Sermon Notes
Ben Merkle "Heaven" (series: Last Things #5)
Philippians 3: 20-21
Creation will be resurrected.
Romans 8:18-21
Psalm 102:26
We should have the eyes of our heart on heaven, because that is where Jesus is now and those who are already with Him. So we are citizens of heaven now, but the "meek will inherit the earth", (Matthew 5:5), so we anticipate the renewal and resurrection of this earth as our eternal home.
And in the meantime, we wrestle with sin, slowly being sanctified, completed only in the Resurrection.
The world is being renewed by the spread of the gospel, as the kingdom of heaven grows here on earth.
Christ's whole mission is the saving of the world.
1 John 4:14
The earth will be made new and is the eternal dwelling place for God's people.
"A city that is coming from heaven to this earth." Revelation 21:1-4
The descension began at the ascension of Christ.
The bride who is being adorned for her husband.
Doug Wilson - "When the Man Comes Around" (Johnny Cash song)
"Church history is the bride walking down the aisle approaching her groom."
It is one long marriage ceremony, and the eternal life is the marriage feast.
Isaiah 25:6-8 is a foundational prophecy for the church.
Matt. 8:11 - a feast where Jesus sits down with His people, like the 'Mead Hall' of King Alfred the Great
The Lord's Supper is a taste of this marriage feast.
John Donne(Laura's reading from this past week in Invitation to the Classics!)- "Death, thou shalt die."
Our culture wants us to be friends with death, but death is our enemy.
Things that ought to disgust and horrify us are being encouraged to accept death.
Proverbs 8:36 - "those who hate God, love death"
We serve a living God who ha conquered death in the Resurrection.
Revelation 21:27 - sin will be vanquished
Our minds and hearts will be fully perfected; mature.
1 Cor. 13:9-12
1 John 3;2
Right now, we must use faith to see what eventually we will know and see.
Sight to perfect our knowledge
Love to perfect our will.
Joy to perfect our conscience.
Philippians 1:6- faith, hope and love
Pray for God to increase our faith and hope.
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Sermon Notes
Doug Wilson Acts 3:19-26 (Acts of the Apostles #8)
Peter twice reminds the gathered crowds that they were responsible for the death of Christ.
It was a judicial murder.
Matthew 27:63, they knew Jesus had predicted His resurrection after death.
Jesus had also predicted the flattening of Jerusalem in one generation. (Matthew 24:34)
The city would be executed for the death of Jesus.
The resurrection guaranteed the destruction of Jerusalem because all of Jesus' predictions came true.
Some repented and some did not after Peter's preaching.
In the first part of the sermon, the facts of the gospel are preached.
In the second part of the sermon, the response needed is presented as repentance.
If they repented, times of refreshing would come even to the doomed city. verse 19
Jesus promised to return again, but for now, He must remain in Heaven (verse 21) according to the prophets.
The people of Jerusalem are told to listen to Moses(verse 22) and the other prophets.
The warning of the coming destruction and the only way to be spared the judgment is to repent.
Genesis 3 is the first promise of restoration.
Peter calls them "these days" and in verse 25, heirs of the prophets and of the covenants.
Prophecy (their status before God)- 2 ways:
- forth-telling - "God's law says this, but you are doing this"
- fore-telling - a prediction for future events
False prophets, those who do not tell the truth about current events, cannot be trusted to tell about future events.
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"A language changes because things happen to people. If we could imagine the impossible-- a society in which mothing happened-- there would be no changes in language. But except possibly in a cemetery, things are constantly happening to people: they eat, drink, sleep, talk, make love, meet strangers, struggle against natural perils, and fight against one another." (J. N. Hook and E.G. Matthews, Language is Like a River, quoted on p. 36 of The Writer's Rhetoric by Robert A. Anderson
The idea that things are constantly happening to people struck me when I read it because that is exactly how I view each week. Sunday seems like a reset from the events of the week before much of which come across as unplanned by me. I experience them but I would not have picked them. They happen to me and they change me. I recently was thinking over the difficult verse in James 1:2, Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, and wanting to practice making it true rather than just sarcastic disbelief over what could be being asked of me as a Christian.
I realized that the hang- up was over the two words, pure joy. I have been reconsidering how limiting my view was on what emotional responses could be counted in the joy category.
And I decided that being given something that is a trial is really an opportunity to change my perspective, to enlarge it, to learn something I didn't know before, to experience more sacrificial suffering, to show love and care in intense and practical ways, etc. When I am busy running my own affairs which include running the household affairs of my family, I look to solve problems, not ask for ones to afflict me. But who would ever pick the really hard problems to experience? No one except for using it as a victim status which is always so so tempting. To make sure that others no how hard your days have been recently, how much you've been given to endure usually at great cost to your own comfort and desires, and how much sympathy and kindness you deserve from others.
But avoiding the trials is the sure way to avoiding growth, maturity and wisdom. And keeping quiet about it long enough to grow from it and see how it has done its work on you so that if you do choose to share about it, you have something wise to offer others, not something to gain from others.
The verses that follow in the James 1 passage say this:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him."
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"Two classes of people she had chosen to avoid, having been driven to such avoidings by her aunt's preferences; marquises and such-like, whether wicked or otherwise, she had eschewed, and had eschewed likewise all Low Church tendencies.
The eschewing of marquises is not generally very difficult." (Haha, this made me grin.)
Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?, p. 7
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"But all this would have been as nothing if the drawing-room had been pretty as it is the bounden duty of all drawing-rooms to be. But Alice Vavasor's drawing room was not pretty. Her father had had the care of furnishing the house, and he had entrusted the duty to a tradesman who had chosen green paper, a green carpet, green curtains, and green damask chairs. There was a green damask sofa, and two green arm-chairs opposite to each other at the two sides of the fireplace. The room was altogether green, and was not enticing." Anthony Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?, p. 9 (another grin)
Substitute the color green for grey.
Welcome to modern living rooms!
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"She was determined she would not cry before Aunt Elizabeth, but it was hard to keep the tears back. She wished Daff wouldn't purr with such resounding satisfaction, as if everything were perfectly delicious from a grey cat's point of view." L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs, p.83
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"Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere." Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 3 Scene 1
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Luke 1:13-22
vs. 13 - "Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son..."
Was Zechariah still praying for a child as an 'old man'? Are there prayers that I have given up hope for?
vs. 14 - "He will be a joy and delight to you..."
Perhaps Z & E were spared the trauma of John's beheading because as older parents that had died long before John spoke against Herod and his wicked behavior.
vs. 17 - "And he will go on before the Lord...to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
John's birth announcement was also a word from God about the Promised One after centuries of no new prophecies.
vs.22 - ..."they realized he had seen a vision in the temple..."
After so many generations of silence, it must have been startling and surreal to realize God had sent a vision to Zechariah.
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"Use your web presence (if you have one) to show your goals, projects, desires and ideals very clearly. And to share more of what you are like, what you love and what you want." Simon Sarris
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