1 Timothy 2:11-3:13

Truth be told, this is not the first time I have addressed what the Bible says about the role of women in leadership, but it is the first time since I was called by the elders and congregation of Meadowbrooke to serve as your pastor.  To my knowledge, this is the third time in my 19 years serving as a teaching pastor that I addressed the role of women in ministry, and for the most part, what I believe the Bible says about women in ministry has not changed all that much; not because I am stuck in my ways, but because of the language and context of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as it relates to 1 Timothy 3:1-13. 

What I hope to do with the time that I have with you this morning is address four questions.  Just so you know, I do not plan on spending a whole lot of time answering the first three questions because I believe the fourth question is the most important question of the four:

What is the big deal with 1 Timothy 2:11-3:13 and why does it matter?

Why am I willing to address a controversial subject like the role of women in leadership roles in the church?

What are the three ways Christians have read and understood 1 Timothy 2:11-3:13?

What does the Bible really say about the role of women in ministry?

The big deal with 1 Timothy 2:11-3:13 really has to do with what the apostle Paul meant by what he wrote in verses 11-12, which states: “Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.  I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a many, rather, she is to remain quite.”

There are three views regarding the role of women in the church:

The Hierarchical view. This view teaches that women should only teach other women and children, but never men.  According to the hierarchical view, women cannot be elders, deacons, serve communion, teach men, lead worship, or speak in a church service.

The Egalitarian view. This view is the opposite of the hierarchical view and teaches that men and women are completely equal partners in every aspect of ministry.  According to this view, all ministries and offices in the church are open to all qualified persons regardless of gender.

The Complementarian view. This is the view that all church ministries are open to qualified men and women with the exception of the role of pastor-elder; qualified women can serve as deaconesses, teachers, worship leaders, full-time staff, and serve communion.

I said in the first sermon of this series that there are two ways to categorize the various teachings of the Bible.  There are “primary issues” (what I also label as “Gospel issues”).  A “primary issue” is something that is taught in the Bible that is so important that if proven false, it would call into question the legitimacy of Christian faith and the reliability of the Bible (i.e. the virgin birth, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus).  Primary issues are those doctrines that you must believe to remain orthodox in our faith. 

Everything that is not a “primary issue” is a “secondary issue.” Secondary issues are those things taught in the Bible that you believe to be true, but if shown that you are wrong, it will not wreck your faith.  When it comes to secondary issues, there is room for disagreement without the need for breaking fellowship over such issues because secondary issues are not primary issues.  While I believe that there is room for disagreement on secondary issues, I do not think that it is responsible or right to remain agnostic concerning such issues. 

Because the Bible addresses secondary issues, we must seek to understand the truth of God’s word concerning such issues and hold on to the clear teaching of God’s word on such things.  What the Bible teaches concerning women in church leadership is important, and I believe it is clear, but it is a secondary issue.  Now, in categorizing the role of women in church leadership as a secondary issue, I want you to understand that Paul’s instruction to Timothy on

Romans 8:18-30

Grief.  Why preach on this subject on Mother’s Day of all days?  For starters, women in childbearing age are more prone to depression than men, and according to PsychCentral, are twice as likely to battle depression than men.[1]  There are many factors for this that we do not have the time this morning to address, but besides the genetic, biochemical, and situational dynamics that factor into depression in mothers, mothers tend to find their sense of purpose in motherhood while most admit that the role of a mother is the most difficult and stressful things experienced.  So, although this is not a sermon on motherhood specifically, a sermon on grief could not be more appropriate for Mother’s Day.   

In this room is represented a host of hurts, disappointments, and lives that do not look at all what was envisioned.  In his book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Timothy Keller wrote in the introduction: “No matter what precautions we take, no matter how well we have put together a good life, no matter how hard we have worked to be healthy, wealthy, comfortable with friends and family, and successful with our career — something will inevitably ruin it.”[2]  We live in the kind of world were you will inevitably experience something that vandalizes something you have worked hard to protect and keep. 

On October 9, 2021 Cliff Abraham succumbed to complications due to COVID.  Cliff and his wife Bonnie hosted one of our Life Groups.  Cliff loved Jesus, his wife, and his children; his youngest child, Rachael was especially close to her father.  I preached on Romans 8 at Cliff’s memorial service held right here at Meadowbrooke Church.  Sometime ago Rachael asked if she could meet with me because she continued to struggle with overwhelming grief in the wake of her father’s death as she was trying to hold on to her faith.  Rachael suggested the inclusion of a sermon on grief in this sermon series and offered to share some of her story as well.  Towards the end of my sermon, I am going to have Rachael come up to the stage and join me to do just that. 

