Awake Us Now
The Gospel of John Week 11 Scripture: John 7:22-59. Pastor opens by sharing details of the Feast of Tabernacles and the scriptures of the Living Water that were read during this 8 day festival. Festival readings included: Ezekiel 47:1-12, Zechariah 14:8 and Jeremiah 17:13b. As our story opens, it is the Feast of Tabernacles and these scriptures would have been read. Pastor goes on to share that there has been much learned over the last 100 years and especially in the last 15 or so that helps to bring this text and the story alive. As we look at what we know about the time of Jesus and...
info_outlineAwake Us Now
On the day Jesus returns, we want to be among those who hear Him say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Those who know the Lord Jesus will want to live out His love, mercy, and forgiveness in their daily lives; they will celebrate, not fear, His return!
info_outlineAwake Us Now
"Follow the leader..." Who is the leader? Human leadership is always flawed and always disappoints. But there is a leader who is flawless, always in control, and upon whose Word and leadership we can rely - the Living God!
info_outlineAwake Us Now
We may think, "I'll start obeying God when my faith is strong enough," but God says: "Follow me TODAY, and watch what I will do tomorrow." Obedience flows from faith, and then faith grows from obedience.
info_outlineAwake Us Now
Scripture: 1 Kings 1-11, 1 Chronicles 28-29, 2 Chronicles 1-9, 2 Samuel12:24-25, 1 kings 1, 1 Kings 2:2-3, 1 Kings 2:13ff. This study will take us on an adventure through a period of approximately 400 years, a highly significant time when God was moving in a mighty way among His people, Israel. It will cover from around 970 BC when Solomon took the throne until 586 BC when Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. It is a time filled with incredible stories, amazing truths, especially applicable truths and lessons for us in our lives today. There is an amazing cast of characters,...
info_outlineAwake Us Now
The word "peace" means far more than "no war or conflict." It means everything being right and in harmony with God. It is a word God desires to make real in each one of our lives today!
info_outlineAwake Us Now
By "hope," people often mean "something that might happen but probably won't." But God promises us a hope that is absolutely certain, a hope secured for us by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, a hope that nothing and no one can take away!
info_outlineAwake Us Now
Scripture: 2 Samuel 11-12, 1 Corinthians 10:12, Psalm 51, Matthew 21:9. This message deals with the difficult topic of moral collapse, specifically in David’s life. Painful as it is, it can teach us much about the importance of walking faithfully before the Lord and resisting temptation. David fell into temptation after seeing Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam (a trusted soldier) and the wife of Uriah (one of David’s elite soldiers). David had her brought to the palace and he slept with her resulting in her pregnancy. Instead of coming clean, David goes deeper into a dark place with more...
info_outlineAwake Us Now
There will be a judgment to come - the final judgment - and only those who are found in Christ Jesus can face that judgment with confidence and without fear. When we live in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, live in faith in the Father who sent the Son, and live in faith in the Holy Spirit who speaks God’s truth into our hearts, we have nothing to fear! Everything is all about God, about His goodness, because we have Jesus as our Provision and our Savior.
info_outlineAwake Us Now
The 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...
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.
Our website – https://www.awakeusnow.com
Watch the video from our website! https://www.awakeusnow.com/2-year-study-of-the-gospels-upper
Watch the video from our YouTube Channel!! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTaaqrC3dMOzMkhPyiNWwlJRpV6Bwpu01
⁃ 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!