Community Baptist Church
Sunday, May 24

      • Joel 2:27NKJV

  • Everlasting God
  • How Great Is Our God
  • How Great Thou Art

      • Psalm 51:1–4NKJV

      • Psalm 51:6–7NKJV

      • Psalm 51:16–17NKJV

      • Joel 2:28–29NKJV

  • Holy Spirit

      • John 16:5–11NKJV

  • How would yourespond to this challenge:
    ‘Summarize the entire OT in one sentence.’
    Jesus was asked to do just this at least once in his three year ministry:
    Matthew 22:36 HCSB
    “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”
    Without hesitation Jesus replied:
    Matthew 22:37–39 HCSB
    He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
    Thirty seven books, multiple authors, being composed and assembled over centuries, compiled in various locations across what we now call the Middle East succintly summarized in just a few words
    Recently my wife and I drove to Sunriver OR. We passed a marker indicating where the Pacific Crest Trail crossed the road.
    Then just a few days ago I was astounded to see a picture of dozens - maybe even hundreds - of people lined up seeking to ascend Mt Everest. According to one account 274 climbers reached the peak in one single day - just this past week.
    Both the PCT and ascending the tallest MT in the world are significant challenges and require significant preparation and training.
    Those who have climbed the mountain and those who have hiked all or part of the PCT suggest that training begin at least 4 months prior to the hike and 12 months prior to climbing Mt Everest.
    In other words - I’m not going to climb or hike.
    Twice in the section of Paul’s letter to believers in Thessalonica Paul asks and urges those believers to do a particular task ‘more and more.’
    1 Thessalonians 4:1–2 HCSB
    Finally then, brothers, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received from us how you must walk and please God—as you are doing —do so even more. For you know what commands we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

    Loving God More and More

    This sounds remarkably simple. Just do what God says. How hard can it be?
    How hard can it be to increase in one’s ability to live a life that increases in one’s love for God
    What resources are there for living this type of life?
    …just as you have received instruction from us…
    Paul seeks to recall what he, Silas, and Timothy ‘passed’ on to those who responded to the message of God, the message of the gospel.
    Paul doesn’t list all that he and his team taught. He does, though, tell these believers that his life - the way he and his companions lived among them- was a worthy model, a pattern that they could imitate:
    1 Thessalonians 2:10–12 (HCSB) You are witnesses, and so is God, of how devoutly, righteously, and blamelessly we conducted ourselves with you believers. As you know, like a father with his own children, we encouraged, comforted, and implored each one of you to walk worthy of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
    Though Paul was only in Thessalonica a few short weeks, he and his companions lived differently and notably.
    The message of God, the message of the gospel is powerful enough to change lives from the inside out - see 1 Thess 1:4-6.
    Peter offers a challenge…
    1 Peter 2:2 HCSB
    Like newborn infants, desire the pure spiritual milk, so that you may grow by it for your salvation,
    When one is born again, which is the result of the activity of the Holy Spirit, an entirely new set of longings and desires are born within us.
    Peter explains in the previous vs that once we are born again we have to remove some attitudes from our life so that the desire for God will grow - 1 Peter 2:1 “So rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all slander.”
    Unlike the PCT or climbing Mt Everest, living for Jesus has no end, no peak to conquer, no mile marker to celebrate as the end point.
    Rather, living in Christ is an ongoing, even an eternal, way of life.
    Jonathan Edwards, perhaps the most important American theologian and pastor during the first great awakening offers this isnight:
    Conversion is a dying to sin and living to righteousness; but a Christian is so doing as long as he lives…Conversion is putting off the old man and putting on the new man; but the Christian is doing this as long as he lives….
    Quoted by Kyle Strobel, Formed for the Glory of God: Learning From the Spiritual Practices of Jonathan Edwards (Downers Grove, ILL.: IVP Books, 2013) 44.
    More and more…and more and more…

    Loving One Another More and More

    1 Thessalonians 4:9–12 HCSB
    About brotherly love: You don’t need me to write you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. In fact, you are doing this toward all the brothers in the entire region of Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers, to do so even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, so that you may walk properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.
    Even after a short time with these men and women Paul was struck by how quickly these Thessalonians began to love one another. In the concluding vs of 1 Thess 1 Paul acknowledged that news of these believers had spread far beyond the region in which they lived.
    Specifics of a love for one another:
    1 Thessalonians 4:7 “For God has not called us to impurity but to sanctification.”
    The Greco-Roman world in which these men and women lived had a radically different view of sex than you and me.
    According to one scholar…
    …extramarital sexual unions were tolerated, and some were even encouraged. A man might have a mistress…who could provide him also with intellectual companionship; the institution of slavery made it easy for him to have a concubine…while casual gratification was readily available from a harlot.
    F. F. Bruce Word Biblical Commentary: Volume 45, 1 & 2 Thessalonians (Waco, TX: Word Books, Publisher, 1982) p, 82
    1 Thessalonians 4:6 HCSB
    This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you.
    So, loving one another more and more calls us to conquer lust and covetousness. Instead of envying the wife and family of our brothers in Christ, let’s honor one and rejoice in the goodness of God.
    1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 HCSB
    to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, so that you may walk properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.
    Growing in love for one another means letting go any need to compete with one another, any desire to allow the work of others to sustain you, and to live honorably so that the Word of God is honored and respected.

    REFLECT AND RESPOND

    Loving God - more and more

    Loving one another - more and more

    Jesus brought them together as a simple response to a thoughtful question -
    ‘of all the laws we can obey, which one is most important?
    To love God more and more is a call to make more space in your life for Him.
    We do this by laying aside the emptiness of simply seeking to be entertained;
    We do this by digging into this remarkable resource He’s given us in His Word - in which HE speaks and teaches, and protects, and guides, and…
    We do this by spending more time with Him - praying constantly; developing a sense of His presence in every moment, in every circumstance…
    To love one another more and more is explained by Paul in another of his letters:
    Philippians 2:4–11 HCSB
    Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Make your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth — and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
    In a very remarkable exchange with a leading Jewish man, Jesus pointed out that
    John 3:6 “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
    Have you been ‘born of the Spirit?’ Has the Word of God, the gospel of God taken hold of you, implanting the Holy Spirit in you, bringing you new life…?
    Are you seeking to make more space in your life for getting to know God more and more?
    Are you allowing the Holy Spirit in you to regard those around you as people for whom Christ died? for people whom Christ longs to know as deeply as He knows you? for people through whom God wants to shape and guide your life?

      • Matthew 22:36NKJV

      • Matthew 22:37–39NKJV

      • 1 Thessalonians 4:1–2NKJV

      • 1 Thessalonians 4:9–12NKJV

      • 1 Thessalonians 4:6NKJV

      • 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12NKJV

      • Philippians 2:4–11NKJV

      • Acts 1:8NKJV

Community Baptist Church
sschenewerk@gmail.com
5416799569
http://www.winstoncommunitybaptist.com
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