David and the Heart of God - Week 5: Revenge?
Awake Us Now
Scripture: 1 Samuel 24, Matthew 7:20, Numbers 15:37-39, Romans 12:19, Deuteronomy 32:35, Leviticus 19:18, Mark 11:25, Luke 6:28, Romans 12:20, Proverbs 25:21-22, Romans 12:21. Today’s class is entitled, “Revenge” and Pastor will compare worldly wisdom with biblical wisdom on the topic of revenge. As we read chapter 24 of 1 Samuel, we read that David is now in en Gedi and Saul has found out and is headed along with 3000 men to en Gedi to find David. En Gedi is a wilderness area but it has several springs and many caves for hiding. As the story continues, Saul went into one of these...
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David and the Heart of God - Week 4: Crippling Fear!
Awake Us Now
Scripture: 1 Samuel 21-22 and Psalm 34. Today’s class is entitled ,“Crippling Fear.” Crippling Fear describes the kind of fear that can easily cripple us. But Crippling Fear also describes how God can cripple our fear. 1. Fear can easily cripple us 2. God can cripple our fear As our story opens we see Saul trying in every way possible to get rid of David, to kill him through any method he can find. Then Saul shares with Jonathan (his son and David’s best friend) that he is determined to kill David and that he won’t relent....
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David and the Heart of God - Week 3: Fame & Injustice
Awake Us Now
Scripture: 1 Samuel 18. Today we look at the cost of fame, the discouragement of injustice, and we will see what we can learn from David on how to navigate through them. In our text we read of David’s progression of fame. He was a natural leader, a brilliant tactician, and widely acclaimed for his accomplishments. While David increased in popularity, Saul became very angry and he began to keep his eyes on David. Saul saw David as a threat to his throne and begins to want David killed, even throwing his own spear at him several times - but David escapes. David is an honorable man and...
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Dig Deeper - Preview
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Dig Deeper Preview: Why does Jesus have two family trees shared in the Bible? Today’s class is a special preview of the upcoming Tuesday Bible Class series: Dig Deeper. Why does Jesus have 2 family trees? 1. One in Matthew 1:1-16 2. One in Luke 3:23-38 And they are different. So let’s look a little deeper. The major accepted answer has been that one tells the genealogy of Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary, and the other the genealogy of His step father, Joseph. There is evidence to support and suggest that that is the case. ...
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David and the Heart of God - Week 2: The Battle
Awake Us Now
Scripture: 1 Samuel 17-51, Ephesians 6:10, 2 Corinthians 10:4, 1 Corinthians 15:57. Today’s story is the most familiar, famous and well-known battle in the Old Testament - David and Goliath - but is there still something we can learn from a story we know so well? This is a battle between Goliath and the Philistines and the Israelite army. Goliath challenges them every day for 40 days: “send a man to battle me, if I kill him you become our slaves and if your man kills me we will become your slaves.” 40 days are significant in the Bible - it is a time of preparation and renewal that at its...
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David and the Heart of God - Week 1: The Anointing
Awake Us Now
Scripture: 1 Samuel 16. There are many Biblical characters of faith in the Bible, but none with as many Old Testament chapters devoted to them as David. Abraham - 14 Chapters Joseph - 14 chapters Jacob - 11 chapters Elijah - 10 chapters David - 66 chapters (and this does NOT include the Psalms written by him!) Our story takes place around the year 1025 BC. We read in 1 Samuel 13:14 that God is going to replace the Israelite’s first king, King Saul. In 1 Samuel 13:14 we read about Elijah telling Saul the following, “But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man...
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Christmas Message 2025
Awake Us Now
Merry Christmas! The Christmas story from Luke 2 may be a story that is new to some of us and to others it may be very familiar. We are going to look at the part of the story that is about the shepherds. Luke 2:8-9 we read, “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” Did you know that being a shepherd in Jesus’ day was one of the lowliest jobs one could have? They were in the fields all the time, they smelled like sheep and...
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Rescued by Truth: Week 52
Awake Us Now
A difficult and challenging message, this week we address the reality of hell. Hell is not a topic of regular conversation, yet the reality of hell is true. Therefore, it is essential we understand the consequences of our beliefs, our actions, and our behaviors, and that we understand what the future holds. The Bible teaches we have only two destinies: With God (heaven) - or - Apart from Him (hell). Which destiny are we living for?
