Author: Tim Nguyen

The Book of Hebrews – July 13, 2025

Read the passage: Hebrews 3:7-15

This week’s passage zones in and repeats, over and over again, this idea about a hardened heart. A broken sensor for our spiritual lives.
Now, because this is our key idea today, let’s try to be clear about it. What is a hardened heart?

In this passage, we see the Israelites being used as an example where they saw the power and presence and words of God for 40 years, and they still rejected him. They rebelled against him. That is a hardened heart. To be face to face with the obvious existence, power, goodness and instructions of God, and to be unreasonably stubborn against it. To reject. To not follow it. You are unaffected and unmoved by God.

But there’s something deeper going on with a hardened heart than just being stubborn.

We see it in the parallelism in our passage.

  • That none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
  • None of you has a sinful (evil), unbelieve heart that turns away from the living God.

See, a hardened heart is a whole being posture that is turned away from God because it is turned towards something else; and is therefore unaffected by what he has to say or offer. That is rejection. That is rebellion. That is a broken spiritual sensor.

I believe that for Christians in our day and time, the hardening of the heart is one of the most common and dangerous pitfalls for us. Because we’re not so much angrily maliciously warring against God, we just start looking at other shiny things, and slowly de-prioritize God and forget about him.

But in our passage; a hardened rebellious heart is the very thing that keeps the Israelites from God’s promises of rest. Hardened hearts have the ability to keep us from the promises that God has in store for us.

That is terrifying. Because that’s where life is. That’s where joy is. That’s where purpose and meaning and satisfaction awaits us.

This is why our passage pleads with us, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

But how?

That’s our focus today. What keeps our hearts from hardening?

Our answer we find in our passage is a focus on:

  1. Truth, not deceit.
  2. We; not just me.
  3. Now; not later.

The Monarchy – June 15, 2025

Read the Passage: 2 Kings 6:8-23

I think most of life’s regrets, mistakes and even stress comes down to this: What we see and what we fail to see.

In Proverbs 14:12, it claims that “There is a way that seems right to a man (they see it as good), but its end is the way to death.”

This passage is talking about a spiritual blindness that keeps us from living well. Living right with God and others.

So how do we avoid the way of regret, destruction and emotional chaos?In other words, how do we live right?

Answer: We must see right, because…

  1. Spiritual blindness leads to; Stupidity.
  2. Spiritual nearsightedness leads to; Anxiety
  3. Spiritual sight leads to; Serenity.

The Upper Room – May 18, 2025

Read the Passage: John 15:1-17

(The following summary was generated by AI, with edits from a human being)

In this sermon, Pastor Tim conveys a message on the importance of returning to a childlike, dependent faith in Jesus, characterized by truly abiding in Him. Using John 15’s metaphor of Jesus as the “true vine” and believers as the branches, Pastor Tim explores what it means to live a Jesus-abiding life through an intimate connection with Christ. This includes a willingness to accept pruning — the painful process of God removing unhealthy parts of our lives to foster spiritual growth and fruitfulness.

This week’s message also emphasizes that a genuine Christian life must be rooted in abiding (or permanently residing) in Jesus, which is core to producing spiritual fruit reflecting Christ’s character. Prayer is highlighted as a primary activity to foster this connection.

We are called to examine our habits, to cultivate those that stir affection for Jesus and cut off those that drain love or joy, embracing the ongoing process of spiritual transformation through love, pruning, fruitfulness, and intimate relationship with God.

Easter – April 20, 2025

Romans 6:1-14

Happy Easter everyone!

Now for those who don’t know what Easter is even about, I have really good news for you. It’s much more than Cadbury Mini Eggs going on sale soon, though that is a huge bonus.

Easter is the celebration of the Empty Tomb after Jesus died. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus! And there are so many lessons and truths to ponder on but today, I want to focus on the really good news on how the resurrection offers us true FREEDOM.

The resurrection of Jesus gives us:

1. Freedom FROM Sin
2. Freedom FOR New Life.

The Book of Judges – March 30, 2025

Judges 8:22-33

How does “Successful” become “Dreadful”?

