John the Baptist was unique among men in that he was, as far as we can tell, making much of Jesus from before his birth. This is seen in Luke 1:39–45 where Elizabeth, the mother of John was overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit when her child, John the Baptist, leaped in her womb at the presence of the baby Jesus…
Last Sunday, we considered the origin of Peter’s bold gospel proclamation. In the book of Acts Luke focuses our attention on the power of the Holy Spirit of God to fill Christians with boldness in proclaiming the Gospel. Brothers and sisters, every age of this world is desperately in need of Christians who are bold with the Gospel, and our…
Remember when you were you were cruising down the highway making good time on your way home? That is until a never-ending row of orange traffic cones conveniently appeared ahead, and of course right in your lane. You carefully merge into the lane on your left which is now crawling at a snail’s pace. You see activity down the road…
“Affection for God increases not through bypassing the mind but by means of it.” –Tom Schreiner Jude encouraged his readers to “earnestly contend for the faith.” His use of the word “faith” in that passage means the teachings of the Lord as received and passed down by the apostles. The faith is what the apostle Peter is calling his readers to…
On Sunday, we reveled in the glory of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to Peter. Specifically, we marveled at the intimacy of Jesus’ restoration of Peter. Jesus saw Peter in his failure and restored him to confidence. We also considered the thing called for by Jesus, love. Jesus called forth declarations of love from Peter as a way of erasing the failure…
“Nobody is mad at you for the gifts you don’t have.” –Jonathan Rogers, The Habit Podcast I recently heard the above quote in a podcast with author Jonathan Rogers. He had put a request for a fondue pot out on Facebook. He wanted to borrow one and not to buy it. Buying it would mean storing it and he did not…
“Unbelief is the root of rebellion and apostasy.” –John Trapp Last Sunday we explored the biblical examples that Jude employed when communicating to the church not only the danger of false teachers but also their destructive influence. Jude’s examples were Cain, Balaam, and Korah. Cain is primarily remembered for the murder of his brother Abel. It was Abel who “by…
“He buys his pleasures too dear who pays for them with the loss of his soul.” –Matthew Mead According to Jude, three of the traits of the false teachers are as follows: they defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. The lives of the false teachers are characterized by sexual permissiveness. They are also insubordinate, refusing to…
“Do you come to your joy and peace by humility and self-denial and mortification, and by becoming little children and servants of all?” –Richard Baxter Last week we discussed some of the historical examples that Jude used in his opening salvo against the false teachers that had infiltrated the church. Rebellion is one of the themes that ties all of…
“They have butter in their mouths, but swords in their hearts.” –Samuel Otes (commenting on the corrupt teachers in Jude) Dear church family, For the next few weeks, we will be in the book of Jude. Please read and reread the book, meditate on it, and the sermons will be more meaningful for the work you have done beforehand. Last Sunday,…