I would like to think of this sermon as the second part to the sermon I preached at Cliff’s memorial service.  My sermon then was on Romans 8:1-4, 28-39; at the time I did not feel the need to spend a whole lot of time on verse 18.  I do think that it is appropriate to do so today.

My hope for each of you this morning is that you are able to cling onto the kind of hope that sustained the apostle Paul and so many other Christ followers.  Think about this: When Paul was in prison, while not knowing what would come next, he wrote to a group of Christians in Philippi, “…for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:19–21).  In his last letter to Timothy, when an execution for Paul was immanent, he wrote: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6–8).

When you read any of the epistles the apostle Paul had written, it becomes glaringly obvious that he was holding onto something that made whatever hurt he experienced worth it.  This did not mean that Paul was some kind of super Christian or that he didn’t experience days that seemed too much to bear.  If you are wondering what kind of suffering Paul experienced in his lifetime, he was arrested numerous times and spent countless hours under house arrest and in prison cell

Romans 12:1-8

On March 26th, I preached a sermon titled, “Where are All the Dinosaurs?”  In that sermon, I tried to summarize the first six chapters of Genesis to show you how things went from bad to worse the moment Adam and Eve sinned and rebelled against God in the Garden when they ate the fruit God told them not to eat because of their belief and desire that if they did so, they would be like God (see Gen. 3:1-13).  The Apostle Paul wrote of Adam and Eve’s sin: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come”(Romans 5:12–14).

Over time, God increasingly revealed how he would fix the problem of the human heart.  In Isaiah 44:3, God promised his people: “I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.”  In Ezekiel 36:26-27 we are told how the pouring of God’s Spirit would affect his people: “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek. 36:26-27).  God would fulfill his promise to fix the sin problem of His people by giving them His Spirit to enable them to love God and obey his commandments.  This promise is known as the New Covenant.  The Old Covenant was the Law given to the Hebrew people through Moses, but the New Covenant would be given to both Jews and Gentiles through someone greater than Moses, namely Jesus Christ (see Deut. 18:15; Heb. 31-7).

For this reason, Jesus was born and lived a sin-free life, died for our sin-cursed selves, and then rose from the grave (1 Cor. 15:3).  Jesus said that the reason he had come into the world, was to, “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10) and to, “give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).  Before he willingly subjected himself to be crucified for our sins, he promised:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:15–20)

After Jesus died and then rose from the grave, he told his disciples what would happen when they received the Helper he had promised: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Act. 1:8).  What kind of power?  The kind of power that enables a person to love God, keep his commandments, follow Jesus, and engage God’s mission to redeem the nations.   

How Does the Holy Spirit Help?

The moment you believe in Jesus Christ, you are baptized by the Holy Spirit.  This is not a mystical event where you feel something strange, but it is a supernatural event where upon your belief in Jesus you experience the promise of the New Covenant where your heart is made to be able to love and obey God; this is also known as the circumcision of the heart.  The supernatural phenomenon that happens with the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that you are now able to respond to God in love and faith in a way you were unable to previously. 

The moment you believe in Jesus and then receive the Holy Spirit as the promised Helper, he then begins a work in your life k

Good morning, everyone, glad you are here. Welcome to those watching online. If you are watching, I hope you’ll come worship with us in person, because it’s always better in person. But either way, I’m excited to be speak to you today!

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Dan Nelson. My wife Melody and I have been at Meadowbrooke for 12 years. We have 3 daughters, 2 sons-in- law, and 2 grandsons. I was a pastor in another denomination for 21 years before we came to Meadowbrooke, and I was on staff for 5 1/2 of the 12 years we’ve been here. I’m semi-retired now and own a bookkeeping business. I serve on the Welcome Team and the finance team, and Keith invites me to preach a couple times a year.

Two weeks ago, Keith preached on hell and I’m sure, like me, you woke up that morning thinking, “Sweet!” because hell is, after all, a highly popular topic! This morning we’re going to look at another popular topic by asking the question, “Do we really need to talk about money in church?”

In my experience, the reason this is not a popular topic is because people are tired of their pastor trying to get them to give more money to the church. You’ve heard sermons like that, right? I have. I confess I have preached some as well, so I understand why a sermon on money is not a popular topic, and why so many pastors avoid talking about money in church.

But over the years, money became one of my favorite topics, because I am a satisfied customer when it comes to following the Bible’s instructions about money.

