Podcasts about second samuel

Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/editorialtpv Más sobre William Blaikie, y sus libros aquí:  - https://teologiaparavivir.com/blaikie-samuel/ ¿Quién fue William Garden Blaikie y por qué su voz marcó el evangelicalismo victoriano? Este episodio recorre la vida de un pastor-intelectual que unió púlpito, aula y reforma social: de su labor en Pilrig, Edimburgo —con vivienda obrera, educación y misión urbana— al magisterio en New College (cátedra de Apologética y Teología Pastoral, 1868–1897). Destilamos su “hermenéutica para el ministerio” a través de tres frentes: (1) Exégesis pastoral en The Expositor's Bible (Joshua; First & Second Samuel), donde dialoga con la Alta Crítica sin rendir lo sobrenatural.    (2) Formación de predicadores, con For the Work of the Ministry como manual que combina piedad, claridad y utilidad en el sermón.  (3) Imaginario misional, gracias a The Personal Life of David Livingstone, biografía autorizada que fijó al héroe misionero para una generación.  Mostramos cómo Blaikie integró rigor histórico-gramatical, convicción evangélica y sensibilidad pública, y qué pueden aprender hoy iglesias, seminarios y obreros de su equilibrio entre cabeza, corazón y ciudad. Siguenos: - Web: https://teologiaparavivir.com/ - Blog: https://semperreformandaperu.org/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teologiaparavivir/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teologiaparavivir/ - Youtube: https://www.instagram.com/teologiaparavivir/

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. Transcripteah, I did that two weeks in a row. It's not a good start. All right. We are, as Matt said, we're working through our membership commitment, which is kind of uncommon for us normally. We're working through books of the Bible. We just finished First Samuel. We're going to pick up and go through Second Samuel next year. Don't cheer too loudly. I know you're super excited. You're like, I want to know what happens. Well, we're going to get there. But right now we're working through our membership commitment and we're trying to say, where do these truths come from if we're going to commit to these as a church, if this is going to guide us as how we're going to make disciples and how we're going to have life together? Where did we get that? And we are walking through each of these points and then looking at the Scriptures. If you want to grab a Bible and go to Matthew chapter 28, that's where we'll begin. But we are going to move all over the place this morning.During World War II in 1941, the Ford Motor Company built the Willow Run plant right near Detroit, Michigan. It was about a mile long. And they were building B24 Liberator heavy bombers. That's an actual picture of the plant and where they were assembling them. They were assembling those one every 63 minutes was coming off the line. That's like a squadron of bombers a day just in that one plant. Now, in order for them to do that, they needed to have the right equipment. They needed to have the right people. The right people with the right equipment needed to be doing the right job. And in order for them to go as long as they did and as quickly as they did and as well as they did, they needed to know the purpose. They needed to know why it was worth the energy, the effort, the time, the focus in order to do this. And in some ways, I feel like that's what we're looking at when we look at commitment six and seven for us today, which we're going to look at those two, is that we, as a church, God has designed his church to function where they are equipped and working together for a purpose. And that's what we're going to look at this morning.So commitment number six for us is I have been sealed by the Holy Spirit for salvation and empowered by him for mission and service. Now, we looked at sealing by the Holy Spirit for salvation last week. So we're going to start with and empowered by him for mission and service. That the Spirit has empowered us, has equipped us for what we need to do what God has called us to do. So Matthew 28. Look at verse 18. It says.> And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."So that the church is commissioned. This is the Great Commission, where Jesus says, this is what you're supposed to do. This is the purpose. This is what I'm sending you out. That you would go and make disciples, that you would bring people into what it looks like to follow me, just as I've brought you into it. And then he says, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age, that Jesus is going to be with them, to empower them to accomplish what he sent them out to do. And the way that he does that is through the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ. It's referred to Jesus says that he's going to send the Spirit. It says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, that we've got the Holy spirit, Spirit.Acts 1:8. This is what he says to the same group, same disciples. He says,> But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.So they're going to be empowered. That's why we use that word. We're empowered by the Spirit. They're going to be empowered. They're going to receive power, and they're going to receive power for a purpose. He says, you're going to receive power from the Spirit. And he doesn't just stop. He says, and you'll be my witnesses that this Spirit is going to empower what he's called them to do. If you showed up for your first day at work, they sat you down in the office and they gave you three pool noodles and a sword, you'd have some real questions about what your job was. But if you come in and they give you the exact equipment that you need for the job that you're going to do, it makes sense. And so when the Spirit empowers us, he's empowering us for what God has called us to do, for what he's equipped us to do, what he's sending us out to do.So in Acts 2, 8 2, 38. Peter says this while he's preaching, and it's a helpful clarification for us to understand. Says,> And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."so that the Spirit is received upon conversion. That when we place faith in Jesus, when we repent, when we're baptized, when we're following him, that the Spirit then goes to work in us. We're not waiting for some later manifestation of the Spirit or some later filling of the Spirit, but that we are equipped with the Spirit. The Spirit comes in when we're sealed for salvation. We're also empowered for the work that he's called us to. And this is going to be referenced throughout the New Testament letters. We're going to look at Romans 12 together. First Corinthians 12 also speaks of this, and it's Ephesians 4 talks about it, but it says Romans 12 having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. So if you're a Christian, the Spirit has sealed you for salvation. Spirit's at work in your belief, and the Spirit is at work in empowering you to fulfill the calling placed on the church. But we have gifts that differ. Now they're gifts given to us by grace, meaning we haven't earned them. They've been granted to us through the grace of Christ and through the work of the Spirit, but they're different. So there are some things that you are good at, empowered by the Spirit intentionally for the sake of the work of the church. And there are some things that you're bad at. And that's just how it works. And there's some people around you who are good at something else because we differ in this. But he says, let us use them.> Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in his serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.So you are gifted and you should use your gifts for something. And we see this right? You see this in the church. This is actually one of the reasons why we exist in community groups. We're just trying to practice together as a church, what it looks like to be Christians. So in your community group, you're meant to bring the work of the spirit in you for the sake of the good of your group. This is why it matters. If you're consistently not there, that means there's work of the spirit that's consistently not there. This is why it matters. When your group says, hey, we're going to go do this as a mission effort, or we're going to go do this as a serving effort, and you just don't show up, that matters because the spirit empowers you for work, for service, for mission. But you see this in your group, right? There are some people in your group who, when they're like, hey, let's all go do this. Everybody all goes and does that. And they're somehow gifted to get people to lead, to get people to come along with them. And there are other people who are like, we're going to go this way. And they just head off by themselves. And it's like, hey, let's. Maybe that's not the thing that you're the best at. There's some people who, if they throw a party and they invite people, everybody shows up. My brother was like that. He could throw a party. He could get everybody to come. He wouldn't talk to them once they were there. Wasn't his thing. He was bouncing around, doing other stuff. There are other people who. They can't. They're not good relationally, socially getting everybody around. But when you're at a party. I was talking to some group leaders today. They were talking about this. They said, this person in our group, they can get people. And then they said, and I just show up and start talking to those people about Jesus. And that's my job. He said, I'm kind of feel a little socially awkward anyway, so conversation with me is going to be uncomfortable. Might as well be about Jesus. So he's just in there asking questions, talking to people. He said, that's what he feels gifted to. Do you know that there are people in your group, when somebody cries, everybody else just kind of looks at this person like, you gonna make them feel better? There are other people in your group who, when they go to encourage you, it's not encouraging. They're like, that's all right. One day you'll die. It's like, that doesn't. I don't feel better. Were you trying to make me feel better? Like, and we have gifts that differ, and we're meant to use these for the sake of building one another up. We're meant to use them. So if you were to say, well, I don't really have anything. The New Testament's going to say that you're wrong and that you're actually being a poor steward. What God has given you first.First Peter four says it this way, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. That we are empowered for mission and service.> As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace.Now, we're going to talk more about mission in a moment, because that's going to show up again in seven, in our seventh commitment. But we're empowered for service, that there are things that are meant to be used for the edification of the church, for building one another up in love. And if you aren't doing anything and saying, well, I don't really think I'm gifted, I would tell you that the reason you don't think you're gifted is because you aren't doing anything. You all know when Superman found out he was bulletproof is the first time someone shot him. That's how he figured that out. That's how that works. That the Spirit has empowered us for the work that he's called us to. But if we don't ever go and we don't ever serve and we don't ever try and we don't ever know, he's not empowering you to sit at your house by yourself watching tv. That's not the thing that is empowered in us. He's empowering us as we go, while we walk in faith, while we go into missionary efforts, while we go into service effort, while we talk to someone who's struggling, while we pray with somebody. He empowers us as we go, and then we begin to learn what it is that he's gifted us to do. This is why you should try things. This is why you should serve. This is why you should ask the Christians around you, am I any good at that? This is why when someone asks you that, you should tell them the truth. No, I'll tell people. Sometimes I think if you really desire that, you can get better at it. Sometimes we'll say, hey, because we believe the Spirit has gifted you somewhere, we don't mind telling you we don't think this is it, y'. All. I spent one summer serving with children. I just felt called into ministry. I was like, I'm gonna go serve with kids. That was the last summer I ever spent serving with children. I've gotten a little bit better at it now that I have children, but only in, like, select circumstances, like when I'm coaching and I can make you run, but, like, you go Try some things, go have some people witness and tell you and help you along in it. But we are meant to go and we're meant to steward it. And if you were saying, well, I don't really have anything, that's actually an accusation against the work of the Spirit, his goodness and his grace. So let's be good stewards and let's go. Let's begin to serve, let's begin to labor, let's begin to work. When you show up to your group, start asking them, are there things I'm good at? Are there things you've find encouraging or helpful? Or the things that I should be doing? And start intentionally putting forth effort to serve and to build up your group. And it matters if you're there or not there. And it matters if you're pulling weight or not pulling weight. But there's something beautiful that happens as we do that together. I feel like that every once in a while when my group eats a meal together. It's actually like this beautiful picture of what the church is. Because all I brought was taco shells, but someone else brought meat and someone else brought cheese and someone else brought lettuce. And together we've made something beautiful, a taco, something wonderful. But if somebody doesn't show up and they're the meat person, it's like, get them on the phone. What are you talking about? You're not showing up. I'm eating shell with cheese and lettuce. Have you lost your mind? But that's the way it works with the church. That when we aren't participating, we lose something. Okay, I've said enough of that. Here we go.Number seven. Jesus will return to rescue his church and judge his enemies. Those who have trusted in something or someone other than Jesus will be separated from God for eternity. As a part of God's church, I'm sent to proclaim the gospel so that as many as possible might be saved. And through Jesus. Now it feels like a shift. And it is from. From our commitment number six to commitment number seven. But commitment number six, part of the reason we wanted to carry walk through these together is a number six says, the Spirit's empowered us for what God's called us to do. And then number seven begins to clarify, what is that? What is it we're supposed to be doing? Why are we building one another up in love? Why are we loving one another? Well, why are we caring for one another? It's so that the church might move forward and see people come to know Christ, so that we might see disciples made. So we're going to walk through this piece by piece and try to understand, where does this come from? So it says, Jesus will return to rescue his church and judge his enemies. This is often referred to as Judgment Day. The Bible calls it the Day of the Lord. We'll refer to it as the Day of Wrath, the day of Jesus Christ. Or often just that day, the day or that day that there is coming. A day, a moment in history when Christ returns. And when he does, there is judgment. Jesus will speak about this. Jesus actually says that on that day, people will be held accountable for every word they use. Acts 17, 30 and 31. Paul preaching says,> The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead, so that God in Christ is the righteous judge. That Christ will judge all of humanity down to everything we've ever done that's coming.First Peter four, five, he says,> They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.Now, this day is distinctly different, depending on whether or not you belong to Christ or you don't. And so I want to, as Christians, point out, that this is a day of joy for us.Romans 5 says this.> Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.So that the Day of Wrath is a day of salvation for those who are in Christ. If we've been justified by his blood, if we've been made right by his blood, if you've trusted in the blood of Christ to cover you where it says that there's a proclamation of forgiveness of sins, if we're trusting in the forgiveness of sins through the work of Jesus, then on the Day of wrath, we are saved from wrath. It's a day of salvation. Second Thessalonians puts it this way in chapter 1, verse 10.> when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.So that on that day of salvation, the Church marvels and Christ is glorified. And I always feel like John Piper is very helpful in These kind of passages. So I looked to see. I was like, I'm sure he has something to say about this. So I went to see if he did, and he did. And here's what he said, and I thought it was helpful. He says, what is marveling? Another word for marveling is being amazed. Amazement and marveling are not thoughts, their emotions. If you see something marvelous and you feel nothing, you're not marveling. I don't care what you think. If you see something amazing and you don't feel any amazement, you're not amazed. Marveling is a feeling. Being amazed is a feeling, not a mere thought. And I think that's helpful, and I think it's true. I think he's onto something here, that we feel it. You're either amazed or you're not, but you feel it. You have this moment of. Catches your breath that you lose yourself for a moment, and it's something that happens inside of you. That's why you ever tell a joke. And I mean, I do this. I tell jokes a lot of all the people around me, unfortunately, if you're going to be around me, I'm going to make jokes about things. But I'll be around people sometimes and they'll go, that's funny. And it's like, well, then laugh. You must not have thought it was funny. You just made a comment on the humor of it. And that's what A little bit like, you ever tell somebody really good news and they're like, that's wonderful. And it's like, wrong. You've done this wrong. That's not how you respond to good news. You should feel something. You should respond better. And that's some of what he's saying, is that when this happens, it'll be something we feel. He goes on, he says, well, what kind of feeling is it? It's a good feeling. People pursue amazement, they pursue marveling. That's why we go to the mountains and the canyons. That's why we get out of the city light so that we can see the stars. People pay money to be amazed, to marvel. It's a good feeling. It's a desirable feeling. It's a species of pleasure, joy, gladness, and satisfaction. So he's just looking at this passage and he's saying, when Jesus shows up in the church, marvels, it means they feel something wonderful. And y', all, as Christians, and I feel like Christians understand what I'm talking about. You've had those moments you couldn't describe, but you wouldn't. You couldn't talk, tears just ran down your face. You just had these moments where you were caught by the beauty and the glory and the goodness of Christ. These moments when you were overwhelmed by it. And what it's saying is that when he arrives, all of Christianity, everyone who belongs to Jesus, is just going to go, it's here. He's here. The moment has come and we're going to feel it. John Piper goes on to say that God will get the glory and we will get the joy, and that in our joy he will be glorified. That's what's happening on that day. And this is why Jesus is going to use language like he's the groom coming for his bride. It's going to be these pictures of joy, of love, wonder. And this looking forward to this day offers us comfort in the middle of difficulty, when we're facing trials we can remember. I know where this goes is what we're saying about. I know how this story ends. It comforts us. It also calls us to endurance. This ought to help you say no to sin. There are times when I think, no, I have a Lord. I can't just do what I want. And I'm going to stand before him one day and I'm going to give an account. I can't just chase after the things I desire. I have a king. But it also gives us endurance in the midst of trial and persecution. We know where this is going and that the Lord sets it all right. But throughout the Scriptures, there is clear and compelling and startling language given to this day of judgment. Clear and compelling and startling language. So I want us to consider those who have trusted in something or someone other than Jesus will be separated from God for eternity. Those who have trusted in something or someone other than Jesus will be separated from God for eternity. I'm now going to read two passages. We're just going to try to take them in. The first is Jesus speaking about this day. It's found in Matthew, chapter 25. He says,> "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."Jesus says, there's a day when the Son of man will come and the glory of his angels will sit on the throne and he'll separate and everyone will head eternally in one direction or the other. This is the way 2 Thessalonians says it, this is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you he's writing to this church in Thessalonica may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us. When the Lord Jesus is revealed. So he's saying on the day of Christ, when he's revealed, there will be relief and affliction when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming the fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.> and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.We're told that no one comes to the Father except through the Son, so that in order to know God, you have to know Christ. Jesus says, if you reject Me, you reject him who sent me. So to know God is to know Christ, to know God through Christ. And he says, do not obey the gospel. I think that's helpful when you consider what we just read in Matthew, that the Gospel is the news that there's forgiveness of sins proclaimed in the name of Christ, that we would submit to and repent in light of what Jesus has done, and then walk in obedience so that all those things that he talks to the righteous about in Matthew 25 show up. Because we're following Jesus in obedience to the Gospel. So it's not a list of ways that you earned it. Jesus has qualified us through his death and resurrection. His blood has covered us. That's what he said. If we made, if we're justified by his blood, how much more will we be saved from the wrath of God? So that it's work of Jesus that saves us. But it shows up in how we live. And there is a moment when people are separated. Those who knows Christ and those who do not, verse 9. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed they will suffer the punishment, eternal destruction. This is what the Scriptures teach. This is what we believe. That there is a day where Jesus Christ, as the King of all things, judges the world, and that the stakes for that day are eternal. But at that moment, there is nothing left to do but to be sorted and evaluated, welcomed and cast out. And as we look forward to this day as Christians, and as we look to it as a day of joy, and as we look to it as a source of comfort and a call to endurance, it also should give rise to such compassion in our hearts that drives us into Willing, delighted obedience to proclaim this message, because we should not want to see any cast out.So as a part of God's church, I am sent to proclaim the gospel so that as many as possible might be saved through Jesus. What we're saying is we understand this reality and we're supposed to go. It's what we say every Sunday when we're finishing up some version really of this. Our world is broken and marred by sin. The people around us are caught in it, in despair and headed towards destruction. And that Jesus tell us, tells us that judgment is coming. But we know that there's salvation in him and him alone. So empowered by the Spirit, you are sent. The church is plan A for this message. There is no plan B. We talk through this every week. We remember this every week because there are people around us who are going to be sorted with the goats on that day. So Jesus in Luke 24 says,> and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem."But there's a proclamation of the hope of the gospel that is to be sent forward. Acts 10. This is Peter speaking. He says,> And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.That we're commanded. Peter says, we were. He's talking about the. The disciples. But all of us that follow after them are commanded to proclaim this news that Jesus is the one who's going to judge and that there's forgiveness and hope in his name. Second Peter 3. He says,> The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.There are moments when you think, I just wish the Lord would come back. I wish he would end this. I wish he would come get us. And in those moments, I want you to hear the voice of the Spirit say, he's not slow, he's patient. And there are more who need repentance. He's not slow, he's patient. And there are more who need repentance. The message hasn't gone far enough yet. It hasn't reached them yet. He's got some that are going to believe at the message that's proclaimed and are going to marvel and weep and dance for joy on that day, but they don't know yet. And he says, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief. We won't see it coming. Two weeks ago they said the Rapture is coming. I don't know if y' all heard that. No, it wasn't. That's not how it works. Facebook won't know about it. It's going to come like a thief. It's going to catch us off guard. But then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.Why are we empowered? Why are we equipped? Why did they build a mile long factory? Because they were at war. And y', all. We should not be any less focused than someone who's building a bomber to fight Hitler. We should not be any less focused. We should not have any less ability to understand the purpose of what God has called us for. We should not lose sight of what really matters. Because there is going to be a day, and on that day, there's going to be a lot of things that do not matter. And there's going to be one thing that really, really does. Do you know Christ? Have you surrendered? Have you repented? Have you been saved by his blood? That's going to matter. But there's a whole lot of things that we focus on, spend time on, have energy in that do not matter. And we say things like, I don't know, it's been really busy. I don't know. It's hard for me to read. I don't know. I just feel so awkward. I don't. You know, I just. Bible's always been kind of confusing to me. Somebody's saying, hey. You say, hey, you need to be trying to build with people and share the Gospel. And it's like, well, I just don't know what to say. Then you say, well, read your Bible. Yeah, but it's hard for me to read. Okay. Didn't you quote stats to me about a sports team? Did you make those up or did you read them and memorize them? I don't know. I just kind of. It's hard. I'm busy. I can't. I can't make it consistently to this. I can't be a part of mission stuff. Okay. Do you miss a workout? Do we know what matters? Do we know that there is a day that will be to the glory of Christ, but there will be judgment on that day? Y' all have neighbors that don't know Jesus. Do I care or am I busy?As I was working on this and considering It I was considering how our groups function. We meet with one another and we have time where we're intentionally. We're just trying to practice what it means to be Christians, trying to practice what it looks like to follow Jesus. So we study the Bible together. We're not just a Bible study, but we study the Bible because Christians study the Bible. We eat a meal. It's not just about eating a meal, but we belong to each other. So we share a meal. We confess sin, we encourage one another, we ask, how's your life going? And we have a section in our normal group rhythm that's called Review the Mission, where we ask, who are you building with? How's that going? Who are you sharing the gospel with? And I've been considering recently that we have care nights. So if you're not in a group, there's a thing called a care night. If you're in a group, you know what I'm talking about. We sit and we say, how are you doing? Where do you need to repent? Where do you need to believe the Gospel? And I know as a group leader that if someone just said consistently was like, nah, oh, I don't do this. This isn't my thing. Or when we went around and we said, how are you doing? They just went, you know, basically some form of pass. We would be telling them, hold on a second. No, you. You need to understand how Christ interacts with your life. You need to know that you have sin, you need to confess, you need to walk in openness, you need to be rescued, you need to be redeemed. Like, we'd be pressing on this, but I started realizing that they're consistently. I feel like our group sometimes when it comes to considering mission, we just kind of. I don't have anything to say because that's not really a thing I do. And we need to have the same understanding. If that's not acceptable for people who know this, you have nobody in your life that you're praying for, that you're going out of your way for that. You care about meeting Christ? Nobody. Then find somebody. Love somebody. We tell people all the time, join a bowling league, but join it. As a missionary. I'll tell people. Sometimes I say, it's so hard to work at my job because I'm the only Christian. And it's like, I want to hug them and praise Jesus because Jesus has already infiltrated a place where there's no Christians, but you're there. Start praying, start pleading with the Lord. Start building friendships. We're supposed to Go.I was reminded as I was studying this, where Jesus says in Matthew, as he's telling the parable of the sower, he says, as for what was sown among thorns. So he tells a story. Somebody's casting out seed, and some of it lands in a place where crows come and eat it. And he says, that's the enemy. He just steals it away. They didn't understand. He tells about some lands in an area where it's got thin soil and it just burns up as soon as the sun comes out. He tells there's a place where it begins to grow, but thorns grow out. And he says, there's a place where there's good soil and it grows and produces. When he's talking about the thorns, he says this. He says, this is what that picture was. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word. But the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and it proves unfruitful.> As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.And I just wonder how much of when we talk about what it looks like to obey Jesus, what it looks like to share the gospel, do the things that we say are in the way, fit in the category of the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. And if we heard the Word, but it's being choked, there's hope in Christ. There's a day of judgment. And those who don't know Jesus and have not had him rescue them will spend eternity away from them. And on that day, there's a lot of things you're not going to care about on that day. There's a lot of things I'm not going to care about that I've spent time, energy and effort on. And I read this and I say, lord, stay patient. Because there's more people who need repentance and we need to go. Let's pray. Where we ask that your spirit would empower us, that you would burden us with the glorious weight of the good news, that we would carry this message, that we would risk awkwardness, that we would risk difficulty, that we would focus on, that we would see clearly that day so that we might be comforted, so that we might endure, that we might run from sin. And so, Lord, that we might proclaim that you were going to judge the living and the dead, but that you are the living God who died so that there might be forgiveness. May we go to hell in Jesus name. Amen.The band's gonna come back up. We're gonna sing. But I would ask you at this moment to consider what needs to change? How do you need to organize your life if this is true? What does that mean? Who do you need to tell? Who do you need to tell today? Who do you need to call and say, hey, can we get together? Where do you need to be more intentional with the way that you organize your time so that we might go? This news is too good and that day is too real for us to stay quiet.

