As we close out 2023 and look forward to 2024, maybe you are already making new year resolutions.  Perhaps one of your resolutions is to engage in consistent Bible reading.  This 7-week series is designed to help you be a better student of the Bible so you can continue to uncover the hidden treasures in God’s Word.

Although the Bible is a collection of 66 books written by approximately 40 different authors from different backgrounds spanning more than 1500 years, they all tell one story.  Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to see how the grand narrative of Scripture unfolds.  Today, Pastor Darrell will discuss 28 important Bible events (14 from the OT and 14 from the NT) and why they matter in the storyline of the Bible.

Welcome to episode 136 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we conclude our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 5:13-21. The series is called “Unshakable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• The thing that every Christians knows (v. 13) 
• Knowing God (vv. 14-21) 

Key takeaways: 

• Did you know that you can know that you have eternal life? You can know that you are saved. You don’t have to doubt it, guess about it, or wonder about it.  God does not want His children to worry, doubt, or lack assurance about whether they are Christians or not.  This is why John wrote this letter. 
• Not only can a believer have assurance of salvation, but he also can have assurance that God will hear his prayers and answer them. 
• John affirms that we know God hears when we request, not that we have unerring discernment as to what we should be requesting. 
• The sin that leads to death, therefore, is the sin of rejecting Christ’s atonement, the sin of calling God’s testimony a lie.  Those whose sins do not lead to death commit sins unwittingly and which do not involve rejection of God and his way of salvation.   
• John does not forbid praying for those who have left the church and are still in need of God’s transforming grace in Christ; that is just not the situation he is addressing here.  It is clear that he is in doubt about the efficacy of such a prayer. 
• While the powers of evil may tempt, entice, and otherwise influence the believer, even to the point of lapses into sin, the evil one cannot take hold of a child of God to remove them from the light and life and drag them back into darkness and death. 
• One cannot know the Father without belief in His Son, who is the revealer of the truth. 

Quotable: 

• There are only two possible positions. Everyone is either “of God” or “under the control of the evil one.” Neutrality is not possible. 

Application: 

• Sometimes our desires are not God’s desires for us. Sometimes what we want is not what our heavenly Father wills. Faith will accept that God’s will is best, and it will trust His plan and purpose, even if it does not understand at the time. 
• Since in any given situation we may not know whether what we’re asking is in God’s will, whenever it seems God has not answered, we must receive that in the confidence of knowing we were heard. We do have what we ask according to His will even if His will is “No” or “Not yet.” 
• The sin that does not lead to death is the sin of the believer … the sin that does lead to death is most likely that of the unbeliever. 
• Any understanding of God incompatible with John’s teaching in this letter would be considered idolatry, defined as false teaching based on a nonexistent spiritual reality. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 135 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 5:1-12. The series is called “Unshakable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Obey God and Enjoy the Victory of Faith (vv. 1-5) 
• Believe in the Son and Enjoy Eternal Life (vv. 6-12) 

Key takeaways: 

• Love, obedience, and faith are the three spiritual birthmarks that identify people who are in the family of God. 
• Love for God means a love that expresses itself in obedience to His commandments. 
• Daily victory comes from recognizing that faith teaches me how to overcome the world. 
• What is of the world cannot give us victory over the world. 
• Jesus came into his power by the water of his baptism and even more so by the blood of his cross. 
• Since we believe the testimony of man, how much more should we believe the testimony of God.  What is God’s testimony?  Jesus is His son and that he is the only means by which one can have eternal life. 

Quotable: 

• You cannot claim to love God and be indifferent to His commands.  Obedience is the proof of your love. 

Application: 

• If you love the father, it is a foregone conclusion that you are not only going to love the father who gave birth to you, but you are going to love everybody else in the family as well. 
• We must do more than just know the commandments. God is interested to see if we carry them out. 
• Love for others is not a sentimental emotion or merely getting along; it is living in right relationships with others and by meeting the need of others for life’s sustaining provisions. 
• Some questions to ask yourself: 
• Is your Christian life more of a duty you have to force yourself to fulfill?  
• Do you feel that if you don’t keep God’s commandments you are afraid of what He might do if you don’t?  
• Or do you genuinely desire to obey God’s commandments? 
• If I am to overcome the world, I need a force and power beyond my own strength. I am given the weapon of faith. 
• When someone rejects God’s love offered in Christ in favor of some other system of belief (or nonbelief), they implicitly declare that they know better than God, thus “making” Him a liar. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 134 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 4:13-21. The series is called “Unshakable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Love and Sound Doctrine (vv. 13-16) 
• Love’s Perfection (vv. 17-21) 

