Walnut Street Church of Christ Dickson, TN

Chris continues his summer series focused on the psalms. In this installment, Chris dissects Psalm 29 & highlights the fact that God is both powerful & personal.

Psalm 22 is about praying through pain. This psalm teaches us how to talk to God when times are tough. David’s prayer is about holding onto the conviction that God is good and He has a redemptive purpose when things look bleak.

David and the afflicted ones are powerless and weak. That’s the takeaway from Psalm 8. However, even though they are powerless and weak, God has chosen to rule the world through them. They are the underdogs who will be top dog. This is what Psalm 8 is all about.

Psalms teach us the language of prayer. They teach us how to pray through our fears. You lay it all out before God. You pray through your emotions in front of God. It’s an intentional processing where you seek to understand the source of your emotions, sort through them, and find how they relate to God. If I’m going to be a follower of Jesus, and cultivate a relationship with him, then I must learn how to pray through my fears.

Psalms 1 & 2 serve as an introduction to the entire book. Psalm 1 is reflecting on the 2 ways to be human. There’s the person who is like a blossoming tree of life planted by a stream. He doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. He doesn’t stand in the way of sinners. He doesn’t sit in seat of scoffers. The other is like an empty husk of wheat that just flakes off and blows away. The one who meditates on God's law and waits for the Messiah is the one who will be a blossoming tree of life.

WE work out OUR salvation collectively. We do this by being of the same mind and of the same spirit. We do this by submitting to one another. We do this by being on the same page and reading from the same script. This is not something that can be done individually. The context of Paul’s words are within the framework of the church. This is about US not ME.

There is no such thing as a zero-talent individual. Everyone has received something. It may only be one thing, but that single talent is very valuable. You may be a one-talent person, but you may be the only one with that ability. If you don’t use it, then some needed work will go unfulfilled. The Master has not left any of us with empty pockets.

One of our shpeherds at the Walnut Street Church of Christ, Scott Woodard, gives us some things to ponder related to what we leave behind. Everyone will be remembered for something? How will you be remembered.

God doesn’t need your money. It’s not about the money to God. So, we don’t start with money. We don’t start with the amount. We don’t start with the obligation. We start where Paul starts. We start with GRACE.

In this installment, Walnut Street's Connections Minister delivers a lesson focused on how GOd communicates with His people and the distinction between A word and THE word.

Chris begins a new series on giving with the forst lesson focusing on the value we assign to Jesus. How much is Jesus worth to you?

Chris Hedge delivers a powerful lesson on the need for unity and togetherness in the church & how the Lord's body is at her best when everyone is on the same page working toward the same goal.

WHY DOES WORSHIP MATTER? Because it affects how we relate to God, His creation, to ourselves, and to others. Worship keeps life in proper order. Failure to worship disrupts God’s rhythm. We need to view all of life through the lens of worship. Worship should affect you, not just on Sunday but every day that ends in “y.” This is your tuning fork, you’re pitch pipe, your metronome. We come together every first day of the week to get our lives in order. This is where we get our rhythm for the week.

Fasting is a biblical topic, and anytime we study a biblical topic we need to do our best to discern and apply what scripture has to say on the subject. So, when it comes to fasting, the question we’re tempted to ask is, “Why did people in the Bible fast?” But maybe the better question is, “Why don’t people today fast?”

Mark Gooch, a deacon at Walnut Street, delivers a great lesson centered around the question, What Now? Once you become a child of God, once you have been washed clean from your sins, what's the next step?

In Luke Chapter 11, the disciples witness Jesus praying and one of them says, “Lord, teach us to pray (v. 1).” Had they never prayed before? That’s highly unlikely. Prayer was an integral part of the Jewish lifestyle. But what Jesus was doing was different. They weren’t witnessing a habit or a ritual. They saw a relationship, and they wanted what Jesus had. I want that as well. I hope you do too. But your prayer life is only as strong as the relationship.

Walnut Street's Connections Minister, Chad Garrett, gives a lesson from 2 Corinthians 3:3 and encourages us to make personal application.

TO BE BIBLE-BASED IS TO BE PEOPLE OF THE PERSON, NOT PEOPLE OF THE PRINT. As Christ-followers, we are not merely people of the book. We are, ultimately, people of the Person. The book points us to the Person.

God has been honest with us in telling us that there will be trouble in this life. This life is hard. But God has also made us a promise. There is hope on the horizon. There is a glorious future awaiting us. It’s like we’re exiles on this planet, but some day we will get to go home. If Jeremiah teaches us anything, he teaches us how to live as exiles in a foreign land.

We were made for God, and until He is our greatest pleasure, all other pleasures in life will be empty. It’s not that recreation, play, or leisure time is wrong. We make it wrong when pleasure, amusement, and entertainment become our greatest pursuit. Play is important. It just can’t be most important.

