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Christ-Centered Clarity On Sex And Marriage! Part 3 (Our Christian Response)
Filed under: Bible, By Tim Brassell, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, GCI Windsor Mill, Maryland, God, God Father Son and Spirit, God the Trinity, God's love, good news, Gospel, Grace Communion Baltimore, Grace Communion International, Humor, identity in Christ, Inclusion, Jesus Christ, Love, Ministry, New Life Fellowship Of Baltimore Maryland, New Life Fellowship Of Windsor Mill, MD., On Mission with Christ, Participation with Christ, Participation with Jesus, Perichoresis, Prayer, relationship with God, Relationships, Sermons, The Church, The Dance and Dream of the Trinity, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, The Gospel Project, The Holy Spirit, The Plan of Adoption, Timothy Brassell, Trinity, Uncategorized, union, Union In Christ, Union with Christ, Witness, Witnessing to God, Witnessing to Jesus, Worship, Worshiping God, Worshipping Jesus | Tags: Adoption, Authority, Christian Calling, Christian Living, Christian Response, Confessing Sin, Consequences, Costly Grace, Creation, Discipleship, Eph 1-3, Eph 4-6, GCI Baltimore, God Father Son and Spirit, God in Flesh, God Incarnate, God Likes You, god the father, God the Holy Spirit, God the Son, God the Trinity, God's Calling, God's discipline, God's Faith, God's Gift, God's Grace, God's Healing, God's Hope, God's Judgment, God's Law, God's Love And Life, God's Mercy, God's Mission, God's Patience, God's Power, God's Presence, God's Spirit, God's Warnings, Gospel, Grace Communion International, Guilt, healing, Honoring Leaders, Human Sexuality, Humanity Uplifted, Humility, Incarnation, Included In Christ, Integrity, Jesus, Jesus is the way the truth and the life, Jesus' Authority, Jesus' Presence, John 14, John 14:6, Legalism, Lord Jesus, Love, Marriage, Outpouring Of The Holy Spirit, Pain, Participation with Jesus Christ, Pastor Timothy Brassell of New Life Baltimore, Pastors, Purpose, Relationship With Jesus, Salvation By Grace, sex, Sin, Spiritual Maturity, Spirituality, The Father, The Father's Love, The Holy Spirit, Trinitarian Theology, Trinity, Unconditional Love, Union and Communion, Union With Jesus, Wholeness in Christ
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Audio Part 3A:
Audio Part 3B:
Full Message:
Bible Verses: John 14: 6 Ephesians 4-6
This Message Series:
Living Into This Challenging Christian Life With Jesus!
Introduction:
This series reinforces that the Christian Life is living out and manifesting the reality of our union and communion with the Father, through Jesus (the Son), and in the Holy Spirit in every part of our humanity! Our purpose in life is to be one with God! Despite our sin and weaknesses, the Lord strengthens us in our relationship with Him by the Spirit as we trust Him for it! When our Lord Jesus Christ reappears gloriously, we too will be glorified and fully blameless in Him! Until Jesus’ reappearing, the Christian life is a challenging life —lived out only in union and communion with the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit!
“The Christian life is thus about living in dependence upon the Triune God of grace, and it has largely to do with the work the Holy Spirit does to unite us to and conform us to Christ through the “spiritual union.” It is through this union (our relationship with God) that we have access to and are able to possess all the blessings of grace. We trust Jesus to give us these blessings through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Moved by the Spirit, we receive these blessings through repentance and faith. Though never earned or deserved, we receive them deliberately, using whatever capacities we have at our disposal (capacities that differ from person to person). Because our transformation (sanctification, maturation, growth) is God’s gracious work in us, it follows God’s timetable, and God is not anxious or impatient about the pace.”
“To understand the Christian life, we must account for the New Testament teaching that, as believers, we do not yet have the fullness of the Holy Spirit. As we receive and respond to the Spirit, living in fellowship with the Spirit, we must regularly be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). In this life we are given the “first fruits” (Rom. 8:23) or “deposit” (Eph. 1:14, also translated “down payment” or “earnest”) of the Spirit, having been “sealed” (Eph. 4:30) for a greater future with the Spirit yet to be unsealed. We thus understand that our relationship with the Spirit is not fixed, static, mechanical or impersonal. It is dynamic and personal.” – Clarifying Our Theological Vision, by Gary Deddo
Theological Theme:
The Christian’s calling is the highest of all, and so sets the highest standard. God-[Father-Son-Holy-Spirit] has predestined you before the foundation of the world to be seated in the heavenly places and to be adopted in Jesus Christ. The plan and will for your life is Jesus Christ! In this series, this calling has been proclaimed in Ephesians 1-3, and is essentially a calling to the body of Christ. God has predestined you as a human being to be a glorious human being sharing in the son’s relationship with The Father in The Spirit! Marriage, for some, is included in this calling.
