Jonathan Williams with Word of God, Speak

How could two short chapters in the Bible written over 2500 years ago by a man with a strange name have such a powerful effect upon people today? Let's listen and find out.

We have a picture of the grace of God, that God would take the grandson of an evil king and use him to advance his purposes in the world. God reverses the curses and blesses the worst of us for his glory.

How can be we become holy before the Lord? Does it happen automatically because we go to church and hang out with other dedicated people? Or do we need to take responsibility?

Many of us worry because we wonder if we are going to have enough in uncertain economic times. Here is God's reassuring word of promise – “The silver is mine and the gold is mine. It all belongs to me. You will have enough.”

Any time we are discouraged, we must pause and reflect on who our God is. Any time we want to give up we need to take our eyes off our discouraging circumstances and put them on the Lord who is the ruler of all things.

One of the greatest promises of Scripture is God saying, “I will be with you.” Today we will hear this promise made to his people who lived 500 years before the birth of Christ. What did it mean to them? What can it mean for us?

So here we have two men – the high priest in Israel and the governor of the people who is a descendant of David. They have already done well in that they led the people back to the land but somewhere along the way they lost their focus. How did Haggai get them back, and how can he get us back?

Have you seen anyone get off to great start and then stop? They just stopped doing what they were supposed to do. Why? The prophet Haggai talks about this in his little book.

There are ten reasons why you and I must go forward together in humility and ask that Christ be glorified in greater ways with this ministry. It is His ministry, not ours, and we are stewards of it. Let's learn these today.

He had no beginning. He has always lived. He did not receive His life from earthly parents. He receives His life eternally from His Father in heaven. He is from heaven, and He is above all and just as John knew this lesson and humbled himself before the greatness of Jesus, we too must humble ourselves before the One who is above all and for whom are all things.

People come and go. But Christ remains. People and ministries change but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

A few years ago, a famous pastor wrote a book that sold millions of copies around the world. God greatly used it. And people will never forget the first line of the book – “It's not about us.”

We must realize that every beat of our heart, every breath that we take, every day that we live is a gift from heaven.

God has a way of ordering our circumstances to humble us. Yet, when God humbles us, it is a sign of his deep love.

Ancient idolatry consisted of bowing before lifeless idols. But modern idolatry is putting any created thing at the place where only God should be.

We are not to be devoted to pleasure or power or fame or possessions. We are to be devoted to one another and when we do this, we show the world our Savior who is devoted to us.

It all sounds so good – love one another as I have loved you. But there's only one problem. People are not always easy to love.

God's glory can be seen in each of us, but his glory is best seen when we are together – loving one another, honoring one another, serving one another, and worshipping God together.

My heart has been thrilled as I have heard stories of God's amazing grace toward people. One of these stories is the story of a man and a woman that I came to know. Today, I want to share their story of grace with you.

From beginning to end, we see that God is a God of grace. From the creation to the consummation, God pours out His grace to weak, sinful people to the praise of His glory.

We acknowledge that all of life is by grace. We live, we draw every breath, and our hearts beat every moment by His gift to us.

Grace does not just forgive us and cleanse us. Grace heals us, strengthens us, changes us, and empowers us to give grace to others.

God's grace gives us a right standing with Him and is one of the most powerful lessons we can learn. We will never deserve Him to do anything for us – yet He makes us worthy by the grace of Christ.

God gives grace to the humble! We should therefore seek to humble ourselves before Him continually because the more humble we are the more grace we get!

Do you approach God with timidity, wondering if he will receive you? Or do you approach him with confidence knowing that because of Christ his throne is now a throne of grace?

Grace is an important concept, but it is far more. Grace is indispensable for life and for growth. We cannot live, cannot grow, cannot help others, and cannot have eternal life without the grace of God.

When will God's kingdom plan be fully realized? No one can set a time or date. Jesus in Acts 1:7 said, “It is not for to know!” and only God knows how all the details of his plan will be worked out. But Paul provides some clues for us in 1 Corinthians 15:20-28.

How blessed we are to know the King of kings as our Savior, to be citizens of His Kingdom, to participate in His Kingdom plan, and to know that the final victory is secure. Though His return in judgment will be a day of distress and anguish for many, it will be a day of joy for us as the King returns to complete our salvation and exalt us as the ancient promises foretold.

