Bible messages delivered at a small church in Minot, North Dakota
Paul's continued Evangelism and the persecution he endured.
The mindset of legalism comes from distorting the purpose of God's commands to be for His benefit instead of for our benefit. This is a look at God's good intent in the commands He has issued. If we can have His mindset, then we will avoid being legalistic.
Continuing with the apostle Paul in his gospel outreach
How we can please the Lord. Paul's desire for the believers is that they would walk worthy of the Lord Jesus and be fully pleasing to Him. He wrote to them to explain how they could live in such a way that they would please Him.
The Lord gave the apostles signs as they preached the gospel. Signs are pointers to the reality. The reality isn't speaking in tongues, it is changed speech. Healing the lame man was a sign. The reality is a changed life that follows the Lord. These realities are the great testimony that persuades people to listen to Jesus.
In the beginning of Joshua is a comment on the importance of keeping of God's command to be prosperous. The same thought appears in his farewell address in the context of remembering what God had done for them. Joshua called on the people to make the choice to follow the Lord.
Paul wrote that the believers were complete in Christ. They did not need to add traditions and principles to be approved of by God. Everything they needed to be complete as a Christian is in Christ.
The Father has made Christ everything to us. We are complete in Him.
The response of the Gentiles to Paul's gospel message in the synagogue.
John's instructions and care towards beloved believers
What the believer's relationship with the Lord is like in these days and how Jesus manifests Himself to us and not to the world. What Jesus wants us to do a believers while He is gone.
Concluding thoughts of the epistle. A key characteristic of people in the family of God is that they don't practice sin. They are of God, not the world. The Son of God has given them truth. They must keep from idols.
The resurrection where Jesus fulfilled His statement that He had overcome the world
The fondational truth of Christianity: We begin in sin, guilty before God; He has saved us. 1 Corinthians 13 - a better way. Receive love from God in order to love. We learn the love of God through the pursuit of knowing God, learning who He is. We may learn through nature, working, and His commands. These things are not the and goal of the Christian life, they are the means to learn of God. This is the Christian life.
The first recorded message of the apostle Paul. He spoke of the salvation of God throughout the history of Israel, illustrating the salvation in Christ.
How Jesus overcame the world through His obedience to the Father when He died on the cross.
Reviewing chapter 4, we see it is important to test the spirits and also to love one another. This is a difficult balance to maintain but necessary.
Starting out the first journey. Paul and Elymas the sorcerer. Elymas was blinded and Sergius came to see.
Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world. A kingdom has a king, people who are subject to the King, a domain, and an administration. This message looks at the features of Jesus' kingdom.
Testing and checking for truth in all things that come at us. The truth is that God showed His love for us by sending His Son into the world to deal with our sin. If the message you hear doesn't have this foundation, it isn't from God.
The last message looked at how the chief priests were trying to get rid of Jesus, but Jesus was telling people He was leaving. If we believe that the crucifixion was Jesus leaving, then there are big implications to our lives. We should follow Him because He is the one from God. What does it mean to follow Jesus?
What was the message the apostle John was conveying through his selection of events and method of telling the crucifixion story?
How the church began to branch off from Jerusalem. Jerusalem had been the center of the people of God since the days of David. God was removing the natural bramah and grafting in a wild branch. God gathered people to the name of the Lord, not as extensions of an organization. This was the first church started without the apostles. Barnabas encouraged these people to continue with the Lord, not attach themselves to Jerusalem.
Jesus asked the soldiers who they were looking for and they said, Jesus of Nazareth. But the way John recorded the story showed that Jesus was more than a man from Nazareth. He was the One who would deliver God's people from the enemy by becoming like a lamb.
Further tests to determine if you are filled with the Spirit
God gave clothing to Adam and Eve so they would not be ashamed. The prodigal son received new clothing. What is the clothing that God has for us?
What was in the Lord's heart as He anticipated His departure from the disciples. A look at the Lord's prayer before He went to the cross.
What happened when Peter returned from giving the gospel to Cornelius
How the Lord will keep His people in a hostile world.
How could Saul be so zealous for God, and yet be such an enemy of God? Do we do the same? Jesus was intimately acquainted with the inner struggles of His enemy.
As believers, we need to grow in the Light to prevent drifting into darkness. The more we are in the light, the farther we are from darkness.
The Lord Jesus said to the Father, The hour has come, glorify your Son. What glories does John present in his gospel as he told of Jesus going to the cross?
Working through John's short and shocking statements. 1. You don't know God if you don't keep His commands. 2. You are not in the Light if you hate your brother. 3. If you love the world, you don't have God's love in you.
Phillip showed that the prejudices of Judaism did not come over to the church, for he preached to the Samaritans and to the Ethiopian. God was reaching out to the Ethiopian. A divine intervention for the sake of saving one man, who was a eunuch.
The bread represents the body of Christ, a body that God prepared for Him to do God's will. He is like the bread of manna, not like the bread you work for by the sweat of your brow. By taking a body, He opened Himself to the shame His enemies heaped upon Him. Breaking bread is having peace with God in fellowship. The bread of life needed to be broken for us to be able to break bread with God.
A view of God's incomprehensible wisdom from Romans 11
What are the characteristics of the children of God? How do they contrast with the children of the world?
The beginning of a new section in Acts. It opens with Stephen, a man who was full of faith and power. He spoke the truth with the goodness of the Spirit. Being accused of blasphemy against the temple, he needed to show from the OT that he did not blaspheme. The Jews thought the temple was ultimate truth. Stephen must show that God's revelation of Himself has progressed over time. So he showed the temple was only a partial revelation, and the Lord Jesus was the full revelation.