Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: Acts 18:1-18a

Theme: Church on Fire

Thesis: Take intentional time to reflect on God’s goodness.

Notes:

These verses cover a 1500 mile trek taking time to reflect, renew and refresh will lead to greater fruitfulness and joy in ministry. Paul is a church planter and is heading to Antioch the first church that Paul planted. Aquila and Pricilla went with him, to set up a new branch of their tent making business to help support the missions.

Paul took a Nazarite vow, a common Jewish practice, to show his support for saving Jews.

People in the Bible who took Nazarite vows:

1. 1. Sampson
   2. Samuel
   3. John the Baptist

What do we see as far as Gods work in Paul’s life?

• Reflect on God’s goodness.
  • God gave him fruitful ministry.
    • Paul conducted regular Nazarite vows.
    • Paul was overflowing with thankfulness

Take intentional time to reflect on God’s goodness.

Every time we stop and thank God, we recalibrate our hearts and refocus on God’s plan.

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: Ephesians 5, 1 Timothy 3, 1 Corinthians 6

Theme:

Thesis: the church must glorify God by being clear, compelling, and compassionate on issues of sexuality and gender.

Notes:

How we walk in this world

• Walk in light
• Walk in love
• Walk in wisdom
• Walk in the Spirit

Why God created marriage

• Sanctification–holiness>happiness
• Illustration–marriage is a picture of the gospel
• Union–marriage is a covenant relationship between husband & wife–and God
• Procreation–

Union

• The marriage relationship is a covenant relationship
• There are times when affection won’t carry the marriage–but covenant will
• Union is both love and law
• God gave physical intimacy as a gift to deepen the bond of the covenant relationship
• Gods gifts enjoyed outside the parameters of Gods design will result in sin and sorrow

Procreation

• In one sense, God means procreation to be a means of multiplying and filling the earth

Why the church must speak clearly

• Salt and light is what we are
• It matters to God
• It is part of the creation mandate
• It is part of loving our neighbor
• It is a moral issue
• The church is a pillar and ground of the truth
• It’s a gospel issue

Live It Out!

1. We need to be clear
2. We need to be compelling
3. We need to be compassionate
4. We need to offer hope

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: Ephesians 5, Genesis 1

Theme: Why We Must Have A Biblical View of Family

Notes:

The Church must be:

1. Clear
2. Compelling
3. Compassionate

on the issues of sexuality and gender

God created the world with purpose, harmony, and order.

God uniquely made mankind in His image.

God’s commands for His creation provide basis for humans to flourish.

Why Did God Create Marriage?

1. Sanctification–God uses the spouses to help one another become more holy
2. Illustration–God uses the members of the marriage to picture God and the gospel
3. Procreation–not just producing physical children to fulfil the cultural mandate given in Genesis

Why not just ‘let the world be the world’?

We are called to be salt & light–neither of which are inert,
and neither of which have a null impact  where they reach.

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Preacher: Caleb Ogle

Texts:

• Genesis 3:8, God dwelled with man in the garden
• Leviticus 26:11, God dwelled with man in the tabernacle
• Numbers 35:34, God dwelled with man in the land of Israel
• 1 Kings 6:13
• Isaiah 57:15
• Ezekiel 37:27
• John 1:14, God dwelled with man as a man
  • “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
  • “dwelt” = “tabernacled”
• John 6:56-58
• Romans 8:10
• 1 Corinthians 6:19, God dwells with us internally as Spirit
• Galatians 2:20
• 1 John 4:13
• John 14:2, We will dwell with God eternally
• Revelation 21:3-4

Theme: God With Us

Notes:

God has always done whatever was necessary to dwell with His people–but are we dwelling with Him?

Idolatry isn’t always idolizing good things–it is often idolizing good gifts God has given.

When someone consistently responds to requests for time with “I’m busy”,
the message is abundantly clear what is important to them–and what is not.