Will you please stand as we read the words of Jesus from Luke 16, starting with verse 10. They come at the conclusion of what we call the parable of the dishonest manager. The parable may not be familiar, but the closing words probably are, so familiar in fact that sometimes when we hear them – we don’t. My hope and my prayer is that we hear these words in a new way this morning, and that we find a place where we can put them into practice.

Luke 16:10-13

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Please sit. Let’s pray…

I’d like us to read the last slightly edited sentence out loud.

“I cannot serve God and money.”We try, don’t we? Or am I the only one? That’s why we need to talk about it.

When I started as a pastor over 30 years ago, I had a mentor who used a phrase that changed the way I thought and dealt with money in church.

He said, “Money talk is holy talk.” If this phrase is familiar, it may be because I’ve used it before. If we are going to be faithful to Scripture and allow it to speak into and guide our lives and shape our values and behavior, then we absolutely must talk about money in church.

Money talk is holy talk because the bible is full of money talk. A major theme of the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s pedal-to-the-metal pursuit of financial and material wealth.

Throughout much of the Old Testament is the idea that a person’s material wealth is directly connected with their obedience to God. If you obey God, he will give you financial blessings; if you disobey then probably not. The conversations we read in the book of Job clearly illustrate this. Job’s so- called friends were convinced that the reason Job lost all his material wealth in the course of about a day is because he did something wrong, so God “unblessed” him. Now if we read the beginning and the end of the book, we know that’s not true, but that’s what they thought.

Deuteronomy 8:18 tells us to, “remember the LORD your God, for it is he

Ephesians 6:10-20

When you think of spiritual warfare, what comes to mind?  Dr. Jerry Rankin once served as a missionary in Indonesia and recalls a time when he was asked by his Muslim Sudanese household helper and friend to visit her home to pray for her daughter who had become demon possessed.  Dr. Rankin and his wife agreed and upon entering the home, found their friend’s daughter tied to a bamboo bed with disheveled hair, torn clothes, and snarling like an animal.  When they walked into the room the girl glared at the missionary couple and said in clear, perfect English, “Jesus Christ is not God; Mohammed is the servant of the most high god.”[1] At first Dr. Rankin and his wife thought there was nothing weird about what the girl said since she and her family were Muslim… until they learned that the girl was uneducated and did not speak English. 

In a very real sense, the demonic world exists, and demonic possession and oppression happens still today.  Maybe when you think of spiritual warfare you think of what Dr. Rankin and his wife experienced in Indonesia in that little bamboo hut in a rural village.  The reality is the devil and the demons under his command do not need to possess a person to accomplish their goal(s), for the enemy is much more cunning.  Demons will use the most effective means they can employ to blind unbelievers and to hinder Christians.  In some cultures that are persuaded by the supernatural, demons will manifest themselves in more obvious ways than in cultures like ours which are more impressed with the intellect or the sciences.

Before we jump into Ephesians 6, consider what the apostle Peter wrote in his epistle to a group of churches suffering persecution: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:8–9).  The methods the devil uses to devour his prey are strategic, deceptive, and effective.  The means by which he devours is both external and internal in that he uses outside forces, as well as the weakness of our own flesh, with the intent to destroy. 

Who is the Devil and What are His Schemes?

Satan at one time was known as Lucifer.  He was the highest-ranking angel with the title of “Guardian Cherub” (Ezek. 28:14).  We are told very little of what went wrong in Lucifer, but we are given some idea in Isaiah 14, “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!  You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (vv. 12-14).

When he rebelled, we learn from Revelation 12:7-9, that he convinced one-third of the angels to help him sit on God’s throne by rebelling alongside him.  I am not sure how many one-third equaled out to, but currently there are millions of Angels who did not rebel against God, which means there are probably hundreds of thousands of demons.  Lucifer was not created evil, he chose to be evil; God knew what Lucifer would become, yet He created him anyway.  We are not told how long Lucifer existed as God’s “Guardian Cherub”; it could have been hundreds or thousands of our earth years that he served God before he fell.  However, the Bible does say that “He was guilty of sinning from the beginning” (1 John 3:8).

Lucifer is not just known as Satan, but he is known as the Accuser (Rev. 12:10), the Adversary (1 Peter 5:8), the Beast (Rev. 14:9-10), Beelzebub (Matt. 12:24), the Deceiver (Rev. 12:9), the Dragon (Rev. 12:9), the Enemy (Matt. 13:39), the Evil One (John 17:15), the Father of lies (John 8:44), the God of this age (2 Cor. 4:4), the Lawless One (2 Thess. 2:8-10)

Luke 16:19-31

C.S. Lewis said of the doctrine of hell something I myself also feel: “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason.”[1]  For some, if hell does exist, then it is only reserved for the really bad people.  Others believe hell will be a type of party where they will see some of their friends. 

