Nashville First Baptist Church

Have you ever been up in the middle of the night with a problem you couldn't set down? Nehemiah rode around the broken walls of Jerusalem at night, counting stones and telling no one — and most of us know something about that. This message is an overview of Ezra-Nehemiah, a hundred years of God's people walking back into a ruin and trying to put the pieces back together.

The first sound in the Bible's great rebuilding story isn't a hammer or a prayer meeting. It's God quietly stirring the heart of a pagan king. As we begin a new season in Ezra and Nehemiah, we look at why these neglected books matter for a church that needs reviving, and it's a story about seasons of waning and rebuilding. Ezra 1 shows us three things about God. He keeps his promises on his own...

We live in what's been called a self-defined age — an age that assumes we get to make truth up for ourselves. But you cannot run a hospital, a courtroom, or a marriage on "my truth," and a faith you assemble a vibe here and a verse there has no grandmother and no grandchildren. This week, Dr. Thomas West looks at Paul's final letter to Timothy and the idea that no one in Scripture produces trut...

Jesus talked about money more than almost anything else, and never once because heaven was short on funds. In Matthew 6, He treats your treasure as a paper trail that leads straight to your heart — and then flips the way we assume it works, showing that the heart follows the treasure, not the other way around. This message walks through what Jesus teaches about treasure: God owns everything, he...

The one trust you are spending right now, this very second, is one you cannot pause or bank. In week two of Stewards, Dr. Thomas West turns to the parable of the talents and a master who hands over his property, goes away, and returns to settle accounts. The message sits with a hard question: what makes a servant who returns everything he was given still get called wicked and lazy?

We count almost everything — steps, calories, followers, the weeks until school starts — but rarely the one thing Moses prayed we would learn to number: our days. In the oldest prayer in the Bible, the God who made time and stands outside it hands us a way to live inside it well. This week opens a new series on stewardship, beginning not with money but with the hours already in your hands. Time...

This message pauses to mark how far God has carried his church — and where he's leading next. From two words Israel carved into a stone comes a pattern for honest remembering: real progress, real dependence. The journey moves from twenty years of lament to a memorial raised at the very coordinates of defeat. Then Isaiah 58 turns from mirror to map, asking what kind of church God strongly suppor...

Everybody is selling a secret, and nobody is giving one away — but a man chained to a Roman soldier writes to his friends and says he has learned one, then hands it over in a thank-you note. This final message in Philippians looks at the contentment Paul found in a prison cell: not the absence of desire, but a heart so satisfied by Christ that it stops grasping. Paul learned it in two classroom...

The thing most likely standing between you and joy this morning isn't your failure — it's your success. Writing from a prison cell, Paul audits everything he was proudest of, and the write-off where his assets became liabilities the day he met Christ. Along the way, it asks a plain question — what are you still holding onto to prove you're okay? The answer turns out to be a trade: put your own ...

A rushed "how are you?" in a hallway becomes an unexpected test: will we actually stop and care? In this message from Philippians 2:19-30, Dr. Scott Harris looks at two men whose lives put flesh on the gospel they believed — genuine concern, costly generosity, and risk-taking love. He traces a remarkable circle of care running through an ancient church, where everyone gives, everyone receives, ...

There is a particular exhaustion that the most capable people carry, and trying harder only makes it heavier. In Philippians 2:12-18, Paul writes four words to a tired church that take the weight off our backs: God is working in you. This message follows that one truth through three places it changes everything — the pressure to change ourselves, the habit of grumbling under the strain, and the...

Working through Philippians 2:1–11, one of the earliest hymns the church ever sang, Dr. Thomas West traces how Christ ran that whole instinct in reverse: refusing the glory that was already his and emptying himself all the way down to a cross. Then one word turns the story over — therefore. This is a look at why the way up runs straight through the way down.

