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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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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Ten Words - Week 2: God Alone!
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Scripture: Exodus 20:1-3, Psalm 19:1, Psalm 14:1, Psalm 33:8, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Matthew 22:36-38, Proverbs 3:5-6. It’s God alone that we are to worship, honor and follow. Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.” The 10 Commandments have shaped so much of Western civilization and culture. Yet these ten words/commandments are often ignored - And what we see as people’s god is the god of chance. Our culture, and much of the time our educational system, teach us that all that exists is the result of a gigantic cosmic accident. That chance is the author of...
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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.
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Two Year Gospel Study Week 54
Awake Us Now
Scripture - Luke 18:1-8; “The Widow’s Plea” The Parable: “The Widow’s Plea” is an earthly narrative with a heavenly meaning - We should always pray and not give up! This is a story that lets us know that there will be challenges and difficulties that we all will face. But in this parable Jesus is teaching us to endure - to not give up and to do so through prayer - leaning into Him and trusting Him. The parable begins be telling of a judge that didn’t know God and didn’t care at all about people - and there’s a widow that continues to go to the judge for justice against...
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 3
Awake Us Now
In our study of Matthew this week we look at chapters 2 and 3, with an emphasis on deliverance through Jesus the Messiah and the fulfillment of the New Covenant through Him as well.
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 2
Awake Us Now
This week our study of Matthew takes us into chapter 2 and the story of Jesus’ birth focusing on the Magi, their interaction with Herod, and their interesting gifts to Jesus.
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The Gospel According to Matthew - Week 1
Awake Us Now
The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes Jesus as Israel’s long awaited Messiah. Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic promises in God’s Word, the Deliverer, Savior and King. Matthew zeroes in on Jesus’ call to discipleship. Will we heed this call today and commit fully to the King of Kings, the promised Savior of the world? Matthew chose to follow Jesus and Jesus changed Matthew’s life. If we choose to follow Jesus, He will change our lives, too. Why is the Gospel of Matthew Pastor Dodge's favorite? Why is this Gospel the first book of the New Testament? Jesus changed Matthew's life when...
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Ten Words - And God Spoke
Awake Us Now
Scripture: Exodus 20:1-2 What are the Ten Words? We read in Exodus 20:1, “And God spoke all these words.” “Words is referring to the Ten Commandments God spoke on Mount Sinai to Moses. God’s Ten Commandments are found in the rest of Exodus 20 and also in Deuteronomy 5. Because these commandments are unnumbered in the Bible, there have been several ways these 10 Words have been numbered, but it doesn’t matter how you number them - what matters is whether you listen to them or not. Exodus 20:2 God continues, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of...
info_outlineThis week’s teaching shows us the importance of growth in faith.
Today’s scripture is on the story of Paul’s mission work in the city of Ephesus. As he begins to meet people he asks several believers if they received the Holy Spirit when they came to faith in Jesus. Their response was no, that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit.
Sadly, this is much the condition of the christian church in America today. The Holy Spirit has often been ignored.
Paul learns that the Christians there had received John’s baptism. They had heard the teachings of John the Baptist and had been baptized in a baptism of repentance. Paul taught them that the One (Jesus) that John had predicted was coming was here and this was Jesus. John had said that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Paul fills them in on Jesus, the one John had said was coming. So after hearing this they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues.
Today speaking in tongues has become very controversial. How do we deal with spiritual gifts?
Spiritual Gifts
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Expired - A view that many have is that these once were, but have now ended with the end of the apostles and the end of the New Testament. But the TRUTH is that there is NO expiration on the gifs of the Spirit. We are to earnestly desire the gift of the Spirit. (1 Corinthian 12 and 14) And Jesus says in Luke 11:13 “…how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” There is nothing in the New Testament to indicate that these gifts have expired.
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Everyone - People say everyone has to have the same gifts or we all have to have the gift of speaking in tongues and yet the New Testament, in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says that the Holy Spirit gives different gifts to different believers, that not all have the same gifts.
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Eliminate - Many desire the gifts of the Spirit be eliminated because they are controversial. This attitude is basically trifling with the gifts of God and in effect encourages the church to remain weak and spiritually deficient. However, Paul says to earnestly desire the gifts and don’t forbid speaking in tongues. We need to take to heart what Paul says.
The gifts aren’t badges to impress others with our spirituality, but they are gifts from the Holy Spirit given to build up the body of Christ, encourage believers and to empower us to carry out the work God has given us to do.
These opening verses of Chapter 19 of Acts - while controversial - show us that the gifts are still very important and require us to take a look at what the Bible actually says about them. We need to make sure we are allowing the scriptures to guide us rather than our own prejudices, our own practices and our own jealousies.
As we continue looking at more of Paul’s work in Ephesus where he spent around 3 years, we discover more that we can learn.
In the synagogue, Paul spoke out boldly about the kingdom of God, but after 3 months, individuals refused to believe and began to publicly malign the teachings on Jesus the Messiah. So Pal moves from teaching in the synagogue to teaching daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus for the next two years so that all the Jews and Gentiles who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the God.
Paul was a tireless worker for the Lord, but what was it that he shared with the people of Ephesus? We can discover the answer to this in his epistle/letter to the Ephesians.
The Book of Ephesians
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Messiah - Firstly, Paul concentrated on sharing the Good News of Jesus the Messiah and that through Him we receive every spiritual blessing, we come to know the deep love of Jesus, that we are saved by grace, and to know the fullness of God.
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Maturity - Paul encourages us to grow in our faith, in our knowledge and love of Jesus our Savior. He shares how to not grieve the Spirit of God through impurity, but instead to grow in fellowship with God and to be filled with the Spirit. Paul also teaches to always give thanks for everything and to put on the full armor of God.
In summary of today’s text, Christ is to be in the center of our lives and we are to grow up in our relationship with Him. This is God’s desire for His children.
We do not want to hold to a form of religion and deny it real power.
- We want to hear the Holy Spirit's testimony
- We want to respond to what the Word of God has to say
- We want to live in a dynamic relationship with Jesus, that we might not only be blessed by Him but may be used by Him to be a blessing for others
The Gospel message of Jesus transforms! It has POWER! We encourage you to read the book of Ephesians.
Scripture: Acts 19:1-10 and 2 Peter 3:18
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