Archive for the ‘Jesus: True God True Man’ Tag

Grace To A Runaway Slave!

Part A:

Part B:

Full Message:


Bible Verse: Philemon 8-22


Introduction:

In his short letter to Philemon, Paul made an appeal for oneness and unity in Jesus Christ. He placed himself in the middle of a broken relationship between Philemon, a slave master, and Onesimus, a runaway slave. Contained within this story of reconciliation, grace, and de-exaltation is the gospel itself. A slave himself, Paul urged Philemon to consider love—not law, duty, or obligation. His instruction to receive Onesimus as a brother, not a slave, challenges us to evaluate our pride and align our perspectives of others with Christ’s perspective. In this letter, Paul helps us reflect on the racial, radical, and redemptive reconciliation Christ offers.

“The salvation secured by Christ in the gospel is more comprehensive than justification alone: it brings repentance, wholeness, love for brothers and sisters in the Christian community.” –D. A. Carson

Outline:

1. Appealing to Love, Not Obligation (Philem. 8-14)

Like Philemon, love is to be our motivation for obeying God in all things. We can easily fall into the trap of obeying God primarily out of obligation. We obey because we have to. We know we should. While this is certainly true—God has given us commands, not suggestions in Scripture— obligation cannot be what prompts our obedience. Love must be.

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commands (John 14:15). Love fuels obedience; obedience verifies love. A steady diet of love fattens obedience, but obligation will starve it at some point. This is why Jesus fused the two together. Our love for God produces obedience that pleases Him and also brings Him glory as the world around us sees us joyfully obey.

2. Accepting a Brother, Not a Slave (Philem. 15-17)

Love all men, even your personal enemies, not because they are brothers but in order that they may be brothers, in order that you may always burn with brotherly love, whether for one already become a brother or for an enemy so that by [your] loving he may become a brother.” –Augustine

3. Anticipating Grace, Not Duty (Philem. 18-22)

If we as Christians only obey God out of a sense of obligation or duty, then we commit the sin of the Pharisee: righteousness without right-heartedness. God desires that our obedience come from the heart.

After committing adultery with Bathsheba, David discovered, “The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God” (Ps. 51:16-17). God cannot overlook a broken heart. He collects them, tends and mends them. Duty is a harsh master, but through the cracks of a broken spirit, the Holy Spirit enters into us and distributes grace to every limb. Paul had a broken heart when he penned his letter—a heart that Philemon could heal by demonstrating the grace of Christ to Onesimus. “Refresh my heart in Christ,” he instructed (Philem. 20).

Theological Theme:

Christian reconciliation models the cross of Christ.

Contained within this story of reconciliation, grace, and de-exaltation is the gospel itself – a gospel that regardless of background, skin color, class, or cultural difference unites God’s [Father-Son-Holy Spirit] family members and demonstrates the reconciling power of the cross. Christian unity is not about sameness; it’s about oneness.

Christ Connection:

When Paul appealed to Philemon on behalf of the runaway slave Onesimus, he placed himself in the middle of their broken relationship. In order to make peace, he volunteered to pay Onesimus’ debt. Through this action, Paul modeled Jesus Christ, who is the peacemaker between God and sinful humanity. By volunteering to pay our debt, Jesus reconciled us to God and to each other.

Missional Application:

God, through his Holy Spirit, calls us to live as peacemakers who reflect the heart of our crucified Savior.

Conclusion:

Jesus once promised that He would “go away and prepare a place for you” (John 14:3).

After the toils of life are over, God will declare your emancipation also. Like Paul, you will escape “this body of death” (Rom. 7:24) and abscond to your mansion in glory—a home where “neither moth nor rust destroys” and “where thieves don’t break in and steal” (Matt. 6:20). This future home is what should motivate us today. Because we anticipate entering Christ’s presence and basking in His love and grace as His brothers and sisters, we give to others today what we will receive then. It is the least we, all former slaves to sin who are now one family in Christ, can do for one another.

