Pastor Joe Sugrue - Grace and Truth Podcast

Thursday September 24, 2020

"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the Divine." [Ludwig van Beethoven]

He is referring to composing, but it is a truth concerning anything that is profitable to understand deeply, and nothing is more profitable than the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the mystery from long ages past revealed. We could be content with living as we ought, somewhat blindly, or we can seek God with all our heart and find the secret, the mystery of that life. Certainly, it is better to blindly live as you ought than not, if you are searching and groping in your relationship with God for the understanding of that mystery. It may be worse for someone to just go through the motions of what is perceived as the Christian life and do so...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2306

Wednesday September 23, 2020

The NT is written in Koine Greek or common Greek of the first century. There are excellent English translations, some better than others, but even with the best of these, it is important to get a deeper meaning and nuance by looking at the original Greek text. And in case you did not know, no one possesses the originals, but so many copies of them have been discovered over the centuries that we can compare them all, finding almost all textual errors that inevitably come from copying, resulting in a copy of the original text that is almost without variants, and where we do still find variants so far unresolved, none of them (words or passages) affect any doctrine.

Eph 4:1-3

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2305

Tuesday September 22, 2020

Before we get into some exegesis on this passage, let's be reminded that the truths or doctrines of Eph 1-3 that are to give us each peace that protects our souls, making the unity of the body of Christ possible.

Love and peace (headliners of the fruit of the Spirit) are the bond of unity.

There is one Spirit who baptizes all believers into Christ Jesus, which fact cannot be affected by anything human.

By the Holy Spirit we are all made a part of one body with Christ as its head and that forever, which is what Paul will allude to in his next sentence.

Eph 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2304

Sunday September 20,2020

Eph 4:1-2

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love,

Love is the final quality, which embraces the preceding four: humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance.

Love is the crown and sum of all virtues. Paul's extended definition of love in 1Co 13 includes all the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5, which lists love first. These are the five foundation stones of Christian unity. If they are absent, then no structure can create unity.

No unity is pleasing to God that is not the child of charity (love)....

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2303

Thursday September 17, 2020

Patience, makrothumia, is a fruit of the Spirit, Gal 5:22.

The partner of patience is forbearance. It is a mutual tolerance without which no group of human beings can live together in peace.

We saw last time that God is extremely patient with all the world in order to give them time for repentance and faith. The same word is to describe how we are with one another in the body of Christ, and of course with the unsaved, since we are to be imitators of our Father in love.

Forbearance - anecho (ana = up + echo = to have or to hold) = literally "to hold up," means to bear with, endure, tolerate.

When the disciples could not heal the demon possessed boy who was mute, Jesus...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2302

Wednesday September 16, 2020

There is only way we will know for sure that humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, and love will make for peace. We have to diligently be and do them, knowing the HS will accomplish it.

Malachi prophesied about 100 years after Judah returned from her Babylonian exile. The Temple was rebuilt and the hope was that Israel would learn from her error and discipline and finally be the nation that God willed. They were not. The exile taught them nothing. They returned to unfaithfulness.

Through Malachi, God makes various claims to which they respond and God counters. For example, He says that He loved them, and they say how? God responds that He loved and chose Jacob and rejected...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2301

Tuesday September 15, 2020

Everything in Eph 1-3:13 was the background. Blessed, elected, predestined, graced out, redeemed, forgiven, wisdom, insight (understanding the mystery of His will), possessing an inheritance, seeing His glory, sealed by the HS, the fulness of Christ, made alive together with Him, risen together with Him, seated together with Him, made for good works, full access by the HS, of God's household, new men, established in peace, enlightened by the mystery of Christ, knowing the unfathomable riches of Christ, and bold access to the throne of God.

For three chapters Paul has been unfolding for his readers the eternal purpose of God. Through Jesus Christ, the mystery unfolded - He died for sinners and was raised from the dead and by Him God the Father created something new: a new humanity and a new society for them. Paul sees the...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2300

Sunday September 13, 2020

We have concluded the first half of the letter. The first half is about the truth of the divine life in man; the second half turns to the way of that life under the commands. So far in the letter there has been only one imperative, but now we will find many.

As in other letters from Paul, the doctrine expounded upon in the earlier part is to be worked out according to practical guidance given in the later part, the transition from the one to the other being marked by the adverb "therefore."

As members of the new humanity, the readers have already been reminded of the purpose to which God has called them: the hope of their calling (1:18) requires lives which are in keeping with their high destiny. Paul, as "the prisoner of the Lord," appeals to them to conduct themselves...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2299

Title: Ephesians overview - 3:20-21, The Doxology.

Eph 3:16-19

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.

Being filled by God is to be our reality. In this prayer we see that being filled to the fullness of God is conditioned on the riches of God's glory strengthening us with power through the Holy Spirit within; knowing and living in the life of Christ so that the Christ would dwell at home in our hearts; being rooted and ground in love, with all...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2298

[neTitle: Ephesians overview - 3:14-19, The character of being filled to the fullness of God.

Eph 3:16-19

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.

The genitive, the fulness of God, is either to be understood as objective or subjective. If objective, then God's fullness is the abundance of grace which He bestows. If it is subjective, it is the fullness which fills God Himself, in other words His perfect attributes. Naturally,...

for full notes: https://www.cgtruth.org/index.php?proc=msg&sf=vw&tid=2297