Mark 9:14-29

Mark 9:14-29

“(I)f there’s one thing I want you to understand from this message today - one thing that’s more important than anything else I’ll speak this morning - I want you to catch who the father came to see with his son:

‘Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has an evil spirit.’ (v.17)

No matter what your expertise is in life, no matter how gifted a pastor or counselor or friend you are, when someone comes to you for advice or help, they are not coming to you. They are coming to Jesus. They are asking him for help. You are only a messenger. You are only a conduit. If you don’t give them Jesus, you are at best being a hindrance.”

Mark 9:1-13

Mark 9:1-13

“He is changed in body, transfigured. And this is the english equivalent of the original greek word metamorphao, where we get the word metamorphosis…In that moment Jesus is recognizably himself, and yet totally altered. The shroud of reality is temporarily lifted and Peter, James and John see Jesus as he truly is. I think it’s really important we understand that Jesus didn’t just suddenly start glowing all bright, but that the radiance, the blinding white brilliance, the beaming bodily intensity that is so bright that it actually makes his clothing luminescent, is his natural state. He is light! Because he is himself all consuming light. What they are seeing is his natural state, so what they see the rest of the time is a glory hidden, only his human nature is visible…The rest of the time Jesus is shrouded, his glory covered, radiance veiled, just as Moses had to be veiled after he had met with the Lord.”

Romans 11:11-36

Romans 11:11-36

“What will motivate us to persevere in faith?: ‘the kindness and the severity of God.’ The kindness of God cannot be truly appreciated as a gift of his grace unless the severity of God is contemplated as the just penalty for forsaking him…Although our salvation flows out of God’s gracious and unconditional election, this does not mean that we are merely passive recipients of that final salvation. We are called to live by faith; and if we choose disobedience and unbelief, we cannot expect any better of an outcome than Israel has experienced.”

Romans 11:1-10

Romans 11:1-10

“Throughout, we need to recognize that what Paul says here is not only true of Jewish people, but also gives us an example of the faithful character of God and his promises which can be relied upon by all believers today…Like you and I, Paul was not more likely to choose faith and obedience. He was the least likely to convert, from the least likely of people. God makes this clear through the Scriptures, that Israel was not chosen for their righteousness but for their weakness. This is God’s modus operandi, his M.O…They were not chosen based on God’s foreknowledge - something which the Bible never says…but they were chosen by grace…Now church, we must defend this doctrine of unconditional election so vigorously, because the denial compromises the biblical gospel, that justification is by grace alone through faith alone. The Protestant Reformation was propelled by people coming to believe in and preach passionately these doctrines of grace…”

Romans 10:14-21

Pastor Josh continues to teach us through Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:

“There is a responsibility and a necessity under the sovereignty of God, to preach the gospel and to send preachers. It is defiant insubordination to say that we will just ‘trust God to save whomever he wills’. He has already establishede that he will save through our obedience…Human responsibility and divine sovereignty are not played off against each other so that one nullifies the other; instead human responsibility is always subordinate to the sovereignty of God without ‘emptying human choices of their authenticity or validity’…”

Romans 10:5-13

Romans 10:5-13

"The clear message is that saving righteousness is a work of God alone.  What did you do to accomplish your salvation?  Did you go up to heaven and send Jesus down to save us?  No?  Maybe you went down to the dead to raise Christ up from that place?  Perhaps not.  Did you bring the word of God near to you?  Preach the gospel to yourself?  Did you place the word of faith in your own mouth and circumcise your own heart? No!  God has taken the initiative.  He sent his Son and raised him from the dead.  He gives new hearts to understand, eyes to see and ears to hear.  There is no one else in heaven or on earth who could do it. Since these things have been done by God, our response is not to do anything to gain righteousness, only to respond in God-given faith.

2 John

2 John

“…(W)e very much tend to view the things of God as something that we simply need to fit somewhere into our schedules, not realizing that it is the things of God that our whole life is all about. And that these things far from merely needing to fit into our schedules, rather they should determine our schedule. Our priorites are often so inverted towards the common things and concerns of this world - even good things - that we fail to realize that we are actually relegating God to the margins…”

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The Church as Christ Will Find Her (Matthew 25:31-46)

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The Church as Christ Will Find Her (Matthew 25:31-46)

“We worship God by rightly enjoying what He has provided and sharing it equally with the community. It is given to the community on God’s behalf…Will Christ return to find that we have cared for his brothers and sisters? Have we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, visited the shut-in, and provided for the one who has been persecuted and imprisoned…No one can give anything to God. He does not need our stuff. But what we do to the least of his disciples, we do it to Jesus…”

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