Scripture: Ephesians 6:24

+ What you love most is the most important thing about you.

“According to Augustine, ‘There is a scale of value stretching from earthly to heavenly realities, from the visible to the invisible; and the inequality between these goods makes possible the existence of them all.’ God is one thing, angels are another, as are people, terriers, red oaks, squash, rocks, and dirt. Each item fits in God's overall scheme of creation. The nature of things in the hierarchy is unchangeable, and so is the kind of satisfaction it can provide when we are related to it through love. Because of these actual differences in things, the outcome of loving each actual thing will be different. There is a divinely designed fit between our needs, the character of the things that can satisfy them, and the way we should love them in order to be satisfied. Even though each thing God made is good, delightful, legitimate, and a source of satisfaction as an object of our love, we "must not expect more from it than its unique nature can provide." We must give love and praise to things apportioned to their worth. - David K Naugle, Re-Ordered Loves; Re-ordered Lives.

"Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship...is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap real meaning in life—then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you...Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out." - David Foster Wallace 

+ What does it mean to love Jesus?

-       Adoration - thinking highly of Jesus.

-       Affection - feeling deeply for Jesus.

-       Allegiance - following faithfully after Jesus.

Matthew 10:37–38

“All of Christ is to be loved, and He is to be loved above all.” John Gill.

Revelation 2:1-5

Psalm 34:8 (NIV)

+ Examine

Psalm 32:1–5 (NIV)

+ Exercise

+ Encounter

Scripture: Genesis 27:1-46

Genesis 25:27–28

+ Value Character more than Success

+ Character is destiny

+ Character will eventually show itself

+ Trust God’s Ways to secure God’s Ends 

Proverbs 3:5–6

Psalm 106:13–14

+ Don’t assume a strong finish

Hebrews 12:1–2

Scripture: Genesis 26:1-35

+ We can pass down a spiritual legacy, and we can pass down sinful patterns.

1 Kings 22:41–43

1 Kings 22:51–52

+ We can live in faith, or we can live in fear.

Exodus 14:10–14

+ We can live for the favor of people, or we can live for the favor of God

Exodus 33:15–16

John 12:42–43

Scripture: Genesis 25:7-11, 19-34

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” – Jonathan Edwards

+ God uses our prayer to fulfill His promises

+ God uses our weakness to fulfill his promises

+ God uses our opposition to fulfill his promises.

Philippians 3:18-21

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.” – C.S. Lewis

Scripture: Genesis 24

+ A life that experiences God is one oriented toward God’s purpose.

“…you might ask, “Why should God speak to me? What am I doing in life that would make him speaking to me a reasonable thing for him to do? Are we in businesstogether in life? Or am I in business just for myself, trying to ‘use a little God’ to advance my projects?” – Dallas Willard, Hearing God.

+ A life that experiences God is one of faith-filled action.

+ A life that experiences God is one that is growing in prayer.

Psalm 127:1

Scripture: Hebrews 11:8-19

+ Faith alone secures ouracceptance with God.

Genesis 15:6

Ephesians 2:8–9

Romans 4:1–5

+ Faith alone demands humilitybefore God and others.

+ Faith obeys God's word withouthaving all the details or all the answers.

James 2:21–24

+ Faith is future oriented

"There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark rocky peak high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” – JRRTolkien, The Return of the King.

+ Faith believes God more thancircumstances

+ Faith withholds nothing fromGod, no matter how precious

Scripture: Psalm 136

“For his mercy endureth for ever.We shall have this repeated in every verse of this song, but not once toooften. It is the sweetest stanza that a man can sing. What joy that there ismercy, mercy with Jehovah, enduring mercy, mercy enduring for ever. We are everneeding it, trying it, praying for it, receiving it: therefore let us for eversing of it.” – Charles H. Spurgeon

+ Give thanks to the Lord, forwho He is.

Psalm 136: 1-3

+ Give thanks to the Lord, forwhat He does.

Psalm 136:4

+ Give thanks to the Lord, forHis love.

Psalm 136:10-15

Psalm 136:16

Romans 5:8

Psalm 136:23-26

Scripture: Acts 2:32-47 

And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, 

who proceeds from the Father and the Son;  

who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;  

who spoke by the prophets. 

And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.  