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Two Year Gospel Study Week 104
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The Gospel of John Week 26 Scripture: John 20:19 - 21:25. Today’s study will conclude our two year study of the Gospels with a dramatic and amazing ending. We begin with John 20:19, it is the first day of the week (Sunday) and the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly Jesus was standing among them saying “Peace be with you.” This is a phrase in English that sounds so common, like “have a good day.” But in Hebrew it carries much more meaning. Shalom (peace) more than just an absence of conflict or warfare, it refers to all creation - it...
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Merry Christmas
Awake Us Now
Merry Christmas!
info_outlineToday’s teaching is on enemy territory and the reality of spiritual warfare. In a fallen world the battle is not between people - it is between the Living God and the powers of darkness, It is between the Body of Christ and those under the spell of the devil.
Ephesus was the center of worship of Artemis and also a hotbed of the occult, magic, eastern religions, drugs, alcohol and many of the same things we encounter in our world today. Ephesus is where Paul carried out some of his most important mission work and it is where God shows us some important lifetime truths through how He worked in Ephesus nearly 2000 years ago.
Where we left off last week was with Paul spending two years teaching daily in the Hall of Tyrannus. Verse 10 of Acts chapter 19 tells us that all Jews and Greeks in the area heard the word of the Lord. Paul and others were training up believers to share their faith and so the Gospel message was shared all over Asia.
During Paul’s time in Ephesus he experienced more push back than ever before. God was doing extraordinary miracles through Paul and many were healed physically but Paul was also casting out demons and healing people from spiritual illness.
DIVINE POWER
We need to be connected to the Living God. Our faith is not to be a little bit of head knowledge, a song and a prayer. Our faith is to be life changing, it is to be the heart of who we are.
Because God was doing amazing miracles through Paul, news traveled that Paul was not only healing physically but also doing spiritual battle and that He was healing in the name of Jesus.
Ephesus was a town filled with evil but the DIVINE POWER of God was so obviously being displayed in the miraculous healings done in Jesus’ name, that it caused the name of Jesus to be held in high honor and it caused a reaction of believers to openly confess what they had done as part of the evil in Ephesus.
TAKE GOD SERIOUSLY
A massive move of God caused people to take Him very seriously.
Our faith molds and transforms us because we are delivered from bondage to sin and death. God offers deliverance from the power of the demonic and the things that can so easily destroy our lives.
CLEANING HOUSE
People who had practiced sorcery burned their scrolls publicly and the word of the Lord continued to spread and grow in power.
as believers changed and non-believers become believers people grew and matured in their faith and suddenly began to realize they needed to do a house cleaning in their lives.
God’s Holy Spirit is gracious and reveals things to us as we grow and mature in faith. We are not fully mature the moment we believe - It is a life-long process.
God’s desire is that we clean house in our lives, in our homes, in anything that gets in the way of our love and worship of God, anything that controls us in ways that are dangerous and spiritually defiling.
With all the awakening to the reality of the Gospel Power of Jesus and the importance of a God-pleasing life of faith, those who didn’t have that faith were began to try to stop all that was happening in Jesus’ name.
WORLD VIEWS COLLIDE
A worker who made silver shrines to Artemus was very concerned about his economic future in light of the amazing growth of Christianity. And so he spoke out publicly, drawing a crowd and the two sides began to collide.
World views are colliding in our world today. The world view of our culture is:
All that matters is me
All that matters is what I want
All that matters is that you don’t stand in my way and say anything to upset me.
The world view of the Bible is:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
God sent His one and only Son
The Living God took on flesh and brought life and forgiveness through His sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from the grave.
In Jesus there is life, forgiveness and power. The power to live a new life.
And so their two world views clashed then and they are still clashing today.
We are called not to fight with human weapons, but to recognize the reality of spiritual war and to use the weapons of the Holy Spirit:
Prayer
Trust in God
God’s Word
The power of our testimonies
Today’s scripture reading ends with the whole city in an uproar - both sides shouting and many joining in the near riot.
CROWD FOLLOWERS
It can be easy to just go along with the crowd
Yet God warns us not to follow the crowd. Exodus 23:2 says, “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.”
Wise words for us today!
Scripture: Acts 19:11-41, Ephesians 6:12 and Exodus 23:2
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