Dr. Thomas West | Philippians 1:12-30 Everyone in the room walked in already finishing one sentence: for me, to live is ___. This message works through Philippians 1:12-30, where Paul answers that question from a prison cell — living is Christ, and dying is gain. Three times the world comes to take his joy: his freedom, his life, and his church. Three times it leaves empty-handed, because his j...

Dr. Thomas West | Philippians 1:1-11 The most joy-soaked letter in the New Testament was written from a prison cell. In the opening verses of Philippians, Paul thanks God for a church he helped plant and points to where lasting joy actually comes from. Drawing a line between first-century Philippi and modern Nashville, this message sits with the question that hums beneath so much of our strivi...

Most of the moments that change everything don't announce themselves — from the inside, they look like an ordinary morning. In Acts 13, an ordinary church in Antioch is simply worshiping and fasting when the Spirit speaks and sets the global mission of the church in motion. Dr. Thomas West's message asks what a Spirit-filled church is actually for, tracing the marks of the kind of church the Sp...

In this message from Acts 6, Dr. Scott Harris looks at how the early church faced that tension head-on—taking the complaint seriously, sharing leadership, and restoring unity instead of splitting apart. It's a picture of what he calls the beautiful mess of ministry, where the Spirit works through both supernatural and practical means. Along the way, we consider why caring for the vulnerable has...

Dr. Thomas West walks through how a single afternoon at the temple gate previews what Jesus is still doing through his people. The sermon presses into the questions the text asks of every life: who is your king, what's coming back, what did you come for, and who is at your gate? A word for graduating seniors, exhausted parents, and anyone whose hope has shrunk to fit a May calendar.

Dr. Thomas West draws out four marks of a Spirit-filled church from Acts 2:42-47, each anchored to one controlling word: devoted. This is not a checklist to grade yourself against, but a description of what Christ produces through His Spirit in people He has bought with His blood. What Jesus began, the Spirit continues — and what the Spirit continues, He transforms.

This week in Acts 2, four answers emerge to the question at Christianity's center: not what it does for you, not what flavor you grew up with, but what the thing itself actually is. None of the answers are comfortable, and none of them let anyone stay where they are. If your faith has felt small or tired lately — or if you've walked away from what you thought Christianity was — this sermon is w...

Today we gather at Pentecost — where wind roared, fire rested, and ordinary people were filled with the living God.

Discover that the day Jesus left, He gave you three gifts most Christians have never fully unwrapped: His presence. His power. His promise.

Today, we launch a new eight-week series through the book of Acts — What Jesus Began. It is the story of the Holy Spirit taking everything Jesus started and refusing to let it stop. It is the story of a movement that has crossed continents, survived empires, outlasted every opposition, and arrived — still moving, still unhindered — in this city, in this room, on this morning.

From John 20, Senior Pastor Thomas West, examines the evidence together — historically and personally — meet the man who held out the longest and confessed the most completely, and arrive at the moment this entire Gospel was written to produce: a verdict on the most important question: Who is Jesus Christ?

This morning, we arrive at the final sign in John’s Gospel — the biggest one. Not healing a sick man. Not restoring sight. A man four days dead. And Jesus is on his way. Join Senior Pastor Thomas West as we look at John 11.

In John 9, we encounter Jesus as the Light of the World—the One who doesn’t just explain our darkness, but steps into it. This isn’t just a story about physical sight. It’s about the deeper need we all share: to make sense of our lives, our suffering, and our next steps.

Dr. Scott Harris is preaching today with a sermon, “Jesus Is Your True Bread” from John 6:1-15.

In John 5:1-15, this sign points to something deeper than physical healing. It exposes the truth about our condition and the only One who can truly restore us. We cannot heal ourselves. Our systems and traditions cannot save us. Only Jesus has the authority to make us whole.

In John 4, Jesus meets a desperate father and grows his fragile faith from a spark into a steady fire. This sign isn’t just about healing a child—it’s about how Jesus draws us through need, grows small faith, and invites us to trust His word before we see His work.

