August 20, 2023 |
Psalm 27:1-11 |
recovery
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Jesus says that gentleness is the path to greatness and that meekness is the path to blessing. Yet meekness is probably one of the least admired qualities in America. We admire strength, not humility. We admire those who take charge, not those who surrender control to God. This might partly be because we don’t understand what meekness is.
In David’s Psalm 37, he instructed the people of God that living meekly, surrendering control to God, leads to a life of blessing. We can surrender our control to God to experience His blessing.
August 13, 2023 |
Matthew 5:4, John 11:17-44 |
beatitudes, grief, recovery
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For many of us, we don’t know how to grieve. We don’t know how to mourn. So, we just bottle it up. We deny it. Or we try to medicate it with booze, or pills, or overeating, or over-working, or materialism or… But the pain remains. Unresolved grief can cause us to give up on happiness.
The blessed life, the supremely happy life, is ours when we are willing to admit that we’re powerless to change, to overcome our hurts, habits, and hangups. And that we need to mourn, grieve, and trust Jesus as the only One truly able to comfort and heal us. In the gospel of John, Jesus called those who were grieving the death of Lazarus to believe in Him as the only One who could truly comfort their grief and turn their mourning into blessing. We can release our grief to Jesus to receive His comfort.
August 6, 2023 |
Matthew 5:1-3; Romans 7:15-25 |
beatitudes, recovery
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We all have problems. We have hurts, habits, and hangups that we can’t overcome. It’s like something inside of us is broken and it leaves us powerless to change. We’re held captive and can’t get free!
How are you doing at overcoming these hurts, habits, and hangups? For most of us, no matter how hard we try, we find ourselves powerless to break free, so we continue to be held captive by them.
The apostle Paul wrote about these feelings of brokenness, of feeling powerless to change. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he described how admitting our brokenness can move us toward God’s blessing. We can see how admitting our brokenness can move us toward God’s blessing.
Do you remember the Three Rs of Learning from elementary school – Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic? The three Rs of Parenting are Receive, Raise, Release. We all feel unqualified at times to raise our children, but God’s Word has a lot to say about children and parenting and it is a source of help for us.
July 30, 2023 |
1 Thessalonians 2:7-12 |
parenting
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Have you noticed that every child is unique? No two are the same. And as they grow, they change. So the parenting style that seemed effective when they were small, doesn’t work when they’re older. These differences need different parenting styles. Godly parents recognize their call to be leaders who make disciples. If we want to be effective, we have to match our parenting style to every child’s situation.
In his first letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul told them that he had discipled them like a parent according to their situation, sometimes gentle and affectionate like a mother and sometimes strong like a father in order to release them to live up to God’s calling. We can parent our children following God’s Word to match our child’s situation with a goal of releasing them to the Lord.
For more details and to get a close look at some of the charts and graphs shared, please see Pastor Gary’s blog article: Adapting Your Parenting Style to the Child
July 23, 2023 |
Ephesians 6:1-4 |
parenting
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What is your parenting approach? Where did you learn how to be a mom or dad? Was it from your parents? From friends or a book? Or are you just winging it?
July 16, 2023 |
Psalm 127 |
parenting
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In Psalm 127, Solomon wrote about the necessity of recognizing the Lord as the One builds families and watches over them. As a result, he wrote that children are to be received as a gift from the Lord.
July 9, 2023 |
2 Timothy 2:1-2 |
discipleship, life on life discipleship
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Many Christians don’t know how to be a disciple and they certainly don’t know how to make one! Many have the wrong impression that discipleship is for super Christians only, as if there were such a thing. But discipleship should be a condition of being a Christian. The fact that the Church has neglected this, that believers have neglected it, thinking they could receive Jesus as Savior without following and obeying Him as Lord, has resulted in a great many believers not experiencing the profound peace and abundant life that Christ came to give.
What can we do? How can we experience the peace and abundant life Christ promises? In the apostle Paul’s second letter to Timothy, he instructed him as the pastor of the church at Ephesus to lead them to be a disciple-making church. Christ commands us to be a disciple-making church.
July 2, 2023 |
Matthew 28:18-20 |
discipleship, life on life discipleship
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Jesus has given us a Great Commission to be and make disciples together! Yet, we often neglect this command. You can decide to be a disciple of Jesus and to obey His command to come together and make disciples.
In the gospel of Matthew, the resurrected Jesus commanded his followers to go and make disciples of all nations. We call this the Great Commission. This commission was given to all of His disciples together, which is another way of saying He commissioned the Church. We can obey Christ’s commission to the Church by making disciples together.
In this series, we're going verse by verse through the book of Judges, seeing how God continually showed mercy on the Israelites by sending them a rescuer in the form of a "judge," and how the Israelites responded by continually drifting away from God's law. As we study this disturbing and violent book, we can recognize our need for a true savior and how God satisfied his love and his justice through the person of Jesus Christ.
June 4, 2023 |
Judges 19-21 |
exposition
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Unlike the earlier chapters, these final five chapters are so spiritually dark, and Israel has drifted so far from God, that these chapters are almost never preached. Indeed, these final chapters are so disturbing that you may be tempted to cover your ears and look away. Unlike the earlier chapters, in these final chapters, there is no foreign oppressor. The enemy is within, not without. No judges are named. This is Israel on its own. Editorial comment by the author on Israel’s sin is minimal, leaving the reader the burden of interpretation.
Last week, we covered the first “case study” depicting Israel’s spiritual decline into “Man-Made Religion.” Now this week, we’ll look at how Israel’s moral condition has become more like the Canaanite peoples around them than the people God had called them to be as His holy nation, in a sermon called “Man-Made Morality.”
May 28, 2023 |
Judges 17-18 |
exposition
Full Transcript Available
We Americans love a good buffet! Are you guilty of making up your own religion? Or do you have faith in God as He reveals Himself through His Word and through His Son, Jesus? In Judges 17-18, Israel began to follow a man-made religion that displeased God.
