Archive for the ‘Grace Communion Baltimore’ Tag

“A Divine Calling!”

Word of Life Devotional by Sherwin Scott

Therefore, holy brothers [and sisters], you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession…
Hebrews 3:1 (ESV)

Many people consider themselves to be called to a specific profession or service. They believe that they have been called to be doctors, lawyers, and teachers, or to serve in the armed forces or the local or national government of their country. Maybe they feel they are called to be the leader of a nation as president or prime minister.

Believers in Jesus Christ have received a specific and definite calling into his fellowship.  The Apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 1:9: ‘God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.’ What exactly is ’the fellowship of his Son’? It is the holy, loving relationship of God the Father, Jesus the beloved Son and the Holy Spirit – a divine relationship that has existed from eternity and will continue forever!

Believers are blessed, privileged, and honored to be called to participate or share in this wonderful relationship. It doesn’t get any better – it is finding the pearl of great value (Matthew 13:45-46), the ultimate calling! And an amazing truth about this special calling is that it cannot be revoked as explained in Romans 11:29: ‘For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.’

 Relationships are very important to God, for God is in relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a communion of love. And he wants us as his children to participate in the divine relationship, which will continue forever. With this divine calling there is no going back, for God takes no pleasure in anyone who draws back (Hebrews 10:36-38). There is only one way – marching forward into the fullness of God’s glorious kingdom.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for the invitation to participate in your beautiful relationship. Please help me to respond in a manner that is pleasing to you. In Jesus’s name I pray, Amen.

Study by Sherwin Scott

Photo Compliments: WorldChallenge.org

“Who is The Father Revealed in Jesus?” Pt. 2

Part 2A:

Part 2B

Full Message:


Scripture:

2 Cor 13: 14, Matthew 23: 8-11, John 17


Summary and Goal:

This sermon discusses the importance of understanding the relationship between God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It emphasizes the deep love and joy that comes from being united with the Father through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

“What I mean is this. An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God (THE FATHER) is the thing (ONE) to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing (ONE) inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kind of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.” (P.163) – Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Highlights:

👨‍👦‍👦 The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons in the Godhead.

👻 The Holy Spirit is not a commodity, but a person who hears, speaks, sees, inspires, and moves.

🎁 Everything we receive and do comes from the Father through Jesus and in the Holy Spirit.

😇 Joyous days in the Father surpass mere happiness and can be experienced even in affliction and distress.

❤️ The love of the Father is deep and unbreakable, even in the face of trials and persecution.

✝️ The Father’s love was demonstrated through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, which reconciled and saved humanity.

🤝 The relationship with the Father is shared through the participation in the Holy Spirit’s fellowship.

“Who Is The Father Revealed In Jesus?” Pt. 1

Pt 1A:

Pt 1B:

Full Message:


Scripture: Isaiah 40: 18-31, Isaiah 46: 3-13, Hebrews 1: 1-3, 1John5, Mark 12, John 17


Summary and Goal:

This sermon is about the importance of knowing and understanding the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The speaker emphasizes the supreme advantage and relevance of having a relationship with the Father-Son-Holy-Spirit-God as Revealed in Jesus Christ the God/Man.

Highlights:

🙏 Praying to the Father before the message

🌟 The twin doctrines of faith: Who is the Father? What is He doing?

👨‍👧‍👦 Father’s Day celebration and addressing everyone

🏛️ The foundation of Jesus Christ and the importance of building on it

📖 Scripture references and teachings on the Father

🌍 The Importance of God the Father for every family

💞 Implications of understanding and relating to God the Father

💡 Knowing the Father gives supreme advantage and relevance in life.

Photo compliments: smoodock45.wordpress

Who Is The Relational God Revealed In Jesus?

Part 1A

Part 1B


Scripture: Acts 2:33, 2 Cor 13:14


Summary and Goal:

On this Trinity Sunday, we proclaim the relational God-Father-Son-Holy-Spirit Revealed in Jesus. This is an attempt to clarify further why this is so important to grasp, and what it means for our Christian faith. Indeed, there is no Christian faith apart from this relational God Who, in Love, sent Jesus Christ into our humanity to reveal Himself and share His Love and Life with us.

Christ Connection:

Jesus alone reveals this God and, by becoming human, has given us human beings real knowledge of, and access to, God!

Photos compliments: trinityandhumanity.com (John Stonecypher)

“Jesus: ‘Look, I Am Making Everything New!'”, Part 2

Scripture: Revelation 21:1-8


Introduction:

The Lord Jesus Christ Is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! So, “Who is Jesus Christ?” “Who are you Lord? And the answer he gives is that He himself is the Resurrection and the Life! The scriptures themselves testify to Jesus Christ as the person around whom all things revolve and the One to Whom we should all turn and be directed.

