Biblical Forgiveness: A Decision of The Will

The One Another Church

We are living in the loneliest moment in recorded human history. More connected than any generation before us — and more isolated than any generation before us. The U.S. Surgeon General has called it a public health epidemic. And into that exact cultural moment, the church carries one of the most countercultural claims in the world: a love for one another that the surrounding culture cannot produce and cannot fully explain.In Week 5 of the Built series, Pastor Kevin Cox takes the congregation into the upper room of John 13 and into the most relationally demanding passage in Paul's letters — Romans 12:9–16 — to ask what it actually looks like for a church to love the way Jesus commanded. This message confronts the gap between performed community and genuine community, unpacks the Greek word anupokritos — love without a mask — and walks through nearly a dozen specific "one another" practices that define the relational culture God designed for His church: bearing burdens, showing honor, weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice, and crossing every social line the world uses to divide.Jesus said the world would know His disciples by one thing — not their doctrine, not their production quality, but their love for one another. This message is a call to become that kind of community.

Moving From Knowledge to Application

What's the gap between everything you know about the Bible and actually living it? In this teaching from Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:1–4, Pastor Kevin Cox identifies the bridge God designed to move us from knowledge to transformation — biblical meditation. This is not Eastern emptying of the mind, but the ancient Hebrew practice of zakar (remembering), hagah (inward reflection), and siach (going over a matter deeply) — a determined, disciplined engagement with Scripture that produces genuine insight, Spirit-illumined understanding, and practical application. Using Proverbs 15:1 as a hands-on example, Pastor Kevin walks through five concrete meditation methods you can begin practicing this week. If you've ever felt stuck between knowing the truth and living it, this message is for you.

Not Spectators - Members

Most people who attend church regularly have never once been asked to do anything more than show up and give. Attend the service. Enjoy the experience. Fill out a connection card. Come back next week. It is a model built for consumers — and it has produced exactly what every consumer model produces: people who are passive, dependent, and completely unprepared for the life of discipleship that Jesus Christ actually calls them to. In Week 4 of the Built series, Pastor Kevin Cox works through one of the most structurally important passages in Paul's ecclesiology — Ephesians 4:11–16 — and dismantles the consumer model from the inside out. This message exposes a centuries-old mistranslation that quietly reassigned the work of ministry from the congregation to the clergy, uncovers the Greek word katartismos and what it reveals about the true purpose of pastoral leadership, and confronts the doctrinal vulnerability that passive church attendance creates in believers who have never been equipped to stand. The goal of the church, Paul says, is not a larger crowd. It is a mature body — every joint supplying, every part working, the whole structure building itself up in love toward the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That body is not built by spectators. It is built by members.

The Biblical Blueprint of The Church

What would it look like if a church stopped trying to improve on God's design and simply returned to it? In Week 3 of the Built series, Pastor Kevin Cox takes the congregation deep into Acts 2:42–47 — the most concentrated portrait of the early church found anywhere in Scripture. In one passage, Luke gives us four devotions that defined the first Christian community: the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. These were not four programs running in parallel. They were four expressions of a single reality — a Spirit-filled community living in wholehearted surrender to its Head. This message works through the Greek word proskartereo — the word translated "devoted" — and what it reveals about the difference between casual church attendance and genuine discipleship. It examines what koinonia actually means and why you can attend a small group for years and still feel completely unknown. It unpacks the dual meaning of the breaking of bread and the word anamnesis — the active, present-tense remembrance that makes communion far more than a ritual. And it traces the fruit that followed these four devotions in Acts 2:43–47: awe, radical generosity, favor with the city, and the Lord adding to their number daily. The blueprint has not been updated. The question is whether we are willing to build by it.

Appropriating God's Power

Many Christians struggle with their identity in Christ. Because of that, they don't realize all that it means to be a child of God and the resources available to them to deal with distractions, struggles, disappointments and really life. Therefore, they’re constantly asking God for more of Himself, more power, more strength not realizing that they already possess the fullness of God. It’s not a matter of needing more of or from God. It’s a matter of positioning yourself to appropriate the resources God has already given you. We do this through saturating our minds with His Word so that we biblically understand who God is, His nature, promises, etc, then applying all that we learn to our hearts in obedience and walking in confidence and trusting in God through faith.