Christianity Still Makes Sense

Encountering Gospel Freedom Romans 6:1-14

Watch the full episode at imagechurch.live

Encountering Gospel Freedom

Romans 6:1-14

 

“I would say that if you don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you're really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.” Christopher Hitchens

 

“If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless” (1 Corinthians 15:14).

 

“Jesus said..., “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

 

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

 

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come”( 2 Corinthians 5:17).

7 Marks of a Spiritually Mature Christian 1 Corinthians 16

Watch the full message at imagechurch.live

 

7 Marks of a Spiritually Mature Christian

1 Corinthians 16

 

1.      Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked by Generosity

 

“We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints” (2 Corinthians 8:1-4).

 

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.”Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:2-6).

 

 

2.  Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked by Discernment

 

“Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth” (Ephesians 4:14, NLT).

 

“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— ³ if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:2-3).

 

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

 

 

3. Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked by Resilience

 

4. Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked by Courageous Strength

 

5. Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked by Love

 

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

6. Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked by Faithful Service

7. Spiritually Mature Christians Are Marked their Encouragement of Others

Hope Beyond the Grave 1 Corinthians 15

Watch the full episode at imagechurch.live 

Hope Beyond the Grave

1 Corinthians 15

 

Questions to Ponder:

 

First off, do you believe in Jesus? I mean, are you trusting in the death, burial, and resurrection as your hope for both now and beyond the grave?

 

Second, if not, what’s preventing you from believing? Like what’s it going to take to remove the barriers to belief you’re experiencing?

 

Third, given that this life is our rehearsal for eternity what adjustments do you need to make in your life to make it count the most for Christ?

 

Fourth, knowing that we aren’t meant to keep our faith to ourselves, is there anyone you can offer some hope to by extending an invite to our upcoming Easter service?

Making Sense of Church 1 Corinthians 14:1-25

Thoughts to Ponder:
 
-While everything may not make sense in the church, we shouldn’t go out of our way to make nonsense out of what is supposed to make sense. 
-Spiritual gifts aren’t given to us to create confusion and chaos, but rather they’re given to unify the church and build it up. 
-When we gather, our aim should be to encounter God through our collective worship. 
-Finally, when it comes to the non-believer in our midst, our goal is to make sense of church so people can make sense of God. 
 

God’s Reconciling Grace The Book of Philemon

God’s Reconciling Grace

The Book of Philemon

 

 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;that is,

 

in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-19).

 

“Slaves were found in all professions and generally had more opportunity for social advancement than free peasants; unlike the vast majority of slaves in the United States and the Caribbean, they were able to work for and achieve freedom, and some freed slaves became independently wealthy.

 

This social mobility applied especially to the household slaves—the only kind of slave addressed in Paul’s writings. Economically, socially, and with regard to freedom to determine their future, these slaves were better off than most free persons in the Roman Empire; most free persons were rural peasants working as tenant farmers on the vast estates of wealthy landowners.” Craig Keener

 

“From the standpoint of ancient slave owners, the lost time of an escaped slave was lost money and was legally viewed as stolen property, to which one harboring him was liable. But more important, slaves themselves were not cheap, and Philemon might have already bought another slave to replace him.)

 

Recapture normally meant severe punishment. Old Testament law required harboring escaped slaves (Deut 23:15–16), but Roman law required Paul to return Onesimus to his master, with serious penalties if he failed to do so. Paul uses his relationship with Philemon to seek Onesimus’s release: in a standard “letter of recommendation,” one would plead with someone of equal (or sometimes lower)

 

status on behalf of someone of lower status. Paul was not Philemon’s equal socially or economically, but as his spiritual father he had grounds to claim the equality that characterized ancient friendship.” Keener

 

 

Six Feautures Regarding God’s Reconciling Grace

1. God’s Reconciling Grace Encounters Each of Us in An Undeserved State

 

2. God’s Reconciling Grace Is Designed to Change Us

 

3. God’s Reconciling Grace Should Motivate Us to Reconcile with Those We’ve Wronged

“No Christian should grumble at extra demands of love. They are golden opportunities to draw on the reserves of divine love, and in so doing to become more fully oneself in Christ, more completely in the image of God, more authentically human. It is not merely Onesimus for whom Paul is here pastorally concerned.” N.T. Wright

 

4. God’s Reconciling Grace Is Always Costly

 

5. God’s Reconciling Grace Contains Within It the Power to Overcome Social Evils

“Paul’s message to Philemon goes beyond other documents of his time in not only pleading for clemency for an escaped slave but asking that he be released because he is now a Christian. So powerful was this precedent that many early U.S.