“You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17 NLT) The tenth and final commandment stands apart. While the other commandments, to a large extent, deal with what we do outwardly, this one deals with what we do inwardly. While the other commandments deal primarily with actions, this one deals with a state of mind and heart. A Roman Catholic priest who heard the confessions of thousands of people said he listened to folks admit to sins of almost every kind, including adultery and even murder. But he could not recall even one person who confessed to the sin of coveting. Maybe that’s because no one knew what it was. Coveting is looking at something, admiring it, and essentially taking it. For instance, let’s say your friend has a car. You say, “I like that car.” That’s not coveting. You say, “I want a car like it.” Still not coveting. You say, “I’m going to buy a car just like it.” Still not coveting. You say, “I want your car.” That is a problem. You say, “I’m taking your car.” That’s coveting—and grand theft auto, in this case. It is taking something that belongs to another. Something that was never meant to be yours. You’ll notice that the commandment says, “You must not covet your neighbor’s wife.” It’s not wrong to want a wife or a husband, but it is wrong to want someone else’s wife or husband. Second Samuel 11 tells the story of King David and Bathsheba. David saw Bathsheba bathing, asked about her, and discovered that she was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of David’s loyal soldiers. David demanded that Bathsheba be brought to him. He coveted her—and thus began his downfall. He committed adultery with her. He arranged for her husband to be killed in battle. He tried to cover it up by lying. David set in motion a series of broken commandments when he coveted. He, like everyone else, discovered that keeping the Ten Commandments is practically impossible. And that’s the point of them. How many of the Ten Commandments have you broken? Have you misused God’s name? Have you failed to honor your father and mother? Have you stolen anything? Have you lied? Have you committed adultery? Have you coveted? If so, you experienced the need to repent and ask God for forgiveness. The Ten Commandments aren’t intended to frustrate us or make us miserable. They’re intended to show us our need for repentance and forgiveness. The Ten Commandments weren’t given to try to make us holy. They were given to show us that we can’t be holy through our own ability. We are all guilty before God. The good news is that when Christ died on the cross, He atoned for every broken commandment. He took our penalty and our punishment on Himself. He died in our place so that we can be forgiven. Reflection question: How would you explain the Ten Commandments to someone who doesn’t know much about them? Discuss Today's Devo in Harvest Discipleship! — The audio production of the podcast "Daily Devotions from Greg Laurie" utilizes Generative AI technology. This allows us to deliver consistent, high-quality content while preserving Harvest's mission to "know God and make Him known."All devotional content is written and owned by Pastor Greg Laurie. Listen to the Greg Laurie Podcast Become a Harvest PartnerSupport the show: https://harvest.org/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

First and Second Samuel are epic narratives, rich with fascinating characters and familiar stories. From Hannah's miraculous pregnancy to Samuel's king-making ministry, from the theft of the ark to the fall of a giant, from Saul's tragic reign to David's paradigmatic throne—these inspired books have it all. Themes of friendship and betrayal, scandal and war, witchcraft and heartbreak, human redemption and divine intervention weave through every chapter. But beyond their dramatic appeal, these accounts also deliver foundational theology. They reveal a God who rules over nations, installs and removes kings, and remains faithful to a faithless people. Studying these texts unveils God's unmatched power, uncompromising holiness, and astounding grace—a grace first glimpsed in the supernatural satisfaction granted to those who suffer in humble submission to the God who hears.

In this episode of the LifePoint Church Podcast, Pastor Douglas shares a heartfelt sermon inspired by recent events and the series 'The Heart of David'. He discusses the profound impact of Charlie Kirk's life and tragic passing, exploring themes of revival, persecution, and the spiritual battle against evil. Pastor Douglas emphasizes the importance of loving our enemies, embodying Christian boldness, and being willing to sacrifice for one's faith. Using biblical passages from Acts and Second Samuel, he calls for a deep commitment to spreading the gospel and fostering unity in the face of growing societal divides.For more on LifePoint Church go to lifepointaz.com Find all our links in one easy spot https://linktr.ee/lifepointaz Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifepointaz Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifepointchurchaz/

