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Tag: God

Published July 3, 2012

Hezekiah Part Two – Going to God

This morning we continue in our series – Lessons from the Kings. If you’ve missed the last couple of weeks, let me give you a quick summary of what we’ve been talking about. Two weeks ago we looked at king Saul and learned the lesson that he never did, about fully obeying God. God had given him specific instructions and he specifically disobeyed them. Not a good example to follow. Then last week we looked at Hezekiah – who was rather the opposite of King Saul – because the Bible says of Hezekiah that He sought his God wholeheartly. We saw that even though his father, King Ahaz, completely led the nation away from God, the moment he became king, Hezekiah began to lead the people back to God.

Now originally, I had planned only to do one message per king in this series, but because Hezekiah has such a cool story and the lessons that we can learn from it are so important, I’ve decided to do a ‘part 2’ to last week’s message. I’ve got to show you what happens next after his fantastic start.

We’re going to pick up the story now in Isaiah – chapter 36 – verse 1. Or if you’d prefer, 2 Kings chapter 18 has the exact same story – starting in verse 13.

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Published March 18, 2012

Living Among Pre-Christians

Today we wrap up our study on the book of Colossians and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve really found this series to be a great refresher course for me. For most of us, this hasn’t been ground-breaking new material that we’ve been looking at, but its sure been good to be reminded of some of these principles that you already knew.

We so easily get sidetracked and distracted from the main thing – it’s good to spend some time going back to the basics.

If you’re a football fan, you might know the name “Vince Lombardi”. He was the coach of the Greenbay Packers from 1959-1967. Of the 130 games he coached, his team won 96 of them – including two Superbowl championships. So this guy knew what he was doing.

One of the things that Vince Lombardi was famous for was a speech he gave at every pre-season training camp. He would begin by holding up a football and saying, “Gentlemen, this is a football.”

He would then go over the basics of what a football is and its role in the game.  He would then take his team out and show them the field, explaining where the out-of-bounds lines and the end zones were.  He would go over the fundamentals of the game – touch downs, tackles, field goals – explaining the rules and organization of players.

Now keep in mind that this was not little leagues. These players were not beginners. They were the seasoned, professional NFL players. They’d known all this stuff for years already. And yet every year, Lombardi would begin with the most basic, fundamental principles of football. Why? Because he knew that to build a winning team, they had to understand the basic fundamentals of the game.

And that’s just what we’ve been doing. As we’ve been looking at Paul’s letter to the Colossians – his Christianity in a Nutshell so to speak, we’ve been reviewing the most basic, fundamental principles of the Christian life.

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Published March 11, 2012

Representing Christ

Today will be our second last message in our series on the book of Colossians. We’ve been looking at Paul’s Christianity in a Nutshell – or at least, that’s what we’ve subtitled it. But it seems to be a fitting title. As we’ve been looking at this letter to the church in Colossae, we’ve answered many of the questions of what Christianity is all about. Who is Jesus? Why did He die on the cross and rise again from the grave? What difference does it make to us? What does it actually mean to be a Christian? How do we live in close relationship with God on a continuing basis? How do we have victory over the sin that so easily gets us off track?

Paul has addressed all of these questions and more in this short little letter to the church in Colossae. So I hope that over these past few weeks, you’ve really been encouraged and spurred on in your own walk with Christ and that you’ve been able to apply some of these principles that we’ve been learning. I know that I sure have.

Now these last couple of weeks, our focus has been on our new nature. That is, the new desires of our heart that we get when Christ comes to dwell within us. It’s our desire to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and to please God – instead of following our old sinful nature which just wants to please ourselves.

We read two weeks ago how Paul says to “strip off our old sinful nature”, and to “put on“ or “cloth ourselves” with our new nature. And we do that by keeping our focus on Jesus – by setting our sights on the realities of heaven – not getting caught up in the things of this world.

Then last week we dug into that a little deeper and we identified some practical ways to do that. We talked about following the leading of the Holy Spirit every moment of every day – and how, by filling our minds with God’s Word, by teaching and counseling each other with the wisdom God gives, and by worshipping God with a thankful heart – we can actually hear what the Holy Spirit is saying so we can follow Him and walk in our new nature, close to God continuously.

And it’s this idea of continuously walking in our new nature that springboards us into our passage this morning.

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Published February 27, 2012

A Continuous, Close Relationship with God

These past few weeks we’ve been looking at Christianity in a Nutshell as we’ve examined Paul’s letter to the Colossians. And we’ve been talking about some good stuff. Stuff like who Jesus really is. Stuff like what Jesus really did for us when He died on the cross and rose from the grave. Stuff like what it really means to be a Christian. And if you’ve missed that or just have a poor memory, let me give you a quick 3-point summary: #1. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. #2. He died on a cross and rose from the grave to take away our sin and our punishment so that we could be together with God. #3. Being a Christian means you have accepted what Christ has done for you and now, with Christ living within you, you have life together with God. That’s what we’ve been talking about.

We ended last week on the theme of having a relationship with God. And of course, that leads to the question: How? And not “How do we begin a relationship with God?” – we’ve talked about that already. It begins by confessing with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. That’s how we start our relationship with God – But the question I want to talk about today is, how do we live in continuing, close relationship with God? What do we do? What does God do? How does it all work together? What is life together with God supposed to look like?

I don’t know if you’re like me – but I struggle with this. It is difficult for me to understand how exactly to experience a continuing, close relationship with God. And maybe that surprises you, but I’m just being honest. I don’t have it all figured out – but I’m learning.

And one of the greatest privileges I have as your pastor is to be able to stand in front of you week after week and share with you the lessons that I’ve been learning. That’s not to say that I’ve mastered it all. In fact, if you hear me preach on the same topic several times, it’s probably because God hasn’t got through to me yet. But I’m learning, and I’d love to have you learn with me.

Today we begin chapter three of Colossians.

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Published August 15, 2011

God Is… Saviour

Today we wrap up our three week mini-series looking at the attributes of God. And in case you missed one or both of those previous weeks, let me give you a brief summary of what we’ve talked about so far.

Taken from the "Discover God" NLT Study Bible

In our first week, we looked at God as Creator. We saw that He made the entire universe and everything in it out of nothing. And in doing so, we found that God is all-powerful – He can do anything. He is also all-knowing – He knows everything. He is ever-present – He is everywhere all the time. And He is sovereign – He can do whatever He wants without restriction or interference.

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Published August 15, 2011

God Is… Judge

Last week we began a three week mini-series entitled “God is…” and the goal of this series is to help us discover who God really is by looking at some of His attributes as found in the Bible. There are so many different opinions out there of who God really is… Is he like a sweet, old Grandpa? Is He like the force on Star Wars? Is He the ultimate policeman? We need to know what the Bible says, because what we believe about who God is, completely effects everything about how we live our lives. 

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