Renewed to Honor

          In the previous sermon, we learned that trials are not a punishment from an angry God but a means through which God disciplines his legitimate (adopted) Children. We saw how trials are meant for our Joy and how this is not a conceptional thing but rather an experiential journey. No one should assume that being joyful in trials is a means of knowledge acquired in any means other than personal experience. God expects us to come to Him and ask for wisdom. This is what the Spirit of God gives, wisdom. No one should assume that this wisdom is based on mental fortitude. This is based on a realisation that you are not strong enough, not wise enough on your own means. This is what trials does. It pushes people to be God dependent. This is what God desires us to do. To be reliant on Him. James as we looked earlier points to Proverbs and the Old testament as much as possible as His primary audience is the Jewish Christians.  Trust in the Lord w...

  When we go through trials and difficult times we are often faced with the following questions Does God really love me? Does God do His will for me? Is God's will for my life perfect? Will I like God's will for my life? Will God take the evil others have done to me and really turn it for my good? Will God repay the evil for the harm them did? James, writes his letter to the Jews who are Christians who ran away from Jerusalem during the time of troubles.   Notes:   (a)  James 1.3: List the different ways in which the trying of faith produces patience (ie: perseverance/endurance).  Faith is always tested - 1 Peter 1:7 and it is in the fire of testing that our faith becomes purer than gold worthy to honour God. A man of faith stands by the Word of God and waits for God to work and waits in patience.  During trying times, we may face the following questions  Is God there? Will God use what others meant for my evil for my good?  The Greek word for...

In Luke 15, Jesus talks about a good father. He tells this to the sinners and tax collectors who come to him as well as the Pharisees and scribes. Jesus tells about a good father who loves the sinner who leaves the father and the family and waste his life away as well as the son who is at home living a life living a life where he obeys the father without knowing who the father is. The father is God - the one who calls both the sinner and the self righteous alike, loving both of them. Genuine repentance involves two main things. % Change of heart Coming to God Jesus talks about the issue with human heart in both the cases. The younger one found the world and its pleasures lovely and the elder one feared and considered the father unjust. This is same in the Church and across human heart. The unbeliever does not want to do anything with God and the church going unbeliever goes just to make sure that they are not wrong. Jesus came to adopt and bring home the lost sons. This is the go...

Post tenebras lux After Darkness Light Portion: John 8:12 Why are we learning this?  To understand the Bible as a whole: The Bible talks from Genesis to Revelation that God is not unlike any gods that nations believe. He is a God who loves to be with people. He made people in His Image and wants to have communion - relationship - face to face meeting with people To understand the Trinity: We have seen what Trinity is: The Father is God, the Son is God and the Spirit is God. They are not ⅓ God - each person is 100% God, and there is only 1 God. The 3 are One. Jesus is God: Jesus uses the same portion that God used in the story of Israel (I AM) to say that Jesus is the same God There are almost 300 times the statement is used Jesus used the Exodus to teach us the kingdom of God Portions we looked last time (Spiritual Darkness/ Need of Light) We too walked in darkness John 1:4, John 8:12, John 3:19-20 Psalm 139: 11,12 - Comfort in darkness + Psalm 18:28 Isaiah 9:2 - People who w...

  There are times we go through Spiritual Darkness. Here is a sermon I spoke on how the Spiritual Darkness is to an unbeliever and  to a believer.  John 1:4, John 8:12, John 3:19-20 Psalm 139: 11,12 - Comfort in darkness + Psalm 18:28 Isaiah 9:2 - People who walked in darkness /Physical darkness, Spiritual Darkness Luke 11:34-35 Psalm 119:130 - the unfolding of the Word gives light 1 Peter 2:9 - why we are called Revelation 21:23 - The future Additional Resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tQdleC3YvYRqRTK0K3W0tBvJ7TJ4KDBXgxEcPTdzU7E/edit?usp=sharing http://www.romans45.org/spurgeon/sermons/0031.htm

This is an extract from CH Spurgeon. He humbled Himself." — Philippians 2:8 - Charles Haddon Spurgeon Jesus is the great teacher of lowliness of heart. We need daily to learn of Him. See the Master taking a towel and washing His disciples' feet! Follower of Christ, wilt thou not humble thyself? See Him as the Servant of servants, and surely thou canst not be proud! Is not this sentence the compendium of His biography, "He humbled Himself"? Was He not on earth always stripping off first one robe of honour and then another, till, naked, He was fastened to the cross, and there did He not empty out His inmost self, pouring out His life-blood, giving up for all of us, till they laid Him penniless in a borrowed grave? How low was our dear Redeemer brought! How then can we be proud? Stand at the foot of the cross, and count the purple drops by which you have been cleansed; see the thorn-crown; mark His scourged shoulders, still gushing with encrimsoned rills; see hands and ...

I have had fun watching the Beefeaters or the Yeomen Warders shout loudly at people who stand in their way. They would should terms like " Stand back from the queen's guard ". Search it on YouTube!!  In the same manner over this advent season i felt the verse from the O Holy Night hymn stand out "Fall on Your Knees" I wanted to learn more and the more I dug in, the clearer the rabbit hole became. Let me explain, the verses seem quite arbitrary. The hymn begins with a uncommon theme calling a night Holy, and then goes flat on the theology stating that the should should feel the worth of Christ and then rising to the place where there is a shout to fall on your knees as if there was a change in the scene.  This was strange, but then my rudimentary theological understanding kicked in. The hymn was a translation by John Sullivan Dwight, an Unitarian minister. This made sense as the Unitarians are not Christians. The guy who translated the original work from french d...