Theological Theme:

Holding this two all together we can say that the Gospel is the Good News about Jesus Our Resurrection, and therefore the Resurrection is primarily about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (personal doesn’t mean individual! It means sharing in Jesus relationship with his Father, the Spirit and all things!) It IS also about a glorified body! But it must be clarified in our day that Easter/Resurrection is a proclamation of the Fact that: You’re not just going to rise from the dead, you’re going to rise before, and accountable to Jesus Christ!

Christ Connection:

Relationship with Jesus is a priority ahead of receiving a new and glorified body! Because Jesus is not only the Resurrection but the Father’s Son, He is God and therefore present to us now in the Holy Spirit! He is Not first far off, but up close! He is “The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth— [and he] does not live in [things] made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man[e] he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that [we] might seek God, and perhaps [we] might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 For in [the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit] we live and move and have our being,” – Colossians 1:24-28a

The picture you should have in your head about God is one where the Father embraces and seeks to embrace you through his arms of Jesus and the Holy Spirit! And Jesus is central because he is the one who takes us to the Father and sends us the Holy Spirit, so…

We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.” (Col 1:28-29)

Missional Application:

In participation with Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, and to the Glory of the Father, we continue to proclaim Jesus to all and encourage all to place their faith in Him and enter a trust relationship with Him!

“the ministry of the Holy Spirit is personal and personally transforming—it is dynamic and interactive, bringing about receptivity, responsiveness and participation. And the result is that we are on a journey towards spiritual maturity and full sanctification, being changed into the likeness of Christ. But this journey is not automatic, causal, or impersonal. It is not mechanically imposed on all believers…receptivity and participation do make a difference, [and so] the New Testament indicates the differences it makes and encourages, exhorts and even commands us to be receptive to the Word of God and the ministry of the Spirit out of trust in God’s faithfulness through the Son and in the Spirit. As Paul exhorts in Eph. 5:18, we are to be “filled with the Spirit.”

These personal distinctions related to personal participation should not be taken to mean that God is faithful to some but not to all. The difference our personal responsiveness makes does not condition God into changing his purpose and aim for us and all humanity. It does not make God for some and against others, and it certainly does not lead him to want to see those who are unresponsive perish.

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.”

-Dr. Gary Deddo

Photos compliments: etsy.com

The Method: Missionaries

Acts 13 Missionaries Sent By God

Audio – Part A: 23 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.11.17-the-method-missionaries-part-1-acts-13.1-3-14.8-28-tah-andrews.mp3”

Audio – Part B: 21 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.11.17-the-method-missionaries-part-2-acts-13.1-3-14.8-28-tah-andrews.mp3”

Audio – Full message:

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.11.17-the-method-missionaries-acts-13.1-3-14.8-28-tah-andrews.mp3”


Bible Verses:  Acts 13:1-3, Acts 14:8-28


Introduction:

God sent out some of the first missionaries through His Church. These missionaries were committed to following Jesus wherever He led them, even if that meant facing opposition to and suffering for the gospel message they proclaimed. God used these missionaries not only to bring others into His family but also to strengthen and encourage the church itself as they saw God at work.

Theological Theme:

God’s kingdom expands through mission to the unreached.

Christ Connection:

Jesus told His disciples that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. This image helps us see God’s people as “on offense,” taking the powerful and good news of Jesus to places of deep spiritual darkness with full confidence that Jesus will build His church.

Missional Application:

God-Father-Son-and-Spirit calls His Church to send and support missionaries to those who have never heard the gospel.

Photo Compliments YouTube

Contending For The Faith Delivered To The Saints! – Part 12

Contending for the Faith

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fCnlbFY-m0

Audio: Part 12a: 32 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/18.12.12-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-12a-john-4.1-42-tah.mp3”

Audio: Part 12b:  30 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/18.12.12-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-12b-john-4.1-42-tah.mp3”

Audio: Full Message:

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/18.12.12-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-12-john-4.1-42-tah.mp3”


Main Passages: Jude 1  John 4 


This Specific Message Concludes the Series of 12 messages addressing today’s big questions regarding relationships, race, marriage, love, gender/sexual identity, politics, and worship and witness as it relates to the Christian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Photo Compliments: http://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/proclamation/2010/4/Resources/octnovdec2010fea.jpeg

 

Contending For The Faith Delivered To The Saints! – Part 11

Jesus and Politics 2

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X08EByCsRQg

Slides: NLF Sermon Slides 12.2.18

Audio: Part 10a: 32 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/18.12.02-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-11a-jude-mark-tah.mp3”

Audio: Part 10b:  32 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/18.12.02-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-11b-jude-mark-tah.mp3”

Audio: Full Message:

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/18.12.02-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-11-jude-mark-tah.mp3”


Main Passages: Jude 1  John 4 


 

This Specific Message in the Series Points to the Truth in Christ that: “The Church in its witness must never give ultimate or unquestioned allegiance to any political or social ideology, or to the absolute rule or reign of any person or human institution. It must not idolize any humanly imagined ideal, and it must not justify evil means to accomplish the ideals promoted by ideological zealots. Instead, the church must carefully discern what limited good government (be it local, regional, national or international) can achieve without causing more harm than good (see Romans 13:1-7).”…other good stuff!