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. TranscriptGood morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. We started a new series last week. We finished up First Samuel. We'll get back to Second Samuel in the new year. We started a series called Remember where We Are Remembering. We are walking through what it looks like to be a member here as we walk through our membership commitment. So we're taking the next few months to walk through this commitment. Normally, as we study through books of the Bible, we get to look at the text and follow along with what God is doing in his redemptive story in this world. But this is something where we get to walk through 14 membership commitments that we have written that our membership abides by and see where these actually come from, the scriptures, to see why we believe these things and why it is good to be bound by these beliefs together as a church, as we seek to be a gospel centered community on mission. So this commitment actually a lot of ways, when you read it, actually functions a lot like a discipleship game plan. And that's one of the things that we'll see over the next couple of months that this is if you want to figure out who we're called to be and how we're called to make disciples. These 14 statements kind of provide an outline for that. So if you're new and you've been coming around for a bit, this is actually a very good time to walk with us as we walk through this membership commitment to see the things that bind us together in belief and practice. But if you've been here for a few years, my hope is that this would be an encouragement, that this would be a shot in the arm. This would be galvanizing. This would help us remember why we commit to be members of this church and what we hope to do. So what we're going to do is look at two statements this morning. The first two statements that are foundational for really the rest of the statements that flow out of them. So we're going to see these first two foundational statements. But let me tell you first about how 98 people lost their lives a few years ago. So a few years ago in Florida, there was a condo building that collapsed. I mean, it just looked like a demolition. It just completely collapsed. And 98 people instantly lost their lives. And I remember watching the video from that. I remember me kind of echoing the same sentiments that so many people have, which is, how in the world does that happen in America in 2021? Like, how is it possible for an entire building to just collapse? And everyone was like, I mean, you've seen throughout history, this has happened with different buildings, but with all the building codes, all the things we have here, how does a building just fall? And as they started to do the studies on it, it became very clear that what happened with this building is what happens with a lot of buildings over time. But the foundation of this building was not sound. It seemed they had cut corners. It seemed they had neglected things, and the foundation was crumbling, and it was unable to support the weight of everything above it. And when they did this, when they neglected the foundation of this building, catastrophe ensued. It was a disaster. It was awful. And I can think of no better metaphor than to think about what happens if you build your life upon the wrong foundation. That as you think about faith, what it means to build your life on the wrong beliefs. Because if you do not have a solid foundation to build your faith upon, it will crumble under the weight of everything above will not last. It will break and it will fall. And these first two commitments are unbelievably important to us. They're important for us. They are the foundation upon which we build the rest of our faith. So we're going to walk through these two commitments. We're going to see how important they are, because they are how we view the Bible and how we view our God. So let me pray, and then we'll walk through this together.Heavenly Father, I pray that you might help us either discover or for some of us, rediscover what it means to be a people that build our lives upon you. And may that be so compelling to our hearts that we not just be hearers of the Word, but we would be doers of the Word in responding in faith and in repentance and reorienting our lives in a way that honor you. In Jesus name, Amen.All right, so we're gonna get this first. Commitment number one. The Bible is God's inerrant revelation of Himself to us. And I accept it as the authority over my life. Life. That's the Bible. The first 60 or the 66 books in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. If there's a blue Bible around you, that's it. That that Bible is God's inerrant, meaning it is truthful, it is trustworthy, the inerrant revelation of Himself to us that God reveals Himself to us in His Word. It's how we know God. And I accept it as the authority over my life, meaning I submit myself to this God through His Word and trusting him and believing him and being obedient. To his will. That's what this commitment says. And some will ask, wait a second, why are you starting with the Bible? Why don't you start with God? Why would you elevate the Bible above God? That seems out of order. And I could understand how it may seem that way. When you read a lot of systematic theologies, which are just theology textbooks that have organized our beliefs in a way that's systematic. That's why it's called systematic theology, you guys. In case you didn't know, they start with the Word. And the reason why is because before we get to who God is, we have to start with a baseline. How do we actually know who this God is to begin with? How can we actually know Him? What is our source? Now, there are two sources for how God reveals Himself to us. The first is what's called general revelation. This is creation revealing who our God is. That when you look at the Milky Way, that when you look at the Grand Canyon, when you feel that there's something bigger than yourself and you feel small and you start to see someone had to have made this. That is how God reveals Himself generally. Romans chapter one captures this in verses 19 and 20.> because what may be known of God is plain to them, for God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:19–20 ESV)What we see in that is this reality that the heavens, the stars, the beautiful mountains and valleys and sea and rivers, all of it in its grandness, reveals the. The invisible attributes of God, namely His divine power, that a creator made this, that feeling that everyone feels that's built into us because God has revealed Himself through creation. When you read Psalm 19, which is a psalm that regularly shows up in our call to worship, the first half of that psalm is picturing how God reveals himself to creation, how it shows his glory. So that's one way God reveals himself. The second way is what's called special revelation. This is how God specifically specially reveals Himself to us through His Word, through the Scriptures, through from Genesis to revelation, these 66 books in the Bible. And that's how we get to know God. Specifically the Book of Hebrews, which is a New Testament letter that is capturing how Christ fulfills the old covenant. So it very helpfully ties together the Old Testament and the New Testament.> Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV)Then we get this picture of he talks about our fathers by the prophets. That is the Old Testament, that God spoke through the prophets. That's how we have the Old Testament, the Old Covenant. But in the new covenant of Christ, Jesus speaks. And when you play that out, what that is is the Gospels, the recordings of Jesus teachings. And then the apostles who God used to write Scripture to. We saw this last week to churches in the New Testament, to people of the New Testament. These are the apostles who carried the teachings of Christ with them and God spoke through them to us. The Old, the New Covenant together, the Old and New Testament. This is God's word to us that reveal more of who God is in a way that creation cannot, in a way that is powerful. In 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17, it says all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness. That the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work.> All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16–17 ESV)That language of breathed out. That's where we get the word inspired. That God inspires through men his eternal wonderful truth. And God uses this to bring us into faith. But he uses this to teach, to reproof, to correct, to train us in righteousness that we may be equipped for every good work that God has called us to do. The Scriptures are powerful and they are true. That God has spoken truthfully. We use the phrase inerrant means devoid of any error. This is something we've taught for years in our church. We've talked over and over again about how God speaks truthfully, that our Bibles are trustworthy. And after teaching this for years, this is something that actually in our membership commitment, we've added this word inerrant. And we'll talk about this at family meeting to help clarify. This is something that we've always believed and it's something we should build our faith upon to trust God that when he has spoken, he has spoken truthfully. That certainly there are times in the Bible where it's hard to figure out what this text means versus this text. But as at the end of the day, when the dust settles, we can trust our Bibles unbelievably trustworthy. There's so many people who've dedicated their lives to helping see some of the nuances of how the Greek and the Hebrew were transcribed over time and how it's completely trustworthy. We spent some time in this in the past to help us see that our Bibles are so unbelievably trustworthy. We've looked at some stuff from like, Wesley Huff. We've done some video work on that in the past to help us see that man. There's so much that we can see that we can build our lives upon this as being true. And the Bible testifies to this. We look at Psalm 19, the second half of Psalm 19. It begins in verse 7.> The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. (Psalm 19:7–8 ESV)Law, testimony, precepts, commandment. These are all phrases that mean the word of God. And it is perfect and it is sure and it is right and it is pure. And you'll see this over and over again. The Scriptures are trustworthy. They're reliable. That when God speaks, we can trust him. And not just trust him, but obey him. That we would see him as the authority in our lives. The Scriptures are authoritative. The way God speaks, we respond. So much so that when he says, flee from sexual immorality, we say, yes, my flesh wants this, but I'm going to flee. I'm going to run from this. Because I know ultimately I'm going to trust you over my own desires. That when God says, keep yourself from the love of money and be content with all things, we say, I know that I live in a culture that pushes me to build my life on success, the American dream, but I'm going to run from that. I'm going to keep myself free from that. I'm going to trust you above my own instincts, God. That when God speaks, we respond. This is unbelievably important. This is foundational. Because the Bible has to be part of this foundation that helps us trust who our God is. When he says who he is and it reveals who God is, which is our second commitment that we would know this God commandment number two. The God that scripture reveals has existed forever as a trinity. God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit.So the God that scripture, that's the Bible that you have reveals, just talked about, has existed forever, meaning that God is outside of time in a way that breaks our brain. That time is a linear thing that he has created and eternity past, which we don't know how that works. God forever existed. He exists in outside of time. And when time ends after time and eternity future, God forever exists, which again, we don't Know how that works. Our finite minds can't understand that, but has existed forever as a trinity. God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit. Now, Trinity is not a word you will find in the Bible. It's not a word that you'll see in the Scriptures in the same way that inerrant is not a word you'll find in the Bible. But over time, we've had to. We've had to come up with words and concepts to describe what's happening in the Scripture and also answer false teachings over time. And that's where the doctrine of the Trinity came. In the first few centuries, as the early church fathers were looking at the Scriptures, trying to understand who our God is, we came up with the doctrine of the Trinity, built upon the Scriptures, which just means tri unity, our triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three distinct persons, completely and fully one God. Which, as we try to understand that, again, our brains do not compute. I got three kids, 10, 8, and 6. When we read the Bible together, when we talk through different theological things I'm trying to instill and teach to them, they get to the Trinity and we've had this conversation, and they'll be like, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. Our God is one, but he's three. But three isn't one. And they just go, what? That doesn't make sense. And I say, welcome to the party. Christians for centuries have sat in the mystery of who our God is, that he is one and that he's three. And, yep, what you're feeling right now is very normal. And there have been ways to try to explain who our God is as a triune God. There's a symbol that's been used for years in church history that I find helpful, and it's been very, very, very common for many centuries. And it helps us see that the Father is God, but the Father is not the Son, and is not the Holy Spirit. And Jesus is God, but he's not the Holy Spirit. He's not the Father. The Holy Spirit is God, but he's not the Father, and he's not the Son, Distinct, but all God. And it's like, what I know. It's hard. It's hard for us to understand it. It's paradoxical. It may seem contradictory to us because we operate in finite rules, in finite order of the universe. Our God is infinite and stands outside of the finite order that he created. So we take this in faith to understand who our God is. And the Church did this. Y' all looking at the Scriptures, looking at Genesis 1:26, it says, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.> Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Genesis 1:26 ESV)That is God, us, our in conversation with himself, making humanity in his image. That when Jesus gives the great commission, he says, go therefore, make disciples of all nations baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Spirit.> Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:19 ESV)That when we baptize people in the name of our God, it is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Three in one. In the New Testament, when you get to certain sections that are encouragements, you see 1 in 2nd Corinthians 13:14. It says, the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.> The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV)And it's this language of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that God the Father, in his deep love for us, sends Christ the Son to be crucified for us to conquer the power of death, of the resurrection, to bestow grace upon us. That the work of the Holy Spirit renews and brings to life in our hearts and carries us through to completion until we see God face to face. This is the work of our triune God. And it's something that the Church has grappled with for a very long time. That's one thing I don't think we appreciate in the modern setting. We don't appreciate that the first few centuries of the Church was really trying to understand this, really trying to get this right, really having big debates and trying to understand our God correctly. And I think we take those battles for granted. I do. We'll try to explain God with cheap illustrations that don't, not only don't do justice, but speak wrongly about our God. I've heard this for years. This is a classic illustration. Some will say that, you know, God is like water, and at room temperature it's a liquid, but when you freeze it, it turns into a solid because it's ice. That's the second form of water. But the third form of water is when you heat it up and it turns into a vapor, it's a gas. So it's all one substance. One substance, but three different forms. And people go, oh, yes, that's a great way to understand it. And church history goes, no, no, no, that's a historical heresy called modalism. One God, three forms. That is not what I just put on the screen earlier. No, that's something the Church fought over for a very long time. To not see as one God and three substances. No, one God, three distinct persons, three and one. And it's hard to wrap our minds around this, but we should go with what the Scriptures give us. We should not try to go outside of it. We should not try to oversimplify this for human understanding. No way. And we should acknowledge those false teachings that get the Trinity wrong and realize that there's danger in that it leads to judgment. That Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, Oneness, Pentecostals, Christian Scientists, Unitarians, all preach a heretical view of the Trinity and that leads to judgment. We should seek to remember our history and to remember our Bibles, because those versions are not true in any real biblical sense or historical sense at all. The Bible reveals our triune God, that we get to know who he is and all of his mystery and all of his wonder without trying to oversimplify this for our finite minds. I heard a lecture in seminary once. We had a guest lecturer who came in and he was lecturing on Trinitarian theology. And I so appreciated. He was quoting a guy named Gregory of Nazi Ansus as a church father. So don't get humbled on his last name. He's like 3rd, 4th century, so has nothing to do with the Nazis, just has an unfortunate last name for history. But he was quoting Gregory who said, I cannot think on the one without quickly being circled by the splendor of the three, nor can I discern the three without being straightway carried back to the One. And the lecturer was making a point that we should be overwhelmed by the threeness of our God, that our God is three. And we were so blown away and captivated by his three ness that we should run back to the oneness of God and see who our God is as the one true God. And we've thought too much of the oneness of our God. We should be driven to the splendor of the three ness of God and be driven back between three and one, three and one. And to keep our minds always there. And I've always found that to be wildly helpful for my soul. To think of our God as the one true God, and also to think about the Father and how loving and how wonderful he is, and how sovereign and wonderful our God is, and think of Christ and His beautiful work that's been given to us that we don't deserve, and to think of the nearness of the Spirit at work in us. We should be thinking about our God