Mark Twain reportedly said of hell: “Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company.”  The famous Playwright, Ben Jonson, said of hell, “There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.”  Jerry Lee Lewis said, “If I’m going to hell, I’m going there playing the piano.”  Oscar Wilde said, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”  John Milton said, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” 

There are all kinds of thoughts and opinions concerning hell but a better question is what did Jesus think about hell? There are three questions I think are worth our time considering this morning: Did Jesus believe in hell, what did he say about it, and why does it matter?  I think the best way to answer these three questions is to turn our attention to a parable Jesus told in Luke 16:19-31 because it highlights the way we typically live out our days and the little we think about what happens after death. 

Did Jesus Believe in Hell?

Jesus used parables as a teaching tool.  Parables are stories or depictions of earthly life that illustrates spiritual truth.  Not everything in parables, such as the characters in such stories are meant to be taken literally, but the truth the story conveys is to be taken literally.  For example, when Jesus told the story of person who sowed seed on four different types of soil, the point of his story was not the historical accuracy of the sower, but the way different people respond to the gospel in the same way different types of soil a seed is able to grow in (see Luke 8:4-15). 

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the point is not necessarily whether or not these men in Jesus’ story were actual historical figures.  There is a much more important point Jesus is making in his story, and that point is what you do with your life today has eternal consequences. 

Here is what we are told about the two men.  The rich man is never mentioned by name, but he, “was clothed in purple and fine linen” and “feasted sumptuously every day” (v. 19).  The poor man is not anonymous, but has a name unlike the rich man, and his name is Lazarus (not to be confused with Jesus’ friend in John 11).  Instead of the purple and fine linen that covered the rich man’s body, Lazarus was covered with sores while hungry and longing for whatever fell from the rich man’s table.  The other irony here is that while the rich man was oblivious to Lazarus’ suffering the dogs were more aware of Lazarus’ suffering than any other creature as they “licked his sores” (vv. 20-21).

At some point both men died.  Lazarus was carried to Abraham’s side while the rich man was buried.  The rich man received a burial while Lazarus’ body was most likely “dumped unceremoniously in an unmarked grave.”[2]  Lazarus was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side which was a Jewish metaphor for heaven, but the rich man found himself in Hades and in torment which is also known as hell.  We know that Abraham’s side in Jesus’ parable is heaven and the rich man’s torment is hell because of the other ways Jesus describes heaven and hell throughout the four Gospels (i.e. John 14:2; Luke 23:43; Matt. 5:22, 29-30; 7:13-14). 

Notice what Jesus says of the rich man while in torment.  He lifted his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side, which was the place of honor.  The rich man called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me…” (v. 24).  The rich man most likely assumed that because o

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

What is the cross to you?  Historically it was the most brutal and inhumane form of capital punishment invented by the Persians and perfected by the Romans.  An ancient Jewish historian called crucifixion, “the most wretched of deaths” (War VII, 202ff.) and rightly so, for the victim was hung naked to a cross fastened with nails in both his hands and feet.  This mode of death was a slow, extremely painful suffocation.  The nails not only pierced the hands and feet, but also pierced the median nerve, which would cause severe sciatic-like-pain through the entire body, which would only intensify every time the victim pushed his body up to get air into his/her lungs.  Eventually the person would become so fatigued that he/she could no longer thrust his body up, thus leading to a slow, agonizing suffocation.  Mostly males were crucified, but when a woman was nailed to a cross, she was nailed facing the cross because few wished to see a woman die in such a fashion.

It would take about three days for a person to die.  As if the physical suffering that came with crucifixion was not enough, often birds of prey would perch themselves on the cross of the dying victim to feast while they hung dying, yet still alive.  What was dropped, was left for the wild dogs to eat.  Typically, the body was left to hang on the cross, and then latter thrown into the city dump.  Did you know that the word “excruciating” literally means: “from the cross”?  The word we use to describe pain at its highest level is a word originally derived from the most horrible form of capital punishment humans have ever come up with.  This is why the word “cross” was a dirty and shameful word that was unwelcome at the dinner table. 

