Archive for the ‘New Life Fellowship Of Baltimore Maryland’ Tag
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)
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)
Pentecost And The Coming Of The Holy Spirit!
Part 1A
Part 1B
Scripture: Acts 1, 2
Introduction:
Summary and Goal:
Pentecost was the occasion following Jesus death, resurrection and
ascension when the Holy Spirit was sent as Jesus promised to his
disciples in Jerusalem. Peter proclaimed the fulfillment of the
prophecy of Joel 2:28-32.
Theological Theme:
Jesus Christ is the living Head of the Church, and to whom it looks and is
directed through the Holy Scriptures, by the indwelling Holy
Spirit.
Christ Connection:
Jesus lives in his followers through the presence of the Holy Spirit
indwelling and empowering them to fulfill the great commission of
proclaiming the good news of Jesus in the world.
Missional Application:
The Church, the body of Christ, is composed of people who trust in
Jesus and who are commissioned to make disciples of others in the world.
Photos compliments: pinterest.com
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
“JESUS: The Most Important PERSON and TASK For Everyone! Part 2” (Jesus’ Human Life / The Biblical Worldview)
Part 2A:
Part 2B:
Part 2C:
Full Message:
Bible Verses: Luke 2: 52 (Various Scriptures)
Theological Theme:
In relationship with Jesus His faith in us causes us to seek understanding about Who He is in His Person and Deeds, taking into account the entire course of His Human Life, with the help of the Holy Spirit. We’ve rehearsed Jesus’ Person and Work by grasping more of the meaning of His Virgin Birth. In this message we understand more basic and fundamentally the meaning of His Incarnate Life!
Christ Connection:
When Jesus lived He lived our life, meaning that as the Son of the Father united to us in our human nature He was the God/Man renewing our fallen human nature from the inside because he never sinned in it. Just as in Adam the human nature in which we all have shared became fallen, so in the one person of Christ the human nature in which we all shared was made right and saved! Jesus is more significant than Adam because He not only shared in our fallen human nature, but was also the One in, through, for and by Whom all things are created and made! He was both God and Man. This means that by his one human life, the human nature of everyone is now set on an entirely new basis! Where sin abounded (Adam), God’s grace in abounds even more (in Jesus!!)
Missional Application:
“Jesus embodied the unreserved presence of God with and for sinners. “Those who are well have no need of physician,” Jesus declares, “but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mt. 9:12f.). Christ’s incarnate humanity — his entire life, death, and resurrection among and on behalf of sinners — provides the basis for and the reality of reconciliation. He stands in our place and acts on our behalf to heal our humanity. His vicarious humanity — i.e., his substitutionary life and death in our place and representative humanity on our behalf — reconciles us to one another and to God. Social reconciliation is both an indicative and an imperative of the gospel of Jesus Christ, both gift and task, both command and promise.” – Ray Anderson
So, as we experience reconciliation with the Father-Son-Holy-Spirit-God that Christ accomplished, and because it is social – touching the lives of every human being – we share this Good News with others that they, too, might trust Christ and experience the gift and promise of real human life before the Father along with other believers!
Photo Compliments:
The Most Important Priority For Everyone Everywhere! Part 3 (Our Christian/Biblical Worldview)
Part 3A:
Part 3B:
Full Message:
Bible Verses: Colossians 1: 15 – 29 Colossians 3: 5

Introduction: Developing, then living out an ethic that is God-centered rather than human-centered is a great challenge. Why? Because the worldview (mindset) prevalent in our modern/postmodern West is fundamentally human-centered, leading to an ethic that is largely pragmatic, utilitarian and even hedonistic. So how do we as Christians, in this cultural setting, develop, then live out a truly theological ethic?
In this sermon we draw on scripture and insights from theologian Dr. Gary Deddo as a help in considering the crucial issues at play regarding our participation with Jesus in worshipping His Father in the Spirit!
Theological Theme:
According to Jesus, these two commands summarize the will of God for humankind as presented in Holy Scripture:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:35-40, NRSV)
Christ Connection:
Jesus came to seek worshipers of the Father (see John 4, the account of the woman at the well). He came so that we could share in his true worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth (see the book of Hebrews). That meant he came so that we might love God as He loved God, with all he had and all he was — heart, soul, mind and strength. That worship included Jesus absolutely trusting in and lovingly obeying the Father — in our place and on our behalf. We are to serve no other Master, Jesus tells us. He came to take us to the Father and to send us his Spirit.
As Jesus tells us, eternal life is to know the Father through him (John 17:3). Jesus’ central mission was to reconcile God’s own sons and daughters to him through his atoning death and to destroy the source of all rivalry to the worship of God alone. Evil is represented by the Satan, the deceiver. Jesus is our great High priest, our Leitourgos (leader of liturgy/worship), our one true worship leader. He came to enable us to be true worshipers of the Father in the Spirit through him, the Son.
Missional Application:
In participation with Jesus we share the Gospel in word and deed with our neighbors, teaching them what Jesus is teaching us:
Though Jesus speaks of two great commandments, they are not equal. One cannot be collapsed into the other, especially the first into the second. Why? Because God is not my neighbor and my neighbor is not God. The command to love God is unique, applying to no one and nothing else. We are to love God with all that we are and all that we have — body and soul, mind and heart. There is nothing that is a part of a human’s existence that is not to be devoted to loving God.
Photo Compliments: Dr. Gary Deddo
The Method: Missionaries
Audio – Part A: 23 min
Audio – Part B: 21 min
Audio – Full message:
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
Jesus The Savior Is Crucified!
Audio – Part 1a: 20 min
Audio – Part 1b: 21 min
Audio – Full Message:
Bible Verses: Matthew 27:11-51
The crucifixion of Jesus was brutal and unjust, and yet, He willingly laid His life down in obedience to the Father and for the salvation of sinners. As the substitute sacrifice, Jesus died in our place and on our behalf. As the crucified King, He demonstrated the true wisdom and power of God. And as the forsaken Son, He endured the punishment of our sin, absorbing all of our transgressions and putting them to death so we could become the righteousness of God in Him.
Theological Theme:
Jesus is the King who willingly took upon Himself the judgment for sin.
Christ Connection:
Unjustly condemned to death, Jesus willingly took up His cross and suffered the judgment our sins deserve. At the moment He died, the curtain in the temple sanctuary was torn in two, signifying the truth that sinners have access to God through the blood of Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus is the center of history, revealing God’s holiness and justice, our sinfulness and unrighteousness, and Christ’s humility and love.
Christ Our Substitute “At the heart of the atonement is Jesus Christ substituting Himself for sinners as He died on the cross. This truth is seen against the backdrop of the Old Testament sacrificial system, which provided a picture of humanity’s need for sin to be covered and guilt to be removed by an innocent sacrifice. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with humankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross, He made provision for the redemption of humanity from sin.” – The Gospel Project
Missional Application:
God the Father calls us to proclaim by the Spirit not only that Jesus died on the cross but also why He died and what it reveals about the Father’s heart and his going to the uttermost that we might be saved and participate in his love!
“He lost his own life in order to gain life for all; he preferred to be conquered in himself in order to be the victor in everyone.” – Maximus of Turin (circa 380-465)
Photo Compliments: media.istockphoto.com