We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;  

and we look for the resurrection of the dead,  

and the life of the world to come.  

Amen. 

+ The Holy Spirit

We are not powerless 

Romans 8:9

Galatians 5:16

+ The Church  

We are not alone  

+ The Forgiveness of Sins  

Ephesians 4:4–6

Romans 8:1

 We are not condemned 

+ The Resurrection and Future Glory  

John 6:35–40

We are not afraid 

A Dialogue-Anthem by George Herbert 

Christian: Alas, poor Death! where is thy glory? Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting? 

Death: Alas, poor mortal, void of story! Go spell and read how I have kill'd thy King. 

Christian: Poor Death! and who was hurt thereby? Thy curse being laid on Him makes thee accurst. 

Death: Let losers talk, yet thou shalt die; These arms shall crush thee. 

Christian: Spare not, do thy worst. I shall be one day better than before; Thou so much worse, that thou shalt be no more. 

Scripture: Philippians 2:3-11 

Who, for us and for our salvation came down from heaven,  and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried;  and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father… 

John 17:5 

John 17:24 

"...the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us...lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter Sunday message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man - that the second person of the Godhead...took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human. Here are two mysteries for the price of one - the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus." – JI Packer, Knowing God.  

+ The Triumph of the Son's Obedience

Luke 2:51 

"What Christ saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised. The sight was unbearable. In a few short hours, he would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world... Consequently, to quote Luther again, 'No one ever feared death so much as this man.' He feared it because for him it was no sleep, but the wages of sin: death with the sting; death unmodified and unmitigated; death as involving all that sin deserved. He, alone, would face it without a 'covering', providing by his very dying the only covering for the world, but doing so as a holocaust, totally exposed to God's abhorrence of sin. And he would face death without God, deprived of the one solace and the one resource which had always been there. The wonder of the love of Christ for his people is not that for their sake he faced death without fear, but that for their sake he faced it, terrified. Terrified by what he knew, and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly." – Donald Macleod, The Person of Christ. 

+ The Triumph of the Son's Cross

Colossians 2:13–15

Hebrews 2:14–15

"When Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, was nailed to the cross, Satan thought that he had won the day. The old serpent had stung him to death, vainly imagining that all was over with him. I think I see the arch-fiend gloating over the awful agonies of the dying Savior, and maliciously taunting him as he hung there apparently forsaken by God and man. "Ah!" says he, "Seed of the woman, I have indeed bruised thy heel. I have made men reject thee and put thee to death; I have vexed and tormented thee, I have scorned and scouted thee, and thou hast not a word to say for thyself, and now thy soul must soon depart out of thy body." Yet as the devil was still pouring out his vainglorious boasts and taunts, with a mighty voice the expiring Savior cried, "It is finished;" and in that moment his soul sprang upon the enemy and utterly routed him forever." – Charles Spurgeon, Christ Triumphant.  

+ The Triumph of the Son's Exaltation

Ephesians 1:20–23

Isaiah 45:22–25

+ You must decide about Jesus; You cannot be neutral about him

+ You must imitate Jesus. You cannot confess him but refuse to conform to him

2 Corinthians 8:9

Scripture: John 1:1-5; 14-18

+ The Incarnation

Philippians 2:5-8

"...the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us...lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter Sunday message of resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man - that the second person of the Godhead...took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human. Here are two mysteries for the price of one - the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus." JI Packer, Knowing God.

+ To Reveal the Father to us

Hebrews 1:1

+ To Reconcile us to the Father

1 Timothy 2:3–5

+ To Rescue us from our greatest enemies

Hebrews 2:14–18

+ To Relate to us in our weakness and suffering

Hebrews 4:14–16

"All other men were lost sheep; he had come as the Good Shepherd to seek and to save them. All other men were sick with the disease of sin; he was the doctor who had come to heal them. All other men were plunged in the darkness of sin and ignorance; he was the light of the world. All other men were sinners; he was born to be their Savior and would shed his blood in death for the forgiveness of their sins. All other men were hungry; he was the bread of life. All other men were dead in trespasses and sins; he could be their life now and their resurrection hereafter." – John Stott, Basic Christianity.

1 John 1:1–4

2 John 7

Colossians 1:19

Colossians 2:9