Sunday, May 29, 2016

What We Speak


1 Corinthians 2:1-16
“Do it God’s way”.  Has there ever been a time in your life that you knew that something had to be done your way?  I used to have a job working at a nursery doing a variety of different things.  One of the things I did was to do the regular maintenance on the tractors.  I grew up being able to drive a tractor and work on tractors some.  Over the years I learned quite a bit more about mechanic work.  My boss told me to jack up the tractor when I greased the king-pin joint in the front in.  He didn’t tell me why.  I thought he was telling me to lift up the tractor so I could get underneath the tractor better.  But when I did the first maintenance on the tractor I didn’t jack it up.  I didn’t need to lift it up because I could slide underneath it pretty easily. 

After I finished the work, my boss asked me if I had remembered to jack it up. I said that I didn’t because I could reach the joint without having to lift it up.  At that point he told me that it needed to be lifted up not so that I could reach the joint easier but so that the pressure would be lifted off of the front wheels, allowing the grease to penetrate all parts of the joint better.  I didn’t follow his directions because I didn’t think he knew the best way of doing it.  This nursery had been in the family for a 100 years and he had been doing nursery work since he was a little kid.  And he had been working on tractors for no telling how long.  But for some reason, I thought I knew best.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

The "Foolishness" of God


1 Corinthians 1:18-31
 
Welcome! Today we continue our series in I Corinthians, Broken but Indispensable. Today’s title is The “Foolishness” of God. To make sure that nobody misunderstands me, note that the quotation marks around the word “foolishness” are very important! This means the supposed (so our world says) foolishness of God. But if God, the Author of the universe and all that is in it, is foolish, what does that make its’ creation that wants to belittle Him? But I am getting ahead of myself.

Now the word “foolishness” or “foolish” appears 6 times in today’s passage. There are two closely related Greek words used. One is moria. So for you Lord of the Rings fans, the Mines of Moria where the dwarves hoarded gold and dug too deep in their greed, disturbing things that should not be disturbed, are really the Mines of Foolishness, a very appropriate name, I would say.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Divisions Among You

1 Corinthians 1:10-17
Last week, we started this new series on I Corinthians, a rather lengthy letter to the church at Corinth.  I was surprised to find it’s actually a few words longer than the book of Romans.  It’s just shy of 9500 words.  That’s about twice as many words as I’m likely to say in this message.  If we read straight through it out loud, it’d take us about an hour and a half to do it.

The basis of this letter is Paul’s heart-felt and deeply personal concern for the Corinth church as a pastor.  When I say concern for the church, I mean concern for the people of the church because that is what a church is.  A church is the people, not the building.  It is the ones whom God has chosen, His ekklesia.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Introduction/Enriched in Every Way

1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Welcome! Today we begin a new series on the first 12 chapters of II Corinthians. We will return, God willing, to the rest of II Corinthians early next year. What, you think I said something wrong? Well, not entirely. In Chapter 5 and Verse 9 of this book, Paul writes, “I wrote to you in my letter…” That is, the book we call I Corinthians is not the first thing Paul wrote to the people of Corinth. In fact, Bible scholars think there are actually at least four letters to Corinth. But so as to not confuse you any longer, I will refer to this letter as everyone else does and from here on call this I Corinthians.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

The Future: New Heavens and New Earth


Last week, John Farmer covered the doctrine of judgment. This week, we will finish our series on church doctrine by discussing the doctrine of the “New Heavens and New Earth.”  We will examine the Scriptures to see what the Lord has to say about the New Heavens and the New Earth and more specifically the New Jerusalem.

What is heaven?  Heaven is a place, not just a state of mind. Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Our Father who art in heaven.”  Luke records in his gospel:

“When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” --Luke 24:50-52