Outline: The master plan – “I will build My Church”; The material used – Living stones – 1 Pet 2:4-5; The method adopted – Foolishness of preaching – 1 Cor 1:23-25; The meticulous preparation of every stone; Purpose of the structure – for a dwelling place of God – Eph 2:19-22

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No outline is available for this sermon.

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Outline: The reality of a new relationship to sin; The reality of a new citizenship; Assured reality of final victory

The post Colossians 3:1-4: Our fight against sin: 3 truths that will help us appeared first on Covenant Grace Baptist Church.

Introduction: People love Christmas for different reasons. For many it is all about having that long holiday and going to far off places. For others it is all about family traditions and getting together after another year of busy separation. For many it is all about the shopping and the gifts. For Christians Christmas is all about the birth of Jesus Christ. But not just about baby Jesus. After the gospels we have no further mention of the nativity scene. We are not concerned so much with Jesus as a baby but that He was born in order to live and die for us. This is the central thing about the birth of Christ that we focus on, that He was born to die. This focus is found in many places let me direct your attention to Hebrews 2:14-15 which tells us why Jesus was born. Hebrews 2:14-15, ‘Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.’ We are breaking into a thought midway here so let me illuminate the broader context before we allow it to speak the importance of why Jesus was born. The book of Hebrews was written to a group of Jewish Christians who were facing persecution and the temptation to return to Judaism under the pressure. The book of Hebrews is written to issue strong warnings and demonstrate the supremacy of Christ over the OT. If the law was given by angels Christ was greater than the angels, if the law had sacrifices, Christ’s offering of His life for sin was superior, if the...

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Introduction: There are many different views on the book of Revelation but one that has a lot of sway in Pentecostal churches is the seven age theory. A teacher of this view is William Marion Branham, a Pentecostal healer who claimed that he had the gift of knowledge and so could name the illness of a person, increase their faith and then they would be healed. Branham eventually lost the plot and gave birth to the Oneness Pentecostal church/ the Jesus only movement. It is presently doing well in places like Iran. He taught that God was one person who took on three offices, that the Father was the same person as the Son but in a different office or function, veritably denying the Trinity. He claimed that only a prophet could properly interpret the book of Revelation denying that one needed to interpret Scripture with Scripture. This is a methodological difference because we have stressed that the OT is the dictionary for Revelation. Branham claimed that God had revealed the key to interpreting the book of Revelation to him. That the 7 churches of Asia Minor in fact represent 7 church ages, the present age being the age of Laodicea. And he interpreted the seven stars of the seven churches to be the apostle of each age that was able to capture the book of Acts for their time. And so he divided history up in the following way. 53-170 was the age of Ephesus with Paul as the star/angel. 170-312 was the age of Smyrna with Irenaeus as the messenger. 312-606 was the age of Pergamum and Martin was the star. 606-1520 was the age of Thyatira and Colomba was the man. 1520-1750 was the age of Sardis and Luther was the star. 1750-1906 was the age of...

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Introduction: It is claimed that Christianity is the biggest religion in the world with over 1 billion adherents, only just beating Islam. I think that there is a lot less than that. People included in those statistics are those who are baptised as infants in any Christian church including the Roman Catholic and it includes all the cults who call themselves Christian. Not to mention that cultural Christians and those who may have made some sort of confession of faith as a child and have never gone on to live the Christian life. How many say that they are Christians but give no proof of life? We have been looking at what Paul seeks to teach us about faith. We have seen faith as a principle in contradistinction from law, we have seen that faith has a specific intellectual content is not an aimless dependence, and we have seen that faith is from the heart and includes humility, repentance and trust. Today as we continue with Romans 10:10 we will see that faith evidences itself. Today we want to explore the Spirit wrought nature of faith, and the fact that faith does indeed manifest itself in proof of life. We have looked at heart faith now we turn to the second part of Romans 10 to explore what Paul means by confessing with the mouth. Romans 10:10, ‘For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.’ Let me begin with two clarifying statements about what Paul does not mean. Given the fact that true faith is a heart faith that includes, humility, contrition, repentance and trust in Christ the confession of faith that Paul is speaking about here is not a minimalistic formula or a magic way of making Christians through...

