kingdomready.org

The following sermon was preached last Sunday by Victor Gluckin at Living Faith Christian Church. The message cut “Churchianity” from true Christianity like a knife. Following Jesus is more than just attending a meeting an hour a week. It is more than just mentally assenting to a list of doctrines. It is more than having an emotional experience during the worship songs. It is more than mere behavior modification. We need to “be Jesus” in the easy situations but also when it is unpopular, awkward, or dangerous. Click the play button below to watch this rousing and timely presentation of true commitment to and identification with the Messiah.

Yesterday I cam across this website, which lists the school shootings that have occurred in recent history (it starts in 1996). Shockingly there are over 50 incidents listed. My question is, “What is going on here?” Why are students from 13 to 30 coming into their middle school, high school, or college and murdering their classmates? Am I to accept this as “normal?” Has this always been going on or is it just that now because of “sensationalist” media coverage it is being brought to our attention? Can something be done?

Last Friday, 42 year-old, homosexual, Christian, John Reaney was awarded £47,00 (approx. $92,000) for being denied the job as a youth worker for the Church of England based on his sexual orientation. The man had been approved for the job by an eight person panel and only needed the approval of the Bishop. However, after a two hour interview, Bishop Priddis came to understand that Reaney had just exited a five year same sex relationship. A few days after the interview Reaney received the call and learned that he had been turned down for the position. In response, and backed by the homosexual rights group “Stonewall,” Reaney sued the Hereford Diocesan Board of Finance and won. Read the recent BBC article here or an older article from last year here.

We all have various responsibilities in life. Some of us as: a husband, parent, fellowship coordinator, minister, etc I’ve been asked, questioned, and sometimes even challenged regarding my trustworthiness. I’ve recently begun to contemplate this idea of trustworthiness (in myself and my expectations of it from others) and to that end I have more questions than answers!

For example, in Micah 7.5 I’m instructed “Do not trust in a neighbor; Do not have confidence in a friend. From her who lies in your bosom guard your lips”. And Psalm 146.3 “Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.”. Thankfully I know from Proverbs 3.5,6 that I can “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”.

In Matthew 10.22 Jesus says the following.

“You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.”

What comes to mind is how offensive the gospel, and the commandments of God and his Messiah are. How offensive is it to say that there can only be one right way? There is a huge gay-rights movement in America today; try telling one of them that their sexuality is a sin against God. That’s being intolerant of other people’s life styles.

Please read this article.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

“In effect, the law denies that there is any such thing as one’s biologically determined “gender,” any such thing as “male” or “female.” For the purposes of the law, you are whatever sex you say you are—and your claim, no matter how preposterous, must be treated as reality by school authorities.”

“The possibilities here are endless—Bible clubs, any activity, text, or teaching that portrays traditional families in a positive light, etc., could easily be argued to be either discriminatory because they ‘privilege heteronormativity’ or tend to foster a discriminatory bias against any group included in the definitions of ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender,’” Shortt said….”

One of the classic doctrines of apocalyptic movements (i.e. those who believe the end of the world is coming) is called historical pessimism. Usually we think of a pessimist as someone who sees the glass as half empty and an optimist as one who sees it half full. A historical pessimist is someone who thinks that as history unfolds things will continue to get worse and worse. Let me explain a bit more about the way a traditional historical pessimist thinks before continuing.

In an effort to hijack one of Sean’s posts (returning the favor, hat tip) I want to bring out one more detail in this passage. It is a little subtler, but it is undoubtedly there. In the NT epistles we often find the line of thinking that Jesus is the second Adam. I’m sure none of us here doubt the truth of that statement. But the question is how does that apply here, and what does that mean for us?

To make sense of any parallel with Adam in Phillipians, we have to understand Christ to be the ‘blueprint’ of what Man was meant to be, the perfect image of God and reflection of His glory. The question of course , is, What precisely was humanity meant to be? What was the significance of being in the “image of God” and a reflection of His glory? Hearing the Old Testament in the New pg 195

For me, Philippians 2.1-11 has been a mysterious section of the New Testament because of the fact that many use this section to teach the literal pre-existence of Jesus. Thus, I have mostly looked at this section from what it is not saying rather than what it really is saying. (If you are interested in researching the christology of Phil 2, read Ray Faircloth’s or William Wachtell’s article). As I studied this passage I slowly started to realize the structure of it. The text (Philippians 2.1-11) is reproduced below with indentations to indicate the flow of thought.

The Plea (2.1)

Therefore
  if there is any encouragement in Christ,
  if there is any consolation of love,
  if there is any fellowship of the Spirit,
  if any affection and compassion,

I was poking around the web last night looking for information on Johannes Weiss (a 19th century author who wrote about the kingdom of God) and came across a website that was reviewing a book. I forget now what the name of the book was but the reviewer was berating the author for marginalizing the apocalyptic elements of Jesus’ message. The comment made was that since the early 20th century, scholars have been focusing on either the hyper-eschatological view of Jesus or they have completely focused on his ethics.

The eschatological apocalyptic prophet. (eschatological or eschatology refers to the end times and apocalyptic or apocalypse refers to a cataclysmic set of events in which the world ends). Scholarship has seen Jesus in this light since Johannes Weiss and then Albert Schweitzer did their research on Jesus over a century ago. They concluded that Jesus was a prophet who declared that the end of the world was near.