“We have but one leading aim, to which it is our deliberate and unreserved desire that every thing else in which we are concerned may be subordinate and subservient—in a word, that we are devoted to the Lord, and have by grace been enabled to choose him, and to yield ourselves to him, so as to place our happiness in his favor, and to make his glory and will the ultimate scope of all our actions.” –John Newton

Photo Compliments:

http://www.upperclydeparish.blogspot

The Preeminence Of Jesus Christ!

Part A:

Part B:

Full Message:


Bible Verses: Colossians 1:15-24 2: 3


Introduction:

What is the outlook you have in your life? Do you see Jesus?

How and what we see is so important for the life we live today, the relationships we have, and to the words we speak today. Our outlook/view is so important to our walk, ministry and testimony.

“We should be focused on The Father, Son and Holy Spirit and The God who is revealed in Jesus”

“We should be (given the context of the lives that we live today, given all things that we’re going through, through the tears, celebration, through the relationships, through the work and through the worry) focused on Jesus, who is supreme, who is central, and who is sufficient in and for all things, and for all times.”

Paul wrote the letter to the church at Colossae when he learned through Epaphras that heretical teachings were running through the church. Paul’s letter pointed the church to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ is not merely a theory for theologians to ponder; it’s a real-life, realtime reality that heals, restores, and reconciles. Through the cross, Christ reconciled us to the Father, reconciles all things in Himself, and reconciles us to one another.

Paul focuses on the reconciling work of Jesus and focuses our attention on reconciling in 3 different areas in our lives:

1. Christ is preeminent in His reconciling all things. (Col. 1:15-20).

2. Christ is preeminent in His reconciling us to God. (Col. 1:21-23).

3. Christ is preeminent in His reconciling us to one another. (Col. 1:24–2:3).

Theological Theme:

Through His work on the cross, Christ is restoring the world and reconciling us to God [Father-Son-Holy Spirit] and to one another.

Christ Connection:

Jesus is the preeminent one. Growth and maturity are firmly established on that precept.

“For everywhere He is first; above first; in the Church first; for He is the Head; in the Resurrection first.” –John Chrysostom

In prison, Paul encouraged God’s people by proclaiming the magnificence of Christ—His identity as God’s Son and His work on the cross to reconcile us to God. Christian growth and maturity does not take place through moving beyond the gospel to other Bible teaching but through continually refocusing our attention on Christ—who is the focus of the Scriptures and the head of the church

Missional Application:

God, through His Holy Spirit, calls us, as those who have been reconciled to God, to be heralds of reconciliation to the world.

Conclusion:

Just as Christ is preeminent in His reconciling creation, He is preeminent in His reconciling us to God, which He accomplished through taking on flesh and then laying His life down on our behalf. Because of the blood He shed on the cross, we are no longer alienated, hostile, and evil. That is the old person who has been put to death with Christ on the cross. In that person’s place, we have received new life, new identity, in Christ. And it is this new person who has been declared holy, faultless, and blameless whom Christ presents to the Father. This is the fundamental change of Christ’s reconciliation. He has undone sin’s curse. He has restored that which was broken. He has made right that which was wrong. He, not us, has accomplished this work of reconciliation. And this is why He receives all the glory of our salvation.

By the cross, Christians enter into a personal relationship with the Man of Nazareth who, being fully God and fully man, suffered with us, suffered for us, and suffers through us as we “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15). The beams of the cross point us upward (Christ), downward (grounded in the faith), and outward (loving others). Be careful to keep those three beams together, for if we become deficient in one, the others will fall apart. May we proclaim a whole redemption through a whole Christ to a world that is not yet whole.