For many, the cross is little more than fashionable jewelry, for others it is a symbol of anti-Semitism, and for some it is of little concern.  The Bible says of the cross, that it, “is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians1:18).  Why and how is the story of Jesus’ death on history’s most horrific instrument of death the “power of God”? 

The Word of the Cross Has the Power to Save (vv. 18-20)

What is the word of the cross?  The word of the cross is the gospel that Paul preached to the Corinthians.  The word of the cross is that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (15:3-4).  The gospel is foolish to most people because its message turns the values of the world upside-down.  The message of the cross challenges the personal gratification the world tells you is your right, it devalues the pursuit of fame as something trivial rather than something to be treasured, and it shatters the perception of what power is. 

Think about the message of the cross for a moment.  For those of us who consider the gospel to be the power of God because we have experienced it as such, ours is a hope that sounds like it was torn right from the pages of mythology.  God got a young virgin girl pregnant by His Holy Spirit so that the child of her womb would be both a god and a man to defeat the forces of evil, fix all the ills of our world, then rule as a King on earth and the way that he would do this is to first allow His god/man child to die in the most painful and humiliating death possible.  No wonder the word of the cross sounds so foolish to most people.

Yet it is through the message of the cross concerning the historic facts that Jesus both died for our sins and rose for the forgiveness of sins, as outrageous as it may sound, that God is rescuing sin-cursed humans from His just wrath. Yet it is in verse 18 that we learn of only two types of people in the world: 1) Those who are perishing, and 2) those who are being saved.  Each type of person will respond to the Gospel in completely different ways.  Those who are perishing see the message of the cros

Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 22:39-46

I want to visit two places in Scripture this evening for reasons I believe will be clear once we read them together.  The first passage is most likely an early church hymn that Paul inserted in his letter to the Philippians as an illustration of what humility in its most ultimate and purest form looks like. Some know it as the Carmen Christi or more commonly understood as the “Hymn to Christ as God” which is found in Philippians 2:5-11. 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11)

Against the backdrop of what we read in Philippians, I want to read Luke 22:39-46 so that we can consider the glory of the cross and the significance of Good Friday.

And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:39–46)

In his book, The Cross He Bore, the late Frederick Leahy wrote of Christ’s experience in Gethsemane: “The account of Christ’s sorrows in Gethsemane is to be read with wonder and awe, not to be dissected or psychoanalyzed – nor indeed can it be.  In Gethsemane there was… ‘something transacted that brings us completely out of our depth, yet something that has such a distinct bearing on our redemption that we dare not pass it by.’”[1]  It is my hope tonight, that as we reflect upon Good Friday, that the determination of Jesus as the God-Man to set his face to the cross will fill you with wonder and awe.

Philippians 2:5-11 is considered to be one of the strongest statements on the deity of Jesus Christ in the Bible.  Books, theological dissertations, papers, and many a sermon have been dedicated to this section of holy scripture for generations and more will be dedicated to this passage for generations to come.  For purposes of time, I will not plumb the depths of this amazing passage, but I will try to do enough with this passage so that your heart might soar over what happened in Gethsemane. 

Jesus Humbled Himself

The purpose of Paul’s letter to the Philippians was to thank a group of Christians for their generosity. The place that Paul wrote his letter was either as one under house arrest or in a prison with a prospect that he may likely die as a prisoner, while remaining hopeful he would be set free: “…it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:20-21).  We are not sure if Philippians was one of the last letters Paul wrote or if he was eventually released, but you would not know that his circumstances were dire due to the overwhelming theme of joy throughout his letter. 

In continuing

John 17:1-5; Genesis 1:1-2; &

John 1:1-5, 14

On the Day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter delivered a sermon that marks the birth of the Church (see Acts 2:14-36).  The first 300 years of the Church’s existence, She experienced the worst of the Roman Empire as it sought to destroy through its laws and violence, which only served to grow it.  One of the early church fathers who lived in the middle of the worst of those years under the oppressive heel of the Roman Empire was Tertullian (A.D. 155-220) who wrote against various heresies and coined the Latin word, “trinitas” of which we get the word “Trinity.”  A sentence that Tertullian wrote regarding the suffering Christians experienced: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Understand that Tertullian did not invent the Trinity, but assigned a word to a reality already assumed throughout the Bible with an ever-increasing clarity that God is One, subsisting in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The word “trinitas” literally means “three-ness” or more simply, “three are one.”  