Christ Connection:
Beneath and behind all the troubles of this world, God the Father has predestined you to be adopted as His sons and daughters and to share in His relationship with His Son – Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. That is what your job is about, that is what marriage is about, that is what sex is about, and that is what singleness is about. The Father is working to make you a son or a daughter sharing in the Sonship of Jesus!
Missional Application:
Marriage has been ordained not just for Christians but for mankind. Because, in Jesus, we are all destined to go from dust to glorified humanity , the call goes out to all marriages to particpate with Jesus by placing their faith in Him, and receiving His empowerment in the Spirit!
As Christians we are to live in our marriages worthy of this calling we have received such that we witness to the Love of the Fther, Son and Spirit as His lights in this world.
Eph 4:1 beckons us all to think God’s thoughts along with Jesus Christ. “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” – Ephesians 5: 15 —“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,” We are to be “filled with the Spirit.”— Ephesians 5:18
Be imitators of God, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” — Ephesians 5: 21
“22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord…..25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her….. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church”—Ephesians 5: 22-29
“for we are members of His body.”(The Body Of Christ) —Ephesians 5:30
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise— 3 “so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.” – Ephesians 6: 1-3
“18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” —Ephesians 6: 18
Conclusion:
“Our personal response (or lack thereof) to God cannot undo the fact that Jesus is and remains Lord and Savior of all. The character and purpose, mind and heart of God remain just as they have been revealed in Christ. The finished work of Christ is never undone—God remains, in Christ, reconciled to all people, no matter their response. He has and holds out forgiveness for them, is ready to receive them back into fellowship with him, and in that sense accepts them. However, while God accepts them, he does not accept their rejection, their sin, their rebellion, but accepts them in order to do away with what is against them and against their participation in the reconciliation accomplished for them in Christ. Nothing changes that reconciliation (with all it means), not even a person’s complete or partial rejection of God’s gift. However, our personal response (participation) does affect the quality of our lived relationship with God and thus our personal experiencing of the benefits of Christ.” Gary Deddo
Photo Compliments: https://callingcouplestochrist.org/
Our Contentious Scriptures
Filed under: Bible, By John Stonecypher | Tags: Authority, Bible, inspiration
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I once heard “Community” defined as “a group of people who say many different things about the same thing.” A community is not people who have all the same answers, but rather it is people who agree on what questions are worth arguing about.
Take, for example, the United States of America. We are a community that has latched onto this concept called “Liberty.” We barely know what it means, but we all know it’s worth dying for. The question of Liberty is at the heart of our deepest and bitterest disagreements. It is the one thing we agree is worth arguing about.
Imagine what it would look like to put together a library dedicated to this centuries-long national argument. What texts would you include in the library?
Let’s see… the Constitution, certainly, and the Declaration of Independence… For the library to be truthful, it would also have to include some embarrassing texts, like the revised Constitution written by the Confederate states, a big volume of broken Indian treaties, and photos of Japanese internment camps… But it would have more inspiring bits too, like the Gettysburg Address and “I Have a Dream”… The library ought to include a songbook, a collection World War II propaganda films, and maybe the whole list of names from the Vietnam Memorial…
Our “Liberty Library” would be a collection of texts that have arisen from our contentious yet fruitful national conversation. In other words, it would look a lot like the library we call “The Bible.”
The Bible is our collection of texts that have arisen from our millennia of grappling with the Holy Trinity in the world. We, the People of Yahweh, are a contentious bunch, and our long life together has produced a contentious collection of scriptures. In the past I have been tempted to harmonize this collection and paper over its jagged edges. I have been tempted to twist this dialogue into a monologue. Because the nice thing about monologues are that they tell you what to do, freeing you from the hard work of making good choices. But in the real world I live in, I am responsible for my decisions, regardless of what I think the Bible says. In the real world, “I was only following orders” doesn’t cut it.
In engaging the Scriptures I cannot be a passive recipient of a monologue. Instead, I must be an active participant in an ongoing conversation. I participate in this long dialog because I believe the True God is truly present in the conversation, revealing Godself in the midst of it, even in its contentiousness.
The Good News is that that Triune God of grace has breathed on us. And this breathing (a.k.a, “inspiration”) has produced among us a conversation through which God is pleased to reveal Godself to those willing to participate in it.
Trinity and Humanity 