in trinitarian language, in our souls, in our speech regularly.So that's our first two commitments. The Bible is God's revelation of Himself to us. And I accept it as the authority over my life. And the God that revealed the scripture reveals has existed forever as a trinity. God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit. These two commitments are foundational, foundational to Christian belief. If you reject them, you're in danger of judgment. Listen, they cannot be just nice thought exercises. They can't just be neat ideas that are just floating. That we ascent. We agree. We agree to. It's like, yeah, I get that. And then just mentally agree with it without believing in it, building our life upon it and orienting our reality in line with it. Because if we don't do that, we're in danger. This cannot be just head knowledge. It cannot be. I mean, you can, with head knowledge, agree that gravity exists. In theory. You can have mental agreement that says, you know what? Yeah, it makes sense. It's a decent idea. In theory, that makes sense. But if you don't actually believe in gravity, if you don't actually orient your life as if gravity is a reality, you're in danger. You will find yourself on the Gervais street bridge thinking, I don't know, I mean, maybe it's true. Mentally it makes sense. But I also, I think I can invent my own beliefs here. Maybe I can fly. Maybe I'll float off this bridge. And if you do that, you will crash into the congaree. And if the crash doesn't kill you, one of those gators they've been taking pictures of near the bridge will snatch you up. You can't. This, this cannot be just mental. Yeah, yeah, no, no. Our reality has to be built upon this. And if it does, if that's not what we do, we are in trouble. We're in danger. But life is so much better when we orient ourselves on what is actually true and build our lives upon that.So I have two challenges as we close up to think through these two commitments as we want to grow in this as Christians. And the first is we become people of the Word. That we should be a people that make the scriptures central in our lives and fight to do this over and over again. I have a few different ways we can do this. The first is we see that our worship is centered in the word of God. That our worship is centered in the word of God. That as we gather here on Sundays to realize and to celebrate that the Word is primary, that we begin with a call to worship that comes from the scriptures. When you hear the call to worship, you should not just be checking out and be thinking of other things, but should be thinking about the words that we are reading. That point to who our God is. That we have scripture readings, liturgy readings that we should not check out from. We should actually clue it and see the importance of reading the Word out loud together. That we should realize that our songs are chosen not haphazardly. There's a team that chooses songs that align with what we're teaching, that align with, that help teach us wonderful theology that we can sing deep into our souls and to sing that joyfully in a way that helps the Word be centered in our heart. This is why we preach sermons from the Bible and honestly why we do this. Most of our sermons are just going through books of the Bible. That's most of our teaching. Over 80% of our teaching is what's called expository preaching. For theology nerds, that'll mean something to you. For others of you, it just means that we're going through books of the Bible verse by verse, expositing the text, helping understand who our God is. And this. Most of our preaching is just going through books of the Bible. And every now and then we'll do a topical series like this. But we do that because a honestly topical series, not our best. Our best stuff is just being honest with you. It's harder for us. It's a lot easier, and it makes a lot more sense just to go through books of the Bible. But the more important reason is we just want to walk through the Bible. And if we're in charge and we get to pick text here, here, here and there, we're going to pick things that we want. I'd rather just pick books of the Bible, walk through them, not skip things, lean into the difficult stuff and get the Word into our hearts. And that's what our teaching is. Our teaching is scriptures centered in the scriptures. But we have to be, as a people, mindful of this and joyfully embracing this. The Word of God should be central in our worship. And when we leave here, every. Every time we leave on Sunday, we say the church is plan A for advancing the kingdom, for advancing the Gospel. There is no plan B. We mean that. Which means that our evangelism needs to be centered in the Word of God. That when we leave here and we take the word that we've been given, our evangelism needs to be centered in the Word of God. Which means that when we talk to people who are not believers, it cannot just be wise and persuasive arguments. Those can be helpful. But if you never get to the gospel that flows from the scriptures, you're not actually preaching the gospel. But if you think that preaching the gospel is just friending someone, befriending someone, which we should do as Christians, we should be the most hospitable, the best of friends, the most reliable. But being a friend to someone isn't the gospel. It's not. There's a phrase that gets thrown around quite a bit that says, use the gospel, preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words. And it gets attributed to somebody who didn't even say that. But that guiding ethos has for the last few decades just made us be, okay, I'll just share the gospel of my life. And it's like, no, you can live out the gospel in a way that makes the gospel compelling, but you have to say words. You got to declare who Jesus is. You should memorize some scriptures. You should know how to break down Romans 6:23 and sit with someone and help them see who God is. Our evangelism should be word centered. As we scatter into community groups. That's the third thing. Our groups are word centered. We come together as groups regularly and we study the Word because there's power in the word of God exposing the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Hebrews 4:12 that we should see this. And as we are walking with other Christians, we should point each other to the Word. That means an accountability that when someone is sinning, we should lovingly and winsomely compel them from the scriptures to say, hey, here's what obedience looks like. One of the things we say is when we practice is we use the phrase good news before good advice. What that means is that when someone shares a problem, we don't want to jump to, okay, here's a bunch of life advice to be able to fix that. No, we want to start with the Gospel. We want to pause and say, hey, can I remind you of who you are in Christ? That your identity doesn't come from your work. It doesn't come from what you do in the office. Your identity comes from the God who saved you, who redeemed you, who set you apart to love him and delight in him. And one of the ways you do that is you actually glorify him in your work. But step one, like you need to believe that first. Now let's talk about your problem outside of that or flowing out of that. But that comes from the scriptures. Those ideas, the gospel comes from the Scriptures. We should be word centered in how we point one of the two Christ and our groups and our groups needed to continue in being word centered. We should be mindful of if the majority of things that we are saying are absent and detached from the Scriptures and we should course correct if that is the case. Fourth thing, our care is centered in the Word. The way that we care for one another is centered in the Word of God. That goes back to something similar. I just said that when someone has an idea about how to care for someone, we want to be able to take everything, every idea and filter that through the Word of God and see, is that biblical? Does that make sense in light of the teachings of the Scriptures? Because we want to be Bible people in how we care for one another. We want to be able to think scripturally and give Scripture when it's appropriate. Our pastoral counseling, which we do, is that at times it can be complex in the things that we go through, but ultimately at its root core, it's simply walking with other people who are struggling and helping them see. Do you see who God is in His Word? Do you see how knowing him and how delighting in him actually exposes some of the things in our own life? The brokenness, the sin, the struggles, the idolatry? We want to be a people whose care is centered in the Word of God. And lastly, we want to have spiritual disciplines that are centered in the Word of God. We want to be a people who stay disciplined in His Word in a way that truly takes the Scriptures, adores them, and meditates on them day and night. I want to be like that picture that we just read earlier and sang about in Psalm 1. It's planted in the streams of water that flow from our God and the living and abiding Word of God that bear fruit in our lives in wonderful ways. And I know over the years I've heard the popular rebuttal that says, okay, yeah, I mean, I get it, yeah, read your Bible. You know, I've been told that and I've done that and it didn't work. And as I've heard this over the years, I've thought about my own soul in this. What I've realized is I don't think we truly understand what it means to actually be rooted in the Word of God like we're supposed to. I don't think we truly understand what it means to meditate regularly in the Word of God. I think what happens is that, that our souls are so over entertained, so easily distracted, so glued to our phones that we are so now oriented to experience 20 second clips in a way that has made us so distracted, that the idea that we think is that alongside that we can Inject a few minutes of the Word in our day, here or there, every few days. And that. That somehow is supposed to counteract all of the things that we fill our soul with that rob us of joy in Christ. And God sometimes does, in those few moments, supernaturally, just in his wonderful power, work through the Word in that moment and reorient our souls. But often what happens in the lives of ordinary Christians in ordinary days is regularly meditating upon the Word of God in a way that seems saturates our souls so that when we are walking through whatever we're walking through, we're able to see it through the lens of the Gospel. And that's different, y'. All. When you study the faith of the people of old, of centuries ago, it's like they'd wake up and they'd read the Word of God and they wouldn't just leave it there. They'd pick it up and they meditated on it throughout the day. And they continue to think about it, continue to process it and chew on it and enjoy it. And then as the day closes, as their evenings close, they come back to the Word and they'd read it and they'd enjoy it. And even those Christians walked through seasons that were dry, that felt like a spiritual desert. But they persevered knowing that the path to getting to the other side of that is to continue to stay disciplined in beholding who our God is and His Word. So when I hear, yeah, I read my Bible, it didn't do anything for me. I'm just like, I don't know if we actually did. Not in the way the Scriptures outline, not in the way that we're supposed to. Not in the way that God invites us into. No, I don't. We cannot reject the power of God's Word as people under the authority of God's Word and make God the least influential position on our screens and in our souls. That cannot be. And I feel this, y'. All. I feel this personally right now. So as we look at our commitments, I know some of our commitment is going to cover this. We need to come back to being men and women who are disciplined in the Word of God, which means at times you're going to read things that you don't like. You're going to read the Scriptures and go, I don't know if I'd like that. One of the things I've appreciated over the years of walking with people is at times when you come up against something in the Bible that says, I don't like this. It's like that's okay. But in faith, trust the God who wrote it. And in faith what you'll see is that over time you may not like that, but at time you'll grow to believe that is actually ultimately what is good for you. And that God willing, he's going to change our hearts. That we might love the things that we once did not like at all. But that takes discipline and that takes some pursuit and that takes making God central in our lives. We should be people of the Word.The second and the last is we should become people of God, become Bible people and God centered people. People love God. I don't mean that in a way that says that this is how you make yourself a Christian. That's not what I mean. I mean that if you're in Christ, we should be just of God in a way that Jesus taught when he said, pursue God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul. That we should be a people. That our intellect and our affections, our emotions, our whole being is oriented towards our triune God. We should think about God the Father in a way that says, I love our heavenly, my heavenly Father. That he's a better Father than any earthly Father I could have. He's a better authority figure than any authority figure I could have. That I'm going to trust in my heavenly Father. That I want to behold Christ the Son and think about all the ways every day as I sin, every day as I struggle to remember Jesus. Thank you that you bled and you died for my struggles, for my brokenness. That we remember the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives in a way that helps us remember that every moment of our lives, in every room, God is present with us. To believe that, that God is present with us. That even when we can't feel it, we know by faith he's with us. We should think and dwell and enjoy our triune God. One of the normative ways to do this is through prayer is to seek our triune God in prayer. Jesus taught the normative pattern of prayer is to the Father. So we should pray normally to the Father. Most of the prayer you see in the New Testament is to the Father, our Father who lives in heaven. But we also should pray with the rest of the Trinity in mind with Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit and be trinitarian and how we think about prayer. To think about God the Father that we are submitting to and enjoying in prayer. And Christ our great High Priest who offers our prayers to the Father and the Holy Spirit who prays for us when we don't know what to say ourselves. Our God is wonderful and he is good and we should orient our souls to toward our triune God and be God centered people, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one true God. And if we make him our pursuit, make him the goal of our affections, of our desires, God will form us in the people that he's called us to be. And I believe that if we build our lives on these first two commitments we walk through that we will set a foundation that is meant to last. That we will build our lives on a foundation that will not crumble. Y', all, I have. I'm serious. I have watched friends who seemed like they were on fire for Jesus, that raised their hands and worshiped and knew all the right phrases and knew all the right correct answers, who did not build their life on this foundation, who began to question the Bible, who began to question the validity of it, who became skeptical, who began to slowly drift in a way that they didn't just walk away from God, they became enemies of God and to this day are still throwing stones at Jesus and his movement. It is important for us to evaluate what are we building our life upon. What is the foundation that everything is built upon? These two commitments are vital for building a foundation that will last.Let me close with the words of Jesus at the end of the Sermon on the mount in Matthew 7 and I want you to hear these if you have to close your eyes to focus, do so. But I want you to hear what Jesus says to us. He says, everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.> Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7:24–27 ESV)What he just said is that everyone who hears my words hears Christ's words, believes, trusts, obeys, and builds their life upon them. It's like a wise person who built their house on the rock. Verse 25 and the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. That when the storms of this life shift you and beat upon you, when you feel suffering and trials and the storms of temptation, everything that begins to shake, you won't shift off of the rock because you were built on a solid foundation. He goes on to say, and everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. And great was the fall it that Jesus warns and says, if you don't build your life upon me, upon Christ, upon our triune God who's revealed himself in his word. If you don't, it will not last. And when the storms of life come, you will be shifted. But we as a church resolve to commit ourselves to be built upon the rock that is Christ. These two foundational commitments are vital. And if we will build our lives upon pursuing and knowing and delighting and trusting our God and His Word, so that we might know who God is and respond to him in faith and repentance and delighting in him and trusting him and walking out joyfully in obedience, we will stand.Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you might help us begin. Some of us begin to see the beauty of the scriptures that reveal who you are. That we would not believe in anything else, in anyone else, that we would build our lives upon you as our solid rock and faith foundation. But Lord, that comes through your redemptive work in our hearts, through helping us to see you more clearly and growing in us spiritual fruit that helps us know you in Jesus name. Amen.We're going to respond here by taking the Lord's Supper. I want to read from Mark chapter 14 to prepare our hearts to take the Lord's Supper. Here Jesus.> And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, "Take; this is my body." And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." (Mark 14:22–25 ESV)That when Jesus was sitting with them and he took the bread and he broke and he took the cup of the new covenant, he said, this is my work done for you. The second member of the Trinity looking at us saying, I love you so much that I came to have my blood shed for you. And if you're a Christian and your life is built upon the rock that is Christ, you get to in a moment joyfully come to the table confessing our sin, but confessing our wonderful Savior as revealed to us in the word of God. So in a moment, prepare your heart. There's gluten free back in that back corner over there. But come and take the Lord's Supper. But hear this. If you are not a Christian, if you haven't trusted in Christ My hope is this morning is you would not come to the table, but you would come to Christ. You would place your faith in him, and you'd build your life on the wonderful foundation that is our God. But when you're ready, come.