Key takeaways: 

• If God is at work in a Christian’s life, the evidence for it will be seen in a combination of love and sound doctrine. In other words, we may know that we have the Spirit because we have come to confess Christ and dwell in love. 
• As both creator and judge, God gets to define love and to stipulate how it is to be practiced. But His definition is so unlike the world’s that those who prefer their own, more self-serving definition often reject it. 
• Those who are indwelt by God have a relationship with their Judge that is characterized by love. It is this love that allows the believer to have confidence when looking toward that day of judgment. 

Quotable: 

• Anyone who says that eternal life can come by any way other than Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross is pushing a false gospel. 

Application: 

• It is not sufficient to believe in the historical Jesus; one must also believe that the man Jesus was the Son of God whom the Father sent to atone for sin.  Jesus cannot simply be a prophet, a good teacher, or a moral man. 
• The visible manifestation of an individual’s love for God, however, will eventually show up in his dealings with his brothers and sisters in Christ, who indeed are very visible. 
• A failure to love others means that a person has failed to see the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ and therefore is unable to love God at all. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 133 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 4:1-12. The series is called “Unshakable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Discerning Truth from Error (vv. 1-6) 
• Love Others Because God Loves You (vv. 7-12) 

Key takeaways: 

• Everyone who has a true knowledge of God acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in flesh—that is, that the Son of God became a human being. 
• What you think about Jesus shapes every aspect of your theology and worldview. 
• People will gravitate to and have an affinity for that confession and teaching with which they are like-minded. Therefore, one who affirms the world’s message is from the world, and, likewise, one who affirms the message that Christ came in the flesh is of God. 
• The sending of God’s Son was both the revelation of His love and, indeed, the very essence of love itself. 
• The love God has shown (by sending His Son to die for our sins) becomes the motive for our responding to others properly. 

Quotable: 

• The absence of love in the life of an individual proves that he does not know God. 

Application: 

• We must listen and evaluate carefully the message and messenger against the infallible authority of Scripture. 
• Not everything done and said by a professing Christian is necessarily of the Holy Spirit; they may be speaking from the spirit of the world that has distorted their understanding of the truth of Jesus Christ and his significance. 
• To know the love of God is to manifest His love.  Without this manifestation one could not possibly know, or ever have known, God or His love.   
• How does one express love for God? John tells us that love for God means keeping His commands, which involves how we treat one another. 
• Love is always demonstrated by actions. 
• Our love for others should recognize their needs, and we should seek to maintain a right relationship with them. 
• The love we have for other believers will demonstrate the fact that we are indwelt by God. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 132 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 3:11-24. The series is called “Unshakable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Love in action (vv. 11-18) 
• Live in confidence (vv. 19-24) 

Key takeaways: 

• Those who do not do what is right hate those who do.  To the extent that the believer agrees with Jesus’ testimony about evil and changes their life to do right, those who are of the world hate them for it. 
• To hate someone because they are living rightly, and consequently pressuring them by example or teaching to live like the world, is a wish for their spiritual death and is, in effect, spiritual murder.   
• John insists that love is to be demonstrated in actions and in truth.  Love expresses itself in deeds. 
• When our inner voice of conscience nags, God knows that the hearts of His children are in the right place, and we can trust God’s mercy and grace and approach Him in confidence. 
• Christian believers can have confidence before God even when their inner voice accuses them. 
• Faith in Jesus constitutes obedience to God. 

Quotable: 

• It is not enough to believe rightly. We must behave rightly. Being precedes doing. 