Successful becomes Dreadful when there is a disconnect between:

1. The head and the heart
2. The everyday and the eternal

We’ll be using a man named Gideon as our case study! But specifically, we’re looking at his post-success life. So just a quick recap on Gideon’s life. Gideon is one of the judges of Israel, but he isn’t your typical hero. When we first meet him, he’s literally hiding in a winepress trying to keep his food safe from his enemies. And then an angel pops up and calls him to rescue Israel because they have been dominated by the Midianites for 7 years! But Gideon is a coward. Full of doubts.

He asks God for miraculous signs, twice! And God is gracious and gives it to him. When Gideon said yes to God’s calling, God adds a plot twist and says that instead of 30 thousand men that Gideon had, God reduces the army’s number to 300 and they go into battle with torches, jars and trumpets. And the crazy thing is, they win! They win against 135 000 soldiers (Judges 8:10). And the people of his nation, the Israelites, are so so happy! And they try to raise Gideon as their leader and king. And that’s where our Bible passage begins.

Letters to the Corinthians – March 2, 2025

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

I want to read to you the chorus of one of the songs in the movie “The Greatest Showman”:

“When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me.”

How empowering. How validating. It makes me so proud to be myself! A lot of us have asked ourselves, what kind of person am I? What kind of person do I want to be? Well, according to this chorus, just look deep within yourself and that’s you! That’s who you’re meant to be! You should express yourself! Those interests. Those desires. All those things that make you unique. Just go live it out!

Now, this idea is great if you’re like Albert Einstein or something, and all you care about is advancing science. But what if deep down inside, you’re a jerk? What if you’re struggling with perverse fantasies or addiction? Can you still say, “I make no apologies, this is me”? Or the bigger question is, are you hopeless to remain this way because this happens to be who you’re meant to be?

No. There is hope. You can change, or I’d even argue, you are MEANT to be changed. That’s God’s plan for you.

Today we’re talking about spiritual formation, how your spirit is formed. EVERYONE goes through a spiritual formation; everyone has been formed and is BEING formed.

So who you are, your motivations, the way you think, what you desire, what you NATURALLY do, these are all results of being spiritually formed.

Now, as Christians, God has an intended DIRECTION for our formation! And spoiler, that’s towards Christlikeness, becoming like Jesus. And this idea is all over the Bible but I want to give a framework of Christian Spiritual Formation that we specifically see in today’s passage.

The Book of Joshua – January 26, 2025

Joshua 6:17-19 & Joshua 7

There’s something in all of our lives that is bringing all kinds of death. It’s invisible. It’s tolerated. It’s called sin.

I know sin is a loaded word with a lot of negative associations. So for this sermon, let’s have sin simply mean doing things our way instead of God’s way. It’s simple, but it captures how sin separates us from God’s best: His love, purpose, and goodness.

Sin spreads, contaminates, and destroys lives — individually and communally. We often don’t realize how gross and dangerous it is until it’s too late.

This is the lesson God teaches the Israelites in Joshua 7. They were invited by God to walk closely with him to change the world for better and they were actually experiencing it until hidden sin came into the picture.

The big question we’re focusing on today is:

What do we need to grasp about sin in order to walk closely with God?

To walk closely with God, we need to grasp:

  1. The seriousness of sin.
  2. The situation behind sin.
  3. The strategies against sin.

The Book of Joshua – December 29, 2024

Joshua 1:2-9

BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS.

The Bible isn’t like us, it doesn’t just repeat things just to hit a certain word count. Its writing style is very efficient and thought out… and so for it to repeat 3 times in this week’s passage is like highlighting it and putting it in bold!

Why does God emphasize this so much? I think there is a pastoral aspect to his words here. I mean just a few verses before ours, Moses is literally declared the greatest man of God ever. And for Joshua to take over, those are huge shoes to fill. I’m sure Joshua felt all sorts of underqualified and imposter syndrome.

But also, as we’ll continue in the Joshua story for the next few weeks, we see that the path set out for Joshua is not easy. It requires strength and courage. But that’s not just for Joshua. That’s for all Christians. Following God isn’t an easy walk in the park. Whether you’ve been a Christian for decades or you are new to the faith, following God comes with doing hard things. To say no to our desires. To say yes to love and sacrifice. And so that’s why God tells us: Be strong and courageous, because that’s what it takes to get us thinking beyond ourselves. Be strong and courageous because the natural thing to do is to fall into fear and doubt. Be strong and courageous, because it is so easy to believe the worst about ourselves, the world, and even God. Be strong and courageous.