Bent Oak Church

When our idols fail us, we usually look for someone to blame or we look for someone to encourage us and reaffirm our desire. We want people who will tell us what we want to hear. That has long been a temptation for people and the church. Increasingly we trust our feelings as the measure of truth and collect teachers to affirm us. But the church must steward the full revelation of Christ, even when it is a word of challenge. 

As we each pursue our desires hoping they will solve our insecurity, the consequences grow worse. Not only do we become more insecure, but a spirit of accusation turns us against one another. There is nothing like a finger pointed at someone else to draw our attention away from ourselves. When our idols fail us, we go looking for someone else to blame. We take a closer look at the conflict that emerged from the garden and how Satan's tactic of accusation is still at work today.

Our insecurities always cause us to fixate on a solution. Imagining some idol as the salvation of our fears, we awaken new desires in our hearts. We take a closer look at the emergence of desire in the temptation of Eve and see how trusting our heart's desires has become our culture's guide to truth. Christ risks offending us to offer us a better truth than desire. 

As we continue our look at the Biblical topic of offense, we investigate how insecurity can lead us to feel offended. Before the serpent could tempt Adam and Eve to eat the fruit and divide the world into conflict, he first sought to awaken in them a sense of need. The serpent created insecurity and by that insecurity led them into sin. It's true for us as well, beneath our feelings of anger, outrage, and offense are lurking fears of insecurity which most of us live blind to.

In our first week of this new series, we take a closer look at how our culture has become increasingly obsessed with and sensitive to offense. But we ask a question rarely asked in our culture. Why? Why do we now find ourselves so easily offended, and what does the Bible have to say about the feeling of offense? 

Daniel wraps up our Immanuel series by sharing about how God changes our hearts and leads us into acts of humility and self-sacrifice. 

Todd Tolbert continues our Immanuel series by discussing God's grace and how he disciplines those he loves toward greater sanctification and joy. 

As is our tradition, we'll spend the Advent season hearing from members of our congregation. Each share how God has been with them through challenges and seasons of life. This week, Elizabeth Lombardi described the challenges she's faced and how through it all, there is reason to worship. 

As we finish up our series on the Bible, we take a closer look at how the word of God always moves us to worship. We have not fully experienced God's word if it has not done its work on both the head and heart. The Bible is fundamentally the story of what God has done for us, and our rightful response is gratitude and worship. 

As we continue our look at the place of scripture in the life of the believer, we unpack James's advice to be not only hearers but doers of the Word. James described the scripture as the perfect law of liberty. We take a closer look at how the Bible leads us to freedom.