What does it look like to overflow with love for all around you? Not just those you like or feel comfortable around, but even those who seem unlovable? How can we have this type of love?
Complete Your Faith
The Work of the Witness
Know Your Enemy
Paul saw the resistance and opposition that ran them out of Thessalonica and kept them from coming back as a play by the enemy. Not the Jewish religious leaders who actually stirred up the trouble. No, they were just a tool used in the process. The real obstacle came from a different enemy. How do we press on with such an enemy in our way?
Who Said That?
We Shared Our Souls
Faith, Love, Hope
The first letter to the Thessalonians is one of thankfulness for their faith and encouragement to continue in it. The church in Thessalonica was made up of new followers in Christ; converts who had recently turned from their cultural gods to trust in Jesus as King. They seemed to be marked by faith, love, and hope. The first chapter of this letter expresses a gratitude for the work God was doing in them, and how news of them had spread.
Gospel Mission
Gospel Community
Gospel Formation
If the story of the Bible really is the True Story of the world, what implications does this have for us? Shouldn’t this True Story then shape and form us as people living in the world? This week we explored together how the God who is writing the True Story has been at work forming a people from the beginning… and won’t stop until it’s done.
True Story
On the first Sunday of 2020, we began the year by reminding ourselves of the True Story of the whole world. We read a summarized version of the Scriptures beginning with the Creation of all things and moving all the way through to the Restoration of the world. It is out of this Story that we strive to live and shape our lives, by God’s grace and for His glory.
The God With Us
The promise that an offspring of the woman would come to crush the serpent’s head, the son of David would establish a kingdom for man and God to live together forever, the suffering servant would take humanity’s pain upon himself, and many other promises of advent, all came together in the birth of one Son. He was named Jesus, YHWH saves, and he was called Immanuel, because God had come to be with us.
The Suffering Servant
The king and kingdom of Israel seemed to be something of the past. They were in exile, and every king they ever had failed them - even the best of them had passed away. God continued to speak through prophets to let His people know He was still pursuing them. Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord told them that one day the promised Rescuer would come and take away their sorrow and suffering - and that he would take it upon himself. We can have joy because this Suffering Servant has taken our sorrow.
The Better King
King David wanted to build a house for the Lord. It seemed like a good idea. But God didn’t need David to build anything for Him. Instead, it was the Lord who would build a house for David, all of Israel, and all of those in Christ. Jesus, the better King, came to dwell on earth and has gone to heaven to prepare a home - one for God and mankind to dwell in together forever - one where Jesus reigns as King forever. Welcome home.
The Serpent Crusher
Advent is a season of waiting expectantly. It’s a waiting that is rooted in hope. And hope is not empty wishing, but something founded in a promise and assured with evidence. At the very beginning of the True Story of the world, humans rebel against their intended purpose of creation. But immediately after, they are given a promise, and that promise is accompanied with assurance, that one day there would be a Rescuer to come and make things right. As we enter into this Advent season leading up to Christmas, may we remember that we too live in a real Advent, waiting, longing, and hoping for this same Rescuer to return to the world and finally and fully make all things right.
Go On Your Way
Daniel is given a message not for himself, but for the people of Israel in the coming years. It is confusing to Daniel and he has questions, but he doesn't necessarily get answers. Instead, he's told to pass the message on for those coming later and to go on his way. Go live your life in Babylon, Daniel, as a faithful representative of God's kingdom, just as you've always been commanded to do. We can learn so much from this. We won't always understand God's words or His ways, or how He is at work in His world, but we are called to trust Him and go on our way. Keep living your life in this world as a faithful representative of God's Kingdom until Christ returns.
Kingdom Against Kingdom
We continue through the 3 chapter event of Daniel 10-12 with chapter 11. After strengthening Daniel, a messenger from God tells him what will happen to Israel in the years to come. The time between the last Old Testament prophet and the coming of Jesus was about 400 years when God seemed silent to His people. However, He told them ahead of time through this prophecy to Daniel what they would experience. They were given the Story so that they could faithfully live in it. In the same way, you and I have been told the Story before us and what will come in the end, and we have been empowered by God's Spirit to live faithfully in it now.
Strength of the Lord
In his old age, Daniel is given another vision, a visible representation of the message of God. This vision will continue to unfold throughout chapter 11, but in chapter 10 we see God's message and His messenger strengthen Daniel in his weakness. What are you nourished in? Where do you draw your strength from?
Daniel's Prayer
Daniel's Second Dream: Beastly Kingdoms
In chapter 8, Daniel switches back to writing in Hebrew to give the people of God a little more insight into what God had shown him through his dreams during the reign of Babylon. Other kingdoms would come after Babylon; Media/Persia, Greece, and so on, but they would all fall short of what humanity was intended to be. Daniel is troubled by this vision, but Gabriel, God's messenger of good news, arrives to interpret for him that there is hope: one day these beastly kingdoms will be overthrown.