Photo Compliments:

http://www.crosswalk.com

Becoming An Ethically Responsible Christian Disciple! Part 2 (Our Christian/ Biblical Worldview)

Part 2A:

Part 2B:

Full Message:


Bible Verses: Colossians (various scriptures)


Introduction:

Because Jesus Himself is our Ethic (our humanity living properly among his neighbors and glorifying the Father), ethics is the free gift of God given to us in Jesus Christ. Christian ethics are not a way to earn God’s love or a way to earn salvation through human works and achievements. It is the gift of participating with Jesus in his human life by Grace! Jesus is God’s Grace to us! Ethics is what it means to participate with Jesus in living his life in this world by the Spirit!

Theological Theme:

You begin life as a child but only so you can grow up into an adult. Similarly, through your union and participation with Jesus, by the Spirit, you are in the state of growing up and becoming a little Christ who glorifies the Father.

Christ Connection:

Jesus is the One Who stands in our human place and lives life in this world with our human nature and on our behalf in a renewing way that brings and gives us revitalized human life, destroying sin completely. He Himself, then, is our Ethic. He is the way we are called to live! Jesus is our proper human response to God and our neighbor! He is the only true Learner of God, and the only human fully obedient to the Father, AND he was and is this so that we might participate with him, glorifying the Father!

Missional Application:

As members of Christ and as people in this world, Christians have a dual citizenship. We have a complex responsibility – the response-ability of Christ, by the Spirit, to be equipped for the works of Christ’s service in the spheres of the Church, the Kingdom, and the State. The goal and mandate is to prioritize our relationship with God, and then, at his direction and under his authority over all, to love everyone, pointing them, through his mission, to him that they too may be in union and participation with him.

Photo Compliments: www. justbetweenus.org

Our Father’s Gift of Jesus’ Life and Death!

gods gift

Audio – Part A: 21min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/19.12.22-christmas-fathers-gift-of-jesus-life-and-death-part-a-luke-1-hebrews-2-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part B: 22min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/19.12.22-christmas-fathers-gift-of-jesus-life-and-death-part-b-luke-1-hebrews-2-tah.mp3”

Full Message:

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/19.12.22-christmas-fathers-gift-of-jesus-life-and-death-luke-1-hebrews-2-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses:  Luke 1  Hebrews 2  Luke 2: 1-20


Theological Theme:

The primary Gift given to humanity is the most Personal Gift you could ever get. It is nothing less than the Gift of God Himself [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] to us. That is all God really has to give us —the Gift of Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ.

Christ Connection:

The Father’s Gift of Jesus’ Life and Death is God’s greatest gift to us. He lived the life we didn’t live so that we could truly live. Jesus died the death that all of us die so that our death would truly die and remain dead.

We are to understand the gospel as Jesus being given to us by the Father so that we would have His life, the way He lived, the way He thought and acted, the way he talked and related with His Father and other people. And Jesus lived this way by the Holy Spirit, and we live a true human life by the Holy Spirit!

Missional Application:

The word of Christ that believers share with others is this — Don’t underestimate the kind of life that is available to you right now in Christ. Jesus has come now so that we can, somehow, right now, begin to receive this transformed life. We don’t have to wait! Right now we can be full of The Holy Spirit, full of the smiles and hugs of The Father even as we still die and approach our death. We still do sin, but we no longer have to be sin centered and sin focused. We repent and believe the good news and encourage everyone else to do so! May we all receive Jesus now and say as Mary said: “I am The Lord’s servant –Son or daughter– may it be done to me according to your word.”

….those who trust in Christ share in his life, death, resurrection and ascension…just as we are dead already in Jesus’ substitutionary death, we have also already been “made alive together with him” and we are “raised up together with him” and “seated together with him in the heavenly realms.” All this comes from God’s grace and is experienced through faith—the faith of Jesus that he shares with us by the Spirit….

The benefit of what Jesus did so long ago extends to the past, to the present and into the future. Paul says, “how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”  This shows that salvation is not a one-time event, but an enduring relationship that God has with all humanity—a relationship formed within the person of Jesus Christ, who has brought God and humanity together in peace.