Under the reign of Emperor Constantine (A.D. 306-337) whose conversion to Christianity led to the legalization of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire, the Bishop of Alexandria (a man known as Alexander) could host a bible study without incident.  One of the pastors who attended the study was a man by the name of Arius.  Some think that the passage that was discussed that day was Proverbs 8:22-25, of which theologians and pastors before and after Arius understood the personification of wisdom to be a reference to Christ.  Arius also understood Proverbs 8 as a reference to Jesus.  In light of the language of Proverbs 8, Arius concluded that since the text states that God begat wisdom, therefore the Son was begotten before the rest of creation.  In other words, according to Arius, Jesus had a beginning point; “While God has always existed, the Son has not, which means there was a point at which God became a Father.”[1]  

Alexander, and those who had come before, contended that Jesus, as the Son, is a Son because he is from the Father from eternity, and that the word begotten is not a reference to a point in time that Jesus was created, but that he has always been eternally the Son of God.  But for Arius, he could not reconcile how God could be equally Father, Son, and Spirit, and at the same time remain one God as described in Deuteronomy 6:4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.”  For Arius, Jesus was not, nor could he be, co-eternal with the Father as equal with the Father as one God. What was alarming to men like Alexander was that Arius was essentially teaching that Jesus is not in a different category from the rest of creation, but simply the best and first of the Father’s creation.  Essentially, according to the teachings of Arius (aka Arianism), the Son of God is inferior to God the Father as a person and in his actions.[2]

Because Arius’ supporters were growing, and an ever-increasing division threatened to rupture the unity of the Church, emperor Constantine recruited theologians from the East and the West to represent the catholic (universal) Church.  In AD 325, church leaders and representatives from all over the empire gathered in Nicaea; of those who participated were Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, and others sympathetic to Arius’ teachings.  One such person who leaned towards the teachings of Arius was emperor Constantine (who was baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia).  The council did not side with Arianism and ruled that it was not only contrary to the teachings of Scripture, but also heresy.  Constantine honored the ruling of the counsel. Arius was then exiled, and all of his writings were ordered to be destroyed.  The council wrote a creed to guard the universal Church against Arianism known as the Nicene Creed that was to be confessed in churches everywhere: 

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all thin

Genesis 1-6

G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a storyteller.”  I want to tell you a story.  The story I want to tell you is one that many of you already know or have seen or read a version of it.  It is a story that is also our story; it is the story of Beginnings, and we find it in the first book of the Bible. 

Out of the imagination of the mind of God came forth a world brimming with life and worship.  On the first day God created the heavens and the earth; day and night.  On the second day He divided the heavens from the earth.  On the third day God created the land, sea, and vegetation.  On the fourth day He created the sun, moon, and stars.  On the fifth day, God created creatures great and small.  On the sixth day, God created land animals and concluded his creation with the apex of it with the creation of mankind.  And, on the seventh day… God rested. 

Out of the mind of God came all sorts of species of plants, trees, vegetables, and fruit.  Out of the mind of God came elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers, bears, and even the platypus.  Out of the mind of God came everything from the Photocorynus Spiniceps (the smallest known vertebrate fish measuring up to 6.2mm in length) to the great Antarctic Blue Whale (the largest ocean dweller weighing up to 400,000 pounds and can grow up to 98’ long), and God designed and created every other fish in between.  The crazy thing is that we are still discovering species both on the earth and in the sea.

Out of the imagination of God, He created human beings, and said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (v. 24).  Before I even get into what it means to be created in the image of God, consider how amazing the human body is!  When God created Adam and Eve, he created them with the same anatomy we have today; that means that God created humans with tongues consisting of about 8,000 tastebuds, with each tastebud containing dozens of cells that help you experience thousands of flavors.  He created you with a heart that never takes a break until the day you die.  God created you with a body of at least 2.5 million sweat pores, a liver that can regenerate itself, two lungs, two kidneys, with your small intestines measuring about 20 feet and your large intestine measuring about 5 feet. 

That’s not all you were created with!  As a final example of just how amazing your body is, Adam was created with not one, but two eyes with each having an estimated 2 million working parts, 256 traits that are specifically unique to each person (the finger print only has 40 unique traits), with more than 1 million nerves that connect the eye to the brain that make it possible for 80 percent of all the information you take in to be done so through your eyes.  If your eye was a camera, it would have 576 megapixels compared to the 48 megapixels the camera on my iPhone 14 has.   

Aside from the fact that Adam and Eve were created with amazing physical bodies, they, along with the rest of humanity, were created in a unique category within creation as the only species created in the image of God as the climax of all he had created saving the best of all that was made for last:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”  And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.  And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Gen. 1:27-30)

Part of wh