Scripture Text: Ephesians 2:11-22

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

David Brooks, How to Know a Person

People need social skills. We talk about the importance of “relationships,” “community,” “friendship,” “social connection,” but these words are too abstract. The real act of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete social actions well: disagreeing without poisoning the relationship; revealing vulnerability at the appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to end a conversation gracefully; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.

Tim Keller, Prodigal God

Christians commonly say they want a relationship with Jesus, that they want to “get to know Jesus better.” You will never be able to do that by yourself. You must be deeply involved in the church, in Christian community, with strong relationships of love and accountability. Only if you are part of a community of believers seeking to resemble, serve, and love Jesus will you ever get to know him and grow into his likeness.

N.T. Wright, Ephesians for Everyone

For Christians a church building is not a ‘Temple’ in the strict sense. It is the people themselves who are the ‘place’ where God is now deciding to live. One might almost say that God himself has, in a sense, become a stranger and asylum-seeker within his own world, the more so since, as the early Christians knew, the Jerusalem Temple itself had been solemnly condemned by Jesus. The living God was now seeking to make his home in the hearts and lives, and particularly the communities, that had declared their loyalty to Jesus, and were determined to live by the gospel.

Application Questions

1. Why do you think it’s so difficult to experience unity in our culture today?

2. What can it mean that Christ makes us into a new community, the dwelling place of God himself?

3. Consider the David Brooks quote from his work How to Know a Person. Among the social skills listed, what stands out for your growth as an “illuminator”?

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Helpful Links:

Click here to sign up for a discipleship group today!

Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren

Scripture Text: Colossians 3:1-17

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Robert M Thune and Will Walker, The Gospel-Centered Life

Every good story has a hero. And the hero of the Gospel Story is Jesus. Humanity needs a Savior, a Redeemer, a Deliverer to free us from the bondage and condemnation of sin and to restore the world to its original good. This Rescuer must be truly human in order to pay the debt we owe to God. But he can’t be merely human because he must conquer sin. We need a substitute-one who can live the life of obedience we’ve failed to live, and who can stand in our place to bear the punishment we deserve for our disobedience and sin. This is why God sent Jesus into the world to be our substitute.

Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees

There is a good reason for this ideal appearance: stability. The large crowns of mature trees are exposed to turbulent winds, torrential rains, and heavy loads of snow. The tree must cushion the impact of these forces, which travel down the trunk to the roots. The roots must hold out under the onslaught so that the tree doesn’t topple over. If there is a weak spot anywhere in the tree, it will crack. In the worst-case scenario, the trunk breaks off completely and the whole crown tumbles down. Evenly formed trees absorb the shock of buffeting forces, using their shape to direct and divide these forces throughout their structure.

N.T. Wright, Colossians for Everyone

Learning to think, rather than merely going with the flow of the world on the one hand, or blindly obeying what look like stringent regulations on the other, is part of the key to it all. One aspect of Christian maturity, and certainly one of the road signs on the surprising route to Christian holiness, is that the mind must grasp the truth: ‘you died, and your life has been hidden with the king, in God!’ Once the mind has grasped it, the heart and will may start to come on board. And once that happens the way lies open to joyful Christian holiness.

Application Questions

1. How does who/what we love shape who we become?

2. In what particular ways does Colossians 3:1-17 reveal the uniqueness of the gospel compared to other approaches to personal change and transformation?

3. What earthly patterns or behaviors need to be put to death in your life, and how might a shift in your spiritual rhythms lead to lasting transformation?

The Oaks Parish Podcast

Bryan Buck & Martha Van Houten

Recommendations for Further Reading:

• The Prodigal God by Tim Kell
• Deeper by Dane Ortlund

Scripture Text: John 15:1-17

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

T.S. Elliot, “Little Gidding”, Four Quartets

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Tim Keller, Prodigal God

The prerequisite for receiving the grace of God is to know you need it.

Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly

He astounds and sustains us with his endless kindness. Only as we walk ever deeper into this tender kindness can we live the Christian life the New Testament calls us to. Only as we drink down the kindness of the heart of Christ will we leave in our wake, everywhere we go, the aroma of heaven, and die one day having startled the world with glimpses of a divine kindness too great to be boxed in by what we deserve.

D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John

Jesus insists that his own obedience to the Father is the ground of his joy; and he promises that those who obey him will share the same joy–indeed, that his very purpose in laying down such demands is that their joy may be complete (cf. 1 Jn. 1:4). What is presupposed is that human joy in a fallen world will at best be ephemeral, shallow, incomplete, until human existence is overtaken by an experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus, the love for which we were created, a mutual love that issues in obedience without reserve. The Son does not give his disciples his joy as a discrete package; he shares his joy insofar as they share his obedience, the obedience that willingly faces death to self-interest (12:24–26).

Application Questions

1. In what ways does the anatomy of a tree illustrate the gospel of grace available to us in Christ? Consider the roots, branches, and fruit in your reflection.

2. Grace is the paradoxical means by which God produces fruit in our lives. As you reflect on your heart, what attitudes, habits, or distractions might God be calling you to prune so that the fruit of His grace can flourish?

3. As we embark on a new ministry year, what intentional step can you take to deepen your relationship with Jesus and experience His grace more fully?

Scripture Text: 1 Samuel 30

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Roger Ellsworth, The Shepherd King: Learning from the Life of David To strengthen ourselves in God means we remind ourselves of what Scripture says about God and his promises, and we bring those truths to bear on the situation. Every trial causes opposing voices to ring in the ears of the child of God. One is the voice of our circumstances, telling us that our situation is hopeless. The other is the voice of faith, telling us that our God is sufficient for the trial.