 

slaveholders did not want their slaves to be exposed to Christianity, for fear that they would be compelled to free them; only in time was a distorted enough form of the Christian message available for use in sustaining slavery.” Craig Keener

 

6. God’s Reconciling Grace Transforms Relationships

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

Love Is the Final Apologetic 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13

Love Is the Final Apologetic

1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13

 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).

 

 

"Upon his authority he gives the world the right to judge whether you or I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians...

 

[If] people come up to us and cast in our teeth the judgment that we are not Christians because we have not shown love toward other Christians, we must understand that they are only exercising a prerogative which Jesus gave them." Francis Schaeffer

 

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.

Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

 

 

“Love that person who rubs you the wrong way. Love the unfaithful. The immature. The obnoxious teenager. The grumpy father-in-law. The noisy neighbor. The nosey neighbor. The fruit cake making old aunt. The unfair boss. The inconsistent friend.

 

The lazy worker. The worrying wife. The hateful husband. The wannabe hipster. The argumentative church member. The unruly two year old. The angry atheist. The bitter, unattractive single women. The unwise college student. The blatant homosexual. That snippy sister-in-law. The Muslim. “Love them”, Jesus says. “No, really. Show them who I really am by bringing some agape their way.”

Yours Truly, The Fifth Gospel

 

 

“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:44-46).

 

"Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.

If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less." C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If We Are the Body 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

 

If We Are the Body

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

 

“If we are the body why aren’t His arms reaching?

Why aren’t His hands healing?

Why aren’t His words teaching?

And if we are the body, why aren’t His feet going?

Why is His love not showing them there is a way?”

Casting Crowns, If We Are the Body, chorus.

 

 

"'If We Are the Body' addresses a problem I've seen in churches all over - that churches are a lot like a circle. Circles are great if you're in the circle, but most people find themselves outside that circle for whatever reason.

 

There's not a sign on the door but you get the feeling they've got everybody they need. You're welcome to come, but you're not really ever going to be part of the circle and that's certainly not what the Bible teaches." Mark Hall

 

“I love this song. I agree with it completely. I've been to a lot of different churches where I just didn’t feel welcome whatsoever. That’s why I ended up in the church I'm in because people opened up to me and made me feel like I belonged.” Shebalba8

 

“My church that i grew up in had cliches and... it felt really uncomfortable. the church I am at now... it’s like a 180. all it takes is a simple introduction to make a person feel at home. it won't kill ya...” Itzadoozy

 

“I really love the lyrics for this song. How often do people judge others who come to their church or judge other Christian’s b/c they have beliefs slightly different from theirs? We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, and we must stand together or perish.” Singmesweet

 

1. If we are the body, we will value unity and diversity.

 

2. If we are the body, we will recognize the inestimable worth of each part.

 

3. If we are the body, we won’t elevate one set of gifts above another, but we’ll be mutually dependent on one another.

 

4. If we are the body, we won’t divide over our spiritual gifts, but rather we will use them to build each other up and to care for each other.

 

5. If we are the body, we will rally around Christ, our ultimate unifying member of the body.

 

6. If we are the body, we will be driven by something far greater than our giftings, we will be driven by our love for one another.

Approaching Communion Sacredly 1 Corinthians 11:17-32

Approaching Communion Sacredly

1 Corinthians 11:17-32

 

1. Approach communion with a heart of gratitude

 

2. Approach communion by remembering Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf

 

"And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

(Ex 24:8).

 

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt,

 

my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord:

 

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Je 31:31–34).

 

3. Approach communion by realizing how it dramatizes the Gospel

 

4. Approach communion by examining your posture toward the Gospel

Hats Off! 1 Corinthians 11:2-16

Hats Off!

1 Corinthians 11:2-16

 

Five Reflections to Chew On:

 

First, when reading the Scriptures, be careful to discern between the timeless and the timely.   

Second, value the cultural traditions of other cultures without necessarily assuming them as your own.

Third, honor the cultural traditions of your own culture where you can without compromise by refusing to be a stumbling block. 

Fourth, realize that male and female are created equal but different and for unity’s sake learn to value God’s order of things.

Fifth, remember, gender distinctions aren’t too blurred, but instead, we are to celebrate our God-given genders.

 

 

Sermon Link

https://imagechurchlive.churchcenter.com/episodes/288754

Preventing A Moral Wipeout 1 Corinthians 10:1-22

1. Learn from the immoral examples of others verses experiencing a moral wipeout for yourself.

 

2. Never think you’re above a moral wipeout. It can happen to any of us.

 

3. Know how to overcome temptation when it comes your way.

 

4. Eliminate the idols in your life that can ultimately take you down.