Versailles Christian Church Illinois

Versailles Christian Church Illinois Where Everybody is Somebody and Jesus is Lord! Sunday morning Fellowship 10:00am
Worship 10:15am

Just a reminder this Sunday September 13, we will be having church in the park. We will be set up on the stage starting ...
09/10/2026

Just a reminder this Sunday September 13, we will be having church in the park. We will be set up on the stage starting at 10:30 AM. Bring a lawn chair, and a friend join us in the event of rain. We will move to the church building but again the service will start at 10:30. 

09/09/2026

DO YOU BELIEVE?
Jerry Maxfield, Guest Contributor

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

Each of us has free will to believe in whatever we choose. Do you believe in God? Do you believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God? There is a very important phrase from the very first verse of the very first book of the Bible. Genesis 1:1 starts with “In the beginning God…”

That phrase really is the beginning of true faith. If you believe in those powerful four words, then the rest of scripture can and should be embraced as well.

If “in the beginning God,” then God is certainly the author of Creation, including the human being, just as He described it.

If “in the beginning God,” then we also know from verse 1 that the Spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters while the earth was formless and void.

If “in the beginning God,” then the Old Testament prophesied of a coming Messiah which was fulfilled by Jesus, the Son of God, in the New Testament. Thus, the gospel of John has to be true as well. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. That “He” is God’s Son, Jesus.

If “in the beginning God,” then the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit was present since the beginning of time. The Godhead, Three-in-One.

Sin entered the world when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God’s boundaries. That sin plagues every one of us to this day. The cost of this sin is an eternal death and separation from the Holy God (Romans 6:23). But God in His indescribable and unfathomable love for us allowed His Son, Jesus, to die on a torturous crucifixion cross, paying the consequence of our sin. Jesus then was resurrected on the third day, just as He said He would be. His resurrection established a new covenant, or promise, with mankind that all who confess, repent, and call upon the name of Jesus will be delivered and saved (Joel 2:32, Romans 10:13). Finally,

If “in the beginning God” then the resurrected Jesus has promised to come again, bringing with Him a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1). This will be a time when all who have believed will experience “no more crying, no more pain and no more death” (Revelation 21:4)

Despite the Lord’s invitation to all, some will choose not to believe in their heart of hearts in this Holy Trinity. For those individuals who choose to reject the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lord may very well say on Judgment Day, “I never knew you, depart from Me….” (Matthew 7:23).

The choice is still ours to make. Test your choices and be open to beginning a new life in Christ.

It’s a simple question….do you believe?

09/07/2026

THERE IS NO PLACE FOR PREJUDICE OR RACISM
Written by Bryant Wright, Founder

"Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen." 1 John 4:20

People naturally gravitate towards those who look like them, think like them, speak like them, and believe like them.

This isn’t always a bad thing. However, if we only surround ourselves with people who are like us, we miss opportunities to love those who may not fit into our box.

The Gospel of John tells a story that explains this well. One day, Jesus came across a Samaritan woman at a well and asked her for a drink. She responded, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” The latter part of the verse helps us realize that Jews did not associate with Samaritans (John 4:9).

This Samaritan woman wasn’t someone a Jewish person would usually interact with. In fact, Jews and Samaritans hated each other. Their rivalry went back over 700 years. But Jesus, by asking this Samaritan woman for a drink of water, showed His followers that everyone is made in God's image and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.

At a time when other Jews refused to interact with Samaritans, Jesus put love for God and neighbor above racist beliefs and prejudices. Jesus stepped over barriers because He believed in showing love to all people. As a result, this woman heard about the love of Jesus and invited other Samaritans to hear Him as well.

Jesus showed us that there is no place in the heart of a believer for prejudice or racism.

So, what can we do about it?

Pray and ask God to reveal any prejudice in your heart – Confess it to God, and ask Him to replace your prejudice with love for your neighbor.

Build relationships with people who don’t look like you – Like Jesus and the Samaritan woman, try to have conversations with people who’ve had different life experiences from yours.