Jesus has not simply done something for us, he has done something with us by including us in his life, death, resurrection and ascension. —GOD: THE GOD REVEALED IN JESUS CHRIST – A BOOKLET (GCI)

The Message: “Christ Alone”

salvation5

Audio – Full message: 29min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/19.12.15-the-message-christ-alone-acts-15.1-35-tah-marra.mp3”


Bible Verses: Acts 15:1-35


Introduction:

The church handled a heated disagreement about the nature of salvation for Gentiles. Were Gentiles saved by faith alone or must they enter into salvation through the path of obedience to the law first? The Jerusalem Council that was convened to answer this critical question offers us a good example of how to handle disputes in the church but also was vital in preserving the gospel message of “Christ alone.”

When the sufficiency of faith in Jesus for salvation and inclusion into God’s one family was at stake, the church clearly and strongly affirmed that because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross, He alone is all we need for salvation. The early church protected the core message of the gospel. Today, God continues to call us to proclaim the message that salvation is available through faith in Christ alone, and not through additional obligations and works.

– The Gospel Project

Theological Theme:

The gospel revealed by God [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] announces that salvation is available by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Christ Connection:

The Jerusalem Council met to resolve a dispute in the early church: Was faith in Christ sufficient for salvation and inclusion into God’s family or was something else needed? The early church’s response affirmed the sufficiency of faith in Jesus for salvation. Because of His finished work on the cross, Jesus alone is all we need to be saved

Missional Application:

God, through His Holy Spirit, calls us to proclaim the message that salvation is available through faith in Christ alone, not through additional obligations and works.

God’s love, so understood, should find focal expression at the Lord’s table, for such love is creative of community, for there Christ gathers his people and gives himself to them freely and unconditionally by the Spirit and lifts us up out of ourselves and our introspectiveness and social lethargy, and frees us to love him and to love all men in his name–where he converts us into being a loving, caring, believing community, members of his missionary body in the world. In the language of the older Scottish divines, sacraments are signs and seals of the covenant of grace–converting ordinances, not badges of our conversion. We are called by the word of the Cross daily to evangelical repentance through life in the Spirit, and we receive the Spirit by faith alone. –  The Unconditional Freeness of Grace – James B. Torrance Theological Renewal – June/July 1978: 7-15

Photo Compliments: https://www.bible.com/

Christ-Centered Clarity On Sex And Marriage!

marriage1

Audio – Part A:  27 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.12.08-christ-centered-clarity-on-sex-and-marriage-part-a-john-14.6-8.1-11-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part B:  26 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.12.08-christ-centered-clarity-on-sex-and-marriage-part-b-john-14.6-8.1-11-tah.mp3”

Full Message:

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.12.08-christ-centered-clarity-on-sex-and-marriage-john-14.6-8.1-11-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: John 14 – 6   John 8: 1-11   John 5: 25-29


Living Into This Challenging Christian Life With Jesus!

Introduction:

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! Our purpose in life is to be one with God! Despite our sin and weaknesses, the Lord will strengthen us in our relationship with Him 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!

“There can be no doubt, however, that the New Testament is pervaded with the joyful sense of God’s actual presence in Jesus Christ, and with the realisation that the coming age has already broken into the present and overlaps it. That is precisely the good news of the gospel, that here and now in Christ Jesus God is present in all his royal power, not only to speak a word of pardon but actually to enact it and fulfil it in the liberation of the children of God.” — Thomas F. Torrance


 

Theological Theme:

In the light of the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and Jesus being the Image of God, and man and woman together as being made in the image of the Image, Jesus – What is the Christian view of marriage?.

As revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and as stated by Jesus, God established marriage as an exclusive, sacred union between one man and one woman. That union is a unique, living witness that reflects and honors God’s covenant relationship with his people in Jesus Christ (through His Holy Spirit). It is a union that involves a unity—a difference and a harmonious coordination of being and action in holy loving. That unity, which normally has the potential to be fruitful by generating new-born life, bears witness to the life-giving nature of the triune God through the union and communion of the Father and Son in the Spirit. Christian marriage, lived as a witness to God’s faithfulness, honors God and builds trust between human beings, especially between men and women. —Grace Communion International  —(THE GCI STATEMENT OF BELIEFS 15.19 —)

Christ Connection:

The relation of man and woman bears witness to the glory of God even more ultimately as it is expressed in Jesus Christ. His own Person embodies the fulfillment of the covenant relationship between God and humanity. In the one Person of Jesus the divine and human natures meet without confusion, without separation, without fusion and without division. In Jesus, the divinity of the Son is not exchanged for the humanity, neither is the humanity swallowed up by its union with the divine nature. Nor do they become mixed or fused so as to become neither. In Jesus we are united to God so that all that is ours has also become his and all that is his is shared with us in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why the apostle Paul indicates that the glory and mystery of marriage bears witness to Christ and his Church…The difference yet unity of God with humanity in Christ is imaged or reflected in the marriage of man and woman. Marriage is a witness to the glory of the Lamb God. The differentiation in that union is essential in each relationship. – Gary Deddo “Why We’re Gendered Beings”

God loves us with a perfect and freely given and eternally faithful love, establishing marriage as an exclusive and sacred union between one man , and one woman to be a unique living witness that reflects and honors God’s covenant relationship with His people in Jesus Christ.  —Grace Communion International

Since love is God’s great gift, God expects us to not corrupt it, or confuse it with momentary desire to fulfill our own selfish pleasures. God forbids all sexual immorality, whether in married life (adultery) or single life (fornication). Faithfulness is essential to experience the blessings of marriage. The faithfulness of celibacy is essential to experience the blessings of being unmarried. All sexual relations outside the safe boundaries of covenant marriage are forms of sexual abuse and harm our capacity to form healthy relationships of non-sexual love between members of the body of Christ and sexual relationships of married couples. Sexual relations are safe and healthy and honor God only when experienced within a lifelong commitment to marriage between one man and one woman. All else falls far short of the glory of God and his good purposes for humanity. All sexual immorality including sexual abuse and fornication dishonors God and destroys trust between human beings. —Grace Communion International — (THE GCI STATEMENT OF BELIEFS 15.21  —Why should Christians avoid sexual immorality of all kinds?)

Missional Application:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”… God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. (Genesis 1:26-28; 31 NRSV throughout except as noted)

“In partnership with Christ, we are ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). Though we are members of the Body of Christ, we are decidedly not the Head of the Body….But the church, although not the source of salvation, does contribute in its own way to God’s fruitful work in the world to bring humanity back into right relationship with him.” – Gary Deddo

Photo Compliments: https://www.slideserve.com/

Created To Participate In Jesus’ Godly Responses!

participation

Audio – Part A:  24 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.12.01-created-to-participate-in-jesus-godly-responses-part-a-john-14.6-heb-13-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part B:  23 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.12.01-created-to-participate-in-jesus-godly-responses-part-b-john-14.6-heb-13-tah.mp3”

Full Message:

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.12.01-created-to-participate-in-jesus-godly-responses-john-14.6-heb-13-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: John 14 – 6   Hebrews 13  


Living Into This Challenging Christian Life With Jesus!

Introduction:

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! Our purpose in life is to be one with God! Despite our sin and weaknesses, the Lord will strengthen us in our relationship with Him 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!

“God has united himself with us, and us with himself, so that all that we think or do, we do as his children, participating with him in all that he is doing in our world now through the continuing ministry of Christ by the power of the Spirit.”  —Dr Gary Deddo


 

Theological Theme:

Advent means the coming of Jesus in His first appearance and in His last appearance. With regards to Hebrews 13, God [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] wants us to see that He has come, therefore He is here, yet He is still coming in the Second Advent, His second appearing as well. He wants us to know that in Jesus Christ we have been created to PARTICIPATE in Jesus’ Godly responses. You are NOT to think of yourself apart from Jesus Christ because that is not who you are. You are a “Chip off the old block”.