This series on God’s Good News urges believers to contend FOR the faith once delivered to the Church, in participation with Jesus Christ!, and AGAINST the ungodly cultural pressures and influences of our current times!

This is a Gospel message to a specific congregation of our times facing issues similar to congregations in other times as seen in the scriptures, particularly the Books of Jude and John. In this series, we make Christ-centered comparisons with the congregation in Jude and the Samaritan woman of Jesus’ time in John 4 to our particular congregation. You may see that the Church in general (especially if in the United States!), faces these same issues and also be helped by WHO and HOW He is proclaimed!

In the light of Jesus and the God revealed in Him (and over the course of 12 messages), we address today’s big questions regarding relationships, race, marriage, love, gender/sexual identity, politics, and worship and witness as it relates to the Christian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Photo Compliments: http://jacksonwu.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/jesus-politics.jpg

Contending For The Faith Delivered To The Saints! – Part 10

contending 5

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X08EByCsRQg

Audio: Part 10a: 31min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2-18-11-11-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-10a-gen-1-2-jude-john-4-tah.mp

Audio: Part 10b:  26min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2-18-11-11-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-10b-gen-1-2-jude-john-4-tah.mp3”

Audio: Full Message:

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2018-11-11-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-part-10-gen-1-2-jude-john2-tah.mp3”


Main Passages: Jude 1  John 4   Gen 1-2


This Specific Message in the Series Points to the Truth in Christ that: To be made in the image of God in Christ is to be male and female, to be in union, distinction, and with equality. This message points to the clarity we can have regarding love gender, marriage and sex because of being made in the image of Jesus (The true Image of God).

This message of God’s Good News urges believers to contend FOR the faith once delivered to the Church, in participation with Jesus Christ!, and AGAINST the ungodly cultural pressures and influences of our current times!

This is a Gospel message to a specific congregation of our times facing issues similar to congregations in other times as seen in the scriptures, particularly the Books of Jude and John. In this series, we make Christ-centered comparisons with the congregation in Jude and the Samaritan woman of Jesus’ time in John 4 to our particular congregation. You may see that the Church in general (especially if in the United States!), faces these same issues and also be helped by WHO and HOW He is proclaimed!

In the light of Jesus and the God revealed in Him (and over the course of 12 messages), we address today’s big questions regarding relationships, race, marriage, love, gender/sexual identity, politics, and worship and witness as it relates to the Christian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Photo Compliments: http://www.tclministries.org/nt-scripture-gallery/

 

Contending For The Faith Delivered To The Saints! – Part 9

contending 5

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL6FScyA_Jc

Audio Part 1a: 20 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2018-11-04-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-pt9a-jude.-john4.-gen1-2-tah.mp3

Audio Part 1b: 21 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2018-11-04-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-pt9-b-jude.-john4.-gen1-2-tah.mp3”

Audio Full Message: 

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/2018-11-04-contending-for-the-faith-delivered-to-the-saints-pt9-jude.-john4.-gen1-2-tah.mp3”


Main Passages: Jude 1  John 4   Gen 1-2


 

This Specific Message in the Series Points to the Truth in Christ that: To be made in the image of God in Christ is to be male and female, to be in union, distinction, and with equality. It emphasizes how man corresponds to woman and how woman corresponds to man as created by the Father-Son-and-Spirit-God!

This series of God’s Good News urges believers to contend FOR the faith once delivered to the Church, in participation with Jesus Christ!, and AGAINST the ungodly cultural pressures and influences of our current times!

This is a Gospel message to a specific congregation of our times facing issues similar to congregations in other times as seen in the scriptures, particularly the Books of Jude and John. In this series, we make Christ-centered comparisons with the congregation in Jude and the Samaritan woman of Jesus’ time in John 4 to our particular congregation. You may see that the Church in general (especially if in the United States!), faces these same issues and also be helped by WHO and HOW He is proclaimed!

In the light of Jesus and the God revealed in Him (and over the course of 12 messages), we address today’s big questions regarding relationships, race, marriage, love, gender/sexual identity, politics, and worship and witness as it relates to the Christian God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

Photo Compliments: http://www.tclministries.org/nt-scripture-gallery/