Extend grace and forgiveness – No one is perfect, and if we want to move past prejudice, then we will have to forgive others, as well as ourselves.

Celebrate differences with a Revelation 7:9 point of view – In a vision of heaven, John said, “After this, I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

It will be a glorious multiethnic gathering, so let’s begin practicing this now.

09/06/2026

LIVING IN FEAR NO MORE
Bryant Wright, Founder

"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am a flesh sold into bo***ge to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand for I am not practicing what I would like to do but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the thing I don’t want to do, I agree with the Law confessing that the law is good."
Romans 7:14

During my sophomore year of college, I went through a season where I was completely overwhelmed with fear.

I struggled with a fear of the future and just a general uneasiness of not knowing what I was supposed to do with my life. I felt as though I had gone from being a much too confident young man to experiencing total self-doubt and uncertainty about which direction to take. During that time, my fear even impacted my faith. I became so afraid that I might commit an unforgivable sin, even though I didn't know what that would be. It was not a happy time.

Then, one day, I came to this passage, Romans 7:14. It was as if the Words of God jumped off the page. In this scripture, the Apostle Paul confesses his struggle with sin, even late in life. After all those years of walking with Jesus Christ, Paul shared his own struggles: I know what I'm supposed to do. I know what I'd like to do, but I keep failing.

I reread the passage over and over. I can't tell you what strength and encouragement it gave me to learn that the more we grow in Christ, the more we are aware of our sinfulness. It also helped me realize that the further we are from Christ, the less we're aware of our sinfulness. It finally made sense to me! I realized that recognizing my own weaknesses and sinfulness wasn't regressing in my relationship with Christ, but growing closer to Him!

It was during that year of college and struggling with all kinds of fears, that God ministered to me very personally. He said, Bryant, whatever you DO, whatever you've DONE, and whatever you WILL DO, you are not condemned. I love you. You are my child.

That's the power of God's grace - His no strings attached offer of forgiveness and mercy through Christ's death on the cross for our sins.

And when we begin to walk with God in faith, He changes our hearts. We begin to have a desire to want to live in a way that is pleasing to God. It frees us from living in fear of messing up or doing something unforgivable, to living in true joy and gratitude for what He has done for us. And that has the power to set us free from fear - which after all, is not fully trusting God.

It's time to let go of your fear and relish in God's love!

09/05/2026

IS YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS BETTER THAN GOD'S?
Michael Kelley, Guest Contributor

“Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."
Romans 10:1-4

I didn’t use to read the instructions.

I would get a piece of furniture or some electronic equipment or decide to take on some kind of home repair and start in on it. In my younger days, I didn’t have the time for the whole “measure twice, cut once” principle; it was more of a “just get started and figure it out along the way” kind of vibe.

So why did it take me so long to start reading the directions?

Lots of reasons probably – impatience, the need for activity, the desire for something tangible to show my work – these are some of them. But perhaps in some way, if you look deeper, there was also pride lurking there. Pride that said, I could figure it out. Pride that thought more of my own intelligence and ingenuity. Pride that my way would be fine if I got close to the end result.

I was thinking about these projects when I read these words from today’s scripture, where Paul talks about his countrymen, the Israelites, in Romans 10.

Paul loved these people. And no doubt, they were zealous. But there was an ironic quality to their zeal – they were missing the very God for which they were so zealous. In his words, their zeal was not based on knowledge. The Israelites of his day were operating under the assumption that they knew all there was to know about God, and to be fair, they had a tremendous amount of knowledge through the law, the prophets, and the like. But despite all this knowledge, they missed the crucial piece that tied it together – Jesus Christ.

Jesus was (and is) the source of true righteousness because it’s only through Christ that our hearts can be made new. Without Him, all the righteous acts we might perform are just window dressing – they are like hanging pieces of fruit on the branches of a dead tree.