Christ Connection:

“Who is Jesus? After addressing that inquiry, and only after, can we take up two other theological questions: Who are we in Jesus Christ?, and What are we to do in response?” —Dr Gary Deddo

Jesus is God as man and the way and the life of a human being. So at every point, we are to look at Jesus to understand who and what God is really like. When we look to Jesus, we understand the Father’s heart, we understand what the Spirit’s intent is, we understand what He meant for men and women to be like, to live like and to give like.

Christ has taken our human cause and our human nature and lived for us the Godly life that God always envisioned for us to live so there is nothing for you to make up. There is something for you to discover but that has come to you in grace.

In God, we’ve been given a gift and a task in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the answer to anything.  “Union with Christ means that he is the sole and ultimate source of our meaning, purpose, significance, security, dignity, and destiny.”

We have been given the gift of Jesus Christ. He has been the gift of THE WAY, and THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE for us, and Jesus IS THE TASK. The gift is something to do, to be done, something to be lived into, something to be shared with others.

“But if Christian life and ministry is somehow participation, what is it that we actually get involved in? Christ has completed his once-for-all ministry. How can we get involved in that? We can’t attempt to redo what he has done. How, then, can we participate? This line of questioning indicates that we often forget or perhaps never fully grasped the fact that the risen Christ ascended in his bodily form with his humanity, a humanity not only intact but now glorified.

All our responses to Christ are nothing more than following Christ in his present activity and engaging in the ministry that he is actively doing now through the Holy Spirit. When we preach the gospel, we participate in the apostolic ministry of Jesus, by the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit continues to bear witness to Christ and to our need for Christ. When we love a neighbor, or love an enemy, for the sake of Christ and witness to his kingdom, we are merely catching up with God. We’re merely going to work with God. When we pray, we’re joining Christ in his faithful prayers of intercessions for us and for the world. When we worship, we are joining in with all the faithful, including those who have gone before us who are continually worshiping following the leadership of Jesus Christ, our great worship leader.

When we see our whole lives this way, we join with the apostle Paul, who proclaimed, “I live yet not I but Christ who lives in me.” That is not just a platitude that sounds nice. The whole of the Christian life is actually a participation in the life and ministry of Christ. So we can say, I pray, yet not I but Christ prays in me. I obey, yet not I but Christ obeys in me. I have faith, yet not I but Christ has faith active in me. I hunger and thirst for righteousness and reconciliation, yet not I but Christ in me.” —Dr Gary Deddo

Missional Application:

Jesus has now given us the Father’s love in a tangible way, but until The Lord comes in His second appearing, you only live with The Lord by Faith —through The Holy Spirit—and not by sight. This message of Advent —the fact that Christ has come, that He is RIGHT HERE NOW and that He is STILL COMING — is the message that can only amaze us. We proclaim this message to the world in participation with Jesus!

“….although still sharing in our now glorified human nature, he is not present in the way he was before his ascension. He is, in a way, absent from earth. He has sent the Spirit as another comforter to be with us, but he in his own person is unavailable to us as he was. But he has promised us that he will return.

Parallel to this is the nature of the kingdom. It was indeed “near” and active in Jesus’ earthly ministry. It was so near and available that it called for an immediate response, just as Jesus himself called for a response of faith in him. However, as Jesus taught, his rule and reign had not yet come in its fullness. There was more to come. And that time will coincide with Christ’s return (often called his “second coming”).

