Preparation for Sunday, 5/20/2012
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday.
Furious – Ephesians 3:14-21
Refuge – Psalm 34:8, 36:7, 62:8
Hallelujah, What a Savior! – Isaiah 53:3-6, Luke 1:46-55
I Need Thee Every Hour – Hebrews 4:16
All I Have is Christ - Galatians 3:24-29
Click here to listen to the songs for this week!
Preparation for Sunday, 5/13/12
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday.
Glorious Day – 1 Peter 1:3-9, Isaiah 4:2
God Undefeatable – theology and scripture
In Christ Alone – Acts 4:11-12
One Thing Remains – Lamentations 3:22, 1 Corinthians 13:8, 1 John 4
Click here to listen to the songs for this Sunday!
Preparation for Sunday, 4/22/2012
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday.
At the Foot of the Cross – Psalm 71:8, 146:2, 150:6; 1 Corinthians 1:8
Love Came Down – 1 John 4:9-10
Only Your Blood – Hebrews 10:4, 9:14
Abide with Me – John 15:7-11
Click here to listen to the songs for this week!
Essentials Series: Christology Audio and PDF
Here is the audio and pdf download for the most recent Essentials Series on Christology. There are Q&A sessions at the end of each audio clip.
Session 1:
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Session 2:
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PDF Download:
Christology
Preparation for Sunday, 4/15/2012
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday.
Here for You – Psalm 33:20-22
Sing Alleluia – Psalm 135:1-2
Thy Mercy – Psalm 145:8-9
Wholly Yours – Matthew 16:24-25
Click here to listen to the songs for this week!
Preparation for Sunday, 4/1/2012
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday.
Greater than we can Imagine – Psalm 145:2-3
Eternal Cure – Psalm 121
Jesus Died my Soul to Save – Romans 6: 4, 10-11
The Stand – Romans 5:1-3
Click here to listen to the songs for this week!
We will also say a profession of faith together after communion. This is a chance for us to declare together what we believe! Please read over this profession before Sunday.
We profess and affirm with the Holy Scriptures that we were dead in our trespasses and sins,
in which we walked, following the passions of our flesh.
We were by nature children of wrath, in bondage to sin,
and unable to do what is good.
But God, because of His great love, made us alive with Christ,
and freed us from bondage to sin.
By God’s grace we are converted, and given the ability to repent of sin,
to walk in new life, and to will what is good.
Thanks be to God for His abundant mercy!
Preparation for Sunday, 3/25/2012
Song Preparation: I encourage you listen to these songs each week so that you are familiar with them by the time we sing on Sunday. I always find that becoming more familiar with the lyrics to a song gives me more freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit as I worship. We won’t play these song exactly as they sound below but this is a good start! I would encourage you to go to itunes or any other music download site and purchase these songs for your music library. That way you can spend more time listening to them and learning the lyrics!
Here is some scripture that goes well with the songs we will sing this Sunday.
Our Glorious God – Exodus 15:11
In Christ Alone – Acts 4:11-12
Help my Unbelief – 2 Chronicles 14:11-12
Wholly Yours – Matthew 16:24-25
Click here to listen to the songs for this week!
We will also say a profession of faith together after communion. This is a chance for us to declare together what we believe as followers of Christ! Please read over this profession before Sunday.
We profess and affirm the good news
that we have recieved,
in which we stand,
and by which we are saved,
if we hold fast:
that Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures,
that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day.
We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Jesus Christ is the first and the last, the beginning and the end;
he is our Lord and our God.
Essentials Series: Trinity Q&A 3
Question:
I have wondered why femininity is not “represented” in the Godhead. Father and Son are both male, and the Holy Spirit is at least “masculine”. As a female, I wonder if that leaves me out—that I don’t fully understand because I’ve been daughter and mother.
Response:
The short answer is that there is nothing in the nature of the Trinity that should make it easier for men to relate to the Trinity than for women. Both males and females have been created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and both should be able to relate to and understand Him equally well.
The answer a bit more fully, we need to discuss three things: (1) God is neither male nor female; (2) Scripture refers to God with masculine pronouns, not feminine pronouns; (3) Scripture displays God has having character traits that we may typically associate as masculine (e.g., strength, initiative) as well as feminine (e.g., tenderness, compassion) and does so by using both masculine and feminine metaphors for Himself.
First, God is neither masculine nor feminine in His being. God is Spirit and does not have a gender—He has neither reproductive organs nor chromosomes that would indicate that He was either male or female. This is further evidenced by the fact that both males and females are created in God’s image.
Second, the Trinity is indeed referred to with masculine pronouns (i.e., He and not She) and with masculine relationship descriptions (i.e., Father and Son, not Mother and Daughter). Because this is the language that Scripture always uses, we probably should not take to calling God “She” or “Mother”.