Group Guide Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week. TranscriptGood morning. My name is Spencer. I am one of the pastors here. So we, as I said last week, we are taking a break. We just finished up First Samuel and we are not going to jump straight into Second Samuel. We're going to do that in the new year. We're going to do a series called re member series called Remember. We'll do that through the fall and then we'll do give series and we'll come back to Second Samuel. We're excited about this series. This is an opportunity for us to revisit and remember what it means to be a member of this church. See how clever we are with titles, you guys. There you go. One clap. It's an opportunity for us to revisit what it means to be a member of this church. So we're going to over the next few months walk through our membership commitments and revisit the things that bind us together as beliefs and practices. And then if you are a member of this church, we'll have the opportunity this fall to actually recommit to membership. We're excited about that and we're going to have more information about that at our upcoming family meeting. So make sure that you are there if you're a committed member of our church, to be at family meeting. But we're thankful that we get to walk through this over the next couple months. These 14 different membership commitments that we have before we jump into those commitments today, I want to look at the why and the what of membership. We need to look at the why and the what of membership before we jump into what we actually commit to as a church. Because some folks will pose the question, why membership in the first place? Why do you have membership? Why belong to a church? Some people ask, is church membership even biblical? Like, where do you get this idea? So we're going to examine that idea while also being clear about what it means to be a member of this church. Like what is our membership commitment all about? And there's some language that we use that is going to sound very familiar, that if you ask what does it mean to be a member of of Mill City Church of Cayce, There's a phrase that will show up as we walk through this today. I know it's going to blow your mind like you've never heard it before. But we are a gospel centered community on mission. It's the language we use over and over again. I'm pretty sure it's on the wall somewhere in the lobby. But there's a reason we are that and there is a Reason why that really defines who we are as a church. And we're going to see that as we walk through why membership, but also what it means to be a member of this church. So I want to pray for us and then we will walk through this together.Heavenly Father, I pray that you might help us have ears to hear this morning. I pray that you might help us see why it is good to belong, why it is good to commit to following you, to delighting in you, to loving one another, to being obedient, to take the gospel to our city. God, I pray you'd help us be present and we'd be not just hearers of the Word, but we would be doers of the Word. As we trust you, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.All right, so why do we practice church membership? Someone will ask, where in the Bible do you find the command to be a member of a local church? Now, this may come as a shock to some of you, but you're not going to find any one verse in the Bible that commands for you to be a part of a church through church membership. There's no Third Corinthians that shows up and says, and be a member of a local church and submit to the elders of that local church. There's not any one verse that really makes this crystal clear, which is if there was, it might make the conversation about membership a little bit easier over the years as we've had it. But what you will see is as you look through the Scriptures, you'll see that God is doing something in setting up his church. And that's what I want to do. For the first part in answering why membership? I want to do what's I want to do a biblical theology of church membership, which is going from the Old Testament to the New Testament to see how God is developing this people that is going to belong to him, with him at the center to declare His Excellencies to a lost world. So that's what I want to do, starting off in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis. So God chooses in the Book of Genesis, Abraham that he's going to form a people through. He promises Abraham he's going to have a great nation that's made through him. And in this selection of Abraham, we see that God is going to have a unique, special relationship with him and his people, unlike the rest of humanity. And there's this promise of this great nation, this great people that he's going to bless the nations through. And then when you get to the next Book of The Bible, the second book, the book of Exodus. You see that God takes his descendants, the twelve tribes of Israel who have been slaves in Egypt. He brings them out of Egypt. And when they're wandering in the wilderness in Exodus 19, you see really the formation and the formal covenant relationship that God establishes with his people. And in Exodus 19 he tells his people in verse 5,> Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.These are the words he shall speak to the people of Israel. Then he tells them that you are my treasured possession. And as this is going to play out, he's going to take this people, his treasured possession to the promised land. He's going to set himself up in the center of his people to be a God centered people that are uniquely his, unlike any other aspect of creation, unlike any other people. And that this people is going to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This people was meant to be separate from the nations that look different, that proclaim the excellencies of God as a light to the surrounding nations. And then this is Exodus 19, right before Moses goes up to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. When he gets the Ten Commandments, you see the first four commandments and the Ten Commandments are God centered commandments. This is how to have right relationship with God and worshiping God alone. And then the next six are how to live in good community with one another, how to love one another, how to trust one another, don't lie, don't murder, don't steal. And then the rest of the Old Testament law is really expounding upon those 10 Commandments. It's helping them see in their context, in their time, this is what it means to be a people who has God at the center, who loves one another fiercely in a community that takes care of one another, that looks separate from the nations, that declares how good our God is. And when you read the rest of the Old Testament, you see a people that most of the time falls on their face in trying to live that out, that over and over again. They don't put God at the center, they worship other gods, they don't love each other, they don't serve each other, they take advantage of one another. And instead of looking separate than the nations in order to show how good their God is, they look just like the nations. And that is the reason that they need a Savior and there's this hope from the prophets proclaiming this Savior is going to come. And then Jesus comes.Flip to the New Testament. When Jesus comes, he begins to develop this with new and better language. You see, if you just take the Gospel of Matthew, just start there. When you start reading the Gospel of Matthew, you're going to see what God is doing. In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus begins His ministry by preaching the gospel, proclaiming the gospel of his kingdom that is coming, and declaring the good news. And then he also chooses a people. He chooses the 12 disciples, these disciples whom he's going to build his church through. He begins teaching them. You keep flipping. Go to Matthew chapter five through Matthew chapter seven. You read the Sermon on the Mount. This is a retelling of the law and new and really better language, showing the heart of God all along for his people. What it looks like to put God at the center, what it looks like to take sin seriously, to live in community. We see some of this and more teaching, more of his ministry. When you get to Matthew chapter 11, you see that he commissions out his disciples. He puts them on a mission trip to begin to declare the good news of the Gospel to the people in the surrounding areas. You keep reading the Gospel of Matthew, you see more teaching, you see more of his work and his ministry. And then you get to Matthew chapter 18. And then Jesus begins to use a word to describe what this people is going to be, that he's making this new covenant people, and that is the church. The Greek word for that is ekklesia. It means church or assembly. And it shows up in Matthew 18. And Jesus begins to describe what this church is going to look like. It's going to be a people who take sin seriously, who hold each other accountable, who practice radical forgiveness. That is unlike the rest of the world. Jesus continues to teach. He continues to form his people. He continues to disciple his disciples. And then it is time for him to do the work that no one can do. He does the work of salvation. He takes his perfect record of righteousness with him to the cross. He dies on the cross for our sins because we were unable to to obey the law. He dies on the cross, taking judgment upon himself. He conquers death at the resurrection, removing the power of death over his people. And then he looks at his disciples at the end of Matthew and he tells them,> Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.He tells them, you're going to take everything that you've learned from me over the last three years. This message of the gospel that I came to redeem you and save you. This message of what it looks like to be a people that are committed to having God at the center and loving one another. Well, you're going to take that to the nations where they're going to hear the gospel and believe and you can read Mark and Luke and John and you're going to see this story over and over again. Then you get the book of Acts where Jesus ascends to the right hand of God the Father being king over all creation. And then the Holy Spirit descends upon his people and the church begins in Acts 2. You read that Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit stands up, preaches the first sermon at Pentecost and 3,000 people, people place plus people place their faith in Jesus and are baptized. And then we see some of the very first acts of this church and responding to Christ in faith and baptism. It says in verse 42. We'll have more time to study this exact passage in community group this week. I just want to hit some of the highlights to help us see what God is doing here. In verse 42 he says,> And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.That's the teachings of Christ. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They were a gospel centered people. And it continues into the fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayers. You go to verse 44.> And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.That they were a people that believed the gospel, devoted themselves to that teaching, but they devoted themselves to one another. They fellowshiped together, they broke bread together, they took care of each other's needs. They saw their brothers and sisters in Christ as more important than money and material things. And they're selling their stuff so that they can take care of one another. And then it goes in verse 47 and finishes.> And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.That this message continues to be introduced to people who hear and believe and are brought into the church to continue to be a gospel centered community on mission to take the gospel to the world that desperately needed it. The church in Jerusalem continues to expand as you follow the story. Keep flipping through Acts. All of a sudden God has a plan to see scatter his people and involves the death of one of his servants, Stephen. He ordains the death of Stephen who's proclaiming the Good news of Jesus Christ and he's murdered for it. And in Acts chapter eight, after he's martyred, it says, and Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And now we see that the plan is spreading, that it's not just a church in Jerusalem now, it's in Judea and it's in Samaria. And the church is going global. One of the ways this has been described is that the church globally is the big sea church in creeds. That's called the Catholic Church. It's not referring to the Catholic denomination, but the Catholic meaning universal. That there's this global, universal church bound together by Christ. But it's not just in Jerusalem, it's in Judea, it's in Samaria. It's scattered in communities across the world in local churches. That's usually called the little C church. But there are little C churches who are forming together with Christ at the center, seeking to be what God has called them. Now the church is spreading past Jerusalem. And then that man who was involved in the killing of Stephen Saul in Acts chapter nine is on his way to persecute more Christians. And then Jesus blinds him, converts him. And then we know him mostly as Paul. And then Paul is set apart to take this even further. And he plants churches all over Asia Minor, all over Europe. And the church begins to spread and expand. As you continue to read the Book of Acts, you see the gospel spreading all over that region. But as these churches are getting established and they're seeking to be a gospel centered people that are taking the gospel to the nations as they're seeking to be this, they start to run into problems. They start to run into different things, different sins, different struggles. There's a bunch of people who the thing that the. The central binding idea that holds them together is Christ. But they're very, very different. Different ethnicities, different cultures, different classes. And as you continue to read the rest of the New Testament, you see that God had a plan for this, that he starts to write letters, inspired scripture through servants like Paul to these churches to help them see what it means to be a gospel centered people. How to fight for what is good, how to repent of sin, how to live in community, how to still have some missional hustle to take the gospel to the nations. But when you read the beginnings of these letters, you see very clearly that these are individual churches. I'll run through a Bunch of them. Really quickly. The letter to the Corinthians, in First Corinthians, Chapter one, it says, to the church of God that is in Corinth, that is that church in that city with their unique issues. This is a letter to that church. Not all the churches, though all the churches, will eventually benefit from this, helping us see now it's not just one global church. There's individual churches where these people belong to one another and have their own leaders and their own issues they're facing. It continues to the churches of Galatia, that's a whole region of different churches that Paul planted in his first missionary journey. To the saints who are in Ephesus, that's the book of Ephesians. To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, that's the book of Philippians. To the church of Thessalonians and God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, that's the church in Thessalonica. You start to see that there is one global church made up of individuals, communities of Christians who are seeking to be centered in Christ, loving one another fiercely and taking the Gospel to their friends and their neighbors. And you follow that thread all the way through the letters and you'll get to the end. The Book of Revelation, which we did last year. And as we saw the Book of Revelation, it's not just apocalyptic literature. It's not just proclaiming what's going to happen. It is also a letter written to seven churches. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and as we saw last year, all churches with different problems, with different sins, some needing encouragement, all of them mostly needing a smack across the face from Jesus. But those are all individual churches where those people belong to Christ and. And one another seeking to be obedient in following him and taking the Gospel to those who needed it. So that's Genesis to Revelation. While you're not going to find one specific verse that makes this so clear, what you can see from start to finish is that God had a plan to form a people. And that plan was to be localized in churches where there were people that were so deeply committed to following Christ and having a zeal and a desire to worship and delight in him over all things, to be a people, a community that so deeply loved one another and cared for one another, that looked radically different than the rest of the world. So much so that historians at the time were looking at these Christians and saying there's something different about them. And to be a people who are not so self focused that they were going to use their energy and their effort and their time and their money and their lives lives to proclaim the good news to those who didn't know. That is God's plan for redemption. One global church working through individual local churches all around the world. That is God's plan for the church. So when someone says I don't see membership in the Bible, I just want to say it's, you got to read the whole story. You need to see what God is doing. You need to see God's plan for redemption that is through the local church.I was talking to a pastor a few weeks back and he was telling me a story about a guy who had been coming to their church and he said, did this guy come? And he was kind of coming for weeks and they started to introduce the idea, maybe you should think about committing here. And he said, oh no, I don't believe membership is biblical. He's like, I'm a part of the big C church, we're all a part of the same church, but I'm not going to commit to membership here. And he was kind of taken aback and he engaged with the conversation. He said, okay, take what you're saying, so you're a member of the big sea, the, the big church universal. He said, yeah. He said, okay, well am I like a pastor in this big old church in the world? And he said, yeah. He said okay, so does it make me like your pastor? He said, yeah. He said, alright, let me share with you Hebrews chapter 13. He said,> Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.He said, do you believe that's true? He said, yeah. He said, okay, so if I'm your pastor and you're gonna submit to me, you should go through the membership process at our church. He just laid it out for him and the guy said no and he left and he never came back. And I thought that was quite the clever way to be able to explain and poke holes in the guy's argument. But that passage is incredibly helpful. You read the New Testament letters and you see that God has structured for these local communities that he has pastors, elders that are overseeing the church. So when I look at that passage, obey your leaders and submit to them. It's helpful for me when I'm talking to people about membership. It's like, I belong to this church, I'M one of the pastors of this church. I belong to them, they belong to me. My people aren't down the road. They're the brothers and sisters. They're not across town, they're not across the world. I don't pastor them, I don't oversee their souls. I don't answer for their souls. No, it's this people. And you see that God has a plan and even the oversight of his church. And I think this is important, especially in Southern culture. And here's why. In Southern culture, pretty much still everyone, if you ask them, are you a Christian? They're gonna say, yeah. The overwhelming majority of people in the south are still gonna say, yeah, I'm a Christian. And if you begin to press into that, a lot of times it's, well, I'm Methodist or I'm Presbyterian or Episcopalian, or I'm Baptist or I'm Catholic. And it's like, what does that mean? I was just born Christian, I was born a Methodist. And as you look at the scriptures, you're not born a Christian. And if you continue to press into this, what you also see is there are a lot of people that claim the name of Christ that don't really belong anywhere. They don't commit to any people, don't commit to the Lord locally anywhere. They're just free floating in a way that is so foreign to the scriptures. And then what you'll also see is you'll see people that go, yeah, I mean, I don't really, not really. I don't really, I'm not a member anywhere. I, I like this church for the worship. I like this church for the teaching. I like this church for their Bible studies, like this church for their small groups. I like this church for their outreach. And I kind of just, you know, take everywhere like it's a buffet. And it's like, man, to make the church of Jesus Christ for your own benefit is so foreign to what the scriptures teach about the church that is not the church that Jesus bled and died for. You should be committed to God and his people somewhere. And my hope is that as you look at the grand story, you'll see, yes, you should belong. You should be a member of a church somewhere. Christians are not designed to be outside of the church or just not. And over the next couple months, I hope we continue to see that over and over again as we walk through this.Now that's the why of why we should belong to a church. Now I just want to, as we end look at the what, what does it mean to belong to this church? And it's gonna sound like a broken record, but it's a good one. It's a record we spend every Sunday. It's what Chet Phillips calls the bee's knees of belonging, which I don't know why he calls it that, but it's really important to us. And that is being a gospel centered community on mission. And that's what you're going to see over the next two months. Walking through this, you're going to see 14 different commitments that highlight that. So let's start with that first part. What does it mean to be gospel centered? It means that we are a church that is bound together by. By one shared story. And that story is the message of the gospel. We are bound together by this one shared story in a way that not just defines us at the beginning in belief, but defines us in belief and practice the rest of our lives. If you look at the American story, okay, if you look at the American story at the beginning, you see that it's a group of people that are anti tyranny. Okay? No taxation without representation. No king's going to tell us what to do. You'll see that it's a people that love freedom, freedom of expression, freedom of worship, freedom of speech. Don't step on my freedoms. You'll see that it's a people that have some hustle, some dogged determination to exist. That's how America began. But that's also the story that permeates through its people throughout time, that even today, Americans don't like kings. Don't tell me what I can and cannot do. We like freedom and there's still some dogged determination to exist. That's the American spirit and it still flows through its people. And we as Christians have a much better story. We as Christians have a much better story. That's not just our origin story, but it permeates through us in our lives. It is the story of Jesus Christ. It is the story of a God who looked on humanity, that rejected him, that spit upon his goodwill, that decided that they wanted to worship what they wanted to worship and find what they thought fulfilling and rejected him over and over again. And God and His mercy does not give us judgment. He sends His Son that Christ comes and he dies on the cross for sinners. And he conquers death at the resurrection. And he gives us grace that we don't deserve to be in relationship with Him. And he forms us more into his image through his work, through his will and desire and good pleasure and that story continues to work within his people. It is the story that saves us, but it's the story that sustains us. In the same way that as foreigners come to America and they become American citizens and in a lot of ways embody the American spirit in beautiful ways, they start loving freedom. They start. They have this dogged determination within them. We do not belong to this world as Christians. Scriptures say that we have. Our citizenship is in heaven. From we have with a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are part of the world that is to come. And as citizens of that kingdom here on this earth, as sojourners and strangers and foreigners, that we embody what it means to belong to him more than anything else. So what we'll see over the next coming weeks as we walk through these commitments, we'll see what it means to be a gospel centered people bound together by that story. But we will also see what it means to be a community. What it means to be a gospel centered community. One of the metaphors that we see in the New Testament for the church, for the this community is the body. So Romans 12, we'll talk about one body, many members. So one body, different body parts, different members of the body in a way that each person is doing their gift to be able to serve one another well. And man, when you see that actually in practice, when you experience what it means to belong to the church of Jesus Christ and have different members of the body who, who love and serve you, it is a glorious story. I mean, if you ever see someone who loses their job, which is a massive loss, and they're crushed, and then someone in their group finds out, and all of a sudden their whole group is messaging them saying, hey, we love you, like we're praying for you. You need to know that your identity is not in the work that you do. Your identity is in the God who loves you, who sustains you. God's going to provide for you. He's going to take care of you, we're going to take care of you. But you need to remember the gospel. And then all of a sudden, they're behind the scenes organizing things. By the time he gets home, there's already been a meal delivered and there's meals to be delivered the next few days. All of a sudden someone else in the church hears about this and they put $1,000 in an envelope and drop it on the doorstep. And all of a sudden he's being provided for, his family's being loved. And then more people in the church find out all of A sudden they ask, can we be praying about this? That you would find a new job that ends up in our prayer message that goes out to our members. Now the whole church is praying and then someone else in the church hears about that and says, wait a second, I know what he does for a living. I got a friend who's hiring for that position right now. They reach out and say, hey, hey, can you talk to this, Talk to my friend. He's hiring. And then within a week, he's already got a job lined up. When you see the church respond like that over and over and over and over again, it makes me so thankful for the church of Jesus Christ and how his church responds over and over again. We've seen this over and over again in our church and it's wonderful. And I wish in some ways more of those stories were told. I know why we don't. Because we don't let the left hand know what the right is doing. I get that. But the stories that go viral are the church hurt stories. And yes, those stories exist. They're real stories with real pain. I'm not denying the existence of them. But boy, oh boy, the amount of church help stories where people rally around one another, it's like 100 to 1 to 1 compared to that. The church is a wonderful people to belong to, to see them in action over and over and over again because they're centered in Christ in a way that helps us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, see something beyond our own interest. And when you see it in action, it's beautiful. It's a family. And that's the language of the New Testament. Often when it talks about the church and is family. When you start learning New Testament Greek, one of the first, you start with the vocabulary words that are the most, most used in the New Testament. And one of the first words you learn in Greek is adelphoi, it's the word for brothers and sisters. Because it shows up over and over and over again in the scriptures to talk about God's people, that we are a family, that we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul, when he's making converts, talks about his converts like spiritual children. That we are a family, that we love one another, that we belong to one another. And when you study the Book of Acts, you see this. The church functions like a family. I was trying to explain this to someone recently. I was trying to explain this concept and I was just saying, listen, I'm close with my earthly family. I'm close with my parents, my brothers, and my sisters, like we are, we're close, but boy, oh boy, there's some eternal depth that I have with brothers and sisters in this church that when crap hits the fan in my life, the first few messages are not to family. And that's not to lower my earthly family. I'm real close with them. It's to elevate what the importance of church family is here. And when it hits the fan, I'm messaging people in this church and I got people in this church who rally around in wonderful ways. To belong to a family that fiercely loves God and one another is beautiful, it's compelling, it's wonderful. It is so good to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ. And as you walk through the membership commitment with us over the next couple of months, you're going to see this. You're going to see how we fight for this, how this is so unbelievably important to us. We want to be a gospel centered people. We want to be a community that's like a family, but we also want to take this thing that we hold dear to those who don't believe. We're a gospel centered community on mission. And that's what we're also going to see in our membership commitment. We do not exist to be a holy huddle. We do not exist to be inwardly focused. We exist to take this wonderful news that brought us from death to life, to people, to friends, to neighbors, to co workers so that they might taste and see that the Lord is good and be brought into the family of God. We care deeply about this.Now, one of the downsides to you using the word membership is because sometimes the word membership in our culture has a consumeristic bent. I mean, you could be a member of Costco. It's a pretty low commitment. You pay, what is it, 80 bucks a year? You know, and then you get to go and buy all sorts of bulk goods that certainly will, certainly some of it will spoil in your cabinets because it's just hard to use up all that stuff before it goes bad. Maybe your family's better than ours. We couldn't do it. Or Walmart. Plus, that's not important. There's a consumeristic nature sometimes to the word membership that makes it about self, that makes it about our interest. And I still think the word membership is worth fighting for. I still think it's worth reclaiming from our culture to help us see that it is not about self, that membership is about something bigger than us. It's about a people who leverage their time and their Talents and their energy and their money and their efforts and their lives so that others who do not know Christ, others who are sprinting towards an eternity apart from God under his wrath, who desperately need to know the love of a savior who bled and died for them, that it's worth our energy and our hustle and our grit to take that. To those who don't believe. It's not a country club. It's more like a military outpost. The membership we have here, we don't want to be a country club. Country club is low commitment. You pay your fee, you get to go play golf, get to enjoy the pool, but you don't keep the greens and you don't scrub the pool. We don't want to be that. We want to be more like a military outpost. Our country has military outposts all over the world. And the members of the US Military who are at those outposts, they are there to serve the interest of America. They. They're there to serve the interests of their commander in chief. They are there bound together, laser focused, whether it's promoting the values of America in that area of the world or at times, whether it's fighting a war, but they are laser focused, committed to the mission of America. And we have something so much better than that. We are citizens of a kingdom that is not of this world. And we serve a king who. Who reigns for eternity. And we get to serve him in a land that we do not belong to, that is foreign to us. And we get to serve his interests taking the gospel to people who do not know him, making enemies, friends, making the lost found, making the dead alive in Christ. That's what we want to be. The church is supposed to be. And I'll be honest, we've had folks in the past who came to our church looking for a country club and they just didn't stick. And we're not perfect. We got our flaws. You've been here long enough, you go learn them. But that's not what we want to be. But we've also had folks who've been there and done some of the Southern consumeristic Christianity. And they see the things that we're fighting for and they love it and they jump on and they see I do. I want to be a people that loves one another fiercely, that chases after Jesus together. That is taking the gospel to those who don't believe. I want to be a part of that. And they jump in and we hustle and we fight to be the church of the New Testament and the scriptures that we see that hustled and fought and was missional and had some dog in it. Like we want to be that type of church to missionaries, be everyday missionaries here in this city, in Columbia. So we want to be. And as we walk through the membership commitment over the next few months, this is something that is going to show up. And at times it's hard. I'm not going to lie. At times living out the ideals and the practices and the beliefs of our commitments is difficult. And what's helpful for my soul, maybe it'll be helpful for you, is I like to take the 10,000 year perspective when I think about all this stuff. 10,000 years from now, are you going to regret when you look back at this life not picking up more hobbies, not being the best pickleball player in the world, not using all your money to level up to the next part of society, to the next class, Are you going to regret not fulfilling the American dream and all of its trappings? Or are you going to be so insanely thankful that the work of the Spirit went to work in your heart in a way that helped you leverage your time and your energy and your heart's desire to be a people so deeply centered on the gospel, so deeply, fiercely loving one another and so outwardly focused that you took the gospel to some of your co workers who currently right now are walking as enemies of the cross of Christ because you love them, because you served them, because you stood in the way between them and hell and said Jesus is better than everything else. And they placed their faith in Jesus and they got baptized and they joined a group and they kept fighting to believe all the way to 10,000 years from now. They are standing in the presence of their Savior, worshiping him with you because you gave your life away to something that matters. That is what our commitment is all about. And that's what we're gonna look at the next couple of months. My hope is that for the members of this church, you'd be so deeply excited that you be so thankful for the work of Christ in our lives that we get to do this together. But if you're not new and you're checking us out, I hope you stick around. I hope my yelling didn't run you off. It's just, I'm just excited, you guys.