Application: How to make a consistent devotional time of Bible study & prayer with God

1. Have a time–just like with budgeting, you usually do what you plan/budget to do
2. Have a place–laying in bed is not often a productive place for devotions
3. Have a plan–get a Bible reading plan, or a devotional book, or some structure to guide your study
4. Have a journal–Humans are the only creature that stores information outside their own bodies; writing down what God has been teaching you will help you learn, trust God, and remember answered prayers.

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text:

• 1 Timothy 3:16
• John 1:1-14

Theme: Christmas: Why It Matters

Thesis: Celebrate the beauty and wonder of the incarnation by understanding it doctrinally.

Notes:

Errors in understanding the incarnation of Christ either:

1. Deny His full godhood
   • Deny His eternality
   • Deny His full divinity
   • a being less than fully God is unworthy to make sacrifice for sins
2. Deny His full humanity
   • Deny He had a real human body
   • Deny He had a real human nature
   • a being less than fully human cannot stand in place of humans

Why Does It Matter?

1. Jesus identified with sinners in order to rescue them
   • Hebrews 2, “He himself shared in the same”
2. Jesus fulfilled the law as a human
   • Galatians 4, “Born of a woman, born under the law”
3. Jesus was our substitute
   • Hebrews 2, “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect…to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
   • Colossians 1, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds”
   • In the OT, animals (lesser creatures than man) were sacrificed to pay for sins–but the sacrifices were only temporary
   • In the NT, Christ’s sacrifice is better (and permanent) because He is a greater than man
   • 1 Peter 3, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit”
4. Jesus is our sympathetic High Priest
   • Hebrews 4, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
   • While Jesus had no sin, He felt all the effects of sin and brokenness in this world
5. Jesus is our model of true humanity

Live It Out!

1. Be thankful
2. Be different
3. Be comforted
4. Be hopeful

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: Acts 18:1-18a

Theme: 6 Things God Gives to Keep Us Going and Growing

Notes:

Six Things:

1. Faithfulness
2. Friends
3. Fellowship with Christ
4. Fruit
5. Favor

Fruit

• God gives us the privilege of serving others
• Service is a privilege–not just a duty
• Just as every member in a healthy human body is contributing to the good of the body, the same is true of a healthy church body
• Service is:
  • Hard work
  • Inconvenient
  • Humbling
  • Honoring to God
  • Loving your neighbor
• The majority of God’s harvest is brought in by everyday, unnamed servants
  • Example: 1 Samuel 25:14-17, the servant who informed Abigail

Favor, aka Grace

• God meets the needs of those in His service
  • Matt 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.”
• God divinely ordains what is best for His servants
  • Paul just happened to be dragged into court before Gallio, a man known to be a just judge who could not be bought

Live It Out!

1. Thank God for the privilege of serving Him and serving others
2. Thank God for the favor that supplies our physical and spiritual needs
3. Where do I start?
   1. Start serving and see what God does

Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Theme: Thanksgiving Faithfulness

Thesis: Maintaining gospel optimism in a pessimistic world

Notes:

Gospel optimism anticipates good–because it trusts in God and His goodness.

1. Rejoice always
2. Pray continually
3. Give thanks in everything

Live it Out!

1. Am I finding joy in God’s plan for me?
2. Am I praying for God’s work?
3. Am I thankful in what God is doing in your life right now?
4. Daily rehearse the truths of the gospel
5. Depend on prayer “not my will, but Thine”
6. Develop a heart of thankfulness and rejoicing

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Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: Acts 18:1-18a

Theme: Ministry can be difficult, draining, and discouraging–but the Lord gives us six things that keeps us going and growing

Notes:

Six Things:

1. Faithfulness
2. Friends
3. Fellowship with Christ

Four Things Christ Assures Us Of

1. He sustains our passion
2. He comforts us with His presence
3. He assures us of His protection
4. He reminds us of His saving purpose

Live It Out!

1. Seek to know Christ better every day
2. Seek to be changed by Him every day

God desires us to keep growing–not just keep going

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