CCF Weekly Services Podcast

Paul gives a bleak picture of the future that we are only seeing the beginning of today. Where virtue is despised and narcissism is praised, it all stems from a desire to escape conviction. The Holy Spirit's sole purpose is to convict us of sin. The more we recognize His voice through His word, the more capable we'll be of growth and even salvation itself.

1. The person who doesn't learn from anyone beyond themselves and those like them will never repent.
2. The person who grows closer to Jesus first recognizes there is a difference between Him and them.
3. The metric by which we judge whether anything we hear is of God or not is through the Word of God.

Paul is speaking to his student Timothy in the same context that we need to be spoken to in the world we live in today. The world never has and still isn't responding in favor of the gospel, but this isn't a cause for us to be afraid. We need to be prepared to give an answer as the Holy Spirit enables us and from that place of security we will not be ruled by fear.

1. Paul was sent out to communicate the Gospel. What people thought about him was irrelevant.
2. Timothy didn't need to be afraid so long as his hope remained in what he was also called to share.
3. Paul sought refreshment from the people he had taught and learned from as well as to encourage and educate them.

The author of Hebrews reviews the remaining examples in the Old and New Testaments. Some were spared the opposition that came their way while others did not. What they all had in common is what defines us as the church. The shared hope that God will see us like the Holy Spirit saw them. Through the eyes of Grace.

1. The Old Testament saints were far from perfect, but the Holy Spirit only mentions what was done right.
2. The Old Testament faith was in the same thing we are trusting in today, the grace of God.

One of the most difficult questions or challenges raised to the Christian faith is” Why do bad things happen to good people?” The problem of evil, as some would call it, is as ancient as the oldest book of the bible, Job. How can all powerful and all loving God exist alongside the existence of evil? If God is good, He would want to stop or prevent evil. If God is all powerful, He is also able to prevent evil. Yet, we experience evil today, even among the youngest and the most innocent among us.

1. Jesus presented Himself as the solution to Evil practically in the present.
2. Jesus presented Himself as the solution to Evil ultimately in the future.
3. Jesus is patient with those who cause and contribute to evil out of hope for their redemption.

Moses demonstrated faith concerning the judgment of God by taking advantage of every possible means God provided for him to receive His mercy and avoid His judgment.

1. Moses forsook Egypt by considering the wrath of Pharaoh less worth worrying about than God's.
2. Moses kept the Passover by taking full advantage of avoiding God's rightful wrath on Egypt.
3. Moses crossed over the Red Sea, unlike the Egyptians, by trusting God's mercy was a legitimate offer.

The nature of prophecy is the reality by which we know we're being spoken to by someone beyond time. Jesus emphasized His fulfillments of Old Testament prophecies as the reason we should know who He is and why we should trust Him. For every prophecy fulfilled in His first coming, we have one more reason to trust the promises He's yet to keep. It is on that basis we test and draw hope from predictive prophecy. God's proven character alongside His historical witness in scripture.

1. The Old Testament gave us explicit and specific signs to recognize the Messiah's first coming.
2. Every prophecy Jesus fulfilled in His first coming gives us one more reason, standard, and metric by which we trust and verify the reality of His second coming.
3. His second coming is immanent.

Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses are all examples of faith because of a forward perspective. They all understood that God's purposes for their lives were greater than their own. They acknowledged the role God would play in the lives of their families even after they were gone. And they even acknowledged God as a greater source of pleasure than the things this world offered in His place.

1. Faith acknowledges the sovereignty of God as a comfort as much as a command.
2. Faith looks forward to the promises of God in such a way it impacts the way we live now.
3. Faith doesn't free us from sin by making us refuse pleasure but trusting and knowing God as pleasurable.

God does not leave eternity with a question mark for us. We have either come to a decision about Him or not.

1. Jesus had emotions
2. Jesus invested Himself in the Father
3. Jesus invested Himself in us
4. Jesus was hated for choosing the Father over the World

Through the trial of having to trust God even as far as a resurrection, Abraham experienced a deeper fellowship with the Father than any other human being ever has or could.

1. God is either your exceedingly great reward, or something less.
2. God values faith because it is the foundation of a relationship.
3. We trust Him because we personally know He's trustworthy.
4. God doesn't test our faith like a written exam to prove what we know. He tests us like metal to work out the impurities and increase just how much more we reflect His image.

The greatest incentive towards holy living is treating today like it could be the day the Lord returns. We neglect prophecy to our own discouragement.

1. Prophecy shouldn't be ignored
2. Prophets should be tested
3. Follow Jesus rather than your pastor