In this message, Pastor Duane Roberts walks through the painful consequences of David's household sin as recorded in 2 Samuel 13. After Amnon's assault of Tamar, the aftermath reveals a family unraveling under silence, anger, and division. David fails to act with justice, leaving Tamar broken, Amnon unrepentant, and Absalom embittered. Absalom's festering resentment eventually erupts into vengeance, which sets into motion years of betrayal, rebellion, and heartache for David's family. Pastor Roberts emphasizes that sin never stays isolated—it ripples outward, damaging relationships, trust, and even future generations. Yet even in the brokenness, God's Word points us toward healing, forgiveness, and the hope of restoration in Christ. The message challenges listeners to confront sin rather than ignore it, to seek reconciliation rather than revenge, and to trust God's justice over taking matters into their own hands.

Second Samuel 19 Take Aways:1. While David eventually made his return as the rightful king of Israel, so Jesus Christ will make His return as the Messianic Lion of Judah, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords—“Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him.” Revelation 1:72. Mephibosheth experienced reconciliation with David as he genuinely sought a restored relationship with his king above all else; may our relationship with King Jesus be the ultimate goal and priority in our lives—“Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore!” 1 Chronicles 16:113. As King David sought to reward the faithful Barzillai for his generous service to the king and his people, so King Jesus will reward those who have faithfully served Him with a genuine and sincere heart—“And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24

Second Samuel 18 Take Aways:1. God prevented David from being destroyed by empowering Hushai to defeat the strategies of the enemy, and we can trust that the Lord will continually intercede to prevent His people from being trampled by the enemy, Satan—“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:42. The Lord provided protection for those young priests who sought to faithfully serve their king in this dangerous war; similarly, the Lord will provide us the protection we need in the spiritual battle we fight as servants of King Jesus—“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Ephesians 6:10-113. As the Lord preserved David in the wilderness through unexpected means, so God is faithful to provide for every need we may encounter in this life—“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

