This past month, we’ve been studying some of what God’s Word has to say about Practicing the Way of Peace. Today we will be jumping ahead to the teachings of Jesus on the topic of conflict resolution. He addresses the issue of conflict and reconciliation on several occasions throughout the four gospels. Most of our…
We have hope, in this life and the next, because of the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. This past month in Kids Time, our children were learning the meaning to the lyrics of the hymn, “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery.” The first verse speaks of how Jesus “condescended” from heaven to earth to…
In our message today, I want to explore some of the most audacious and grandiose teachings of our Lord during His time here on earth. Teachings so extravagant that we struggle to know what to do with them! How can our Lord Jesus say to us: “Ask, and it will be given to you”? This…
Last week, we were studying from the first half of Galatians 5. We learned that we have freedom in Christ, but that there’s a paradox in that the freedom we have in Christ is the freedom to do what is right. The problem is that we often choose to do what we want rather than…
In the book of Galatians, Paul is addressing the issue of false teachers called Judaizers. In this text, Paul is encouraging them to stand against these false teachers because they were not called out of slavery to sin to become slaves to legalism. Rather, they were granted freedom in Christ to be able to love…
As we continue in our study through the One Another commands of the New Testament, we will focus our attention on the positive command to “stir one another up to love and good works” in the book of Hebrews. This idea of “stirring one another up” is a positive command, but in Ephesians 6 we…
We are studying from Ephesians 4 and we want to focus specifically on the one another statement here in this chapter. In order to do this, we have to spend time looking at everything else in the chapter. We must always understand a text within its context, because a text cannot mean what it never…
Brennan Manning pointed out, “One of the most shocking contradictions in the American church is the intense dislike many disciples of Jesus have for themselves. They are more displeased with their own shortcomings than they would ever dream of being with someone else’s. They are sick of their own mediocrity and disgusted by their inconsistency.”…
As we embark on this journey through the “One Another” Commands in the New Testament, I want us to not lose sight of the prevailing goal of this series —we want to Unite People to One Another. In order to make that happen, we must learn how to get along with one another. The first…
So far in this series on Connecting People to God, we have talked about showing people the light of Jesus Christ and pointing them to the truth of the gospel. As we continue this series, we’re going to focus on teaching people about the love that God has for each and every one of them.…