Known by Who Redeemed You | Galatians 2:15-21 & Colossians 3:1-4 | Our Identity in Christ
Where do you actually find your identity? This message, "Known by Who Redeemed You," turns to Galatians 2:15–21 and Colossians 3:1–4 to answer that question the way Scripture does: not in what you build, earn, or accomplish, but in what Christ has already done for you. The apostle Paul's own words, "I have been crucified with Christ," show that self-justification always falls short, and that a right standing before God comes only through faith in Jesus.
The Certainty of Eternal Life | 1 John 5:13-21 | This Week’s Devotions
This week's devotional closes out our thirteen-week journey through 1 John, walking alongside the final sermon in our "Walking in the Light" series, "The Certainty of Eternal Life," from 1 John 5:13-21. Over five days, we'll sit with the certainties John gives every believer: certainty of eternal life, confidence in prayer, the call to intercede for one another, three "we know" statements that anchor our faith in God's revealed truth rather than our own feelings, and John's closing charge to guard our hearts from every false god. If you've walked through 1 John with us since early summer, this is the landing point all of it has been building toward. If you're just joining, there's no better place to end than where certainty itself begins.
The Certainty of Eternal Life | 1 John 5:13-21 | Walking in the Light
This week closes out the "Walking in the Light" series with 1 John 5:13-21, the final paragraph of John's letter. After chapters of tests and warnings, John shifts to plain declaration. Three times he says "we know," building a case for the kind of certainty that doesn't waver: certainty of eternal life for those who believe, certainty that God hears our prayers, and certainty that we belong to Him and are kept by Him. The letter ends with a short, pointed command: guard yourselves from anything that would take God's place. Confidence in Christ was never meant to make us passive. It's meant to make us watchful, worshiping the true God with everything we have.
The Threefold Witness | 1 John 5:6-12 | This Week’s Devotions
This week we dig deeper into 1 John 5:6-12 and the threefold witness John gives us to who Jesus is. Over five days we'll walk through the water and the blood, the testimony of the Spirit, the legal weight of three witnesses in agreement, and the greater testimony of God himself. We'll close the week where John does, with the simple, weighty truth that whoever has the Son has life.
The Threefold Witness | 1 John 5:6-12 | Walking in the Light
This week's message continues the "Walking in the Light" series through 1 John, turning to 1 John 5:6-12. John builds a case for who Jesus is, grounded not in feeling or speculation but in real, historical evidence. Water and blood point to Jesus' baptism and his death on the cross, both concrete events that confirm he came in the flesh. Alongside these, the Spirit testifies to the same truth, working faith in the hearts of God's people. These three witnesses agree, and John reminds his readers that this kind of corroborating testimony was already understood to carry weight. The passage closes with the heart of the matter: whoever has the Son has life, and whoever does not have the Son does not have life. This message offers both assurance to the believer and a clear call to anyone still holding back.
Victory That Overcomes the World | 1 John 5:1-5 | This Week’s Devotions
This week we sit with one of the most compact passages in all of 1 John. In just five verses, John ties together everything he has been building toward: faith, love, and obedience all flow from the same source, the new birth God works in those who believe. We will trace that thread day by day. Monday looks at what it means to be born of God. Tuesday asks how that new birth shows up in love for other believers. Wednesday sits with a truth that runs against the grain, God's commandments are not a burden to carry but a family resemblance to bear. Thursday and Friday turn to the heart of the passage: everyone born of God overcomes the world, and the victory is simple faith in Jesus as the Son of God. You are not fighting to see if you can win. You are fighting from a win already secured.
Victory that Overcomes the World | 1 John 5:1-5 | Walking in the Light
Everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. This week's message in the "Walking in the Light" series looks at 1 John 5:1-5, where John draws a tight line from faith to love to obedience to victory. Genuine faith in Jesus produces love for the family of God. That love proves itself not in warm feelings but in obedience, and obedience isn't a burden for those who have been made new. The passage closes with the confident declaration that the outcome for those born of God was never in question, the victory has already been won through faith in Jesus, the Son of God.
The Visible Evidence of the Invisible God | 1 John 4:7-21 | This Week’s Devotions
Sunday's sermon asked a simple but staggering question: how does an invisible God become known? This week's devotions follow that thread through five days of Scripture. We'll see God declare his own character to Moses, watch Paul ground love in the historical fact of the cross, sit with Philip's request to see the Father, learn how perfect love casts out fear, and land on John's challenge that love for God must show up as love for the brother or sister right in front of us.
The Visible Evidence of the Invisible God | 1 John 4:7-21 | Walking in the Light
No one has ever seen God. That's the plain claim John makes in 1 John 4:12, and it raises an honest question: how can an invisible God be known? This week's message from 1 John 4:7-21 walks through John's answer. The love of God was first made visible in the sending of His Son, whose sacrifice on the cross defines what real love looks like. That same love is now meant to become visible through the people of God, shaping how believers treat one another, especially those who are hardest to love. And the love that takes root in us has a second effect: it removes the fear of judgment, replacing it with confidence rooted in the finished work of Christ. Watch this week's sermon, "The Visible Evidence of the Invisible God," part of the Walking in the Light series through 1 John.
Listening to the Voice of Truth | 1 John 4:1-6 | This Week’s Devotions
This week's devotions dig deeper into Sunday's message, "Listening to the Voice of Truth", from 1 John 4:1-6. John tells the church not to believe every spirit but to test them, and he gives a simple way to do it: does the teaching confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? That test carried real weight in the first century, and it still does now, in a world with more voices competing for our attention than John could have imagined.