But to get this missing piece, the Israelites had to submit their knowledge to what God revealed in Christ. To put it in terms of the illustration, they had to stop working on their own version of the project and start embracing its prescribed nature. The one given by the Designer Himself, not their interpretation of what that end product should be. And in some ways, not much has changed.

There is still within all of us a deep desire to prove ourselves. To justify ourselves by our actions. To make a go at righteousness on our own without submitting to the design for true righteousness. And when we do that, we make a startlingly bold claim: My version of righteousness is better than God’s.

And here we run up against the ironic nature of that claim – true righteousness is available to us. It’s available not through achievement but through faith, not through our works but through the finished work of Christ.

So, we come again today to the question of what project we are working on—are we going at it on our own, convinced that through our own effort and ingenuity, we can come up with something closely resembling the design?

Or are we submitting ourselves to the Designer’s intent?

The gospel demands the latter.

09/04/2026

YOU MAY BE LOST AND DON'T KNOW IT
Bryant Wright, Founder

“Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living.”
Luke 15:13

Lost things—and lost people—don’t always know they’re lost.

Sheep don’t know they’re lost, but the shepherd does.

A lost coin doesn’t know it’s lost, but its owner does.

The prodigal son didn’t think he was lost. He thought he was living and enjoying the adventure of a lifetime, but if you had asked his father, he would have said, “My son is lost.” Where was the father when his son was lost? Some would argue that he never left home or went after his boy. But I believe that not a day went by that the father's heart and mind were not with his younger son. Day after day, hour after hour, the father suffered the anguish and emptiness of being separated from his son.

Can you relate to the pain of being physically separated from a loved one? The spouse of a loved one deployed in a foreign country goes to that country in their thoughts a thousand times a day.

The parent of a sick child fights the disease just as surely as their child does - feeling every pain and setback.

The father's heart for his lost son is a picture of God's supernatural love for us. And here is what is amazing about our loving God: He sent His Son to rescue us—to pay the penalty for our sin on the cross and to restore us to a right relationship with the Father. Talk about incredible, relentless love!

Are you lost? Maybe you haven't realized it before, but God does. He's offering you redemptive love and reconciliation through the life, death, and resurrection of His only Son. Please don’t let another day go by without embracing God's supernatural love. Jesus came to save us from our self-destruction and lostness.

Isn’t it time you let Him bring you home?

09/03/2026

I DO BELIEVE - HELP MY UNBELIEF!
Bryant Wright, Founder

“Call to me, and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3

Mark chapter 9 details a story of Jesus healing a little boy who was being tormented by a demon.

The disciples had tried and failed to heal him, so you can probably imagine the desperation of the boy’s father. What follows is a powerful exchange between the Father and Jesus: “All things are possible to him who believes,” Jesus says to this Father. “I DO believe. Help my unbelief,” the father responds (Mark 9: 23-24, emphasis added).

I love this passage. I love the raw, vulnerable expression of faith in the father. So what’s happening here? Jesus is telling us that to be a follower of God is to recognize that ALL THINGS are possible for those who believe and abide.

Does that mean that God answers every single prayer in the exact way we imagined?
No. Because He’s a loving Father, He’s not always going to give us exactly what we want.

Does that mean that a person will be healed if we have enough faith?
No, because that’s not how God works in His ultimate sovereign plan.

And yet, Jesus says that ALL THINGS are possible for those who believe.

The father in this story showed up because he believed in Jesus's power, yet he wasn’t completely sure that anything would happen. The problem was so big, so overwhelming, and his honesty at that moment with Jesus was so real. As Jesus said, God is always powerful, yet it’s prayer and faith that activate God’s mighty power.

So does God still heal and perform miracles? Does He answer prayers? Absolutely! And while our faith might waver between confidence and uncertainty, we can confidently go before God and pour out our hopes, fears, and disappointments.

And when we face seasons of doubt, continue to show up and ask God to help our unbelief.

