In Romans 12:1, Paul has an urgent plea. He desperately wanted the Christians reading this letter to understand something and do something that was extremely important. Paul pleads with Christians to do this urgent thing because of all God has done for us. What is that urgent thing? To offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices. Then, Paul tells us how we can do that.

Colossians 3:1-17. In our passage today on the theme of “Therefore”, Paul says three times, “Therefore”, and each time he has something more to say to Christians about how to live as a Christ follower. Paul gives us practical examples of qualities we need to put off in our lives and qualities we need to put on.

Have you ever had the same kind of experience where you worked hard at something and then it was a big fail? It can leave you feeling pretty upset, can’t it? Even spiritually, have you ever felt like your effort didn’t matter? Like you tried, but you don’t see progress? You don’t see the results you expected? Maybe others let you down. Maybe you wondered if any of this faith stuff even matters. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 15 and we’ll see what God has to say about our efforts to serve him and let’s see if it’s going to be worth it.

Matthew 6:19-34. Jesus gives us three choices we make and everyone makes these choices. We must choose our treasure, choose how we look at life, and choose our master. For those who choose to treasure the things of God, set their eyes on the things of God, and choose the good and perfect God as their master, they can therefore face life with faith instead of anxiety.

3 John. The apostle John wrote his third letter to a close friend and one of the main points, the main point we want to make this morning, is to “Imitate Good”. Verse 11 of 3 John simply says, “do not imitate evil but imitate good”. John makes it very clear: followers of Jesus are to imitate is that which is good, not evil. There are a lot of things to imitate in our culture, but the Bible says we’re to make sure the things we imitate are good. “Good” here means what is upright and acceptable to God. It’s not just whatever you say is “good”.

2 John. Love letters are less common today than they used to be. Today people would more likely text or direct message, but there is something nice about a written letter. 2 John is a unique kind of letter. The apostle John wrote to another congregation while he lived in Ephesus like he was writing to a woman he loved. In 2 John we find that John immediately speaks of “the truth”. John wrote in his first letter about following God’s truth and not being deceived and falling away from the truth. Truth is very important. You can’t know God without knowing his truth. You can’t be saved without learning of God’s truth. And you can’t maintain your salvation, as John has explained, without remaining faithful to God’s truth.

1 John 5:1-21. Like the last few words of wisdom you might give in a conversation with someone you care about, John closes his letter with essentially one main point: Hold on to your faith. John explains how Christians can know they have eternal life. He then reminds us we need to believe in Jesus as he is revealed by God in Scripture. And finally, John writes some things about holding on to our faith with a surprising ending.

William Chen visited us to share about his mission work with the Chinese Bible School and preached during worship on the subject of "Christian Giving". He showed us the nine different words in the New Testament Greek that are used for various forms of giving and how Christians share in the work of communicating the gospel and worshiping God in various forms of giving.

1 John 4:1-21. John is writing to Christians who have seen several fall away, believing in false doctrines, and he writes to urge them to remember the gospel they first heard, to be faithful to God, and to remember his great love. John gives us a litmus test for your spiritual condition. He says if you say you love God, the true test of that is if you love others. Loving others shows that God’s love has changed you.

1 John 3:11-24. John returns to the subject of love again and reminds his readers that they’ve heard that they’re supposed to love one another from the very first time they heard the gospel of Jesus, and he’ll prove how important loving one another is in this passage. Here’s one of the main points John makes: Loving one another proves we love Jesus.