Judgment was indeed a sobering subject. And the certainty of the judgment to come had an impact on the apostles and their mission. The Apostle Paul, who was so quick to judge before he was saved and obtained mercy from God, urged his son in faith, Timothy, to be faithful to the ministry of preaching the Gospel. Judgment was coming.

The ends of the ages have come upon us, Paul said! All the purposes and plans of all ages of human history are now finding their fulfillment in the events that have been transpiring since Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom in the world. All the faithful acts that those Old Testament kings and prophets performed were the warmup to the main events that have been occurring since Christ came into the world. Therefore, we who have lived since the first coming of the King have the greatest reasons to live holy lives. The climax of human history has come upon us all. We are living at the end point of all the ages. The King has come and has started the countdown. With this in mind, let's live for Christ.

How wonderful to realize that we, too, can participate in the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies as we obey Jesus' command to take the message of His Kingdom victory to the ends of the earth. Right now as I speak, many of God's people are fulfilling the Messiah's prophecy to be a light to all the nations so that His salvation may reach to the end of the world. But all of us can fulfill His prophecy as we obey His final command and work with Him to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. We can say with Paul and Barnabas, “For thus the Lord has commanded us!”

There is a reason why the first Christians excelled. They understood that their position in the Kingdom carried with it a historic responsibility. They realized that they were the key players in this present phase of God's Kingdom plan for the world.

The first believers understood their identity well as recipients of the promises and citizens of God's Kingdom. As we understand our identity as citizens of a triumphant kingdom, we will be taking an important first step in preparing ourselves to do our part in fulfilling the Kingdom mission.

There are many promises in the Word that Jesus has fulfilled and is fulfilling since He was enthroned in heaven. But the ones we will look at in this message are enough to show us that when Jesus left the earth, He did not leave the battle. Instead, He ascended to the most strategic place in the universe from which to lead His people to carry out the present phase of the Kingdom plan.

The second strategic event took place in heaven: Christ was enthroned in the place of highest authority. He is in the best place from which to lead the forces of His people to carry out this present phase of God's Kingdom plan which is to take the gospel to every nation, every people group, every tribe, every language, everyone! No wonder that Jesus said to His disciples, “It is to your advantage that I go away to the Father” (John 16:7)."

Immediately after Jesus finished clarifying to His disciples their ministry priority, He returned to heaven. That priority is to reach the very nations which have for centuries resisted and rebelled. Yet, Jesus returned to heaven. Why did he leave, especially with such a challenging task he gave to his people then and now.  How we wish we could have Him with us physically on the earth leading us! But He did not stay. Why did He leave?

The manifestations of God's Kingdom had only begun when Jesus returned to heaven. Those first disciples understood that the King was now going to exercise His power and authority through them as they obeyed His final command. The final command that Jesus gave to His first followers is also His command to us. The priority of the Kingdom for this age has not changed.

In 40 days, the little band of men who had fled in terror on the night of Jesus' arrest had been gathered, forgiven, restored, and strengthened. They had their minds opened and renewed as they listened to “the things concerning the Kingdom.” The Resurrected Teacher was putting the finishing touches on His work to prepare them for the challenge that lay before them.

In a matter of a few days, the Kingdom of God had exercised its power in the world in two new ways: victory over sin and death at the cross and the introduction of eternal life and immortality in the resurrection. The Kingdom of God was not set back by the evil plans of men, nor had it been abandoned by God for other plans. Rather, the Kingdom triumphed over every enemy and circumstance that opposed it. God continued to fulfill Kingdom prophecy and rule with might in the midst of His people.

Jesus' followers were stunned, shocked. In a matter of a few days Jesus had gone from the pinnacle of praise to the depths of a weak and shameful death. Had not all that Jesus stood for come to a painful and cruel end? Hopes were shattered. Disappointment and fear abounded. But what they could not see was that Jesus' death was the unexpected victory of the kingdom.

Jesus used parables about the kingdom to test their perception of his mission and the way he was inaugurating the kingdom. In this lesson, we will look at the parables of the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, the treasure, the pearl, and the fish net.

A parable is a simple story drawn from everyday life. Throughout His ministry Jesus used them to illustrate key points in His message. Yet as the confrontation with some intensified, and as the multitudes increased, Jesus began to use parables for something more than illustrations. He used them to test their perception of His message on the Kingdom.