09/02/2026

No Bible Study tonight 9/2 due to the heat. Stay cool

09/02/2026

FINDING CONTENTMENT
Bryant Wright, Founder

"Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am." Philippians 4:11

Advertisers would have us believe that their product is the key to finding fulfillment and happiness.

Television, magazines, and social media... are all shouting the message that we simply need more stuff. They want us to believe that these "things" are truly essential to our happiness.

Well, I've got news for you. Seeking satisfaction in things will never bring contentment; it just leads to further dissatisfaction. We will always want the next new thing and never be satisfied.

So, how do we find contentment? Like so many other things, contentment is a choice - it's a by-product.

The apostle Paul, a man who experienced more than his share of difficulty in life, said, "I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances." What was his secret? Jesus. It was in his relationship with Jesus Christ that Paul finally found contentment no matter his circumstances. It was a by-product of his relationship with Jesus Christ, his Savior and Lord.

And the same is true for the rest of us. So, stop wrestling with the fear of missing out (FOMO) on more stuff. Through Christ, we all have the opportunity to find true contentment, no matter life's circumstances.

Now that you know, why not embrace a life of contentment today?

09/01/2026

AN UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD
Jonathan Munson, Executive Director

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness…”
Isaiah 5:20

“The world has changed.
I see it in the water.
I feel it in the Earth.
I smell it in the air.”
-J.R.R Tolkien

The 2001 movie The Fellowship of the Ring starts with these ominous words, signaling the rise of evil in the fictional world of Middle-Earth.

But it’s not just Middle-Earth that’s changed, is it?

The real world has changed, too. Along with Mr. Tolkien, we can “smell it in the air.”

It’s like the world has turned upside-down. What’s wrong is called right. What’s moral is thought of as immoral. And truth, logic, and common sense? Well, they seem to be long, lost relics of the past.

This crazy, ever-darkening world can make us long for the ‘good old days.’

Yet, if there’s one thing our verse from Isaiah teaches us, it’s that the ‘good old days’ never existed. There’s nothing new under the sun. Even in Isaiah’s day, people called evil good and preferred darkness over light.

Since the Garden of Eden, where we rebelled against God’s rightful authority, we’ve tried to set our own standards of right and wrong, good and evil. On the whole, society has pushed God and His Word out of the picture. As a result, we live in a moral free-for-all where anything goes (as long as you don’t impose your morality on someone else).

But just because culture labels evil as good doesn’t make it so.

Pastor Charles Stanley reminds us,

“When God calls something evil in His Word, it is evil. Period. He is our absolute authority.”

While we see it this way as Christians, the outside world doesn’t share our perspective.

We must be careful not to point fingers at the world. If anything, we should point them inward, not outward.

You see, Isaiah’s words were not aimed at pagan culture but at the people of God, his fellow Israelites. His proclamation is one of six “woes” to God’s people, repeatedly denouncing how far they had drifted off course (Isaiah 5:8, 11,18, 20, 21, & 22).

This is a sobering wake-up call.

When it comes to twisting God’s standards, inventing our guidelines of right and wrong, and turning God’s truth upside-down, every one of us is guilty. There are no exceptions. We’re all in the same boat.

Personally, I find this verse profoundly convicting.

Be honest: Isn’t there an area (or two) of your life where you’re tempted to call “evil good” and put “darkness for light?”

The problem isn’t just 'out there' in the big, bad world. The problem resides in our hearts, too.

Furthermore, shouldn’t we expect a lost world to act…well, lost?

But as the people of God, we know better. This is what makes Isaiah’s words so tragic.

Fortunately, there is wonderful news for a broken world and God’s wayward children. Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

Here’s some advice for the day ahead:
1. Run humbly to the Great Physician and confess how the sickness of sin has invaded your heart.
2. Run humbly to a broken world with a renewed passion to be “salt and light” (Matthew 5:13-16).

After all, this isn’t fiction.

There is a real world out there that desperately needs a Savior.

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3rd & Maple
Versailles, IL
62378

Opening Hours

Wednesday 7pm - 8pm
Sunday 9:30am - 12pm

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