Church At The Cross

Scripture: Philippians 2:3-11  Who, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven,  and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried;  and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father…  John 17:5  John 17:24  "...the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us...lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter Sunday message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man - that the second person of the Godhead...took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human. Here are two mysteries for the price of one - the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus." – JI Packer, Know

Scripture: John 1:1-5; 14-18 + The Incarnation Philippians 2:5-8 "...the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us...lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter Sunday message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man - that the second person of the Godhead...took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human. Here are two mysteries for the price of one - the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus." JI Packer, Knowing God. + To Reveal the Father to us Hebrews 1:1 + To Reconcile us to the Father 1 Timothy 2:3–5 + To Rescue us from our greatest enemies Hebrews 2:14–18 + To Relate to us in our weakness and suffering Hebrews 4:14–16 "All other men were lost sheep; he had come as the Good Shepherd to seek and to save them. All other

Scripture: John 1:1–3; John 1:14, 18 "Without exaggeration it can be said that every church and every Christian ought to know the Nicene Creed." – Kevin DeYoung, The Nicene Creed.   + Nicene Creed We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.   And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made.   Who, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the living and the dead; whose kin

Scripture: Genesis 22:1-19 + Leviticus 1:4 + Hebrews 11:17–19 + James 2:21–24

Scripture: Genesis 21:1-21 Proverbs 13:12 + God is the God who gives laughter Psalm 126:1-3 + God will deal with every threat to our joy Luke 1:67–69 Luke 7:11–17 John 16:20–22 Galatians 4:21–23 Galatians 4:28–31 + One day our Joy will never be threatened again 1 Peter 2:12 "Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?" "A great Shadow has departed," said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King.

Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10 "The whole range of human miseries, from restlessness and estrangement through shame and guilt… to the agonies of daytime television—all of them tell us that things in human life are not as they ought to be." – Cornelius Plantinga + The default mode of humanity is dead, defiant, and doomed "Behold my heart, O God, behold my heart which you had pity upon in the bottom of the abyss. Now let my heart tell you what it was seeking there, that I should be gratuitously evil, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the evil in me—not that for which I was committing the evil, but the evil itself." – Augustine of Hippo "The thought is overwhelming, that soon this body of mine must be a carnival for worms; that in and out of these places, where my eyes are glistening, foul things, the offspring of loathsomeness, shall crawl; that this body must be stretched in still, cold, abject, passive, death. It must then become a noxious, nauseous thi

Scripture: Genesis 20 + God is Faithful even when we are faithless 2 Timothy 2:11–13 Isaiah 49:15–16 + God is vigilant when we are careless Psalm 19:13 Psalm 119:133 + God blesses the world through his people Philippians 1:19 Genesis 12:3 Galatians 3:8 John 5:23 John 3:36

Scripture: Genesis 19 Key Takeaways: + The Spiritual Condition of Sodom Ezekiel 16:49 + The Spiritual Condition of Lot Hebrews 11:8-10 + The judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah is a dress rehearsal for a future and greater judgment Jude 1:7 Luke 17:26-35 Romans 5:8-10 Matthew 11:20-24 + Judgement begins with the household of God 1 Peter 4:14-19 1 John 2:15-17 "Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it." – Puritan Writer "But we can guess why He is delaying. He wants to give us the chance to join His side freely. God will invade...When that happens it is the end of the world. When the author walks on to the stage, the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on his side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like and dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none

Scripture: Genesis 18:16-33 Key Takeaways: + God is a comprehensive judge + God is a just judge Genesis 15:6 Psalm 32:1 + God is a merciful judge Isaiah 53:11- 12 Hebrews 7:25 John 15:15-16

Scripture: Genesis 18:1-15 Key Takeaways: Ephesians 3:20 + God’s presence is the guarantee of God’s promises 2 Corinthians 1:20-22 “I regard myself as the most wretched of all men, stinking and covered with sores, and as one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King. Overcome by remorse, I confess all my wickedness to Him, ask His pardon and abandon myself entirely to Him to do with as He will. But this King, filled with goodness and mercy, far from chastising me, lovingly embraces me, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the keys of His treasures and treats me as His favorite. He talks with me and is delighted with me in a thousand and one ways; He forgives me and relieves me of my principle bad habits without talking about them; I beg Him to make me according to His heart and always the more weak and despicable I see myself to be, the more beloved I am of God.” – Brother Lawrence Hebrews 5:12-6:1 James 1:2-4

Scripture: Genesis 17 Key Takeaways: + Revelation The revelation of God’s character to us is the answer for all the struggles in us. The revelation of God’s character to us always requires a response from us. + Promise + Expectations + A Sign Sign and Seal Cleansing and Consecration Jeremiah 4:4 Jeremiah 6:10 Jeremiah 9:25-26 Deuteronomy 10:16 Deuteronomy 30:6 Ezekiel 36:25–27 Hebrews 8:7–11 Matthew 26:26–28 Colossians 2:11–14 Galatians 3:7–8

Scripture: Genesis 16 Key Takeaways: + Faith leads us to wait on God and refuses to work without God. Galatians 4:21–26 + Just because the plan worked doesn’t mean you worked the right plan. James 3:13–18 + God sees and cares for us even in the fallout of our failures.

Scripture: Genesis 15 Key Takeaways: + The Necessity of Faith Habakkuk 1:13 Romans 4:1–5 Romans 4:21–25 + The Fight for Faith + The Confidence of Faith Jeremiah 34:18–20 Romans 8:31–39

Scripture: Genesis 11:27—12:9 Key Takeaways: Genesis 3:14–15 Matthew 1:1 Galatians 3:6–9 + Obeying the Call Mark 1:16–20 + Believing the Promise + Promise - Faith - Obedience - Leave the Results to God Zechariah 2:7–9 + Extending the Hope + Establishing Praise

Scripture: Psalm 1 Key Takeaways: Matthew 7:13-14 Psalm 1 + 2 Paths, 2 Products, 2 Prospects + Blessings FROM God are secondary to the blessing OF God himself John 5:39-40 Ecclesiastes 8:14 Psalm 92:5-9

Scripture: James 1:19-21 Key Takeaways: James 3:5-8 + Speaking must give way to hearing John 11:4 Luke 18:22-23 Mark 2:8-11 + The anger of man must give way to the righteousness of God James 3:13-16 Philippians 2:3-8 + Wickedness must give way to the implanted Word James 1:21 James 3:16-18

Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46 Key Takeaways: + The Identity Jesus Claims Daniel 7:13-14 Acts 17:30-31 "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God? That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. "The sane man does not believe tha

Scripture: Matthew 25:14-30 Key Takeaways: + Live the life you are going to one day wish you had lived + We have God-given resources corresponding to our God-given capacities and are responsible to God for how we steward them Psalm 24:1 + Urgency + Energy + Intentionality + Everyone will give an account to God for how they lived their lives and managed their God-given resources Matthew 16:27 1 Corinthians 4:5 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 + We will be evaluated NOT based on our capacities but based on our faithfulness with the capacities and opportunities entrusted to us. + The Day of Judgment will reveal the true nature of a person’s relationship with God

Scripture: Matthew 25:1-13 Key Takeaways: + There is life and longing in the delay Ephesians 5:25 John 14:3 2 Peter 3:9 + When he returns, it will be too late to get ready + You cannot transfer faith + Be ready for the return of the bridegroom + How do you live ready? Matthew 7:21-23 Matthew 25:11-12 “Tomorrow is the devil's day, but today is God's. Satan does not care how spiritual your intentions are, or how holy your resolutions, if only they are determined to be done tomorrow.” - JC Ryle