What if the same Jesus who fills your table with joy is also the one who flips it over? Jesus doesn’t disrupt your life because He’s against you. He clears what distracts you because He’s for you. He removes obstacles so you can truly meet God and find lasting joy.

This Sunday, Senior Pastor Dr. Thomas West begins the series leading up to Easter called READING THE SIGNS. Learn how Jesus reveals Himself through the Gospel of John. Today we look at Jesus' first miracle, turning water into wine.

What if being a Christian isn’t about what you believe, but who you’re becoming? In Matthew 4, Jesus doesn’t invite people to admire Him—He calls them to follow Him, be formed by Him, and join Him on mission. Discipleship isn’t an optional add-on to faith; it is the Christian life.

Senior Pastor Dr. Thomas West's sermon is from Colossians 1:15–20 and the theme is “First Things First.”

Pastor Thomas teaches from Acts 2:42–47, reminding us that the church is not defined by a building, but by a devoted people—formed through God’s Word, prayer, fellowship, and shared life together. Note: This message was recorded Friday night and rebroadcast on Sunday due to weather conditions.

What if the greatest threat to your faith isn’t rebellion—but neglect? In Deuteronomy 30, Moses reminds us that life and death are set before us, and the Word of God is not far away. It’s near, accessible, and meant to lead us to Jesus, who is our life.

What if the problem with our prayer lives isn’t discipline or technique—but the way we see God? Jesus teaches us that prayer comes alive when we stop performing and start trusting our Father in heaven, who is already at work bringing His kingdom to earth.

A clear discipleship posture is drawn from 1 Samuel 3: hearing, trusting, and obeying God’s voice. In a world full of noise and competing voices, Scripture reminds us that God still speaks, that His voice can be known, and that life is formed as we learn to respond with faith and obedience.

Senior Pastor Dr. Thomas West covers Ecclesiastes 3:1-15. Scripture reminds us that there is a season for everything under heaven, and that God is present and purposeful in every one of them.

The message, Bread from Heaven, explores a surprising claim at the heart of Christmas: God does not merely give help from a distance. He comes near and gives Himself.

Senior Pastor Thomas West explores how God leads us from grumbling to joy and how Christ’s arrival makes that journey possible for each of us.

Dr. Thomas West, Senior Pastor preaches from Exodus 13:19; Luke 1:68-72; and Galatians 4:4-5. We learn about the God who hears, the God who remembers, the God who knows, and the God who steps in to save at precisely the right moment.

Today, we open the season under the banner "When Heaven Came Down," remembering that God’s light breaks into our darkness long before we can see it. Our guest preacher today is Mike Glenn.

After months of watching God deliver His people, dwell with His people, and declare His glory, we pause to ask what these truths now mean for us. Do we want His presence more than His blessings?

In a world full of competing stories about who we are and what will save us, we’ll be reminded that the Bible doesn’t just give us a set of religious ideas—it tells the true story of the whole world, and invites us to find our place in it.

Today we look at Exodus 25. After all the plagues, parting seas, and thunder on the mountain, God gives Moses blueprints — not for another miracle, but for a meeting place. God is saying, “Build me a space… because I intend to live with you.”

In this message, Senior Pastor Thomas West explains that the Law acts like a mirror: it reveals who God is, exposes who we are not, and points us to the only One who can make us whole. The God who shook the mountain has come near in Jesus Christ, who perfectly kept the Law for lawbreakers like us.

Today’s message is titled “Don’t Waste Your Wilderness.” Senior Pastor Thomas West describes how God met His people with manna—bread from heaven—in a barren place and why that matters for our lives right now.

Discipleship Pastor Bryan Barley leads us through Exodus 18, where Moses learns that freedom requires wisdom, not just miracles.

Senior Pastor Thomas West continues our journey through Exodus with a message called Way Maker. The God who drew Israel out of Egypt still draws people out of fear, shame, and sin—into freedom, worship, and mission.