Tune in to listen to Pastor Leighton’s short Christmas message adjoining the Christmas Program this year, regaling us of the simplicity and meekness of the King of Kings coming to be with us in the incarnation of Christ.
Colossians 3:1-17
“These are the attributes that we are called to grow into, as the Spirit of God is daily renovating our lives. Paul tells us to embrace forgiveness in all things, and most importantly to put on love…at first glance, these things sound great. And they are the types of scriptures we like to get printed on our coffee cups. But when we actually try to live out love and forgiveness - particularly to people that hurt us - we quickly see that this can be quite costly…”
Mark 12:18-27
“Now the piece you need to know, the block that’s missing in all this is that, besides denying the resurrection and angel and spirit, the Sadducees only believed that the books of Moses were authoritative, so just the Torah. Meaning they only looked to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy as scripture!…Christian, herein lies one of the biggest threats to the modern church. The dropping inconvenient verses, the constant shaping and reshaping of doctrine to suit what we as humans like, and the refusal to preach the whole gospel of God. And it’s rampant….Friends, itching ears have no problem finding smooth talking lips, for every group of people that just wanna hear easy soothing bible stuff, there are a dozen preachers and so called bible teachers ready to dole out such sap. And the world isn’t getting any better…”
1 Kings 18
Hosea 8:1-9:9
“Many think they know God, but do not because their knowledge is derived from human opinions and is not informed by the whole counsel of God’s word…So what is our application today? We have not (to my knowledge) bowed to a golden calf or applied to Egypt or Assyria for political gain…God is gracious to us church. He does not allow other things to fulfill the desire that we have for him who is the giver of all good things…These are the things we need to check ourselves in: Am I content with what God has provided through all the means he has granted to be at my disposal? Is discontentment revealing that I am not finding my joy, hope and fulfillment in Christ? When we look to other functional saviors, it reveals the deeper heart issue of things we have not truly believed in the gospel. What is it about Christ that you have not found to be good? As Augustine famously wrote: You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Hosea 6:7-7:17
“Israel was in danger of losing - and indeed had lost their unique identity as God’s people…The inhabitants of the land are characterized by infighting, foolishly seeking foreign help, priestly plots, negligent leadership and false repentance. These have left Yahweh with no recourse but to announce the advent of his judgement - but he does so with great pain and no joy…At many times, and in many ways, Israel has rebelled against God and broken his covenant. They have been faithless and loveless, both to God and each other. But all of these things he would forgive. What is damning, what will ultimately result in total judgment, is what they do not do: they do not confess and repent…The root of idolatry is believing a lie about God. Israel has believed the lie that they can sin without consequence….
And so today we must ask: What lies have we believed about God? In what ways have we accepted false teaching or just filled in the blanks about God when we haven’t been taught the Scriptures.”
Hosea 5:8-6:6
“…For God to say ‘I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings,’ is not to say that he no longer required obedience in the sacrifice and burnt offerings of the old covenant, but that those things had become distorted when they replaced knowledge of God and the real practice of ḥesed - the steadfast love of God. Without this relational aspect of their worship, their rituals became transactional or coercive towards God; a means of inducing him to act. This was one of the ways that Canaanite religion had corrupted the worship of God, that the worshippers thought that they could relate to God through sacrifice in order to obtain what they wanted without the loving and compassionate heart that comes from a transformational life with God.”
Mark 12:13-17
“Our passage today is found right in the middle of this week in Jerusalem. Having been put in their place by the parable of the wicked tenants, the elites now send wave upon wave of their most intelligent representatives, their most adept thinkers to defeat Jesus in his understanding of the law. Mark chapter 3 tells us they just really wanna kill him, but I think it shows their pride and arrogance that they should want to intellectually humiliate him first. As in their day, and perhaps even now, the highest calling of Jewish wisdom was to be able to know the law and be able to defend it. So to all onlookers, it becomes no small thing that this formally uneducated man from the sticks of Galilee, would even engage the ruling’s lead lawyers, let alone best them at their zenith. But in the next three or four interactions that’s exactly how things play out. Jesus meets the Jewish leadership day after day, in unfair argument, and beats them on their own turf.”
Hosea 4:10-5:7
“This is our second foray into the section we visit this morning in Hosea 4:1-5:7. Last time we ended with v.4:9, like people, like priest, which for Israel was a disaster - as we saw and will continue to see in our passage - but for those adopted as God’s people under the new covenant, like people, like priest is a great and eternal hope! Because our Great and High Priest is Christ Jesus himself. We are ‘predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son.’ (Romans 8:29)”
Mark 11:27-12:12
“Here’s the crassest way I can put it: the rulers could no longer make money at the temple if John’s giving forgiveness away for free. The temple was already a pile of rubble, the custodians just didn’t know it yet…The old covenant systems had to be fully dismantled, because the coming Messiah would be bringing such a radically different covenant, that no structure from before could stand. And this Gospel is so beautiful…”