In this week's episode, I take a look at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter and Spring 2025. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook versions of my anthologies at my Payhip store: JUNE25 The coupon code is valid through June 17, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 252 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 23rd, 2025, and today we are looking at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter and Spring 2025. We missed doing an episode last week for the simple reason that the day before I wanted to record, we had a bad thunderstorm that knocked down large portions of my fence, so my recording time was instead spent on emergency fence repair. However, the situation is under control, so hopefully we'll be back to weekly episodes for the immediate future. And now before we get to our main topics, let's have Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my current writing projects.   So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook version of all my short story anthologies at my Payhip store and that is JUNE25. As always, the coupon code and links will be available in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June the 17th, 2025, so if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered.   And now an update on my current writing projects. Ghost in the Corruption is finished. It is publishing right now. In fact, I paused the publishing process to record this and so by the time this episode goes live, hopefully Ghost in the Corruption should be available at all ebook stores. My next main project now that Ghost in the Corruption is done will be Shield of Power and as of this recording I am 15,000 words into it. My secondary projects will be Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest and I'm 97,000 words into that, so hopefully that will come out very shortly after Shield of Power and I'll also be starting Ghost in the Siege, the final book in the Ghost Armor series as another secondary project and I'm currently zero words into that. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   In audiobook news, Ghost in the Assembly (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is now out and should be available at all the usual audiobook stores so you can listen to that if you are traveling for the summer. Recording of Shield of Battle (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is underway soon. I believe he's starting it this week, so hopefully we will have another audiobook in the Shield War series for you before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:02:17 Main Topic: Winter/Spring 2025 Movie Roundup   And now let's move on, without any further ado, to our main topic. Summer is almost upon us, which means it's time for my Winter/Spring 2025 Movie Roundup. As usual, the movies and streaming shows are listed in order for my least favorite to my most favorite. The grades are based upon my own thoughts and opinions and are therefore wholly subjective. With all of that said, let's get to the movies and our first entry is MacGruber, which came out in 2010 and in all honesty, this might be objectively the worst movie I have ever seen. The Saturday Night Live MacGruber sketches are a parody of the old MacGyver action show from the ‘80s. And so the movie is essentially the sketch stretched out to make a parody of an ‘80s action movie. It is aggressively dumb and crude. Its only redeeming feature is that the movie knows it's quite stupid and so leans into the stupidity hard. I'll say this in its favor, MacGruber has no pretensions that is a good movie and does not take itself seriously and then runs away hard with that fact. For that he gets a plus, but nothing else. Overall grade: F+   Next up is Down Periscope, which came out in 1996. Now the fundamental question of any movie is the one Russell Crowe shouted at the audience in Gladiator: “Are you not entertained?” Sadly, I was not entertained with Down Periscope. This wanted to be a parody of Cold War era submarine thrillers like The Hunt for Red October, I say wanted because it didn't really succeed. Kelsey Grammer plays Lieutenant Commander Thomas Dodge, an unorthodox US Navy officer who wants command of his own nuclear sub, but he's alienated a few admirals, which is not traditionally a path to career advancement in the military. Dodge gets his chance in a Navy wargame where he has to command a diesel sub against nuclear subs. Sometimes parodies are so good that they become an example of the thing they are parodying (Hot Fuzz and Star Trek: Lower Decks are excellent examples of this phenomenon). The trouble is that the movie takes itself too seriously and just isn't all that funny. A few funny bits, true, but not enough of them. In the end, this was dumb funny but didn't resonate with me the way other dumb funny movies like Dodgeball and Tropic Thunder did. Overall grade: D   Next up is Deadpool and Wolverine, which came out in 2024. Unlike Down Periscope, I was entertained with this movie, though both movies reside on the dumb funny spectrum. Deadpool and Wolverine is basically one long meta in-joke/love letter for the last 30 years of superhero movies. If you've seen enough of those movies, you'll find those movies funny, if occasionally rather tasteless. If you haven't seen enough of those movies, Deadpool and Wolverine will just be incomprehensible. The plot is that Wade Wilson AKA Deadpool gets pulled into some Marvel style multiverse nonsense. To save his universe from destruction, he needs to recruit a Wolverine since in his universe, Wolverine died heroically.   In the process, Deadpool stumbles across the worst Wolverine in the multiverse. Together they have to overcome their mutual dislike and attempt to save Deadpool's universe from destruction at the hands of a rogue branch of the Time Variance Authority. This means the movie can bring in a lot of cameos from past Marvel films. Hugh Jackman's performance really carries the movie on its back. Like I said, this movie is essentially one very long Marvel in-joke. I thought it was funny. I definitely think it can't stand on its own without having seen a sufficient number of the other Marvel movies. Overall grade: C   Our next movie is the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which came out in 2024. This is very loosely (with an emphasis on “very”) based on Operation Postmaster during World War II, when British Special Forces seized some Italian ships that had been supplying parts for German U-boats. It was entertaining to watch but it couldn't quite make up its mind tonally if it was a war thriller or a heist movie about Western desperados recruited into a crew. It kind of tried to do both at the same time, which killed the momentum. Like, the first parts of the movie where the protagonists take out a Nazi patrol boat and then free a prisoner from a base were good thriller stuff, but then the plot fused with the heist stuff and really slowed down through the middle forty percent or so. It was also oddly stylized with a lot of spaghetti western-style music that seemed out of place and some stuff just didn't make sense, like at the end after pulling off the mission, the protagonists were all arrested. That just seems bizarre since if anything, Winston Churchill and a lot of the British wartime leadership were enthusiastic about special operations and probably had too much confidence in the effectiveness of covert operations. So I did enjoy watching this, but I can see why it didn't make a lot of money at the box office. Overall Grade: C   Next up is The Gorge, which came out in 2025. This was a peculiar mix of science fiction, romance, and horror. For the romance part, perhaps shooting zombies together is a good idea for a first date. Before I dig into the movie, a brief rant. In one scene, a character is using a chainsaw with no protective gear whatsoever and she's not fighting zombies or anything in a situation where she has to pick up a chainsaw without preparing first. She's trimming branches to pass time. If you're using a chainsaw, at a minimum you want protective eyewear and headphones. Ideally you'd want chainsaw pants as well to reduce the chance of serious injury if you slip and swing the saw into your leg. Since I became a homeowner, I've used a chainsaw a number of times and believe me, you definitely want good eye and ear protection. This has been your public safety announcement for this movie review.   Anyway, loner former sniper Levi is approached by a high ranking intelligence officer giving him a mysterious job. He needs to guard a tower overlooking a mysterious mist-filled gorge for one year. On the other side of the gorge is another tower, guarded by an elite Lithuanian sniper named Drasa. Like Levi, Drasa has a fair bit of emotional damage and they're officially forbidden to communicate. However, they're both lonely and they soon start communicating over the gorge using telescopes and whiteboard messages. Eventually Levi gets emotionally close enough to Drasa to rig a zipline to cross the gorge and speak with her in person.   Unfortunately, it turns out the gorge is full of twisted creatures that storm out and attack and the job of the two snipers is to keep them contained. If Levi and Drasa want to save their lives, they'll need to unravel the dark secret within the gorge. This movie was interesting and I enjoyed watching it, but it falls apart if you think about it too much (or at all). Like the chainsaw thing I ranted about above. The entire movie runs on that sort of logic. That said, I appreciate how the filmmakers were trying something new instead of something like Deadpool and Wolverine. Additionally, this was an Apple+ movie and it's interesting how Apple's approach to streaming is to just make a whole bunch of random stuff that's totally distinct, from Ted Lasso to Mythic Quest to Severance to The Gorge. It's like, “we have more money than most countries, so we're going to make Ted Lasso because we feel like it.” Then again, Apple+ is apparently losing a billion dollars every year, so maybe they'll eventually change their minds about that approach. Overall Grade: B-   Next up is Click, which came out in 2006. Cross It's a Wonderful Life with A Christmas Carol and the comedic style of Adam Sandler and you end up with Click. Basically Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic architect with a demanding boss and increasingly strained relationship with his wife and children due to his workload. In a fit of exasperation with his situation, he goes to Bed Bath and Beyond, where he encounters an eccentric employee named Morty (played entertainingly by Christopher Walken). Morty gives him a remote control that lets him fast forward through time, which Michael then uses to skip the boring and tedious parts of his life, but he overuses the remote and goes too far into the future and sees the disastrous results of his current life choices. Definitely a story used in A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life but effectively told and I was entertained (rather on the crude side, though). Overall Grade: B- Next up is Mr. Deeds, which came out in 2002. This was actually one of Adam Sandler's better movies, in my opinion. It was a remake of the ‘30s movie Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. In this new version, Sandler plays Longfellow Deeds, a popular pizzeria owner in a small New Hampshire town. Unbeknownst to Deeds, his uncle is the owner of a major media mega corporation and when he dies, Deeds is his legal heir. When the company's CEO and chief lawyer arrive at the pizzeria to inform him of this fact, Deeds goes to New York and soon finds himself involved in the CEO's sinister machinations. Yet he happens to rescue an attractive woman from a mugger, but there is more to her than meets the eye. The movie was funny and not as crude, well, not quite as crude as some of Sandler's other stuff. It had good story structure and several great lines, my favorite of which was “he was weak and cowardly and wore far too much cologne.”   Sandler's movies, in a strange way, are often very medieval. Like various medieval fables had a savvy peasant outwitting pompous lords, greedy merchants, and corrupt clergymen. The best Adam Sandler protagonist tends to be a good natured everyman who defeats the modern equivalent of medieval authority figures- evil CEOs, arrogant star athletes, sinister bureaucrats and so forth. Overall Grade: B     Next up is House of David, which came out in 2025 and this is basically the story of King David from the Bible told in the format of an epic fantasy TV series. Like if someone wanted to do an epic fantasy series about Conan the Barbarian, it could follow the same stylistic format as this show. And of course Conan and David followed a similar path from adventurer to king. Anyway, if one were to pick a part of the Bible from which to make a movie or TV series, the story of David would be an excellent choice because David's life was so dramatic that it would hardly require any embellishments in the adaptation. The story is in the Books of First and Second Samuel. King Saul is ruling over the Israelites around 1000 BC or so, but has grown arrogant. Consequently, God instructs the prophet Samuel to inform Saul that the kingdom will be taken away from him and given to another. God then dispatches Samuel to anoint David as the new king of Israel. David is a humble shepherd but then enters Saul's service and undertakes feats of daring, starting with defeating the giant Goliath and leading Saul's troops to victory and battle against Israel's numerous enemies. (The Iron Age Middle East was even less peaceful than it is now.) Eventually, Saul's paranoia and madness gets the best of him and he turns on David, who flees into exile. After Saul and his sons are killed in battle with the Philistines. David returns and becomes the acknowledged king after a short civil war with Saul's surviving sons and followers.   If Saul's fatal flaw was his arrogance of pride, David's seems to have been women. While the story of David and Bathsheba is well known, David nonetheless had eight wives (most of them at the same time) and an unknown but undoubtedly large number of concubines. Naturally David's children from his various wives and concubines did not get along and David was almost deposed due to the conflicts between his children. Unlike Saul and later David's son Solomon, David was willing to repent when a prophet of God informed him of wrongdoing and to be fair to David, monogamy was generally not practiced among Early Iron Age Middle Eastern monarchies and dynastic struggles between brothers from different mothers to seize their father's kingdoms were quite common, but enough historical digression.   Back to the show, which covered David's life up to the death of Goliath. I thought it was quite well done. Good performances, good cinematography, excellent battles, good set design and costuming, and a strong soundtrack. All the actors were good, but I really think the standout performances were Stephen Lang as Samuel, Ali Sulaman is King Saul, Ayelet Zurer as Saul's wife Queen Ahinoam, and Davood Ghadami as David's jerkish (but exasperated and well-intentioned) eldest brother Eliab. Martyn Ford just looks extremely formidable as Goliath. You definitely believe no one in their right mind want to fight this guy.   Making fiction of any kind based on sacred religious texts is often tricky because no matter what you do, someone's going to get mad at you. The show has an extensive disclaimer at the beginning of each episode saying that it is fiction inspired by the Bible. That said, House of David doesn't really alter or deviate from the Biblical account, though it expands upon some things for the sake of storytelling. Queen Ahinoam is only mentioned once in the Bible as the wife of Saul, but she has an expanded role in the show and is shown as the one who essentially introduces Saul to the Witch of Endor. Goliath also gets backstory as one of the “Anakim,” a race of giants that lived in Canaan in ancient times, which is something that is only mentioned in passing in the Old Testament. Overall, I enjoyed the show and I hope it gets a second season.   What's interesting, from a larger perspective, is to see how the wheel of history keeps turning. In the 1950s and the 1960s, Biblical epics were a major film genre. The 10 Commandments and Ben Hur with Charlton Heston are probably the ones best remembered today. Eventually, the genre just sort of ran out of gas, much the way superhero movies were in vogue for about 20 years and began running out of steam around 2023 or so. Like, I enjoyed Thunderbolts (which we're going to talk about in a little bit), but it's not going to make a billion dollars the way Marvel stuff often did in the 2010s. The wheel just keeps turning and perhaps has come back around to the popularity of Biblical epics once more. Overall Grade: A   Next up is Chef, which came out in 2014. I actually saw this back in 2021, but I watched it again recently to refresh my memory and here are my thoughts. I quite liked it. It's about a chef named Carl Casper, who's increasingly unhappy with his work after he gets fired over a Twitter war with a writer who criticized his cooking. Carl is out of options and so he starts a food truck and has to both rediscover his love of cooking and reconnect with his ex-wife and 10-year-old son. In Storytelling: How to Write a Novel (my book about writing), I talked about different kinds of conflict. Carl's conflict is an excellent example of an entirely internal conflict. The critic is an external enemy, but he's basically the inciting incident.   Carl's real enemy is his own internal conflict about art versus commerce and a strained relationship with his son. I recommend the movie. It was rated R for bad language, but there's no nudity or explicit sexual content and honestly, if you've ever worked in a restaurant kitchen or a warehouse, you've heard much worse in terms of language. The movie also has an extremely valuable lesson: stay off social media when you're angry. Overall Grade: A     Next up is Thunderbolts, which came out in 2025 and I thought this was pretty good, both very dark and yet with quite a lot of humor to balance the darkness. Former assassin Yelena Belova has been working as a mercenary for the sinister director of the CIA, Valentina de Fontaine (now there's a villain name if there ever was one). Yelena has grown disillusioned with her life and career and is suffering from increasing depression since she never really dealt with the death of her sister. Valentina promises her one last job, only for Yelena to realize that Valentina decided to dispose of all her freelance contractors at once, which includes US Agent and Ghost (previously seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Antman and the Wasp). In the process of escaping Valentina's trap, Yelena stumbles across a mysterious man who identifies himself as Bob, who has no memory of how he got there, but shows increasingly unusual abilities. Yelena wants to deal with Valentina's betrayal, but it turns out one of Valentina's science projects has gotten out of control and is threatening the world. The movie was well constructed enough that it didn't rely too heavily on previous Marvel continuity. It was there, but you probably wouldn't be lost without it. It almost feels like Marvel looked at the stuff they did the last couple of years and said, okay, a lot of this didn't work, but makes great raw material for new things. It helped that the central conflict was in the end, very human and about the characters, not stopping a generic villain from getting a generic doomsday device. Overall Grade: A   Next up is The Hound of the Baskervilles, which came out in 1988. This is a movie length episode of The Return of Sherlock Holmes television series, which had Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. The plot deals with Sir Henry Baskerville, the American heir to an English manor set in the Windswept moors of Dartmoor. Apparently there's an ancestral curse laid over the Baskerville estate that manifests in the form of a spectral hound. Local rumors hold that the previous holder of the manor, Sir Charles Baskerville, was killed by the ghostly hound and many of the local people fear it. The local physician, Dr. Mortimer, is so worried about the hound that he comes to Sherlock Holmes for help. Holmes, of course, is skeptical of any supernatural explanation and soon becomes worried that an extremely subtle and sinister murderer is stalking Sir Henry.   Jeremy Brett's version of Holmes is, in my opinion, the best portrayal of the character and Edward Hardwicke's version of Watson is a calm, reliable man of action who sensibly takes a very large revolver with him when going into danger. Definitely worth watching, Overall grade: A   Next up is Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which came out in 2024. The 2020s have been a downer of a decade in many ways, but on the plus side, between Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog, people have finally figured out how to make good video game movies, so we've got that going for us. Sonic 3 was an excellent kids movie, as were the first two in the trilogy. In this one Sonic is living with Knuckles and Tails under the care of their human friends Tom and Maddy, but then a dark secret emerges. The government has been keeping a Superpowered hedgehog named Shadow in stasis and Shadow has broken out. It's up to Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails to save the day.   Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik is in a funk after his defeat at Sonic's hands in the last movie, but then his long lost grandfather, Gerald Robotnik returns seeking the younger Dr. Robotnik's help in his own sinister plans. Keanu Reeves was great as Shadow (think John Wick if he was a superpowered space hedgehog in a kid's movie). Jim Carrey famously said he would retire from acting unless a golden script came along and apparently that golden script was playing Dr. Ivo Robotnik and his evil grandfather Gerald. To be fair, both the Robotniks were hilarious.   It is amusing that Sonic only exists because in the 1990s, Sega wanted a flagship video game character that won't get them sued by either Nintendo or Disney. It is also amusing that the overall message of the Sonic movies seems to be not to trust the government. Overall Grade: A   Next up is Paddington in Peru, which came out in 2024. This is also an excellent kids' movie. In this installment, Paddington has settled into London with the Brown family and officially become a UK citizen. However, he receives a letter from Peru that his Aunt Lucy has mysteriously disappeared into the jungle. Distraught, Paddington and the Browns set off for Peru at once. Adventures ensue involving mysterious lost treasure, a crazy boat captain, and an order of singing nuns who might not quite be what they appear. Anyway, it's a good kids' movie. I think Paddington 2 was only slightly better because Hugh Grant as the chief villain, crazy actor Phoenix Buchanan, was one of those lightning in the bottle things like Heath Ledger as the Joker in the Dark Knight. Overall Grade: A   Now for the two best things I saw in Winter/Spring 2025. The first of them is Andor Season Two, which came out in 2025. Star Wars kind of has an age range the way Marvel stuff does now. What do I mean by that? In the Marvel comics and some of the TV series like Jessica Jones, they get into some really dark and heavy stuff, very mature themes. The MCU movies can have some darkness to them, but not as much because they're aiming at sort of escapist adventures for the general audience. Then there are kid shows like Spidey and Friends that a relative of mine just loved when he was three. You wouldn't at all feel comfortable showing a 3-year-old Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but Spidey and Friends is just fine.   Star Wars now kind of has that age range to its stuff and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you want to see a dark meditation upon human nature. Sometimes you need something kid friendly to occupy the kids you're babysitting and sometimes you just want to relax and watch Mando and Baby Yoda mow down some space pirates or something. All that said, Andor Season Two is some of the darkest and the best stuff that Star Wars has ever done. It successfully shifts genres from Escapist Pulp Space Fantasy to a gritty Political/Espionage Thriller. We in the audience know that the emperor is a Sith Lord who can use Evil Space Magic and wants to make himself immortal, but that fact is totally irrelevant to the characters. Even though some of the characters are high ranking in their respective organizations, this is essentially a “ground's eye” view of the Rebellion and life under the Empire.   In some ways, this is like Star Wars' version of Wolf Hall (which we're going to talk about shortly), in that we know how it ends already, but the dramatic tension comes from the harrowing emotional journey the characters undertake on the way to their inevitable destinations. Cassian Andor is now working for the nascent Rebellion under the direction of ruthless spymaster Luthen Rael. Mon Mothma is in the Imperial Senate, covertly funneling money to the Rebellion and realizing just how much the Rebellion will require of her before the end. Syril Karn, the ineffective corporate cop from Season One, has fallen in love with the ruthless secret police supervisor Dedra Meero, but he's unaware that Director Krennic has ordered Meero to manufacture a false flag incident on the planet Gorman so the planet can be strip-mined for resources to build the Death Star and Dedra has decided to use Syril to help accomplish it. All the actors do amazing jobs with their roles. Seriously, this series as actors really should get at least one Emmy. Speaking of Director Krennic, Ben Mendelson returns as Orson Krennic, who is one of my favorite least favorite characters, if you get my drift. Krennic is the oily, treacherous middle manager we've all had to deal with or work for at some point in our lives, and Mendelson plays him excellently. He's a great villain, the sort who is ruthless to his underlings and thinks he can manipulate his superiors right up until Darth Vader starts telekinetically choking him. By contrast, the villain Major Partagaz (played by Anton Lesser) is the middle manager we wish we all had - stern but entirely fair, reasonable, and prizes efficiency and good work while despising office drama. Unfortunately, he works for the Empire's secret police, so all those good qualities are in the service of evil and therefore come to naught. Finally, Episode Eight is one of the most astonishing episodes of TV I've ever seen. It successfully captures the horror of an episode of mass violence and simultaneously has several character arcs reach their tumultuous climax and manages to be shockingly graphic without showing in a lot of actual blood. Andor was originally supposed to be five seasons, but then Peak Streaming collapsed, and so the remaining four seasons were compressed down to one. I think that was actually to the show's benefit because it generates some amazing tension and there's not a wasted moment. Overall Grade: A+   Now for the second of my two favorite things I saw, and that would be Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, which came out in 2024, but I actually saw it in 2025. This is a dramatization of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall novels about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, who is King Henry VIII's chief lieutenant during the key years of the English Reformation. The first series came out in 2015, but the nine year gap between this and between the second series and the first series actually works quite well since Thomas Cromwell looks like he ages nine years in a single year (which may be what actually happened given how stressful working for someone like Henry VIII must have been). Anyway, in The Mirror and the Light, Cromwell has successfully arranged the downfall and execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry's previous queen. Though Cromwell is haunted by his actions, Henry still needs a queen to give him a male heir, so he marries Jane Seymour. Cromwell must navigate the deadly politics of the Tudor Court while trying to push his Protestant views of religion, serve his capricious master Henry, fend off rivals for the King's favor, and keep his own head attached to his shoulders in the process. Since Cromwell's mental state is deteriorating due to guilt over Anne's death and the downfall of his former master Cardinal Wolsey and Henry's a fickle and dangerous master at the best of times, this is an enterprise that is doomed to fail. Of course, if you're at all familiar with the history of Henry's reign and the English reformation, you know that Cromwell's story does not have a happy ending. Rather, Wolf Hall is a tragedy about a talented man who didn't walk away from his power until it was too late and he was trapped. Anyway, in my opinion, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light was just excellent. All the performances were superb. Mark Rylance is great as Cromwell and has some excellent “WTF/I'm SO screwed” expressions as Cromwell's situation grows worse and worse. Bernard Hill played the Duke of Norfolk in the first series, but sadly died before Series Two, so Timothy Spall steps in and he does an excellent job of channeling Hill's portrayal of the Duke as an ambitious, crude-humored thug.   Damien Lewis is amazing as Henry VIII and his performance captures Henry's mixture of charisma, extreme vindictiveness, and astonishing self-absorption. The real Henry was known for being extremely charming even to the end of his life, but the charm was mixed with a volcanic temper that worsened as Henry aged and may have been exacerbated by a severe head injury. Lewis's performance can shift from that charm to the deadly fury in a heartbeat. The show rather cleverly portrays Henry's growing obesity and deteriorating health by having Lewis wear a lot of big puffy coats and limp with an impressively regal walking stick.   Overall, I would say this and Andor were the best thing I saw in Winter/Spring 2025. I wouldn't say that Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is an accurate historical reputation. In real life, Cromwell was rather more thuggish and grasping (though far more competent than his rivals and his master) and of necessity the plot simplifies historical events, but it's just a superb historical drama. Overall Grade: A+ As a final note, I should say that of all the 2024 and 2025 movies mentioned here, the only one that actually saw in the theater was Thunderbolts, and I hadn't actually planned to see it in theaters, but a family member unexpectedly bought tickets for it, so I went along. Which I suppose is the movie industry's biggest problem right now. The home viewing experience is often vastly superior to going to the theater. The theater has the big screen and snacks, but at home you can have a pretty nice setup and you can pause whatever you want, go to the bathroom, and you can get snacks for much more cheaply. That's just much more comfortable than the movie theater.   Additionally, going to the theater has the same serious problem as booking a flight in that you're an enclosed space with complete strangers for several hours, which means you're potentially in a trust fall with idiots. All it takes is one person behaving badly or trying to bring their fake service dog to ruin or even cancel a flight, and the theater experience has much of the same problem, especially since the standards for acceptable public behavior have dropped so much from a combination of widespread smartphone adoption and COVID. The difference between the movie industry and the airline industry is that if you absolutely have to get from New York to Los Angeles in a single day, you have no choice but to book a flight and hope for the best. But if you want to see a movie and are willing to exercise some patience, you just have to wait a few months for it to turn up on streaming. I'm not sure how the movie industry can battle that, but sadly, it is much easier to identify problems than to solve them.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe, stay healthy, and see you all next week.

