Archive for the ‘New Life Fellowship Baltimore MD’ 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?, Pt. 2

Part 2A

Part 2B


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


Summary and Goal:

This Sunday, following Trinity Sunday, we continue proclaiming the relational God-Father-Son-Holy-Spirit Revealed in Jesus. This message is meant to help believers remember that the Father-Son-Holy-Spirit-God is not just an add-on doctrine of Christian faith, but that this God IS the Gospel! God the Trinity is “the root and nerve center” of all Christian belief. There could be no beliefs or doctrines apart from the Truth of Who God has revealed Himself to be in Jesus Christ. 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 in the Holy Spirit. If you don’t get this basic understanding of the Gospel, you don’t get or understand Christianity. God’s primary revelation to us is the revelation of Himself! The scriptures are primarily about Him! We can only understand ourselves, and the scriptures in the Light of Who He is, or we cannot and do not understand either! Check it out!

Christ Connection:

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

Photos compliments: trinityandhumanity.com (John Stonecypher)

Sin and God’s Good News!


Scripture: Gen 3:1 – 4:8


Introduction:

Summary and Goal:
In the previous two sessions, we saw that God created everything good, including people as the pinnacle of creation. Adam and Eve were made in God’s image and instructed to rule over the world and worship God through their work, rest, and relationships with one another and with Him. As we will see in this session, that didn’t last. Adam and Eve chose to sin against God in open defiance of His goodness and loving provision for them. Their sin had drastic consequences as it brought death to all humanity and ruptured our created purpose. But as dark as that moment was, we will see that it was pregnant with hope—hope that could only come from God in His promise to one day send Someone who would make everything right again.

Theological Theme:

People sinned against God and ruptured our created purpose, but God has provided
forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

Christ Connection:

God promised that one of Eve’s offspring would crush the head of the serpent. Jesus

is the promised One who defeated sin and death once and for all.

“ There is more mercy in

Christ than sin in us.”

–Richard Sibbes (1577-1635)

Missional Application:

Because we have been forgiven through faith in Christ and given His righteousness,
we trust in God and His grace as we fight against sin in our lives and proclaim the
reason for our hope found in Christ Jesus.

Photos compliments: youtube.com

I Am the Resurrection And The Life!

Part 1A

Part 1B

Scripture: John 11:17-27


Introduction:

On this Easter Sunday, the Resurrection has something first of all, and primarily, to do with the Father-Son-Holy-Spirit God and His Activity as the Father-Son-Holy-Spirit-God, especially Revealed in Jesus Christ!

Theological Theme:

The most fundamental thing that Jesus has revealed about the resurrection is that HE, HIMSELF, is the Resurrection. We don’t want to keep mistaking resurrection primarily and only as rising up from physical death in the life of the age to come.

Christ Connection:

You don’t have to wait to until the life of the age to come to participate in rising from death. You can rise from death now, because this is meant not only physically but spiritually, and Christ shares himself with us NOW through the Holy Spirit conforming our humanity to his! Forget ONLY waiting to rise from the dead in the future. You can begin to rise and share in the life of the age to come right now, from the Father, through the Son, and in and by the Holy Spirit!

Missional Application:

Because Jesus is Himself the Resurrection, receiving and enjoying the Resurrection is primarily about receiving and enjoying Jesus Christ (along with him the Father and the Holy Spirit!) This is the Good News we seek to share with all that they too may participate actively in the relationship Jesus graciously gives!

Photos compliments: http://www.pinterest.com

The Primary Point You Should Receive From All Christian Teaching! 

The Primary Point You Should Receive From All Christian Teaching, 1A
The Primary Point You Should Receive From All Christian Teaching, 1B

Bible Verse: 2 Peter 1


Introduction:

Because the primary goal of God-Father-Son-Holy-Spirit is that we share in the Divine nature, as it says in 2 Peter 1, we are properly pointed to the primary point of all Christian teaching!

Theological Theme:

What the triune God requires of us has to be something He first does for us in our place and on our behalf since he is the only one Who is divine, and able to give and receive divinity!

Christ Connection:

Jesus Christ is not only the Gift of Humanity that God gives to us by becoming Incarnate in our place and on our behalf in a substitutionary way, but Jesus is also the Giver of our Humanity to us, and sharing His Spirit with us that we might participate with Him in His Humanity!

Missional Application:

Psalm 24: says, “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord;” Because this is so, the new humanity God shares with us in Christ is not just for Christians but something God has done for and to all mankind in the person of Jesus. Therefore we joyfully proclaim this Good News about Who Jesus is, and Who we all are in him, to everyone, that all may accept, receive, and experience Jesus’ life in the Spirit, by grace, repenting of their unbelief in Him by believing in Him!

Photo Compliments: twitter.com

Jesus Is Our Wonder-Full World Tomorrow – TODAY!

