Can you define and defend the doctrine of the Trinity without slipping into heresy? Pastor Jim Osman puts that challenge to the congregation in this exposition of John 1:1 and selected Scriptures.

Osman lays out a working definition of the Trinity, that within the one being of God there exist eternally three co-equal and co-eternal persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then breaks that definition into three pillars. There is only one God. There are three divine persons. Those persons are co-equal and co-eternal. Deny any one of the three, Osman shows, and you land in a specific heresy, polytheism, modalism, or subordinationism.

Working carefully through John 1:1 and 2, Osman traces the Greek behind John's language to show that the Word both existed eternally with God and was Himself fully God, distinct in person yet one in essence. He warns against every popular analogy for the Trinity, the egg, the water, the three roles of a single man, showing why each one actually illustrates a heresy rather than the truth.

This sermon gives listeners the vocabulary and the biblical grounding to speak accurately about who God is, and sets up next week's look at what the Trinity means for worship, prayer, and assurance.

After more than a year and forty-one sermons, Pastor Jim Osman closes out the book of 2 Peter with the two exhortations that summarize everything Peter wanted his readers to hear.

In this final message on 2 Peter 3:17-18, Osman shows that if believers are to remain stable in the gospel, they must diligently heed two closing commands. Guard against error. Grow in truth. Osman opens with a sobering, real-world example of how easily false teaching slips into a church under the banner of spiritual formation, a reminder that Peter's warnings are just as urgent now as in the first century.

Osman then works through both commands. To guard means standing watch the way a shepherd watches his flock, alert to wolves who would carry believers away from their steadfastness. To grow means pursuing the grace and knowledge of Christ as an ongoing responsibility, not a plateau reached and left behind. False teachers cannot take away a believer's salvation, Osman notes, but they can rob believers of fruitfulness, stability, and reward.

This final sermon brings the epistle full circle, back to Peter's promise that believers already have everything they need for life and godliness, and closes the series with a clear charge: guard, and grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

Why does baptism involve getting soaked in front of a room full of people? Dave Rich argues the answer lies entirely in what the ordinance symbolizes.

In this topical message from Romans 6, Rich lays out five truths pictured in water baptism, using the memory device history, identity, unity, purity, and duty. Baptism dramatizes the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the convert's identification and union with Christ, the convert's unity with the church, the washing away of sin's penalty and power, and a solemn commitment to fight sin and pursue holiness.

Rich works through Romans 6 verse by verse to show that each of these truths flows directly from what Christ actually accomplished in his death and resurrection, not from the water itself. He is careful to note that water baptism does not save or regenerate anyone, but it remains a command every believer is responsible to obey.

The message closes with practical clarity on who should and should not come forward for baptism, including guidance for those baptized before conversion or baptized by an unbiblical mode.

This is a clear, careful explanation of an ordinance many Christians observe without fully understanding what it means.

Scripture is the anchor. Everything else is drift.

In this exposition of 2 Peter 3:15-16, Pastor Jim Osman shows that Peter points his readers back to the Word of God as the foundation of their spiritual stability, even as he closes his letter with a warning about those who distort it.

Osman traces Peter's affectionate reference to the apostle Paul and unpacks what it reveals about how the apostles viewed their own writings. Peter treats Paul's letters as Scripture itself, on par with the Old Testament prophets, offering a striking answer to modern claims that the canon of Scripture was invented centuries after the apostles died.

Osman then turns to the false teachers Peter describes as untaught and unstable, men who take up teaching before they have ever been taught, and who twist the hard sayings of Scripture to their own destruction. Osman traces this same pattern into the present day, showing how quickly untested voices are handed platforms and influence in the modern church.

This sermon is a sober call to root your life in the Word of God rather than the shifting winds of religious fads and untested teachers. Your stability, your fruitfulness, and your faithfulness all rise or fall with what you do with Scripture.

Christ could return at any moment. So how should that truth shape the way you live today?