Application: 

• Our practice (how we live our lives) proclaims who and what we are. 
• Genuine human love is the expression of salvation, not its cause.  Loving others in the Christian family is evidence that one has made the transition from death to life. 
• Hate is the first step toward murder. A person who hates is no different from a murderer in his attitude.  The question is not so much, what are you doing, but what do you want to do? 
• Loving others costs us something.  We ought to show our love at all cost—even to the point of risking and losing our lives. 
• Laying down one’s life as the proper expression of love involves meeting the need of others for the basic necessities needed to sustain life. 
• The path to assurance in times of self-doubt is trust in God. 
• Only through the power and work of the Holy Spirit can a person love God through faith in Christ and love others rightly. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 131 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 2:29-3:10. The series is called “Unshakeable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Be confident and ready for his coming (2:29-3:3) 
• Be righteous and do not sin (vv. 4-10) 

Key takeaways: 

• In Our practice of right living gives evidence that we have truly been born into the family of God.  We behave like our Father. 
• God has not just shown his love to humans, but he has given it to them in such a way that it becomes a part of them. He lavishes, or imparts, permanent and abiding love to His children. 
• Sin is an intentional breaking of God’s moral standard. It is a willful rebellion arising from the deliberate choice of the individual, a direct violation of God’s laws. 
• Sin is not amoral. It is not something to which one can be indifferent. On the contrary, sin is a willful disregard for God. It is a rebellious revolt against God’s will. 
• John is not suggesting that the child of God will not commit a single act of sin. Rather, the believer will not live a life characterized by sin. 

Quotable: 

• Jesus is our pattern. We are not to judge our lives by other peoples’ lives, but by Christ’s, who is the standard or goal toward which we are to move.   

Application: 

• How one lives expresses whether one is born of God or of the devil. 
• The world ought to know you’re in the family of God by the way you act. All Christians should live in keeping with Jesus’ own righteous character. His character governs his conduct. So should ours. We should live up to our name. 
• In light of the world’s natural depravity and opposition to God, the child of God should anticipate rejection and hatred. Such rejection by the world attests to the reality that the rejected are indeed children of God. 
• It is now Christians’ habit of life to pursue purity and holiness as we await the hope of the return of Jesus. 
• To be purified we must remain close to the One who is wholly pure. 
• One practices righteousness because of his righteous character. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 130 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 2:15-28. The series is called “Unshakeable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Our sinful society (vv. 15-17) 
• The schism in the church (vv. 18-28) 

Key takeaways: 

• In light of eternity, all the world has to offer is temporary at best and in rebellion against God at worst. Only a life motivated by obedience to God and his eternal values will survive the passing of the world and all its desires. 
• Those who love God must not love “the world,” for by John’s definition, the world is all that is in rebellion against God. 
• When John prohibits believers from loving the world, he means not participating in its ways and values. 
• The antichrists are those who have and teach a distorted understanding of Jesus Christ. 
• Theologically speaking, both the objective, external Word of God and the inward, effectual call of the Holy Spirit are needed for genuine spiritual rebirth.   
• There could be no antichrists until the Messiah had come and there was a Christ. That is why the appearance of Jesus marks the start of an era, “the last hour”. 
• Spiritual security cannot be found in the latest theological trends that move beyond the need for the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, Son of God. 

Quotable: 

• All human values, ethics, and morality that are defined by fallen people are fatally flawed because they are built on false premises about reality. 

Application: 

• Even if not an atheist at the philosophical level, anyone who rejects God’s rule of life in some aspect of their behavior is to that extent an atheist in practice. 
• Not everything one might hear about Jesus Christ is true, in the first century or in ours. 
• Spiritual security cannot be found in the latest theological trends that move beyond the need for the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, Son of God. 
• Not unlike the ancient world in which John wrote, our world today is also full of voices claiming spiritual truth as a way to know God. 
• The idea of truth by majority opinion leads to the idea that all personal opinions about God are of equal value. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 129 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we continue our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 2:1-14. The series is called “Unshakeable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• Jesus is the forgiver of sins (vv. 1-2) 
• We must obey God (vv. 3-6) 
• We must love God and God’s people (vv. 7-11) 
• John addresses the groups (vv. 12-14) 

Key takeaways: 

• If one could truly be sinless on one’s own, God would be lying in revealing Jesus as the only way to receive eternal life and to have fellowship with God. 
• Jesus Christ is our advocate.  He speaks to God on our behalf.  Jesus is able to be our advocate and to forgive sin because he himself became the sacrifice for sin. 
• God in Christ has loved us by redeeming us from sin, and that love has a transformative goal in the life of the believer, that they should love God, both the Father and the Son, which is expressed by love for others. 
• You can’t have hate and love in your heart at the same time. It’s impossible. 
• We are never more like Jesus than when we love like Jesus loved. 
• The secret of spiritual growth and strength is knowledge and practice of the Word of God. 