So faith in the kingdom includes hope for the coming of the fullness of the kingdom as well. The kingdom was already present in Jesus and continues to be present by his Spirit. But its completion is not yet. This is often summarized by saying the kingdom of God is already, but not yet.”—Dr Gary Deddo

Photo compliments: https://quotefancy.com/     

Father’s Gracious New Covenant Warnings and Exhortations!, Part 2

Warnings because of God's Love

Audio – Part A: 27 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.11.24-fathers-gracious-new-covenant-warnings-and-exhortations-part-2a-john-14.6-heb-12-13-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part B: 30 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.11.24-fathers-gracious-new-covenant-warnings-and-exhortations-part-2b-john-14.6-heb-12-13-tah.mp3”

Full Message: 

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/19.11.24-fathers-gracious-new-covenant-warnings-and-exhortations-part-2-john-14.6-heb-12-13-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: John 14 – 6   Hebrews 12  Hebrews 13


Living Into This Challenging Christian Life With Jesus!

Introduction:

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! Our purpose in life is to be one with God! Despite our sin and weaknesses, the Lord strengthens us in our relationship with Him 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!

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'” – John 14:6


 

Theological Theme:

How are we to understand our Father’s strong warning and exhortations in scripture?? Only in the Light of God’s Story, the Gospel!

Story of the Gospel: The Father is the great fountain of love and of every blessing, which he has always bestowed upon his Son in the Holy Spirit in covenant – in an unconditional pledge to love the other! The Son has always received the Father’s unconditional Love and returned it equally in response, in the Holy Spirit!

Christ Connection:

In lavish love that overflows, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desired to share Himself with others so others could know it too and so He thought of the first and most important thing to create: Jesus Christ our King! “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world!” “Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory, and the exact expression of his nature (IMAGE) IN FLESH, sustaining all things by his powerful Word!”. Jesus is God’s purpose for all creation, therefore, what Jesus did, mankind can participate in by Grace in The Holy Spirit. And so The Father, Son and Spirit made humanity in Jesus’ image (Gen 1:27,28): as male and female! He blessed us and gave us the task of being fruitful and multiplying together, in covenant, and gave us, together, dominion over all living things!

“Jesus was God spelling himself out in language humanity could understand.” – S.D. Gordon

Missional Application:

We are to look forward to living with Jesus in Heaven ON EARTH, so we invite everyone, everywhere, to repent, believe and receive relationship with the Father, through Jesus, in the Holy Spirit RIGHT NOW! Because this present evil age and world is not our home and will soon perish, we warn people not to place their trust in the world against Jesus but to turn from it, submitting only to Jesus and His Loving Lordship!

 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16


 

Photo Compliments: youtube.com (Joy Williams)


 

Father’s Gracious New Covenant Warnings and Exhortations!, Part 1

Father’s Gracious New Covenant Warnings and Exhortations!, Part 1

Warnings because of God's Love

Audio – Part A: 18 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/19.11.10-fathers-gracious-new-covenant-warnings-and-exhortations-part-a-john-14-6-heb-12-13-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part B: 20 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/19.11.10-fathers-gracious-new-covenant-warnings-and-exhortations-part-b-john-14-6-heb-12-13-tah.mp3”

Full Message: 

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/19.11.10-fathers-gracious-new-covenant-warnings-and-exhortations-john-14-6-heb-12-13-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: John 14 – 6   Hebrews 12  


Living Into This Challenging Christian Life With Jesus!

Introduction:

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! Our purpose in life is to be one with God! Despite our sin and weaknesses, the Lord will strengthen us in our relationship with Him 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!

“Christ came to deliver us not only from the guilt of sin but also from the power of sin! He was delivered from it and we will be too!” – pastor Timothy Brassell


 

Theological Theme:

We humans especially have God-Father-Son-and-Holy Spirit’s fingerprints upon us being made in the image of Jesus Christ, being conformed to him, and having a destiny far above all created things! Above all things in creation, when you look at Human Nature and Being in Jesus you see (as you can see in no other way) the greatest glory and reflection of the invisible God, Who, in grace, made all things, and made all things new in Christ by His Spirit! In those Who trust Him, you also see those made in the image of the Image being more and more conformed to Jesus.