In this exposition of 2 Peter 3:14-15, Pastor Jim Osman shows that Peter calls believers to two things as they wait for the Lord's coming: live blamelessly and think evangelistically.

Osman traces Peter's repeated call to diligence, first raised in chapter 1 and now returning in these closing verses. Holiness does not happen by accident. It requires effort, pursued through the Spirit's power, not apart from it. When Christ returns, everything will be exposed. The fakes and frauds will be revealed, but so will the quiet, faithful saints whose lives have been marked by genuine spotlessness and blamelessness rather than the stains and blemishes that marked the false teachers in chapter 2.

Osman then turns to verse 15, where Peter tells us to regard the Lord's patience as salvation. That patience is not slowness or delay. It is an open door, a call to repentance for the unbeliever and an opportunity for the Christian to proclaim the Gospel while there is still time.

This sermon is a sober and hope filled reminder that waiting for Christ's return is never passive. It is a call to holy living and faithful witness, lived out with confidence in the God who keeps every promise.

Will there be pets in heaven? Will people recognize each other? A recent Q&A with fifth and sixth graders raised these very questions, and Pastor Jim Osman uses them as the doorway into one of Scripture's richest promises: the new heavens and the new earth.

Continuing the exposition of 2 Peter 3:13, Osman traces this promise back to its source in Isaiah 65 and 66, then unpacks a question every believer eventually asks. What is the relationship between this present creation and the one to come? Will God erase this world entirely, or will He renew it?

Using the analogy of Noah's flood, the caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly, and the connection Paul draws between our bodily resurrection and creation's own longing in Romans 8, Osman shows that the new earth will be this earth, resurrected, redeemed, and freed from every trace of sin. Every good gift we treasure now will remain, purified of sin's corruption, while a serious gospel appeal is offered for anyone who does not yet possess the righteousness required to enter that place.

This episode gives listeners a clear, biblically grounded picture of their eternal home and why that hope should shape how they live today.

The coming destruction of the present creation is not just a doctrine to believe—it's a call to live differently. In this expository sermon from 2 Peter 3:11–12, Pastor Jim Osman draws out the practical weight of Peter's eschatological teaching and presses it into the conscience of every believer.

Peter's concluding exhortations are clear: those who genuinely believe Christ will return are marked by it. First, they are a holy people—set apart in conduct and godliness, fitted for a new creation in which only righteousness dwells. Osman unpacks what that means practically, showing that holiness is not merely a positional reality but a moral pursuit, one that grace both demands and provides.

Second, they are a hastening people—those who long for and actively work toward the coming of the day of God. Osman addresses the apparent tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility head-on. The day is fixed on God's calendar; yet Scripture calls believers to hasten it through holy living, faithful gospel proclamation, and earnest prayer. These are not contradictions—they are the two sides of the same sovereign purpose.

If Christ is returning, and Peter insists He is, the only question left is: what kind of people ought we to be?

Two thousand years feels like a long time to wait. Jim Osman says that's exactly the point.

Continuing through 2 Peter 3, Osman tackles the mockers' challenge in verse 4: where is the promise of His coming? Peter's answer comes in two parts, and this sermon focuses on the second: God's patience. Osman walks through what that patience actually means, tracing it back through Exodus, Isaiah, and the Psalms to show that the Old Testament's "slow to anger" God and the New Testament's patient Father are the same God, not two different ones.

He works carefully through the Greek behind "slow" in verse 9, distinguishing tardiness from sovereign timing, and uses Habakkuk's own wrestling with delay as a parallel. Then comes the heart of the message: who exactly is God being patient toward? Osman pushes back against a popular reading of "not willing for any to perish," arguing from context that Peter is addressing God's own people, the elect not yet gathered in, not the whole world indiscriminately.

The sermon closes with four practical encouragements, including a direct word to anyone listening who has yet to repent. This episode offers a clear, doctrinally grounded answer to anyone wondering why God seems to be taking so long.