Being busy doesn’t necessarily mean progress. You can be busy every waking minute of your life and still not accomplish anything worthwhile. In this sermon, Chris reminds us that you will never accomplish more than when you stop and spend time with God.

Chris McCurley continues his Sunday evening sermon series examining some of the more misused and abused passages of scripture. In this installment, he takes on Romans 8:28 and the erroneous conclusion that every tragedy is really good if you wait long enough.

Who we are is because of who God is, and the work we do, no matter how difficult, mundane, important, or insignificant it may seem, should be about making God proud. Imagine the difference we could make if all Christians allowed their work to be shaped by the Gospel. What if we looked at everything in life, including our work, as a ministry? What could we accomplish for the kingdom if we made our work about pleasing the divine boss?

Walnut Street's Connections Minister, Chad Garrett, shares a message from Isaiah Chapter 6, encouraging us to have the attitude of the Messianic prophet.

In this final installment in the Body Language series, Chris McCurley touches on the the WHY behind the WHAT. Rather than focusing on singing a cappella vs. with instruments, we should be clear on why we sing in the first place.

One of our shepherds at the Walnut Street Church of Christ shares a meesage focused on the Apostle Paul's encouragement to the Christians in Philippi.

In this lesson, Charles DeBerry walks us through Proverbs Chapter 30.

Who, in your life, do you need to be more patient toward? When they test your patience, think about God then think about your life. Are you as patient with others as God is toward you? You may be thinking, "That’s not even possible. I’m not divine. I’m not God.” True. But, to know God is to be more like Him. It is to exercise those attributes that are so clearly seen in His character and the character of His Son. To know God is to be compassionate like Him, merciful like Him, slow to anger like Him, faithful and forgiving like Him.

Chris continues his series examining some of the more misused, misinterpreted, and misapplied passages of scripture with a look at James 1:19. Plenty of people hear the word of God. They read it. They study it. They memorize it. They can recite it upon command, but do they live it? At some point, hearing must turn into doing. Head knowledge doesn’t mean a thing without heart doing.

Our unity is a valuable testimony. Who else could make us one? But if our unity is a testimony, that would mean that the opposite is true as well. Our disunity can be a repellent.

One of our shepherds at Walnut Street shares a lesson on evangelism and how we, as children of God, have been saved to save.

Not only do we grieve with hope, but we also grieve with family. Grieving can be made so much easier when we know that we have the Lord on our side. And the pain we feel can be lessened by knowing that we have a church family that weeps with us. Comforting those who are hurting is a work of the church that all Christians should buy into.

In this message, one of our shepherds, Troy Williams, shares the meaning of being in Christ and the affect of such on our lives as well as the lives of others.

The word “serve” or “to serve” comes from the Greek word doulos, which means “slave” or “to be a slave.” Think about that for a moment. Christ set us free from the slavery of sin only to make us slaves to one another through the love of Christ. Instead of being masters with many servants, we are called to be servants with many masters. Christ didn’t just remove the chains of sin and condemnation. He also unshackled us to a new life marked by holiness and love.

The Lord’s church is a body—something Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12. We are all a functioning part of this body, and our functionality gives the body life and power. And the connective tissue prayer. So, if we want to be a strong body for the Lord, then we must be a praying people. And if you want to pray with more power, then pray with more people.

Why should we love one another? Other than we’re told to. We do it because we can’t help it. It’s who we are. It’s in our DNA. It all comes down to identity. The Apostle John stresses this over and over again. If this is not who you are, then how can the love of God be in you? If love doesn’t define you, then are you really following Jesus? Do you love God? If so, that inherently means that you love others. The two go hand in hand.

There was a little girl who was late getting home from school. Her mom was starting to worry and had started out the door to go look for her when she noticed her coming up the sidewalk. The mom asked her daughter, “Where have you been?” The little girl replied, “Janie dropped her art project, and it shattered into a thousand pieces.” The mom said, “Oh, well, that makes sense. You stopped to help her pick it up.” The little girl replied, “No, I stopped to help her cry.” That little girl understood something we all need to understand. Simply being present may help lighten a burden and help the one who is hurting face another hour, another day, another season.

You are defined by your relationship with God, and that relationship defines all other relationships in your life. Every damaged relationship in your life points back to your closeness with God. Every barrier to love in our horizontal relationships is a reflection of a problem with love in our vertical relationship. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the vertical is straight if the horizontal is crooked.

The language of Hebrews 10:24 seems rather negative on the surface. It’s paroxysmos and it means “to incite” or “provoke.” It’s derived from the Greek word for rebellion. This is the language of rebels and revolution. It’s the language of insurrection and uprising. We are instructed to consider how to start a riot! Not a riot that produces violence and hatred and oppression and destruction. The Hebrew writer is saying, “Start a riot of love and good works.”