Listening to the Voice of Truth | 1 John 4:1-6 | Walking in the Light
Think about the difference between being acquainted with someone and truly knowing them well enough to recognize their voice anywhere, even in a crowded room or over a bad connection. That kind of recognition doesn't come from information. It comes from familiarity.
The Message from the Beginning | 1 John 3:11-24 | This Week’s Devotions
This week's devotions follow up on Sunday's message from 1 John 3:11-24, where John points believers back to the oldest command there is: love one another. Each day works through a different angle of that call, starting with Cain's warning, moving through what it means to have passed from death to life, and landing on the confidence that belongs to those who love in deed and truth rather than word alone. The readings pair 1 John with passages from across Scripture, Genesis, the Gospels, Romans, Hebrews, to help you see how deep this thread runs. If you missed Sunday's sermon or want to revisit it before diving into this week's devotions, you can watch it here.
The Message from the Beginning | 1 John 3:11-24 | Walking in the Light
We expect things to get better with time. Cameras, phones, and televisions have all gone through version after version, each one solving a real problem the last one had. It's natural to think everything works that way, that the old version is due for an update. But in 1 John 3:11-24, John points back to something that has never changed since the beginning: the call to love one another. Using Cain as a warning and the cross as the standard, John shows the difference between love that's just talk and love that costs something. He closes by showing how that kind of love settles a heart that feels far from God. This week we walk through what real, sacrificial love looks like, and why it was never in need of an upgrade.
Purifying Hope | 1 John 2:28-3:10 | This Week’s Devotions
This week's devotional walks alongside the sermon Purifying Hope from 1 John 2:28–3:10, tracing the thread John lays down across five days: adoption, hope, purification, sin, and the mission of Christ. Day one sits with the wonder of being called children of God, drawing on Romans 8 and Galatians 4 to explore what that adoption actually means. Day two turns to the groaning anticipation of what we will one day be. Day three lands on the hinge of the whole passage, the hope that purifies. Days four and five work through what sin really is and why the Son of God appeared to destroy it. Each day's Scripture reading and reflection questions are meant to be worked through slowly, ideally alongside this week's sermon, which walks through the full passage in more depth. Take your time with the questions below. They're meant to search, not just inform.
Purifying Hope | 1 John 2:28-3:10 | Walking in the Light
What does it actually look like to belong to God's family? This week's message in the "Walking in the Light" series through 1 John takes up that question directly. John moves from a call to abide in Christ with confidence, not shame, into the striking reality that believers are already called children of God — heirs, not strangers hoping to be let in. From there, the passage turns practical: the hope of seeing Christ face to face is meant to actively purify a life right now, and the evidence of true sonship is a life marked by pursued righteousness and love for one another. The message closes with a question worth sitting with all week: does the hope of Christ's appearing actually change how you're living today?
What Are You Trusting? | Psalm 52 | Dutch Festival Evening Service
Psalm 52 opens with betrayal. Doeg the Edomite reported a priest's kindness to David, and the result was the massacre of an entire town. Out of that story, David asks a question that reaches far past his own century: what are you actually trusting in?
Abide in Him | 1 John 2:18-27 | This Week’s Devotions
This week's devotional turns to a passage that names something believers have always had to reckon with: opposition to the truth does not only come from outside the church, it can rise up from within it. John's readers had already watched people walk away from the faith, and he doesn't soften what that departure revealed. But he doesn't leave them there either. He reminds them of what they already possess, the anointing of the Spirit and the truth they were taught from the beginning, and calls them to a single, steady response: abide.
Abide in Him | 1 John 2:18-27 | Walking in the Light
This week's message in the "Walking in the Light" series moves into 1 John 2:18-27, a passage that names a hard reality: opposition to the truth about Jesus doesn't only come from outside the church, it can come from within. John calls the false teachers "antichrists," not as a title reserved for some future figure, but as anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Against that backdrop, he reminds believers of what they already have, the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the truth they were taught from the beginning, and calls them to a single response: abide. Stay connected to the truth of the gospel, and it will hold you all the way to the finish.
The Passing Shadow of Worldly Desire | 1 John 2:15–17 | This Week’s Devotions
Each week in our "Walking in the Light" series through 1 John, we pair the Sunday sermon with five days of devotional readings designed to help you sit longer with the passage and carry it into your week.
This week Pastor Mark preached from 1 John 2:15–17, "The Passing Shadow of Worldly Desire." John's warning not to love the world is not a call to retreat from creation or culture. It is a call to see clearly — to recognize that the world and its desires are already passing away, and to orient our lives toward the only pursuit that abides forever.
The five devotions below work through John's three-part diagnosis of worldly desire — the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life — before closing with the eschatological hope of verse 17. Each day includes a Scripture reading, a reflection, and three questions for personal examination.
If you missed Sunday's sermon or would like to listen again before working through the devotions, you can find it here.
The Passing Shadow of Worldly Desire | 1 John 2:15-17 | Walking in the Light
John does not leave his readers guessing about what he means by the things of the world. In 1 John 2:15–17 he names them plainly: the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. These are not merely the obvious sins. They are the respectable ones — comfort, the itch to acquire, comparison and envy, and the arrogance of self-sufficiency that forgets we are creatures and not gods.