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Weekend Recap – Fullness / Heart Idolatry…

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Yesterday’s AM message, Fullness, from Colossians 2:9-10 is now online. The sermon sought to show compellingly how satisfying Jesus is, since He is fully God, fills us and is the Head of ALL rule and authority. I hope it was encouraging to you. It was fitting to close with the Lord’s supper, as well, seeing Jesus in glorious ways.

In the PM we met in Small Groups discussing chapter 6 of the Gospel Centered Life curriculum on heart idolatry. In the article, an citation was made from Steven Childer’s excellent article: True Spirituality. For more on discerning your heart idolatry, listen or read C.J. Mahaney’s excellent sermon, “The Idol Factory.”

Weekend Preview – Jesus @ Center

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This weekend, we have a full Lord’s Day again.

First off, this is the final week of adult SS classes. I will be wrapping up Tripp’s What Did You Expect? Marriage Curriculum. Tom Dixon will be finishing out the Gospel of John.

In the AM service, I will be preaching a sermon entitled Fullness from Colossians 2:9-10. The basic idea is that since Jesus is fully God and you are filled in Him, who is the head of ALL rule and authority, is false teaching even alluring?

And then, in small group, we will be discussing chapter 6 of the Gospel-Centered Life curriculum on how we can continue to believe the Gospel as believers by destroying the idols of our hearts.

It should prove to be a great day, Lord willing. Pray that God would glorify Himself as we seek to center on Jesus.

Weekend Recap – Promises, Truth & The Gospel

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After the flurry of activity last week, it was great to get back to the dear people of God at Crestview. Had a full day, with SS, AM Service, Cross-Cultural Missions Committee, PM Service and Men’s Theology, but a fruitful one nonetheless.

In the AM, I preached from Colossians 2:8 a sermon entitled Error. In this talk, I was really trying to give clear exposition about the nature of error and how centering in Christ and the Gospel trumps everything else. It was yet another clear reminder of how central Christ and the Gospel should be.

In the PM, my sermon dealt with how promises made to Abraham pointed to Jesus. We looked at Genesis 12:1-3 and Genesis 17:1-8 (as well as NT texts highlighting the connection). The sermon was entitled Promise. I thought the promise of a city that was to come was one full of applications for believers (read Hebrews 11:9-16). At any rate, it was a great day.

Weekend Preview – Error & Jesus in Abraham’s Promise

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As we look to corporate worship this coming Lord’s Day, we anticipate a full day.

I will be leading all adult SS classes together. We will be watching Paul Tripp’s talk from the Desiring God National Conference on Words. This is some of Tripp’s best material.

In the AM sermon, we will be focusing in on Colossians 2:8 and seeing some ways we “adjust the Gospel” and seek to divert our attention from THE truth of Christ.

We have a Cross-Cultural Missions Committee meeting at 5PM.

In the PM sermon, we will continue our march through the OT and seek to find Jesus in the story of Abraham.

In the late evening, Men’s Theology will be looking at the Bible again.

Please prepare your heart for this full day.

Weekend Recap – Walking

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Had a great morning in worship with the people of God at Crestview. We were in Colossians 2:6-7 for a sermon entitled Walking In Christ. This sermon really highlighted how our walk in Christ is based on our past reception, that Christ is the focus of our walk in Him (obviously) and walking in Christ will cause us to explode in gratitude to God.

I hope you had a great Lord’s Day as well. There was much to apply here, especially being grateful and seeing my complaining demeanor as a revealer of my ingratitude.

Weekend Recap – Easter

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What an amazing weekend!

We began with Good Friday service at UVBC and enjoyed a great night thinking about the cross and fellowshipping with others.

On Sunday morning, I read Isaiah 53:8-12 and we sang “Come People of the Risen King” to bring in our morning festivities. After this, we had a church wide brunch, then Sunday School (my class watched Piper preach a sermon: I Have Seen the Lord), then AM Worship.

In the morning worship, since we are a working through Colossians, I overviewed what this book showed about the resurrection, specifically:
3 truths concerning the resurrection…
I. The resurrection establishes Jesus’ preeminence (Colossians 1:18)
II. The resurrection gives us hope of salvation (Colossians 2:12-13)
III. The resurrection calls us to live a life that honors Christ (Colossians 3:1)
I thought we had an amazing day and I hope we can continue to be shaped by the resurrection.

