... , Jesus addresses the disciples as "Little children" or "Dear children." You may remember that he also calls them children in our text from two weeks ago. (John 21:5) And, of course, we all remember Luke's account of Jesus blessing the children and saying "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it." (Luke 18:17) One of our loveliest hymns is the Swedish favorite, "Children of the heavenly Father." A major characteristic of children is their playfulness. We need to ...
... the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). What was that "word of the cross"? It was Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the Word risen from the grave, the Word which Paul ... I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job 20:25). We must confess in joy and awe, even as did Thomas, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). When Horace Bushnell, the great Christian pastor-theologian, was a student at Yale, he claimed to be an agnostic, even as do many ...
... scriptural truth of new birth, allow me to ask and answer three questions. THE FIRST QUESTION IS THE OBVIOUS ONE: WHAT IS NEW BIRTH? John Wesley described the essence of new birth as follows: "I feel that Jesus died for my sins and I have been pardoned. I feel ... corruptible seed, but of incorruptible." (I Peter 1:22-23). James writes about "God begetting us with the word of truth." (James 1:18) And St. Paul declares, "If any person be in Christ, he is a new creation." How do you know if you have experienced ...
... Pharisees were regularly frustrated in their confrontations with Jesus because he always knew what they were thinking. "Jesus knew their thoughts," Matthew tells us; "he perceived their wickedness" (Matthew 12:25; 22:18). "Jesus knew all people and needed no one to tell him about man for he himself knew what was in man," Saint John confessed (John 2:25). He even knew that one of his disciples would betray him, from the moment he was chosen to be a disciple. All the disciples, in the last few hours before ...
... whose customers traveled the two roads where the signs had been planted. "The signs had several advantages: It took almost 18 seconds to read a series of them, which was more time than most advertisers could expect to get from ... the celebration of light coming into a dark and unfriendly world. But one thing more: CHRISTMAS IS THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF THOSE WHO FOLLOW JESUS. John writes: "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which ...
... God responsible for sin and evil. That, I cannot accept. I believe that Judas had as many possibilities for greatness as did Peter, James or John. He could have chosen the high road instead of the low one. He chose the low. Why? I don’t know why. Why do we? ... his body almost literally blew up. Possibly the Acts narrative implies suicide, for it says that Judas fell headlong. (Acts 1:18) It could mean either that he hung himself or threw himself from a precipice. But what happened to Judas ultimately? That ...
... news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind.” (Luke 4:18) And certainly, Mark would have in mind the prophecy of Isaiah that there would come a day when “in the latter time (God) ... life, for we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. As a comparatively young man while meditating upon the 17th chapter of John a great mystical experience came to Blaise Pascal. He considered it such a famous discovery that he wrote it down and sewed it ...
... come to pass. Sounds impossible doesn't it? This promise from the prophet Isaiah, brought to us in the gospel of Luke courtesy of John the Baptist brings to mind the words of Jesus to his disciples, "For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are ... captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." [Luke 4:18-19] To celebrate the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ is to line our lives up with God's purposes and join the followers of ...
... Missouri, went at his own expense, and the only reason he went was to encourage the team. (5) C. Or how about William Wilberforce whose passionate stand and battle against slavery finally saw the slave trade abolished in the British Empire on February 18, 1807, just days before John Newton, Wilberforce's mentor and author of the hymn Amazing Grace, died. Watch clip from "Amazing Grace" (6) It was the awful aroma of slavery and the smell of death which changed the minds and hearts of many of the people who ...
... in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. [5] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1:9-14 (NRSV) [9] The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. [10] He was in the world, and the world came ... /Kal-El/Superman." The Religion of Superman Website. http://www.adherents.com/lit/comics/Superman.html. Last modified: June 18, 2006. 2. SAVED BY A SUPERMAN, Timothy Merrill, Executive Editor, Homiletics, July 2, 2006 3. In Rain, Wind, and ...
... John 3:16-24 (NRSV) [16] We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. [17] How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? [18 ... in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. John reminds us of two things. He says we are called to Love and Believe. Those are the two essential ingredients of our Faith Journey Of ...
... have eyes to see God right in front of them? Peter, James, and John are the three insiders among Jesus' disciples. They were three of the first four whom Jesus called. The way Matthew portrays it, they didn't hesitate to follow Jesus when he called (Matthew 4:18-22). All three were busy in the fishing industry when Jesus called, but all three dropped what they were doing to follow when Jesus called, seemingly out of the blue. They have seen and heard enough by this point that maybe the interruption in their ...
... did not preclude a witness to the Gentiles. He sees it happening in the course of the mission to the Hebrews (Matthew 10:18). We may learn from Jesus' instruction in our gospel that mission happens right here in our community, that when missionary activity brings ... for those of us caught up in God's love in Christ and the Holy Spirit. We are no longer burdened by the dynamics John Calvin and Alain de Botton describe, the hesitancy about sharing what we think belongs to us, because now we have in Christ the ...