Ralph David, 1 Samuel Here is a sobering and disturbing picture for God’s people. Are there not times when you think it cannot get any worse? And 1 Samuel 30 says, Yes, it can. There are times when you conclude that your present trouble is the last straw; you simply cannot take any more. Then comes Ziklag, the last straw after the last straw.

John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom When you send love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer. Prayer is the act and presence of sending this light from the bountifulness of your love to other people to heal, free, and bless them.

Application Questions

1. How have you experienced “the last straw after the last straw”?

2. Why does the victory of Jesus lead to the restoration of life?

3. What’s one thing you can change about your habits in order to be strengthened in the Lord?

Scripture Text: Revelation 1:9-20

David Bast

Quotes for Reflection

G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine

The description of the Son of Man is full of Old Testament phrases, which we may track

down to their various sources. . . But to compile such a catalogue is to unweave the

rainbow. John uses his allusions . . . for their evocative and emotive power. . . His aim is

to set the echoes of memory and association ringing. . . John has seen the risen Christ,

clothed in all the attributes of deity, and he wishes to call forth from his readers the same

response of overwhelming and annihilating wonder which he experienced in his

prophetic trance.

James Denney, Studies in Theology

There is not in the New Testament from beginning to end, in the record of the original

and genuine Christian life, a single word of despondency or gloom. It is the most

buoyant, exhilarating and joyful book in the world. The men who write it have indeed all

that is hard and painful in the world to encounter; but they are of good courage, because

Christ has overcome the world, and when the hour of conflict comes they descend

crowned into the arena. All this is due to their faith in Christ’s exaltation, and in his

constant presence with them in the omnipotence of his grace.

Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation

Revelation . . . reminds us that the church’s witness to the world is authentic only as

primarily a witness to truth – to the one true God and the truth of his righteousness and

grace. In western societies today this witness to the truth . . . faces a relativistic despair of

the possibility of truth and, even more, a consumerist neglect of the relevance of truth. . .

Revelation . . . shows the power of a theocentric vison to confront oppression, injustice

and inhumanity. In the end it is only a purified vision of the transcendence of God that

can effectively resist the human tendency to idolatry. . . The worship of the true God is

the power of resistance to the deification of military and political power and economic

prosperity. In the modern age we may add that it is what can prevent movements of

resistance to injustice and oppression from dangerously absolutizing themselves.

Scripture Text: 1 Samuel 28:3-25

Andy Tobin

Paul Miller, A Praying Life

But unlike these other kinds of experts, power in prayer comes from being in touch with your weakness. To teach us how to pray, Jesus told stories of weak people who knew they couldn’t do life on their own. The persistent widow and the friend at midnight get access, not because they are strong but because they are desperate. Learned desperation is at the heart of a praying life.

John of Landsberg, A Letter from Jesus Christ

I know those moods when you sit there utterly alone, pining, eaten up with unhappiness, in a pure state of grief. You don’t move towards me but desperately imagine that everything you have ever done has been utterly lost and forgotten. This near-despair and self-pity are actually a form of pride. What you think was a state of absolute security from which you’ve fallen was really trusting too much in your own strength and ability. Profound depression and perplexity of mind often follow on a loss of hope, when what really ails you is that things simply haven’t happened as you expected and wanted. In fact, I don’t want you to rely on your own strength and abilities and plans, but to distrust them and to distrust yourself, and to trust me and no one and nothing else. As long as you rely entirely on yourself, you are bound to come to grief. You still have a most important lesson to learn: your own strength will no more help you to stand upright than propping yourself on a broken reed. You must not despair of me. You may hope and trust in me absolutely. My mercy is infinite.

Eugene H. Peterson, Run with the Horses

It is, of course, far easier to languish in despair than to live in hope, for when we live in despair we don't have to do anything or risk anything. We can live lazily and shiftlessly with an untarnished reputation for practicality, current with the way things appear. It is fashionable to espouse the latest cynicism. If we live in hope, we go against the stream.

Application Questions

1. Are there any circumstances in life that make you feel desperate? How might you direct your desperation toward God?
2. How is God calling you to seek him wholeheartedly?
3. Is there any part of God’s will for your life that you have not yet embraced?

Sermon Text: 1 Samuel 27:1-12; 28:1-2

Bryan Buck

Quotes for Reflection

Tim Chester, 1 Samuel for You The state of our hearts is often shaped by what we say to our hearts.

A.W. Pink, The Life of David Alas, when unbelief dominates us, God is forgotten, and deliverance, our own ease, obsess the mind; and hence it is that—unless divine grace interpose—we seek relief in the wrong quarter and by unspiritual means.

Richard D. Phillips, 1 Samuel It is true—no, it is a glorious truth—that the heroes of the Bible, excepting Jesus Christ, are all scoundrels and criminals, breakers of God’s law and sinners to the core. This shows the Bible’s honesty; no other religious tome dares to display the human weakness and sins of its heroes the way the Bible does, because the Bible is not trusting in man but in God.

Application Questions

1. David was concerned not only for himself but also for the welfare of family, friends, and others entrusted to him. How does this resonate with your own experience?

2. In what way might you be tempted to take matters into your own hands right now? What has resulted from that decision in the past, and what does it look like to trust God instead?

3. How do you need to preach the gospel to yourself this week?