Romans 11:16-24: Haughty-cultural Christianity
Outline Arrogant branches Humble branches Introduction Christians often act like children. I don’t mean in the good and childlike-faith way Jesus encouraged in the gospels but in the sinful and immature way of the playground. Think back to your youth and the laws of the jungle that we lived by. There were the cliques, the in crowd and then those who were out. We remember being on the outside of some group we desired to be a part of and remembered the mortifying humiliation of not being included because we took our sense of value and identity not from...
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Revelation 21:9-27: The New Jerusalem
Outline The city’s appearance The city’s life Introduction We are well familiar to the rags to riches story, but the story of the church is a story of riches to rags to riches. God’s people in Eden were perfect in the image of God, Adam and Eve would have been perfect in beauty. I do believe that our obsession with beauty in appearance is due to the loss we suffered when we fell into sin. With the fall humanity lost all its beauty and riches and we became slaves. But God came and redeemed us in Christ so as...
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Colossians 1:28: Healthy Churches Have Gospel-Grounded Identity: Part Two
Outline Faith Sanctification Church Glorification Introduction Healthy Churches have a Gospel-grounded identity. What we are hoping to show today is that in order for a church to be healthy, it must be grounded in the gospel, and in particular to see its identity grounded in the gospel. To try and get at this topic I would like us to read Colossians 1:28-29 together, ‘Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.’
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Colossians 1:28: Healthy Churches Have Gospel-Grounded Identity: Part One
Outline Introduction Election Justification Adoption Introduction Healthy Churches have a Gospel-grounded identity. What we are hoping to show today is that in order for a church to be healthy, it must be grounded in the gospel, and in particular to see its identity grounded in the gospel. To try and get at this topic I would like us to read Colossians 1:28-29 together, ‘Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.’
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Revelation 19:1-10: The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
Outline The Bride The guests Introduction What is the typical happy ending for a boy meets girl story? A wedding! The finale to your average TV series/fairy-tale/movie/book, etc. usually has that long torturous frustrated love relationship which seemed doomed to fail climax in a wedding. God who created the institution and was the first Father of the bride when He gave Eve to Adam will consummate the long seemingly doomed to failure love relationship between Christ and His people with a wedding to start them off on their ‘happily ever after.’ Satan’s bride the wicked prostitute oppressive witch god-mother...
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Revelation 17:1-6: The Great Prostitute
Outline Her influence Her appearance Introduction The book of Revelation can be understood through the lens of counterfeiting. We have noted in the past how there is the Trinity and there is the anti-trinity of the dragon and two beasts. Well there is another aspect to this, just as Christ has a bride, so the beast who is a mockery of Christ has a bride. But where Christ dies for His bride to save her we see that the beast will rise and kill his bride. The parallels are striking: Both peoples are portrayed as women. Both are portrayed...
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Ephesians 4:1-16: Vertical and Horizontal Unity for Christians
Thanks to Ryan Vinten for preaching this afternoon. Ryan is an Associate Pastor at Gracenet Community Church in Wellington. Ephesians 4:1-16: Unity in the Body of Christ 1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5...
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Revelation 11:4-6: ‘Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit’, says the Lord.
Outline The two lampstands The two prophets Introduction 2 Cor. 12:9-10:’ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’ The paradox of Christian suffering is that through death life comes, though defeat victory comes and through weakness comes strength. This undercurrent...
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Revelation 6: How to read the 7 seals
Outline Views based on history View based on the OT Introduction When I try and understand the book of Revelation and put myself in the shoes of those who would have originally heard the book read in the first century I try to think about what other information I would need in order to understand the book. As I have scanned the other views of how people interpret the book of revelation, each one has the book of Revelation in one hand, but they all hold something different in the other. The Preterist view which holds to the view...
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Church Membership 3: Responsibilities of Membership: Meeting Together
Introduction: ‘I don’t like to go to church because I don’t get anything out of it.’ This statement could be a reflection on the poverty of the pulpit in the present church, but it also reveals a consumer mindset by which the church is judged and found to be deficient, amateur, antiquated and thereby useless. Consumerism has infected everything we do, and those churches that have buckled to the market mindset and accommodated unbelievers in what they think church should be have not done us any favours but affirmed this mindset. We subconsciously go into all relationships now with...
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Church Membership 1: Why every Christian should be a member of a local Church
Introduction: Christianity has been displaced as the dominant religion of the West. Fewer people are becoming Christians, and the churches are emptying and closing down. A common reaction to this trend is one of overreaction where the Church is being pronounced outdated and an irrelevant organization. It is being claimed that Church as we know it is antiquated and we need to change or die. We are being told that what has been happening for the last 2000 years is now suddenly ineffective and we need a radical overhaul. Spirituality is in but church is out, community is in...
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The Greatest Wonder in the Ancient and Modern World: The Church
Outline: The master plan – “I will build My Church”; The material used – Living stones – 1 Pet 2:4-5; The method adopted – Foolishness of preaching – 1 Cor 1:23-25; The meticulous preparation of every stone; Purpose of the structure – for a dwelling place of God – Eph 2:19-22
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Revelation 1:10-20: The First Vision: Part Two
Introduction: What is the church? If we ask the world, the church is an antiquated organization that has caused more harm than good, and who they want to retask as a charity arm to benefit people’s physical needs. The church is despised, shrinking, weak, polluted, compromised, abused, persecuted, divided, at least that is how it appears outwardly to the casual observer. The whole point of the book of Revelation is to show the first century Christians that things are not as they appear. Rome looks unbeatable and the church looks like it is on the soon-to-be-extinct list. We have...
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Church Discipline 1: Matt. 18:15-20: When to administer
Introduction: When is church a true church? The doctrine of the church was something that was wrestled with at the time of the Reformation when Luther broke with Rome. It emerged at the end of the Reformation a doctrine of the church that had three marks. A church is a biblical church when it has these 3 basic ingredients, the proclamation of the true gospel, the faithful administration of the baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the church discipline. If you had these 3 you were considered a church. Whether you met in a building or a home, whether...
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