Christ Connection:

Jesus is God’s purpose for all creation, therefore, what Jesus did, mankind can now do by His Grace in The Holy Spirit. Christ came to deliver us not only from the guilt of sin but also from the power of sin! He was delivered from it and we will be too, starting now!” If we say we have no sin we are liars” (but if we continue in sin without participating in Jesus’s struggle against it and in obedience to the Father we are also liars because we proclaim that we received a Spirit by which we now “reckon ourselves dead in trespasses and sins”)

All of grace means all of man, for the fullness of grace creatively includes the fullness and completeness of our human response in the equation.”  – T.F Torrance

Missional Application:

The Holy Spirit does proclaim to us personally and individually – “You’re included”, but that is not the only word of the gospel. “You’re Included” also includes participating with Jesus in reaching out to “Go and Make Disciples!” Salvation, forgiveness, redemption, etc. are not just words to proclaim or thoughts to think. They describe Jesus and our union with Him in relationship that is lived out and shared with this world that they too might believe, enjoy, and share in eternal life! In God’s love, and with Him, we warn those who don’t believe “You get all the time you need to respond to God, not all the time you want! So repent and believe the Good News! Trust and receive the Christ Who receives and loves you and is going to reappear soon!”

“God in grace gives us what he seeks from us” – James Torrance”


 

Photo Compliments: youtube.com (Joy Williams)


 

Father’s Discipline Is First Painful – Then Fruitful! Part 1

Father’s Discipline Is First Painful – Then Fruitful! Part 2

God's Discipline 2

Audio – Full Message: 38 min

“https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/19.11.03-fathers-discipline-is-first-painful-then-fruitful-part-2-john-14-6-heb-12-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: John 14: 6    Hebrews 12


Living Into This Challenging Christian Life With Jesus!

Introduction:

The Christian Life is living out and manifesting the reality of our union and communion with Jesus Christ. Our purpose in life is to be close to The Father! Even in our weakness, the Lord will strengthen us in this relationship as we trust Him! When our Lord Jesus Christ reappears gloriously, we too will be glorified and 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!

“Progress in Christ is possible, even major progress.” – Bishop Todd Hunter


 

Theological Theme:

At times God [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] has to ask: “Have you forgotten who I am? Be encouraged! I AM Your Father, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ!” You are my children! I sent my one and only Son to put my life in you! Your children may escape rebuke and correction but my children don’t! Who loves children more, the one who lets them walk right into harm’s way with no consequence, or the One who openly rebukes them, trains them, disciplines them, and makes them free in Christ? Open rebuke is better than secret love!”

Christ Connection:

Jesus is God’s purpose for all creation, therefore, what Jesus did, mankind can now do by His Grace in The Holy Spirit. Our worldview should be the Person of Jesus Christ as mediated to us by the Holy Spirit and met in Holy Scripture. The scripture proclaims that Jesus is the one man for all men and women. Jesus is the One Human Substituting for and Representing all humans. What Jesus did, mankind can do in the Spirit after Jesus! Jesus didn’t do what he did in response to the Father so that you wouldn’t have to do it – Jesus did what he did so you and I could do it too, in participation with Him. Jesus calls out to us:  “Fix your eyes on me and do what I did and still do in you!”

“All of grace means all of man, for the fullness of grace creatively includes the fullness and completeness of our human response in the equation.”  – T.F Torrance

Missional Application:

The Holy Spirit does proclaim to us personally and individually – “You’re included”, but that is not the only word of the gospel. The Holy Spirit also proclaims and moves in us to “Go and Make Disciples!” Salvation, forgiveness, redemption, etc. are not just words to proclaim or thoughts to think individually but actions in relationship to be lived out!

“We’re being discipled and bearing fruit, and therefore we’re being disciplined that we might bear more fruit!” – pastor Timothy Brassell


 

Photo Compliments: https://www.highlandparklc.com/verse-of-the-day-hebrews-1211-kjv/


 

Father’s Discipline Is First Painful – Then Fruitful! Part 1

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