Weekend Recap – Protection

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Another Lord’s Day is completed. I was really grateful to God for His enablement yesterday.

We began in SS, looking at Paul Tripp teaching on how worshipping God as Creator and Sovereign helps establish right relations horizontally in our marriages. Meg and I were remarking over lunch how helpful this perspective was.

In the AM service, my sermon was from Colossians 2:4-5 entitled Protection. The audio is online, but unfortunately, the podcast isn’t working (Sorry). This sermon was a blessing to me, in seeing how God doesn’t leave His people to their own devices, but graciously reveals the truth to us. To put it simply: God protects us by revealing truth to us, empowering us to live out that truth and compelling us to maintain our trust in Jesus.

Then, in small groups, we continued wading through the Gospel Centered Life curriculum, seeing how the Gospel relates to all the commands of the Bible. The summary of this time: the commands drive us to despair of keeping them to the Gospel and the Gospel frees us to delight in following them.

It was an amazing day and God was so gracious to teach us. Hope you had a tremendous Lord’s Day as well.

Weekend Preview – Protection

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This coming Lord’s Day, we anticipate, Lord willing, gathering together to celebrate the Gospel and, specifically, thinking about Jesus and His Work on the cross. We will have the Lord’s Supper at the conclusion of the service. We will sing songs: Sing to the King, And Can It Be, O Sacred Head Now Wounded, and How Deep the Father’s Love.

For the sermon, I will be preaching from Colossians 2:4-5 on Protection. My intro starts with the history of Protection, KS (of all things), but the focus in the sermon is how God protects us from error. In Colossians 2:4, Paul writes, “I say this…” and of course he is referring to all that he has written in chapters 1-2:3, but specifically, I think, the fact of Jesus Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Paul writes to give protection to God’s people and keep them from error. More on that Sunday AM.

Sunday PM, we will gather together in small groups and continue working through our Gospel Centered Life curriculum. We are in chapter 4 for our meeting this Sunday.

Hope you have a refreshing weekend and come ready to worship Jesus.

Weekend Recap – 3/21

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Enjoyed a tremendous Lord’s Day yesterday…

In SS, I lead a class through Paul Tripp’s What Did You Expect? Curriculum. We were in Session 8 yesterday which helped wrap up 1 John 4. One line in particular stood out to me: “Our lack of love for others in rooted in identity amnesia” meaning, we’ve forgotten God’s love for us in Christ.

In AM worship, we sang songs of Jesus’ reign and then settled in to Colossians 2:1-3 in a sermon entitled Comfort in Struggle. This sermon really sought to orient us to be a church that encourages one another. Paul sought to encourage the Colossian believer in all that they were facing, and, through his words to them, we can get insight for our lives as well.

In PM worship, we looked at the Flood narrative in our Jesus in the Old Testament series. Specifically, we honed in Genesis 6:5-7:14 with the sermon entitled The Flood: Judgment and Rescue. I was personally affected in holding out God’s punishment for sin (as righteous judgment) and then holding out God’s amazing rescue and how these point to Jesus.

Finally, I concluded the night by leading our Men’s Theological Discussion Group on The Bible: Inerrancy and Authority. We dug into Scripture looking at how God has always been a speaking God, how He inspired Scripture and safeguarded it and finally we discussed issues like the canon and other related things. We read portions of The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.

While this was a very full day for me, it is productive to see God’s Word impact lives and realize the amazing privilege I have in getting to teach these things to others. There is so much to live based on what I teach and I hope that I can apply these things this week.

Weekend Recap – Jesus, Sin and Gospel Toil

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Well, Sunday is nearly wrapped up. (We are starting a new class for men on theological topics that meets at 8PM.)

This morning, we looked at Gospel Toil from Colossians 1:29. It seems that Paul expended himself in amazing ways for the sake of the Gospel’s advancing, yet he was always quick to rely on God and His power for all good things. I felt the need to call us to rely on God’s power by trusting in Jesus.

This evening, we looked at Jesus in the Fall from Genesis 3:1-24 in our Jesus in the Old Testament series. It seems that one clear conclusion we should reach when seeing sin enter the world is how we need rescued (or, more specifically the need for a Rescuer). Enter Jesus and the prophecy of Him in Genesis 3:15.

I thought it was an amazing day with much to encourage us.