slow Undoing of Samson
Judges 16: 4-7

08/24/2026

A Praise That Never Stops

I preached on this text yesterday morning, and I wanted to add a few more thoughts for you take with you today.

Psalm 113:3 says: "From the rising of the sun to its going down, the LORD's name is to be praised."

Read that again. Let it soak in for a moment. This isn't a suggestion tucked away in the fine print of Scripture — it's a declaration. It’s a statement of fact about how things ought to be. From sunrise to sunset — from the moment your alarm goes off to the moment your head hits the pillow — the name of the Lord is to be praised. I want us to sit with this verse today, and give you two things to consider.

1) The Scope of Praise
Notice the scope the psalmist gives us: "from the rising of the sun to its going down." That's not a figure of speech for "sometimes." That's not "praise Him when the coffee's hot and the traffic lights are green." That's every hour. Every minute. The full stretch of daylight — and by implication, the full stretch of life within it.
Think about what actually happens between sunrise and sunset in a normal day. You wake up energized — or you wake up exhausted. The email is encouraging — or it's the one you dreaded. The doctor's report is good — or it isn't. The kids behave — or they don't.
Somewhere between sunrise and sunset, life throws you curveballs you didn't order and didn't want. And yet the psalmist doesn't say, "From the rising of the sun to its going down, the Lord's name is to be praised — unless things go sideways." There are no qualifiers. No fine print. No escape clause for hard mornings or heavy nights.

This tells me something important: praise was never meant to be a mood. It was never meant to be a reaction to how our circumstances happen to be treating us that day.
Consider this...If praise only shows up when life is easy, it's not really praise — it's just relief with a hallelujah attached to it.
But the psalmist is describing praise as a rhythm, not a reaction.

From sunrise to sunset — the whole thing, the good stretches and the hard ones — belongs to the praise of His name. I don't know what part of the day you're in right now as you read this. Maybe it's the sunrise part — fresh, hopeful, full of possibility. Maybe it feels more like sunset — tired, worn down, ready for the day to be over. Either way, the verse includes you.

2) The Reason for Praise
But here's the question worth asking: how in the world are we supposed to praise God across circumstances that swing so wildly? The answer is right there in the verse, if we look closely.
It doesn't say "the Lord's blessings are to be praised." It doesn't say "the Lord's good mood is to be praised." It says "the LORD's name is to be praised."

His name. Not His circumstances toward us that day — But His character. Who He actually is. And that distinction changes everything.

Think about this…Blessings fluctuate. Feelings fluctuate. Even our understanding of what God is doing in a season can fluctuate. But His name — His nature, His faithfulness, His holiness — doesn't move an inch.

The name of the Lord was just as worthy of praise on the darkest Friday in human history as it was on the empty-tomb Sunday that followed it. Nothing about who He is changed between those two mornings. Only the circumstances changed. But His name stayed exactly the same.
That's the anchor. We're not praising God because the day is good. We're praising God because He is good — and that was true before your day started and it'll still be true after it ends.
I like to put it this way: praise isn't a weather report on your circumstances. It's a declaration about His character. And His character doesn't rise and set with the sun — it never changes.

(Pastor Sellers)

08/17/2026

The God Who Keeps His Word

I want to start with the simplest truth there is: God keeps His word — every time, in every generation. Here are four simple truths from Scripture that you can turn into something you can carry with you this week.

1) God's Promises Never Expire

Deuteronomy 7:9
“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;"

Now do the math: a generation is about forty years, so a thousand generations is forty thousand years…God isn't handing Israel a coupon with a fine-print deadline — So, here’s what it means — His faithfulness outlasts anything we can count.

Think about this — Moses is speaking to a generation that never saw the burning bush or the Red Sea split — they only heard the stories…But God says the covenant still belongs to them.
In other words, time didn't drain the promise of its power.

So, here’s what I want you to remember: The wait doesn't cancel the word; it just means the fulfillment is still on its way. So, don't put an expiration date on what God has promised…Because His promises don't run out.

2) God's Mercy Resets Every Day

Lamentations 3:22–23
22 "Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness."

Now remember where Jeremiah is standing when he writes this — he's not on a mountaintop, but in the rubble…Jerusalem is destroyed, the temple burned, the people in exile…And right here, he stops and says, "Great is Your faithfulness."
It wasn’t because his circumstances changed, but because he remembered something true about God.
He remembered that God is ALWAYS faithful and merciful.

Here’s what I want you to understand — Mercy that's new every morning doesn't mean life gets easy — it means God gives fresh grace for today, no matter what yesterday looked like.
So, don't carry yesterday's failure into today…But rather wake up expecting fresh mercy, because that's exactly what God gives.

3) Your Failure Doesn't Cancel His Faithfulness

Numbers 23:19
“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

This is Balaam, a pagan prophet hired to curse Israel…And even he looks at this stubborn, complaining nation and says, "I can't curse what God has already blessed."
Now let's be honest about who he's talking about — He’s talking about the generation that built a golden calf, that grumbled and doubted at every turn.
Israel's track record wasn't consistency; it was faith one day, and fear the next...But God's faithfulness never moved.
Their doubt didn't cancel His covenant.

A lot of us disqualify ourselves from God's promises based on our own report card, thinking we've messed up too many times.
But God was faithful to a wavering nation, not a perfect one.
His faithfulness was never a reward for their consistency — it's a reflection of His character.
Here’s what that means for us – Our inconsistency doesn't disqualify us...God keeps His word because that's who He is.

4) What God Promises, He Completes

Joshua 21:45
"Not a single one of all the good promises the Lord had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything he had spoken came true."

Now think about how long that took…God promised Abraham this land...Then came four hundred years of slavery, forty years of wandering, and the conquest under Joshua.
Generations died believing a promise they never personally saw fulfilled — and still, every word came true.
And that's the pattern all through Scripture.

Here's the reality, God doesn't abandon what He starts…He may take longer than we'd like — but His record is a completed record.
Maybe you've got a promise that feels stalled — a prayer with no movement, a door that’s still closed.
But silence isn't cancellation…and delay isn't denial.

Remember this – Unanswered doesn't mean unfinished…The same God who didn't let one word fail for Israel won't let yours fail either.

Let me close with this:
God's promises don't expire…His mercy resets daily…Our failure can't cancel His faithfulness…And what He promises, He completes.
And I want to challenge you to pick one promise from Scripture and hold onto it — write it down, pray it daily, and thank Him before you see it.

-Pastor Sellers

08/17/2026