Scripture: Genesis 25:7-11, 19-34

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” – Jonathan Edwards

+ God uses our prayer to fulfill His promises

+ God uses our weakness to fulfill his promises

+ God uses our opposition to fulfill his promises.

Philippians 3:18-21

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” – C.S. Lewis

Scripture: Genesis 24

+ A life that experiences God is one oriented toward God’s purpose.

“…you might ask, “Why should God speak to me? What am I doing in life that would make him speaking to me a reasonable thing for him to do? Are we in businesstogether in life? Or am I in business just for myself, trying to ‘use a little God’ to advance my projects?” – Dallas Willard, Hearing God.

+ A life that experiences God is one of faith-filled action.

+ A life that experiences God is one that is growing in prayer.

Psalm 127:1

Scripture: Hebrews 11:8-19

+ Faith alone secures ouracceptance with God.

Genesis 15:6

Ephesians 2:8–9

Romans 4:1–5

+ Faith alone demands humilitybefore God and others.

+ Faith obeys God's word withouthaving all the details or all the answers.

James 2:21–24

+ Faith is future oriented

"There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark rocky peak high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” – JRRTolkien, The Return of the King.

+ Faith believes God more thancircumstances

+ Faith withholds nothing fromGod, no matter how precious

Scripture: Psalm 136

“For his mercy endureth for ever.We shall have this repeated in every verse of this song, but not once toooften. It is the sweetest stanza that a man can sing. What joy that there ismercy, mercy with Jehovah, enduring mercy, mercy enduring for ever. We are everneeding it, trying it, praying for it, receiving it: therefore let us for eversing of it.” – Charles H. Spurgeon

+ Give thanks to the Lord, forwho He is.

Psalm 136: 1-3

+ Give thanks to the Lord, forwhat He does.

Psalm 136:4

+ Give thanks to the Lord, forHis love.

Psalm 136:10-15

Psalm 136:16

Romans 5:8

Psalm 136:23-26

Scripture: Acts 2:32-47 

And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, 

who proceeds from the Father and the Son;  

who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;  

who spoke by the prophets. 

And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.  

We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;  

and we look for the resurrection of the dead,  

and the life of the world to come.  

Amen. 

+ The Holy Spirit

We are not powerless 

Romans 8:9

Galatians 5:16

+ The Church  

We are not alone  

+ The Forgiveness of Sins  

Ephesians 4:4–6

Romans 8:1

 We are not condemned 

+ The Resurrection and Future Glory  

John 6:35–40

We are not afraid 

A Dialogue-Anthem by George Herbert 

Christian: Alas, poor Death! where is thy glory? Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting? 

Death: Alas, poor mortal, void of story! Go spell and read how I have kill'd thy King. 

Christian: Poor Death! and who was hurt thereby? Thy curse being laid on Him makes thee accurst. 

Death: Let losers talk, yet thou shalt die; These arms shall crush thee. 

Christian: Spare not, do thy worst. I shall be one day better than before; Thou so much worse, that thou shalt be no more. 

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, Knowing God.  

+ The Triumph of the Son's Obedience

Luke 2:51 

"What Christ saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised. The sight was unbearable. In a few short hours, he would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world... Consequently, to quote Luther again, 'No one ever feared death so much as this man.' He feared it because for him it was no sleep, but the wages of sin: death with the sting; death unmodified and unmitigated; death as involving all that sin deserved. He, alone, would face it without a 'covering', providing by his very dying the only covering for the world, but doing so as a holocaust, totally exposed to God's abhorrence of sin. And he would face death without God, deprived of the one solace and the one resource which had always been there. The wonder of the love of Christ for his people is not that for their sake he faced death without fear, but that for their sake he faced it, terrified. Terrified by what he knew, and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly." – Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ. 

+ The Triumph of the Son's Cross

Colossians 2:13–15

Hebrews 2:14–15

"When Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, was nailed to the cross, Satan thought that he had won the day. The old serpent had stung him to death, vainly imagining that all was over with him. I think I see the arch-fiend gloating over the awful agonies of the dying Savior, and maliciously taunting him as he hung there apparently forsaken by God and man. "Ah!" says he, "Seed of the woman, I have indeed bruised thy heel. I have made men reject thee and put thee to death; I have vexed and tormented thee, I have scorned and scouted thee, and thou hast not a word to say for thyself, and now thy soul must soon depart out of thy body." Yet as the devil was still pouring out his vainglorious boasts and taunts, with a mighty voice the expiring Savior cried, "It is finished;" and in that moment his soul sprang upon the enemy and utterly routed him forever." – Charles Spurgeon, Christ Triumphant.  

+ The Triumph of the Son's Exaltation

Ephesians 1:20–23

Isaiah 45:22–25

+ You must decide about Jesus; You cannot be neutral about him

+ You must imitate Jesus. You cannot confess him but refuse to conform to him

2 Corinthians 8:9

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 men were sick with the disease of sin; he was the doctor who had come to heal them. All other men were plunged in the darkness of sin and ignorance; he was the light of the world. All other men were sinners; he was born to be their Savior and would shed his blood in death for the forgiveness of their sins. All other men were hungry; he was the bread of life. All other men were dead in trespasses and sins; he could be their life now and their resurrection hereafter." – John Stott, Basic Christianity.

1 John 1:1–4

2 John 7

Colossians 1:19

Colossians 2:9

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 kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son;

who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;

who spoke by the prophets.

And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;

and we look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

+ Jude 3

+ John 1:1-3

+ John 1:14

+ John 1:18

+ Hebrews 1:1-3

"Though it is normal for humans to beget in time, due to the imperfection of their nature, God's offspring is eternal, because His nature is perfect." – Athanasius

+ Homoousia vs Homoiousia  

"Jesus Christ is the Creator of the universe. Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Jesus Christ, the Person, never had a beginning. He is absolute Reality. He has the unparalleled honor and unique glory of being there first and always. He never came into being." – John Piper, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ.

+ It is necessary to believe to be saved.

+ 1 Corinthians 12:3

+ John 17:5

+ John 17:24–26

+ It is how we grow to love Jesus

+ It is how we overcome temptation

"On Christ's glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes, and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy." – John Owen, The Glory of Christ 

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 thing, cast out even by those that loved me, who will say, 'Bury my dead out of my sight.' Now, endeavour, as well as you can, to get the idea of a dead corpse, and when you have so done, please to understand that that is the metaphor employed in my text, to set forth the condition of your soul by nature." – Charles Spurgeon

+ Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus

Romans 5:12; 17

+ Partner with God in Kingdom Expansion