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Introduction: What is the church? If we ask the world, the church is an antiquated organization that has caused more harm than good, and who they want to retask as a charity arm to benefit people’s physical needs. The church is despised, shrinking, weak, polluted, compromised, abused, persecuted, divided, at least that is how it appears outwardly to the casual observer. The whole point of the book of Revelation is to show the first century Christians that things are not as they appear. Rome looks unbeatable and the church looks like it is on the soon-to-be-extinct list. We have spoken about how God is seeking to encourage His church and give them true insights into how things really stand and how they will turn out. Christ has revealed Himself as the continuing prophet, priest and king who acts and judges on behalf of His church. Now we want to focus in on what God wants the church to think about themselves. We will go over the same ground this time paying special attention to what God is showing the church about themselves and its relevance for life. Since John is using the 7 churches as a representative number for the whole church, what we will see here applies not only in the first century but for ourselves as well. Two things stand out that we want to explore, firstly the seven golden lampstands, and secondly, the seven stars.

The post Revelation 1:10-20: The First Vision: Part Two appeared first on Covenant Grace Baptist Church.

Introduction: One of the greatest spiritual battles facing the Western Christian is the fight to stop being a backslider in heart. In other parts of the world like Northern Iraq where ISIS is beheading children, the great struggle is for faithfulness and patience in the face of aggressive persecution. In the West we have the opposite problem; we struggle against ease, pleasure, comfort, excess and the other conveniences of modern life. And so we must conclude that one of our greatest dangers is the innocuous unseen danger, not of cancer, but backsliding. As Christmas approaches and we are inundated with the opportunity to indulge I feel it important to raise a cry of alarm. The bible gives us warnings about the corrupting effect of good times and easy times. When Israel was confronted by Moses in Deuteronomy 32, he speaks about God’s blessings causing fatness and forgetfulness, 13-16, ‘He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats, with the very finest of the wheat—and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape. “But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger.’ Hosea 13:6 says the same thing, ‘but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me.’ Soft pleasures harden the heart. Like sharks underneath the surface of...

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Introduction: The persecuted and minority church of Asia needed to be reminded of who Jesus is and who they are. John has reminded them of the normal Christian life which is a paradox of suffering and triumph, that we like Christ in His incarnation are a mix of glory and humility, of strength in weakness; as goes the King so goes the kingdom, as goes the head so goes the body. Being in the minority, being the underdog, being killed and pushed down and targeted for extermination the church was in real need of encouragement and there is no better encouragement than to remember who our God is. John in the verses before us reveals the first vision. It is a picture of two realities, who He is and who we are in relation to Him. In v10 we see that John is in the Spirit. This is not the daily being the Spirit that Christian are called to, (Eph. 5:18), but rather this is an ecstatic moment of prophetic revelation. We must not cheapen John’s revelatory experience by trying to equate it with our own spiritual experiences. We see that he makes reference to the fact that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. Consensus is that this is the first day of the week, Sunday. This is an important designation and lends weight to the teaching that Sunday was seen by Christians as the intended day of worship. The description ‘Lord’s’ is not a common one. We see it attached to the Lord’s table and the Lord’s supper but nothing trivial or unimportant. Given the fact that Jesus rose on a Sunday, made His second appearance a week later on a Sunday, poured out the Spirit on a Sunday, and that the churches met on a...

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Introduction: As a young Christian my friend and I were always willing to learn from what we considered to be any zealous, consistent and effective Christian. One early example was a man called Don Leonard, we called him Oom Don. He was a converted actor and alcoholic who was turned into a raging evangelist. He was the boldest man I have ever met. He would drive a car around that said, ‘TURN OR BURN’, and ‘Hell has no fire escape.’ He would walk through the streets of Randburg preaching loudly in the shopping malls and squares. However, he was not very theologically accurate. One day he stood to give a testimony. He told us that he pulled up to a traffic light and his window was open, another car with an open window pulled alongside, he shouted to the man in the car, ‘Say Jesus is Lord.’ The man did so, the traffic light turned green, and Oom Don’s assessment was, ‘saved.’ Confusion about the true nature of saving faith is pervasive today. Although the example I have shared with you is an extreme one it is not very different from the modern trend to rush someone forward in an altar call or to rush someone through sinner’s prayer not recognizing the nature of true faith. How many people go to church because they have an urgent need. Many go to church but not for the right reasons. They do not go to church thinking, I am a sinner under the judgement of God and I need a saviour to do for me what I cannot do for myself. No, most people go to church because they are depressed, they are in a crisis, they have suffered a humiliating blow in a failed relationship or the loss of a successful...

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