The Living Stone

1 Peter 2

Good morning. We get to continue in our study of I Peter this morning. Chapter two is falls into two parts covering two topics. The first half of the chapter will conclude the portion dealing with our position in Christ. The second half of the chapter delves deeper into our response to what Christ has done for us and how He went about it.

Last week, we covered chapter 1. The themes that came out last week were:

--We are God's elect, His chosen ones.
--We can have confidence that we are chosen.
--Foreknowledge (God the Father), sanctifying (Holy Spirit), and obedience (Jesus Christ)
--We are God's elect strangers, we are no longer of this world, but passing through .
--Through faith, we are shielded by God's power.
--Our faith is proved genuine by trials.
--Our salvation is a precious gift not to be taken for granted.
--Therefore, we must prepare our minds, be self-controlled and set our hope fully on grace.
--Do not conform to evil desires, be holy.
--We are redeemed not by gold (perishable) but by the blood of Christ (imperishable).
--As a result of this purification, love one another.
--We are born again of imperishable seed, not perishable.
--All men are like grass, but the word of the Lord stands forever.

A Living Hope

1 Peter 1

Today, we start a new series. We are going to study chapter by chapter the books of I and II Peter over the next 8 weeks, a chapter per week. So, you may like to use some of your daily quiet times to read ahead or read the two books all the way through.

I struggled with where to begin today’s message. Since this is a new series, I feel like I ought to tell you a bunch of details about the author, the timing, the recipients, the geography, the themes, and … and … and. While those details are not bad things, I’m afraid that it might possibly distract us from the message and what it might say to us today, right now, and how we can apply these truths in our lives.

So, I apologize if you came in this morning looking for a history lesson. I think you’ll pick up a little history as we go along, but I’m going to skip the lecture and jump straight in to the Word of God.

Hard Questions #5

Welcome! I would encourage you to continue to pray the secret prayer. Today I will give a brief message followed by a time of remembering the Lord with the bread and cup, and following this we will have a sharing time, where all in the body are welcome to share what the Lord is teaching them.

This is our final message in our Hard Questions series. The questions we are going to look at today, like the others in this series, asked by you, are these: How do we tell whether an open door is God’s will? How do we tell whether a “closed door” is God revealing that His will is something else?

Hard Questions #4

Welcome! I would encourage you to continue to pray the secret prayer. Well, I have a lot of ground to cover today, so I will get right to the hard questions. There are three questions we are going to look at today. The first is this: Is there an unforgivable sin?

What is the context of this question? It comes from two passages, one in Matthew 12, and the other in Mark 3. Here is the Matthew 12 passage:

And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. – Matt. 12:31-32

Hard Questions #3

Welcome! Have you been praying the secret prayer? I would remind you to continue to pray this prayer. If you don’t know what it is, talk to someone in church after the message today. Today, as we continue with our Hard Questions series, we are going to look at a number of questions. The first, a nice, easy question, is this: “Why do some people have easier lives than others?” And the flip side: “Why do some people suffer so much more than others?”

What, that’s not a nice easy question? Actually, no – it certainly qualifies as a hard question. I think it is also a huge question; that is, the question can mean many different things, depending on the questions an individual has behind the question, and thus, there is not one answer, but many. And in general, regardless of the particular “flavor” of the question, the answers are not short and sweet, but complex. To be honest I only feel that I can go a short way towards an answer, but I will give you all that I can.

Hard Questions #2

Welcome! I trust that you have been remembering to pray the secret prayer. If you have no idea what I am talking about, I encourage you to ask someone in church today. I also strongly encourage you to read or listen to last week’s message. Today we continue with our Hard Questions series. There are two questions we are going to tackle today. The first is this: What is a proper Biblical understanding of women’s roles in the church?

I admit that this is a somewhat intimidating topic for me. But they aren’t called hard questions for nothing!

Well, I think the place to start is in Genesis. Much of this will seem basic, but I think it is important that it be said.

Hard Questions #1

Welcome! Today we return to the second portion of our Hard Questions series. Today we are going to look at Bible interpretation, are also going to look at a very personal question for us as a church. This latter question we will explore a little at a time; and in fact, we will revisit it to some degree in every one of these 5 teachings on hard questions.

Our first hard question can be posed this way: How should one go about gaining a proper understanding of what a Bible passage means? This question has countless applications. One is a question someone put on their card back when I asked people to send in hard questions. Here is their question, slightly paraphrased: How do we know which New Testament commands and practices are for all time and which are specific to a particular culture?

The Christian and Failure

Good morning! Today we will have a shorter message followed by a time remembering the Lord with the bread and cup, and then we will have a sharing time. Our sharing time will focus on lessons the Lord has taught you in 2010 as well as things you desire to see the Lord do in your life in 2011. I realize we have just gone through Christmas, and it may be hard to even think about 2011 so soon, but this will be what we try to do.

First though, I want to talk a bit about failure. My message at Faithwalkers this year is entitled The Christian and Failure, and what I share now is a portion of what I will share in that message. So if you are going to Faithwalkers, when you are there, don’t listen to me, but go to one of the other sessions when I am speaking.

Have you ever struggled with feelings of failure? Most, if not all of us have. Some of us know what it is to be paralyzed by a fear of failure, to be “bitten once,” so to speak, and then to be afraid to act in such a way so as to be hurt in the same way again. This too is pretty common.

The World Needs A Savior

As I was preparing for this message, I kept coming back to the simplicity of the title. It pretty well covers the subject for today. I think most everyone would agree that the world needs a savior.

In the message today, I want to try and answer a few questions. Obviously, we'll talk about why the world needs a savior. Then, since it is pretty evident that the world needs a savior, what kind of savior is needed. Finally, we'll talk about how the savior will “save the world.” In conclusion, we'll go to the Bible and talk about the Savior of the world.

Let's begin with why the world needs a savior. Wherever we turn, we see conflict and the ravages of sin. By sin, I mean an offense carried out one person against another. For example, we see natural disasters turn into even worse tragedies because of the sinfulness of man.

Overcoming Stumbles

Nehemiah 13

Good morning! Today we finish our series on Ezra and Nehemiah. To remind you of the big picture: The book of Ezra begins with the Israelites in Babylon, a humbled and captured people, living under their captors far from the home God had promised them. But those promises God made were conditional on their continuing to serve and live for God, and the Israelites, over a period of centuries, had continually rebelled against God, not following His commandments, worshiping other Gods, and ultimately becoming just as wicked as the heathen nations around them. 

Although our God is a patient God, there is a limit to His patience, and at long last, the nation of Israel fell, its people killed or taken captive, and its capital city, Jerusalem, sacked and destroyed. The wall surrounding the city was destroyed, the residences and government and public buildings in Jerusalem were destroyed, and even the Temple itself was destroyed; God’s Spirit left the Temple, symbolic of how God had at last left the people to reap the consequences of their sin, and symbolic also of how the people had for generations left God.