Monday, November 28, 2011

Lukewarmness

This is from John Piper:

"The essence of lukewarmness is the statement, "I need nothing." The lukewarm are spiritually self-satisfied. To find out whether you are among that number, don't look into your head to see if you think that you are needy; rather, look at your prayer life. It doesn't matter what we think in our head, the test of whether we are in bondage to spiritual self-satisfaction is how earnest and frequent and extended our prayers for change are."

In Line

This Sunday at our church, we are going to begin a Christmas series entitled "In Line". By God's grace, I plan to preach from the genealogy of Jesus from Matthew's gospel. The idea for this series comes from a sermon I heard by my Greek professor (at least I'm pretty sure it was him; it has been a long time) Dr. David Alan Black called - "The Gospel According to Four Women" - from the genealogy of Matthew. So, Dr. Black, if you ever read this, through the Holy Spirit, you get the credit for this series, at least the idea. So, thanks.

Often times we miss the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we also gloss over (read: "skip") the genealogies when we see them in the bible. So, our focus on this series of talks (i.e., sermons) will be the beauty of God's grace-filled tapestry and his sovereign work in his redemptive plan to bring about our salvation. We will examine these two twin-truths from the vantage point of Matthew's inclusion of 5 women in his genealogy: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, "the wife of Uriah", and Mary.

What do we learn about God's grace and sovereign purposes from their inclusion? How does their inclusion evoke worship in our hearts toward the God of our Salvation?

Lord willing, the series will look something like this:

December 4   - Tamar and Rahab
December 11 - Ruth and "the wife of Uriah"
December 18 - Sanctuary Choir presents "The Love of God" Christmas cantata
December 25 - Mary

I hope that you will join us! Check out our church website for more information: www.fbctville.com.

On the Blogs for Monday, November 28, 2011

Spiritual Discernment (very good reminder for the church)

Discipling Men in the Local Church

Without Excuse (this is so far over my head...it is absolutely amazing!)

Christians and Alcohol (interesting perspective)

Anger

A True Theologian

The Devil's Playbook (good reminder about our common enemy)

Music (this was really cool!)

3 Things you need to know about sin

Ravi Zacharias answers a Muslim's Question (this is really good)