OnlyJesus.Life

Last week I began this new series by discussing WHAT you believe and how those belief sets form in your life. This message flips the script to look at Who we should believe from a totally biblical perspective. The focus on this message is Authority - Who's in Charge?

Everyone is a believer. My emphatic statement includes secularists, atheists, agnostics, and religious people. What people believe matters for all the reasons I am about to discuss in this message.

Key Bible Verse: "Now after (Jesus) had risen early on the first day of the week, He first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons." Mark 16:9

Encourage Exhort Admonish Repent Call to Action Those are the five key words for this messsage. I pray the Holy Spirit uses them and this message to connect with your spirit, wherever you are.

How Christians Should Live in Our Post-Resurrection, Post-Modern World

Key Bible Verses: "For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. 1 Corinthians 15: 16-19

Key Bible Verse: "Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit." John 19:30

Key Bible Verse: “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is righteous and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”  Zechariah 9:9

Key Bible Verse: "How long O LORD will you forget me forever?" Psalm 13:1

Message Three in this series Disappointment with God

Sins of Discontentment and Their Consequences

If we are honest, everyone at some time in our lives (including Christians) has experienced such disappointment. Isn't that blasphemy? Won't that insult God when we suggest such an outrageous thing? This series was designed to answer those and other questions that help us grow in our relationships with the one true God, our Father and Creator.

We looked at each of the four stages along this pathway to eternal life: follower, disciple, apostle, and martyr. This message briefly reviews each one and ends with the challenge Jesus gave all those who consider themselves born-again. The Apostle Paul gave those within the churches he planted very articulate and explicit examples of what Jesus' commands looked like in his life and should in ours.

The Fourth Stage is the Hardest!

Last week I discussed "followers" and "disciples". This week we examine the next stage apostles: those spelled with upper case A and those with lower case a. What's the difference?

There are four stages to complete surrender for those who are truly born-again in Christ.

This message covers the first two: Follower and Disciple

There is very little I can say or should to begin this message that is both exciting and terrifying. So let me simply say listen and rejoice or listen and tremble. The Good News is always a message of hope, and I pray you find it here today before I say the last Amen.

Re-establishing your priorities before another day passes in 2024.

First Look

First Love

First Fruit

Key Bible Verse: "But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”" Luke 9:62

From His Deity in Heaven before time as we know it began to His incarnation as a baby in a manger to the Cross and His Resurrection to His triumphant return we long for, this week we celebrate the Jesus.

Key Bible Verse: "“And seeing the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd..." Matthew 9:35

Key Bible Verses: "But Jesus, knowing whatthey were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by His side, andsaid to them, “Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all ofyou, this is the one who is great.” Luke 9:46-47

In this min-series with the LIVING PROOF Series, we have discussed what worldview means, how they are formed, and the secular worldview as well as the cultural Christian and progressive Christian views. After a brief review, today I taught on what it means to be a biblical Christian and how our worldview is formed by the Word of God and how Jesus saw His world.

Are either of these groups really born-again Christian at all?

Key Bible Verses: “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant,slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving,irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters ofgood, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than loversof God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these.” 2 Timothy 3: 1-5

Last week week we examined the first three of seven commands Jesus gave His disciples before His ascension. This message considers the last four:

• Love One Another
• Develop a Prayer Life
• Make Disciples
• Be a living testimony of the Holy Spirit in You

Key Bible Verse: "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you— unless indeed you fail the test?" 2 Corinthians 13:5

Key Bible Verse: "Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

We start this new series with questions Jesus asked His disciples who were with Him. He asks the same of Christians today. How do you answer them?

Key Bible Verse: "but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Hebrews 3:13

Understanding what God meant when three times, Paul told us, "God gave them over to"...

The Rainbow Belongs to God (P3)

Key Bible Verses: "Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh." (from Genesis 1:26-28a; 2:25)

Key Bible Verses: "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. " Galatians 6: 7

Key Bible Verse: "God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations;" Genesis 9:12

Key Bible Verse: “You are of your father the devil...He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

Here is the link to the edited version of my message yesterday, The Origin of Demons.
Message #1 of this series we examined what Jesus had to say about and His interactions with satan and demoms
Message #2 we examined the origin of angels and the much-discussed "origin of evil"
This week we did the same with demons. Who are they? Where did they come from? Do they still exist today?
This series is necessary to help people, even Chrhistians, understand and answer the questions people have today as our culture continues to spiral downward deeper into the demonic realm of darkness.

Key Bible Verse: "For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’" Isaiah 14: 13-14

Key Bible Verse: "And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one." Matthew 6: 13a

"Death, be not proud..." Series Finale

Key Bible Verse: "But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep." 1 Corinthians 15:20

Key Bible Verse: "The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!”" Matthew 21:9

Key Bible Verse: "...I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”  2 Samuel 12:23b

Key Bible Verse: “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” 1 Corinthians 15: 54-55

Key Bible Verse: "For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."" Isaiah 57:17

Key Bible Verses: "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,"  Hebrews 9:27

Key Bible Verse:  "For the wages of sin is death..." Romans 6:23a

The rest of the title and challenge in this message is those same qualities can and should be applied to and evident in the lives of all who claim to be "born-again" Christians. 

Key Bible Verse:  "This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope." Lamentations 3: 21

"But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Luke 9: 62