Third, God has character traits of both stereotypical masculinity and femininity and uses both masculine and feminine metaphors for Himself. God compares Himself to a mother bear robbed of her cubs (Hosea 13:8), an attentive, nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15), and a mother hen wanting to protect her brood (Jesus in Matthew 23:37). I think this ought to give females great comfort with respect to this question because the types of things a woman naturally wants to do are the types of things God often says He will do. So it is not the case that females should be less able to identify with God than males.
Click here to listen to the audio of The Trinity class and to download the handout pdf.
Essentials Series: Trinity Q&A 2
Question:
God is the Trinity, and the Trinity is God. So, was God always the Trinity since the Son came later? Since the Trinity is mentioned in the Old Testament, then did they know of Jesus’ eventual coming?
Response:
Yes, God has always been Trinity. There has never been a time when the Father existed without the Son or without the Spirit. This is what John means when He says in John 1:1 that the Word of God was in the beginning—whenever time was first created, the Word (that is, the Son) already existed together with God.
If there was ever a point in time that one person of the Trinity didn’t exist, that person isn’t really God. This is exactly the point of contention that gave rise to the Council of Nicaea (which is covered in more detail in the handout and was mentioned several times on Essentials night). A guy named Arius began teaching that “there was once when the Son was not”—that there was a point in time when the Son did not exist. And this is what the whole rest of Christianity recognized as being absolutely contrary to God’s clear teaching in Scripture. The Son has always existed.
Now, it might be helpful to clarify here a little bit about what we mean by saying that the Son has always existed. We do not mean that God the Son has always been human. We do not mean that Jesus, the God-man has always existed in the way He exists now. The Son has always been God and remains fully God. But He was not always human. He became human at a certain point in history for our sake and will always be human. The result is that now He’s both fully God and fully human. We’ll talk more about this idea the next session of the Essentials Series on Christ on March 28.
As for the second question, it depends on who we mean by “they”. The Trinity (hinted at in the Old Testament but taught much less explicitly than in the New Testament) knew that the Son would be coming before the foundation of the world. The whole Old Testament points to the coming of a Messiah, and there are indeed hints that this Messiah would Himself be God, such as the fact that Isaiah called Him “Mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6). However, it is unlikely that either the authors of the Old Testament or its original audience had any clear understanding that God the Son Himself would become human.
You can click here to listen to the audio of the Trinity class and download the pdf.
Essentials Series: Trinity Q&A
Question:
Question from my Muslim neighbor: If Jesus is God, why did He not know that the fig tree didn’t have figs? And if He’s God, why didn’t He make the fig tree grow figs? Why did He curse it? God would have known, but Jesus didn’t.
Also, if God does not lie and does not tempt, then why does He lead Himself into the wilderness to be tempted?
Response:
This question is fantastic as we get ready for the next session of the Essentials Series on Christ on March 28. We’ll talk then in much more detail about in what sense Christ is and was God and all sorts of difficulties this seems to present.
The first part of the question references the story from Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-25. In the story, Jesus sees a fig tree, goes up to the tree to find out if it had any fruit on it, and curses the tree for not having any. The fig tree withers and never bears fruit again.
This question hits on a much larger set of related questions related to our claim that Jesus is God. There are all sorts of incompatibilities of Jesus being God with Jesus being human: God knows everything, and humans don’t; God is everywhere, and humans aren’t; God is all-powerful, but Jesus got tired; God cannot be tempted, but Jesus was tempted; God is eternal, but Jesus was about thirty years old. How can all these be?
The explanation to all of these questions is that Jesus was and is both fully God and fully man. With respect to this question, what this means is that He is at the same time all-knowing and finite in knowledge. He knows everything, but His human brain, which is finite just like ours, does not know everything. As far as we understand it, Jesus must have some sort of ability to restrict His human mind from knowing everything His divine mind knows. So it is not a contradiction at all to state that there are things Jesus does not (or did not) know. This is just a fact of life for someone who is fully human.
As far as why Jesus cursed the tree instead of just magically making it grow fruit, who knows why He did this. He seems to use the whole example as a teaching moment, so perhaps that is why He didn’t make it grow figs. But He doesn’t tell us why, so we can only speculate.
Finally, as to the question of whether it is a contradiction that God who does not tempt lead Christ into the wilderness to be tempted: it’s not God who tempts Jesus in the wilderness. It’s Satan. (There is a related question about whether God who is in control of everything should therefore also be considered to be responsible for everything that happens, such as sin and evil. This question will be addressed in another one of these blog posts. Stay tuned.)
Listen to the audio and download the PDF from the Essentials: Trinity class below.
Session 1 Audio
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Session 2 Audio
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Handout PDF
Trinity