Second Samuel 17 Take Aways:1. God prevented David from being destroyed by empowering Hushai to defeat the strategies of the enemy, and we can trust that the Lord will continually intercede to prevent His people from being trampled by the enemy, Satan—“You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:42. The Lord provided protection for those young priests who sought to faithfully serve their king in this dangerous war; similarly, the Lord will provide us the protection we need in the spiritual battle we fight as servants of King Jesus—“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” Ephesians 6:10-113. As the Lord preserved David in the wilderness through unexpected means, so God is faithful to provide for every need we may encounter in this life—“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19

Second Samuel 16 Take Aways:1. While the craftiness of Ziba allowed him to temporarily steal away the inheritance of Mephibosheth, his slanderous conduct will later be addressed with consequences reminding us that deceptive behavior will eventually be exposed and judged accordingly—“For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Ecclesiastes 12:142. Though Shimei wrongly cursed David, the king did not revile in return but instead trusted the Lord God to defend and avenge him; may we strive to demonstrate such patient meekness in similar situations—1 Peter 2:23 considers the conduct of Jesus saying “when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously”3. Absalom accepted wicked counsel and willingly established his kingdom upon immorality which will never generate a blessed legacy reminding us of the importance of seeking godly wisdom and abiding in righteousness—“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night.” Psalm 1:1-2

(Genesis 1:2) The most misunderstood and misrepresented Person of the Godhead is the Holy Spirit. How well do you know the Spirit of God? We are introduced to Him on the first page of the Bible and it is time we all got to know Him better. (0945250219) ----more---- An Introduction to the Holy Spirit Have you met the Holy Spirit? Some people refer to the Holy Spirit like He's an object or a thing or a force, but in fact, He is a real person. Co equal, co existent, co eternal with God the Father and God the Son. And the first time we meet Him is not on the day of Pentecost.  The First Mention of the Holy Spirit The first time we meet Him is in Genesis chapter 1. It's amazing to me, really, how many of these great doctrinal truths begin on the opening pages of Scripture. Someone called Genesis 1:11 a seedbed of doctrine, and they said that every major truth in the Bible can be found in seed form in the opening chapters of Genesis. I think that's beautiful. Genesis 1 verse 1 says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Now, did you catch that? The Spirit of God, right there He is, in the creation. Remember, God is a Spirit. And the Spirit of God is at work in the creative work. He's hovering, He's brooding over His creation from the very beginning. He's involved in creation.  The Holy Spirit as the Breath of God The psalmist said in Psalm 33:6, "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." The Holy Spirit literally is the breath of God. Job said in Job 33:4, "The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." So the Holy Spirit is the creator. The Holy Spirit is the one who gave you life. When God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and man became a living soul, the Holy Spirit was at work. That same Holy Spirit that breathed into man and the creation is the same Holy Spirit we find in Scripture that gave us the Word. The Bible says that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Literally, God breathed it out. It is the work of His Holy Spirit. Second Peter 1:21, "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Second Samuel 23:2, "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me and His Word was in my tongue. Amen." This book we're studying, this Bible, you have the Holy Spirit to thank for that. Here's what's wonderful, if you're a Christian, the Author lives in your heart. The Holy Spirit, who gave the Word, lives inside of you. Ask Him to help you understand it. He'll help you. Talk to the Author today. I do love the Holy Spirit. Oh, I do love the Holy Spirit. I love the Holy Spirit because everything I know about God, the Holy Spirit taught me. I say that with authority and conviction because it's impossible to understand spiritual truth apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. So everything I know about Jesus, everything I know about God, everything I know about the Bible, I know because of the Holy Spirit. He's our teacher.  The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament We see Him in the Old Testament. In Genesis 6 verse 3, He is the restrainer of wickedness. The Lord said, "My spirit shall not always strive with man. He was holding back wickedness." We see Him enabling believers, even in the Old Testament, for special service. For example, in Genesis 41, the Spirit of God was seen on Joseph. Numbers 27:18 the Lord said to Moses, "Take thee, Joshua, the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit." Daniel 4, verse 8, they recognize that Daniel had the Spirit of God. We know that the prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit. Samuel was moved by the Spirit of God. The Lord poured the horn of oil anointing David in 1 Samuel 16 verse 13, and the Bible says< "The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward." The Spirit of the Lord came on Samson. Over and over again, the Holy Spirit was working in the Old Testament in the lives of men.  The Holy Spirit in the Life of Christ Then we see Him in the life of Christ. In His conception, Luke 1:35, the Holy Ghost came upon Mary. The power of the highest overshadowed her. Where do you think the Lord Jesus came from? He had no earthly father. So He was conceived of the Holy Ghost. That's a powerful thought. Matthew 1:20 says, "That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." The Holy Spirit came at the baptism of Christ. You remember that beautiful dove, that picture of purity and peace coming down from heaven, lighting upon the Lord Jesus? And it's beautiful. There's no record that the dove ever left Him. It's symbolic of the fact that the Holy Spirit came upon Christ. But he never left Him. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came and went. He didn't indwell every believer consistently all the time. He came and went. But when Christ came, He came and stayed. And when you come to know the Lord Jesus and Christ comes to live in you, Oh dear brother, dear sister, the Holy Spirit doesn't come and go. He comes and abides with you forever. The Bible says of Christ that He was filled with the Spirit, and He was led of the Spirit. All through His earthly ministry. He was empowered by the Holy Spirit to do miracles, and He ministered in that power. Even in His death. His death at the cross was in the power of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 9 verse 14 says, "How much more shall the blood of Christ Who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God. Purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." The Holy Spirit was at work in the life of Christ. He was at work in His resurrection. Two, Romans one, verse four. He is declared to be the son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. But now here's where it gets good and here's where it gets very personal. The same Holy Spirit that worked in the Old Testament and that worked in the life of Christ is at work in your life today. Listen to Romans 8 verse 11. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. I tell you, I just want to stop right now and say praise God. Thank the Lord for this. The same Holy Spirit that moved in creation is moving in my life. The same Holy Spirit that empowered men in the Old Testament wants to empower me today. And the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, that same resurrection power and person lives inside of me at this moment. The Holy Spirit of God is at work in every stage of history, all through the Word of God, in the lives of all of those who will be yielded and open to Him. The Holy Spirit in the New Testament Church In the New Testament we see that He came to indwell every believer on the day of Pentecost. In the Acts chapter 1, verse number 5, Christ said that He would come and guess what? He came. Peter said in Acts chapter number 11 that the Holy Ghost came upon the Gentiles just as much as He did the Jews. That's glorious. That's powerful. Acts chapter 2 is the great record of that event when the Holy Spirit came to indwell every believer on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit works in and through His church. You can study that all through the New Testament. But here's the point.  Personal Application of the Holy Spirit's Work Is the Holy Spirit working in you today? And maybe the better question is, are you allowing the Holy Spirit of God to work in and through your life? See, if you're not careful, you can study doctrinal things and it seems so so mystical and so distant when it's supposed to be personal and a living reality in you. They said of a great preacher of a bygone generation that his doctrine was all application, and his application was all truth and was all doctrine. I really like that. You don't separate what you believe from how you behave. So if you believe the Holy Spirit is God and you believe the Holy Spirit has come to live inside of you because you've trusted Christ as your Savior, and you believe the Holy Spirit is all powerful and all present and all wise, then I wonder, how's that going to affect your life today? Are you going to yield yourself to the control of the Holy Spirit? Ephesians 5 18 says, And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. Will you say to the Holy Spirit right now, I want you to control me today. I yield myself to you today. Holy Spirit of God, have your way with me. I hope and pray today that you'll let what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit affect what you do with your life today. Or may I should say, what He does with your life today. Let the Holy Spirit have His way with you. Repeating what other people have said about the Bible is not enough. We must know the biblical reason behind what we believe. Outro and Resources We hope you will visit us at etj.bible to access our library of Bible teaching resources, including book-by-book studies of Scripture. You'll also find studies to watch, listen to, or read. We are so grateful for those who pray for us, who share the biblical content, and for those who invest to help us advance this ministry worldwide. Again, thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time on Enjoying the Journey.  

This episode is the seventh session of a Tabernacle Discipleship Group entitled "Old Testament Survey." To access the handouts for this particular study, visit our website, https://www.tabernaclebaptistchurch.com/old-testament-survey.

When Daniel and his friends were taken captive to Babylon, they found themselves in a world completely unlike their own. Even their names were changed to align with the pagan culture around them. Facing pressure to conform and worship false gods, it would have been easy for them to give in and lose their true identity. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef explores how Daniel resisted an oppressive society, encouraging Christ followers today to stand firm in their identity in Christ.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef challenges you to consider what you feed your soul.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

When Daniel was being trained in the Babylonian palace, he was fed lies about spirituality and the meaning of life. Just as we face lies every day from our society, Daniel was being indoctrinated into the pagan culture in which he was held captive. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef exhorts believers to know what they believe and why.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef explores how to practically overcome fear with faith.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

We will not always face clear-cut decisions between right and wrong. Sometimes we may have to choose between two positive or two negative choices. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef reveals our best defense against sin and temptation, tests and trials.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One, Part 3: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

Sometimes, battles come from bullies or situations. But other times, struggles come from within as we face temptations. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef digs into one of the greatest temptations that Daniel and his friends faced.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One, Part 3: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

We can learn a lot from Daniel's response to King Nebuchadnezzar as we consider how to deal with bullies in our lives. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef examines Daniel's boldness and courage in going before Nebuchadnezzar.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One, Part 2: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

As you pass your tests in life, be careful not to fall into the temptation of giving yourself credit for your success. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef looks at Daniel's first reaction when God granted him insight into Nebuchadnezzar's dream.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One, Part 2: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

Almost everyone can remember at least one bully from school—especially if they shoved you on the playground, teased people relentlessly, or threatened and manipulated others. But bullies aren't found only in the schoolyard. Bullies exist in our families, in our workplaces, and in our communities. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef evaluates the wise response of Daniel to the bully Nebuchadnezzar.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One, Part 2: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

Have you faced an exceedingly challenging circumstance that tested every bit of your strength, intelligence, and character? Maybe you are facing a troubling time right now, and your whole life is at a turning point. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef looks at the example of Daniel's trust in God.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series Discover the Power of One: LISTEN NOW | WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

The cycle of unfaithfulness, exile, repentance, and deliverance goes back to our first parents, Adam and Eve. They chose to go the wrong way and set in motion this cycle of rebellion and suffering that has echoed throughout history. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef examines the cycle of sin that began in the Garden of Eden.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series How Shall We Live Now?: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

Why do so many believers lose sight of their eternal hope? Why do so many Christians take their eyes off the prize of their heavenly dwelling place, the City of God? In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef warns against the earthly concerns that distract us from eternity.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon How Shall We Live Now?, Part 5: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef exhorts us to keep our eyes on heaven.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon How Shall We Live Now?, Part 5: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef explores the earthly city of Jerusalem to understand the City of God that will one day come down from heaven.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon How Shall We Live Now?, Part 4: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef calls us to consider how we should live to represent the Good News of Christ. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series How Shall We Live Now?: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

If we in the church would humble ourselves and repent of our sins, God will lead us out of our spiritual and cultural exile. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef exhorts Christians to search our hearts and repent of sin. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series How Shall We Live Now?: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for any gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

There are always consequences when God's people cease to honor Him and obey His Word. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef looks at the consequences of friendship with the world. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series How Shall We Live Now?: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!ffer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

The story of God's confusing the languages at the tower of Babel is familiar. What is less familiar is the rebellion that motivated the tower's construction. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef warns against the Babylonian revival happening in our day. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon How Shall We Live Now?, Part 3: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In the Bible, Babylon symbolizes every people or culture that opposes God. It was also a real place that earned a real reputation. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef looks at the motive behind the tower of Babel. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon How Shall We Live Now?, Part 3: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

As believers, we live in the City of Man—but we are pilgrims in this world. We know our true home is the City of God. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef looks at what it means to live as pilgrims and ambassadors in this world.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon How Shall We Live Now?, Part 4: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

Are you praying for a spiritual revival in your home, family, community, nation, or world? In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef encourages us that a return to the pure Gospel has happened before and can happen again. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series How Shall We Live Now?: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef reveals the only way to love others authentically.If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series How Shall We Live Now?: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef explores what it means to have a “sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon The Secrets of Positive Living, Part 13: LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount! *Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024

David felt the same emotions you may be feeling today—loneliness, despair, and fear. However, even though he struggled occasionally to trust God (see 1 Samuel 27:1), David longed to please the Lord deep down. He had a heart after God's heart. And the God who sees into the depths of your heart and mind is the one who will honor you for that desire—a desire clearly displayed in David's sacred song in 2 Samuel 22. bIn today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef examines David's sacred song that carried him through the ups and downs of life. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series A Heart for God: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

David was a man with uncommon faith in the Lord. So, when he committed adultery and then murdered the woman's husband, it was entirely out of character. Thankfully, God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David's sin—to invite him to take the first step toward restoration. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef examines Nathan's parable as an allegory of David's failure and response. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series A Heart for God: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef explores David's kindness toward Mephibosheth as a foreshadowing of God's grace to us in Christ. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series A Heart for God: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount! *Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef examines David's seven-fold prayer after he heard “no” from God. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon series A Heart for God: WATCH NOW | LISTEN NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

In this age of self-care, self-discipline seems to be a dirty word. But good intentions and warm, fuzzy feelings toward God won't make us fruitful Christians. To be a fruitful Christian, we must submit to the Lord Jesus Christ in everything we do—from how we spend our money to how we spend our time. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef explores self-discipline and Christlikeness. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon From Valley to Victory, Part 16: LISTEN NOW| WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

Worship is our only response to God's great mercy. It is our only response to His unbelievable, indescribable, unfathomable grace. It is the only way to appropriately express our gratitude and thanksgiving. And it is the secret to lasting contentment, joy, victory, and satisfaction. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef looks at true worship. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon From Valley to Victory, Part 15: LISTEN NOW| WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef considers God's infinite nature, which requires us to humble ourselves. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon From Valley to Victory, Part 14: LISTEN NOW| WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

Salvation is not dependent on either our ethnicity or church attendance. Our relationship with God is a matter of the heart. In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef reminds us that the ground is level at the foot of the cross. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon From Valley to Victory, Part 14: LISTEN NOW| WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

In today's devotional, Dr. Michael Youssef reveals four reasons why people reject God's offer of grace in Romans. If you would like more insight into today's devotional topic, watch or listen to Dr. Michael Youssef's sermon From Valley to Victory, Part 13: LISTEN NOW| WATCH NOWAVAILABLE NOW FOR YOUR GIFT OF ANY AMOUNTDo you know where to turn in the midst of brokenness? Have you exchanged self-reliance for absolute trust in the living God? In A Heart for God: Lessons from the Life of David, Dr. Michael Youssef takes you on a journey through the highs and lows of David's life. As you explore his greatest victories and deepest failures in First and Second Samuel, you'll see God's faithfulness to use willing vessels for His glory. As you experience David's most desperate cries in the Psalms, you'll witness the power of a life completely surrendered to God. And as you see the grander picture of David's life, you'll also discover how it all points to Christ Jesus, the perfect King who uses broken people to do great things for His Kingdom. Request your copy today for your gift of any amount!*Offer valid in US, UK, and Canada through October 19, 2024.

The army wouldn’t give Tony Vaccaro a chance as a photographer, but that didn’t stop him. Between terrifying moments of dodging artillery shells and shrapnel that seemed to rain from the trees, he took pictures anyway. Then, as his friends slept, he used their helmets to mix the chemicals to develop his film. The nighttime forest became the darkroom in which Vaccaro created a timeless record of World War II’s battle of Hürtgen Forest. King David lived through his share of battles and dark times. Second Samuel 22 says, “The Lord delivered [David] from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul” (v. 1). David used those experiences to produce a record of God’s faithfulness. He said, “Waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me” (v. 5). David soon pivoted from desperation to hope. “In my distress I called to the Lord,” he recalled (v. 6). “From his temple he heard my voice” (v. 7). David made certain to praise God for His unfailing help. “The Lord turns my darkness into light,” he said. “With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall” (vv. 29–30). David turned his difficulties into an opportunity to tell the world about his faithful God. We can do the same. After all, we rely on the One who turns darkness into light.

Dr. Aaron Higashi is one of our favorites, and we're not alone! The folks over at The Bible for Normal People are fans, as well, and have enlisted Aaron to write a "for normal people" book about First and Second Samuel. These two books include some of the Bible's most famous and most infamous characters and moments. If you've ever read about the exploits of biblical David, and wondered if he is, in fact, a good guy... well, Dr. Higashi is right there with you. We'll ask him about his take on David and many other biblical figures and stories, and the conclusions may surprise you. Or not. This is Data Over Dogma, after all. Look for Aaron on the various social media places under the handle @abhbible. Preorder 1 & 2 Samuel for Normal People: A Guide to Prophets, Kings, and Some Pretty Terrible Men here: https://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Normal-People-Prophets-Terrible-ebook/dp/B0D7KBPRVN For early access to an ad-free version of every episode of Data Over Dogma, exclusive content, and the opportunity to support our work, please consider becoming a monthly patron at: https://www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma      Follow us on the various social media places: https://www.facebook.com/DataOverDogmaPod https://www.twitter.com/data_over_dogma Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices