Daniel: When Kingdoms Collide (2) - Mixed, Not Melted
Awake Us Now
God calls His people not to blend in to society, but to stand out, to reflect the mercy and goodness of God, so that He may be exalted through all the nations!
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 9
Awake Us Now
Prayer is an amazing gift from God! We have His plea to talk with Him. Genuine prayer; not showy prayer, but rather simply experiencing the presence of our Living God, the Father. Other topics covered are Jesus’ teaching on fasting and possessions. Based on Matthew 6:5-24.
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 8
Awake Us Now
Pastor points out the Old Testament’s words, “Thus says the LORD,” and compares them to the words of Jesus in the New Testament that say, “But I tell you.” What does this tell us about who Jesus is? Pastor explores the “But I tell yous” as found in Matthew chapter 5 and we learn what Jesus calls us to. That call is to a changed heart, which can only happen when we come to faith in Jesus. God’s call is personal! He wants to change each one of us by the shed blood of Jesus, the Son of God.
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 7
Awake Us Now
In Week 7, we hear more of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus calls us salt and light. What does He mean when He uses these words to describe how we are to be? As historians have looked at world history, more and more of them are coming to the realization Christianity changed everything. Jesus has had a greater impact on the human condition than anyone in all of history. What Jesus produces in people, changes them!
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Dig Deeper - Week 11: Two Pictures of the Messiah
Awake Us Now
We will look at the two pictures of the Messiah found in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). 2 Pictures of Messiah Reigning King Humble Substitute This double picture is what led some of the great Hebrew rabbis to suggest there might be two Messiahs that would come at different times and in different manners. And that then became the dominant tradition: Messiah will raise the dead Messiah will be victorious Messiah will reign in Jerusalem Messiah will bring peace If we look at the New Testament the early followers of Jesus believed this same thing about the Messiah....
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 6
Awake Us Now
We finish Matthew 4 on following Jesus, and begin the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 that opens with the Beatitudes.
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 5
Awake Us Now
Week 5 of our Matthew study digs into chapter 4 on the Temptation of Jesus, His three temptations and the reality of an unseen spiritual world.
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Questions - Week 23: How Are Minds Opened Today?
Awake Us Now
This message focuses on the question: “How are minds opened today?”, which is part of our ongoing series: “What’s the answer?” Pastor explores how people’s lives are changed and what changes their attitudes about God, about Jesus, the resurrection, and about the power of God’s Word. Pastor takes us through Luke 24:36-47, an encounter with Jesus that His disciples have with Him after His resurrection. Jesus tells them: “This is what I told you while I was still with you; Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets...
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Daniel: When Kingdoms Collide (1) - Daniel's God
Awake Us Now
The Book of Daniel is the story of the collision of two kingdoms, a spiritual war that is still being fought in the heavens and on the earth. In the end, the Kingdom of God wins!
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 4
Awake Us Now
Week 4 of our Matthew study is all about John the Baptist and his message of repentance, a message that can be difficult for the religious to accept.
info_outlineThe Gospel of John Week 10
Scripture: John 6:22-7:24.
Our teaching today starts with Jesus saying He is the Bread of Life. He is teaching from the synagogue at Capernaum. Jesus is the rabbi that is teaching. In a service in the synagogue in the first century, people talk back and forth asking questions and engaging with the rabbi. It can get heated - and what Jesus says is causing things to become heated. He continues to say many things in this dialogue:
⁃ I am the Bread of Life
⁃ Believe in Me and you will not hunger or thirst
⁃ You’ve seen Me yet you still do not believe
⁃ Whoever comes to Me I will not drive away
⁃ I have come down from heaven to do the Father’s will
⁃ I will raise them on the last day
⁃ My Father’s will is that everyone look to the Son and believe in Me
⁃ In Me is eternal life
Pastor talks about a current day synagogue built on the first century synagogue there in Capernaum in Jesus’ day and shares pictures. This current day synagogue is built on the foundation of the synagogue of Jesus’ day.The foundation of black basalt from the first century is still visible. On this basalt foundation is built the several other synagogues with the newest synagogue built over these others. But the basalt rock shows us just where Jesus was as He gave the teaching we are studying today.
Pastor also shares what the inside of a synagogue in Jesus’ day would have looked like in order to help us visualize today’s story
As our story continues, John 6:53-57 “Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”
Pastor helps us understand this:
⁃ Jesus is Jewish
⁃ The crowd He’s talking to is Jewish
⁃ Hearing what Jesus is saying - the listeners would have processed what Jesus was saying through a Jewish perspective - their thought would have gone to temple sacrifices where they brought their sacrifices to the Temple
⁃ The blood was drained from the animal and sprinkled on the altar because without the shedding of bleed there is no forgiveness
⁃ We have sinned against a Holy God and that requires blood to be shed
⁃ Jesus is saying here that He is the real sacrifice
⁃ “I am the One who offers up My flesh and blood for the life of the world”
⁃ “If you do not realize who I am, that I am the One the Father has promised, then you don’t have life”The scriptures all along have said that God Himself would pay the price for our sin.
Old Testament offerings were offered up day after day, year after year, but Jesus is the offering made once for all. Jesus is saying that He is the “Once for all sacrifice” and many of the people following Jesus turned away from Him after He said this.
Jesus then turns to His disciples and asks if they want to leave Him too, but Peter answers: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
Note Peter says, “we have come to believe” and then he says, “and to know that You are the holy One of God.”This is highly significant as we human beings think that we know in order to believe. Pastor shares a personal story of an interaction from a friend who brought this truth to light that “I do not know in order o believer, instead, I believer in order to know God.”
So many time we say, “if you prove this to me (once I know it) then I’ll believe.” But what Jesus calls us to do is to believe FIRST and then we will know Him. When we trust and follow Him - He reveals himself to us.
Pastor comes with a look at three Jewish festivals - and how each has its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.
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⁃ The Gospel of John study is part five of five of our Two Year Study of the Gospels.
⁃ The Gospel of John may be one of the most powerful books ever written. Many people have come to faith after reading only this book of the Bible. Scholarly and archeological discoveries in recent decades give us new insight on details in the Gospel of John. We can now understand it as the most Jewish rather than the most “Gentile/Greek” of the Gospels, and when we do that we see many things that we missed before.
Our 2 year study of the gospels is great for large group, small group or home group study and can be started at any time!