Month: April 2019

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The God Who Saves: The Gospel Call [session 3]

My wife says that I’ll be deaf in just a couple more years.  I’m not really deaf, I just have the spiritual gift of selective hearing. If the children are getting a bit loud in the house, I have the ability to turn the TV up a notch or two and ignore the ever increasing background noise. If the children are calling “Mama” over and over, I have the ability not to respond. After all, they’re not calling me. Right? I have trained my ear over the last 19 years to detect the level of difficulty of the favor she needs by the tone in which she uses when she calls my name. The greater the difficulty, the more hard of hearing I become.

This week we’ll explore how people come to hear the gospel – which is the first step. Before people can understand and respond to the gospel, they must first hear it.

“How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” Rom. 10.14.

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The God Who Saves: Election/Predestination [session 2]

I been in many conversations with people and when the topic of predestination or election comes up, the respond, “I just don’t believe in election.” There are a couple of options on dealing with this theological topic, but the above option isn’t a very good one.

Why? The topic can be found all throughout the pages of scripture.

“And because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power” Dt 4:37.

6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.” Dt 7:6–10.

“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Mt 22:14.*

“So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.” Ro 11:5.

So our best option isn’t to simply not believe in it, but to approach the topic from a biblical point of view.

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Journey Through John – Ch 6

I. Fish Frying (1-15)

6 After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. 2 And a large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” 15 Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. 

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