... you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (6:18-20) It could not be clearer. We are not God, but we are the dwelling place of God if we belong to Christ. This is ... he still had a responsibility for his son but not the ultimate responsibility. Further, he knew that neither the absolute best nor the absolute worst for John was in his hands. Rather, that it was and is in God's hands. (7) That’s what it means to be a temple of ...
... up a cross, and follow me.” One of the risks we have to take in order to follow Christ is to do what Simon, Andrew, James, and John did: Change priorities! We have to come to the moment of truth where we confront those sins which keep us from living for God and depart from ... Hymnal: Book of United Methodist Worship (Nashville: The United Methodist Pub- lishing House, 1989), #479. 7. Cooper, p. 18. Used by permission. 8. Ibid., p. 19. Used by permission. 9. Attributed to William Carey. 10. Cooper, pp. ...
... In almost the same breath, Jesus continued, "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' " These words appear in Leviticus 18:19, and there they are immediately followed by "I am the Lord." Just as we are to love God because God is the Lord ... common background or a common interest, on the same taste in music or the same sense of humor. Agape is the kind of love described in John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." This is a love that is chosen, a love that is acted ...
... flow with water; a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Wadi Shittim. (Joel 3:18) As we can see in the Hebrew scriptures, some of which are in today’s lectionary passages, although there are many ... for life. With the water and the earth, God would create humankind (adama). God IS the source of the waters of life. And in the gospel of John, Jesus clearly maintains that HE is that source. The encounter at the well is a clear sign pointing to the messiahship of Jesus, but also to ...
... Great Shepherd of Life, we mourn. It’s okay to mourn. It’s okay to cry. When Jessica, a mom of four, couldn’t stop her 18-year-old son from doing drugs that she knew would eventually kill him, she sat down and cried. She had tried everything in her power ... Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead. (Luke 9:7) Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are ...
... of Genesis. Victor P. Hamilton p. 240.; Strongs. **Hebrew4christians.com ***abarimpublications.com; In Isaiah 57:4 and 62:10 Jerusalem is a bride who must build up a highway for her groom (God). In Jeremiah 18:15, the prophet laments on God’s behalf that people have left his highways and are on byways of idols. Compare to John the Baptist: make his paths straight. Note that a second meaning of the word salal is related to “selah” and means to lift up or exalt. This word echoes the idea of the shekinah ...
... believe that God convicts Christians to be more compassionate, honest people, peace makers, justice seekers, integrity lovers, morally upright, and much more. When is the last time God convicted you? How did you respond? Responding: a part of righteousness (Luke 3:15-18). Listening to John’s message and feeling the conviction of the Holy Spirit — the people had a choice. They could either walk away and do nothing about it or, they could respond and act on the message. Many in the crowd left, but many ...
... priest has ushered in the new covenant (v.15). That’s what Good Friday is all about. This new covenant is characterized by forgiveness, not by the judgmentalism of the old covenant which has led to all our tensions (vv.17-18). When you have Christ, you are already holy and righteous, John Calvin says. Christ is the fountain of both.[2] Our lesson elaborates further on this point. The new covenant, it says, gives us confidence to enter the temple sanctuary, and so in that sense, direct access to God (vv.19 ...
... 10:17). “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” (John 10:18). “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). This similarity in wording between Jesus’ laying aside his outer robe and laying down his life connected the two acts. Jesus washing his disciples’ feet was a sign of his coming death. So when Peter protested, “You will never wash my feet,” it was ...
... and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19). At the close of His ministry, He commissions us for Kingdom work: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the ... that again: the church has lost its impact by becoming privately engaging, but socially irrelevant. We do well to remember John Wesley’s vision of the Church as “a body…compacted together, in order first to save each his own ...
... discipline is to avoid negativity, to avoid walking into a room and focusing on what's wrong while passing over so much that is right. Twice Matthew 18:15-20 uses the word brother. We are not to pull specks out of other's eyes (Matthew 7:3). We are to "forebear one another ... , or by a pastor. The text says the elders (plural) are to do it. The mildest censure is a simple admonishing or rebuke. "John, how can a man of your stature allow this issue to fester?" So much in the church can be settled with a look, ...
... to always remember about trouble. I. The Presence Of The Lord In Trouble Now what Paul is going to tell us about trouble in vv. 17-18 is colored by what he said in v.16, "At my first defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be ... trouble is not our greatest enemy. Someone said, "[Cripple] a man and you have Sir Walter Scott; lock him in prison and you have John Bunyan; bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have George Washington; raise him in poverty and you have Abraham Lincoln; ...