John 3:16-21

Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, goes to meet Jesus under the cover of darkness. He recognizes that there is something special about this man that has come and wants to know why Jesus has come. Yet when Jesus tells him he has not come for earthly deliverance from Rome, but eternal deliverance from sin, Nicodemus struggles to understand. John then writes one of the most famous passages in the Bible John 3:16-21 explaining Jesus as the Light of the world who shines through the darkness that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.

This sermon contains a clip from Angel Studios' The Chosen web and TV series. Watch The Chosen on their free app: https://thechosen.tv/app

Matthew 3:13-17

John sees Jesus as greater than himself, so in his view Jesus doesn’t need John’s water baptism, but John needs Jesus’ Holy Spirit and fire baptism. However, for Jesus, identifying with the penitent community was a vital piece of his role as the Messiah who submits.

Revelation 3:14-20

God blesses all of us in a number of different ways, but are we using his blessings to partner with Him in furthering his kingdom? We begin to compromise our Christianity when we choose to use our gifts/resources to further our kingdom or instead of God’s.

Ephesians 4:22-32

We live in privilege and in doing so we have learned to justify our self-righteousness. At some point we have to recognize the plank in our own eye just as the prodigal son's older brother does in order that we would forgive others in order that God would forgive us for our sins.

Philippians 4:7-8 tells us to think of things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. How do the music, movies, television, news, social media, etc that we consume measure up to these criteria?

Mark 7:14-23

It’s not just the world that values things contrary to God - our hearts do too. The challenge is being obedient to God’s calling on our lives against what the world and our hearts push us to do.

Hebrews 10:19-25

God created all of us to live in, and long for community. The church, the body of Christ, was created to be our primary source of community that would fill that longing in our lives. We find ourselves compromising our Christianity when we allow for other communities (work, athletics, etc) to take priority over the one that should anchor our faith. When we look at what Hebrews 10 says about persevering in faith, we are given a blueprint on avoiding compromising our community.

1 Kings 18:20-39

With our faith, with our politics, with our culture - in our self-centeredness we quickly lose sight of God and create our own idols that we chase and lust after instead of following God. We try to do both and in doing so we compromise our faith just as the prophets of Baal and people of Israel wavered between two opinions.

Exodus 24:15-18

Pastor Chuck Swoboda highlights incidents of the presence of God represented by fire: the burning bush, dedication of tabernacle and temple, pillar of fire, Pentecost, baptism of Holy Spirit and fire, etc. What does the fact that the presence of God is represented by fire tell us about Him?

Isaiah 26:3-4; Philippians 4:4-9

What is biblical peace? Shalom living is how life is meant to be. Our Scripture tells us that those who trust in God, whose minds are “stayed” on him, he will give perfect peace.