Many people can tell you what the Parable of the Good Samaritan is all about and what Jesus was teaching by it. However, many people can also take the parable in a rather simplistic fashion which makes it all sound ‘nice’, even sort of ‘ a good thing to do’. But Jesus meant so much more by this parable that is recorded in Luke 10:25-37 which follows a long section in which Jesus has been shaping and forming the minds and hearts of His disciples. In that sense, the parable therefore means far more that many might have thought!

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The thirty-second in this series

This unsafe world
The law of God
The One who was truly ‘good’

The whole chapter of Luke 9 seems to be about discipleship and this is confirmed by the finanl paragraph of the chapter, Luke 9:57-62. here, Jesus meets people who ‘would-be’ His disciples – people He asked to come and follow Him, and those who were ‘wannabe’ disciples – those who came up to Him and said they would follow Him of their own accord. To both groups of people, Jesus gave some very telling and strong demands about discipleship. It’s never to be taken lightly, but involves cost and sacrifice and letting go of many things.

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• The thirtieth in this series
• Jesus training the 12…
• New applicants!
• See how the disciples of Jesus need to let go of …

Australian Idol
What became of these would-be followers?
John Newton’s story

The 12 disciples of Jesus were certainly a mixed bag – hot one day (think Peter saying ‘You are the Christ) and cold the next (think their argument on the road to the cross as to which of them was the greatest!). In Luke 9:46-56 it seems that some pettiness in their minds and hearts came to the fore and out of their mouths. Jesus must have felt burdened that they were so off the mark – just like we can also be. Thanks be to God that He wasn’t, but came ‘not to be served, but to serve and give His life a ransom for many’!

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• The twenty-ninth in this series
• Where we left off…
• Those disciples of Jesus!
• See how the text tells of the disciples’…

School report cards
Three ‘fails’
The One who passed with flying colours!

When Jesus went up high on the mountain in Luke 9:28-36, the disciples saw His glory revealed to them by God the Father. But when Jesus came down the mountain into the valley in Luke 9:37-45, He immediately encountered the impotence of the disciples to deal with the situation at hand. Once he has dealt with that, Jesus went on to explain again that He would suffer and die. Although the disciples saw something of the glory which was to come, the cross would come too. Suffering. Pain. Loss. The path God the Father chose for his Son was difficult indeed. Suffering before the fulness of His glory.

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1. Up on the mountain (v.28-36)

    The

    The

    The

2. Down in the valley (v.37-45)

   He

   He

   He

How

What

Who

2 Peter 1:16-19

Chariots of Fire – Abrahams and Liddell

The account of Israel’s crossing through the Red Sea is quite stunning. Stuck on the western side of the Sea, crying out to God in anguish and despair, the people of Israel were in desperate straits. Pharoah and his armies had pursued them and all looked bleak…except for God. He had to act and He did – in a most powerful and amazing way – delivering His people through the Sea to safety. It’s good to reflect that when Jesus faced the awfulness of the wrath of God on the cross, He did not seek to please Himself, but when through what was before Him to bring us, His people, to safety.

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The Exodus event
God’s intervention!
Rescued!

In Exodus 14:1-14, the people of Israel who have just departed from Egypt, find themselves in a very, very tricky situation. With Pharaoh and his armies in pursuit of them and impassable mountains to the left and the right, the people (who had been led clearly by God through pillar of cloud and fire) were sitting ducks! Naturally, their reolved and trust in the Lord fell apart. Any hope they had known was now gone. Any trust in the Lord was completely eroded. But God wasn’t finished yet. And all the people had to do was ‘stand still’ and ‘say nothing’ and God would do the rest!

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o The twelfth in this series
o More than exciting history
o Where we were last week
o Note how Moses tells us of …

Peter’s situation
God’s command to Moses
Salvation!

When the Lord God led His people Israel out of Egypt, there was an ongoing need for the people to be led the right way. They did not necessarily know the way that God was taking them nor was it explained to them. All they knew what that God had a plan for them, and that plan involved leading the people into further trouble. This was not because He wanted to punsish them, but they might see the fulness of his saving power – being fulfilled right before their eyes. And so by night and by day, by pillar of cloud and fire, He led His people along.

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o The eleventh in this series
o A quick recap
o More than exciting history
o Note how Moses tells us of …

Predicament
God led them to a place of trial…
The God who is too big to fail!

In Exodus 13:1-16, the drama of chapters 7 to 12 of Exodus have passed by. The people of Israel are now free from the clutches of Pharaoh. Not yet completely free to ‘do their own thing’, but free to serve the Lord their God who led them out of Egypt into the desert regions in the direction of the Red Sea. There, God gave the people of Israel a reminder that they were His, and His alone, and their responsibility in the world was to be just that – His redeemed people for His very own – just like God’s people are today with Jesus as Redeemer and Master.

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o The tenth in this series
o The events of chapters 11 and 12
o Deliverance – more than just getting out of Egypt!
o Note how God delivered the people so that …

The case of Kathleen Folbigg
Blood-bought children…
Coram Deo

In this message, Ryan Smith (AFES worker at La Trobe Uni, Bendigo) shares how as the people of God, believers should expect to be hated by the world… because the world hates Jesus. It’s hate by association. Jesus tells his disciples this in John 15:18-16:4 and he does this ahead of time so that those disciples won’t be surprised and to help them persevere and not give up, either following Him, or sharing Him. It’s what believers today also need to hear and know.

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Are you ever tempted to give up?

So why would you be a Christian?

Exodus 11:1-12:51 details for us the tenth and last of the plagues that came upon Egypt. Of all the plagues this was the one that would really break Pharaoh’s stubborn will and also his father’s heart. The death of the first-born sons all throughout Egypt was a most dramatic event that the people of Israel would forever remember in the Passover feast they would hold every year that would bring themes of redemption through the blood of the lamb and deliverance from slavery to mind – matters that God’s people today see fulfilled through the death of Jesus, ‘our Passover Lamb’.

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The perspective of ‘modern’ eyes
Romans 9:14-18
The (only) way of salvation…