Wonderful 2

Audio – Part 1a: 25 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/19.4.21-jesus-is-our-wonder-full-world-tomorrow-today-part-1a-matt-28-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part 1b: 26 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/19.4.21-jesus-is-our-wonder-full-world-tomorrow-today-part-1b-matt-28-tah.mp3”

Audio – Full Message:

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/19.4.21-jesus-is-our-wonder-full-world-tomorrow-today-matt-28-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: Matthew 28


This message proclaims Jesus Christ, the Father’s Son! It proclaims how he is The Life of New Creation breaking into the present right now, by the Spirit! He has come and appeared, and is still here by the Spirit, saying he would never leave or forsake us! At one and the same time, He is also yet coming in his second appearance! Although we don’t get to experience the fullness of his life here and now, even with the Spirit (you don’t get “your best life now”), you can indeed get “your best taste now” as we await the fullness experienced in glorified human bodies! A taste may only be a taste but it’s not meaningless, rather a taste is meaningful and provides hope! We only get a taste right now or else we might think the corruption still in the world represents part of the whole thing that’s coming, and it doesn’t! We don’t want to get totally locked into the here and now and “trade our inheritance for a bowl of soup”. On the other side we don’t want to be so future-oriented only that we are of no earthly good as the Spirit lives in us to lay out the red carpet for Jesus’ soon coming return! From the Father, through Jesus and in the Spirit we can live in the tension of the “Already-but-not-yet!”

Missional Application:

We’re not just called to raise children, maintain households, make widgets and spreadsheets, and create music, do homework assignments, or oversee projects, deadlines and inventory! We’re also called to make disciples who can make disciples that the world may know Jesus starting now – as many people as possible! Others who can also begin receiving and helping to share in God’s Love and Life proclaiming the Good News of the “Wonder-full World Tomorrow – Today!” There is no discrimination or respecter of persons but to all who believe and receive in him, he gives the right to become the children of God!

Photo Compliments: alwaysnjoy.com

Jesus Is Risen! So Go…Make Disciples! Part 2

Make Disciples (In the name of FSS)

Audio – Part 2a: 20 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/19.4.01-jesus-is-risen-so-go-make-disciples-part-2a-5-matt-28-1-cor-15-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part 2b: 20 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/19.4.01-jesus-is-risen-so-go-make-disciples-part-2b-5-matt-28-1-cor-15-tah.mp3”

Audio – Full Message:

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/19.4.01-jesus-is-risen-so-go-make-disciples-part-2-5-matt-28-1-cor-15-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: Matthew 28


 This Good News series is about Jesus’ Believers and Disciples “GO”ing in Active Participation with Him, Wherever He Says to “Go!…”

Theological Theme:

What is a disciple? Disciples are those who willingly, by grace through faith, and in loving obedience, participate with Jesus in offering their total humanity in allegiance to the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit! They participate with Jesus in his repentance and baptism, being incorporated into his body, the Church, and become fully committed to making disciples of Jesus who can make disciples of Jesus that make disciples of Jesus – in the Spirit, through the Son and to the Glory of our Father!!

Christ Connection:

Who is Jesus? The Father’s Son! Our Chief brother! He’s the One Who sends the Spirit!
*He’s the one intent to fill the whole universe with his presence, which means his relationship with his Father in the fellowship of the Spirit!
*He’s the captain of our salvation Who has defeated sin, hell, death and the grave, affecting atonement and reconciliation with God, self, others and creation!
*He’s the Resurrected God/Man who has broken back into our corrupted time, cleansing and exalting it!

Missional Application:

God the Father calls us to embrace a life of participation with His Son, our Savior and Lord, and in his life of fellowship and communion, whose mission was only to seek and to do what his Father was doing, in the Spirit. What Jesus is doing now is sending out his people, even as he was sent, that the world might believe, receive and be saved! We’re actually supposed to make disciples of Jesus NOT just discuss making them!

Photo Compliments: sandwichink.com

Jesus Is Risen! So Go…Make Disciples! Part 1

Go and Make Disciples

Audio – Part 1a: 26 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/19.3.31-jesus-is-risen-so-go-make-disciples-part-1a-matt-28-1-cor-15-tah.mp3”

Audio – Part 1b: 24 min

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/19.3.31-jesus-is-risen-so-go-make-disciples-part-1b-matt-28-1-cor-15-tah.mp3”

Audio – Full Message:

https://trinityandhumanity.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/19.3.31-jesus-is-risen-so-go-make-disciples-part-1-matt-28-1-cor-15-tah.mp3”


Bible Verses: Matthew 28


 This Good News series is about Jesus’ Believers and Disciples “GO”ing in Active Participation with Him, Wherever He Says to “Go!…”

Theological Theme:

As Christians called to Christ and in Union with him, Jesus sends the Spirit so that we can be transformed and begin to Organize and Execute our Lives Around the Father with him and his priorities! We no longer seek to live only for ourselves. Believers have died to selfishness and self-centeredness in Jesus and now we live unto the Father and for others by God’s Grace!

Christ Connection:

Immediately following his Resurrection, Jesus began to meet with his disciples, directing them to “Go” in the Spirit.  In this message his disciples are encouraged to go everywhere and make disciples, encouraging and equipping those new converts to also make disciples who can make disciples that make disciples!

Missional Application:

God the Father calls us to embrace a life of participation with His Son, our Savior and Lord, and in his life of fellowship and communion, whose mission was only to seek and to do what his Father was doing, in the Spirit. What Jesus is doing now is sending out his people, even as he was sent, that the world might believe, receive and be saved!

Photo Compliments: s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com