Quotable: 

• Character brings about conduct. People do what they do because they are what they are. 

Application: 

• Christians are caught between a rock and a hard place. We cannot reach sinless perfection in this life, yet we are commanded not to sin. The point is our goal should be to live day by day without committing sin in thought, word, or deed. 
• One of the ways you know you are a Christian is if you desire to obey God. If you have no interest in doing what God says, if God’s principles and commandments are of little importance to you, that should be a red flag that you may not be a Christian. Assurance of your salvation is unattainable without obedience to God’s commands. 
• When you live the Christian life, your outward conduct should flow from an attitude that characterizes your inner motivation. It is possible to obey and yet do it from an improper motivation in your heart. 
• What is the connection between love and obedience to God’s commands? If you love God, you should be able to love your neighbor. If you love your neighbor, you won’t steal from your neighbor or covet his house or commit adultery with his wife or bear false witness against him. If you love your neighbor, all of the other commandments fall into place. If you really love your neighbor, then you’re not going to violate any of the other commandments that have to do with your relationship with fellow human beings. That’s why Jesus said these are the two greatest commandments and why all of the commandments hang on these two: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

Facebook:   

https://www.facebook.com/SBCKleinCampus (Klein Campus) 

https://www.facebook.com/SpringBaptist (Spring Campus) 

Need us to pray for you?  Submit your prayer request to https://springbaptist.org/prayer/ 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider. 

Welcome to episode 128 of Grasp the Bible.  In this episode, we begin our study in the Book of 1 John, covering chapter 1. The series is called “Unshakeable.”  Today, we will cover: 

• The prologue to the letter (vv. 1-4) 
• Walk in the light (vv. 5-10) 

Key takeaways: 

• God’s revelation of himself in Jesus and continues by the authoritative testimony of the apostles and others to that revelation.  It is Jesus, and not a system of thought, who is the essential core of the Christian proclamation. 
• Many professional religionists have a system today. But a system is not life, nor does it transform a life. A system in and of itself is nothing. What Christianity has and the others do not have is life, in fact, the life of Jesus himself, the one who is the creator and sustainer of all life and who as the life is also the light of men (John 1:4). It is Christ, then, who is proclaimed in Christianity. 
• Fellowship with the Father and His Son, then, is essentially the same thing as having eternal life. 
• To remove oneself from God’s presence through sin is of necessity to remove oneself from the source of life, and therefore, death is the only place to go. 
• The truth cannot be in those who deny their sin, because by definition a Christian is one who lives by the truth that Jesus died to cleanse their sin. 
• Because of God’s character and His faithfulness to His promises that Christ fulfilled, cleansing from confessed sin is assured. 

Quotable: 

• If you want to know if a religious movement is Christian or a cult, ask them who Jesus is. 

Application: 

• As a Christian, what do you do when you sin? What should you do when you sin? Sometimes, even for Christians, sin is something we do and then deny. We love to rationalize it, and we love to refine it. Sometimes we just don’t take seriously the reality and consequences of our sin.  

We claim closeness with God but then defy His will and live contrary to His character! Even for Christians, sometimes the three hardest words to say when they ought to be said and like they ought to be said are “I have sinned.”  But when we utter those words in sincerity, God’s response is always “You are forgiven.” 

• if God is light, then God Himself by virtue of His being and character defines the moral standard of human life. 
• The test of truth is not belief—though that is not excluded—but action, deeds, and conduct. 
• Only when believers are walking in the light can we have fellowship with God, a fellowship that is embodied as fellowship with one another.  Our vertical relationship determines our horizontal relationships. 
• People don’t need just more good ethical instruction; rather, they need purification from all that separates them from the presence and purposes of God. Christ’s atonement for sin achieves a reconciliation with God that restores fellowship. 
• For any who think, for whatever reason, that they have not sinned, John holds the strongest accusation. Rather than being faithful Christians, they are in fact making God a liar because God says we have sinned, and he sent His Son into the world to atone for the very sin that it has become so popular to deny. 

Connect with us: 

Web site:  https://springbaptist.org 

If you haven’t already done so, please leave us a rating and review in your podcast provider.