Church At The Cross

Scripture: Matthew 18:21-35 Key Takeaways: + Forgiveness is a lifetime pursuit + Forgiveness is the cancellation of a debt -       Forgiveness doesn’t mean removing healthy boundaries -       Forgiveness does not exempt us from justice + Forgiveness must be experienced -       Luke 7:36-50 + Experienced forgiveness allows us to extend forgiveness  “Forgiveness is granted before it is felt.” – Tim Keller + Forgiveness reflects the Gospel

Scripture: Matthew 13:44-46 Key Takeaways:  — Finding — Assessing — Selling — Rejoicing — Buying + Jesus is the one thing worth losing all things just to have + This is how we become a Christian — Jesus is not your Savior unless He is your Treasure “How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose… You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure… you who outshine all light… you who surpass all honor…O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation.” – Confessions, IX, 1. — Philippians 3:4-11 + This is how we live as a Christian — Philippians 3:7-8 + This is how we overcome temptation — Hebrews 11:24-26

Scripture: Matthew 13:31-33 Key Takeaways:  + The Kingdom of God is humble in its start and unstoppable in its spread. Acts 6:7 Acts 12:24 Acts 19:20 + A Global Dimension   Ezekiel 17:22-24 Matthew 24:14 + A Societal Dimension  “I call myself a cultural Christian. I’m not a believer, but there is a distinction between believing in something and being steeped in the culture of it.” – Richard Dawkins, Atheist “You cannot take the fruit of Christianity and then say you don’t want the tree.” – Douglas Murray, Atheist Cultural Critic + A Personal Dimension  Philippians 1:6

Scripture: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Key Takeaways:  + Two Destinies  + One Day + Listen and Live + Patience and Persuasion 1 Peter 3:14-16

Scripture: Matthew 13:1-23 Key Takeaways:  + The Seed explained  “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison + The Soil explained The Path Rocky Ground Thorns + For me to live is ______ and to die is ______ The Good Soil

Scripture: Genesis 11:1–9 Key Takeaways: Genesis 9:1 + Pride seeks to construct a life apart from God -       Do I consistently spend time seeking God in his word and in prayer? -       Do I often spontaneously voice to God my admiration of Him, gratitude to Him, and need for Him? -       Do I often lose arguments with God? -       Do I pray and seek wisdom in God’s word and from God’s people before I make a major decision? -       Do I arrange my life around God’s priorities? -       Am I generous toward God? Psalm 4:6-8 + Pride is always resisted by God Luke 14:11 + Jesus is the Anti-Babel Philippians 2:5-11 + Jesus reverses Babel Acts 2:4-11

Scripture: Genesis 8:20–9:17 Key Takeaways: + God will not let evil prevail + God saves by grace -       1 Peter 3:20–21 + God honors faith -       Hebrews 11:7 + God has another Day of Judgment coming -       Matthew 24:36–44

Scripture: Genesis 7:11-8:19 Key Takeaways: Genesis 1:31 Genesis 3:15 + God’s judgement is severe Genesis 7:11-23 -       a. It’s devastating Genesis 7:21-22 -       b. All encompassing + God’s character is consistent -       a. In His standard Genesis 7:16 -       b. In His grace Genesis 8:1 + God’s salvation is sufficient Genesis 7:17 -       a. It overcomes death -       b. It sustains in the midst of death -       c. It delivers through death Genesis 8:13-19 Genesis 3:15 Isaiah 53:10

Scripture: Genesis 6-7:5 Key Takeaways: Isaiah 46:8-11 Malachi 3:6 Psalm 18:30 + God grieves/regrets = A providential, heartfelt response resulting in a planned course of action + 2 Truths of God’s Grief The Seriousness of Sin  ·       The Justice of God + Big Question – Why is Noah spared? 

Scripture: Genesis 4:1-16 Key Takeaways: + The Nature of Worship True Religion vs Transactional Ritual Hebrews 11:4 1 John 3:11-13 + The Nature of Sin + The Nature of God Hebrews 12:24

Scripture: Acts 1:1-11 Key Takeaways: + Lifted up to a Place of Honor John 17:4–5 Philippians 2:5–11 “Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity + Lifted up to a Place of Intercession Hebrews 7:22–26 1 John 2:1–2 Luke 22:31–34 + Lifted up to a Place of Authority Ephesians 1:19–22 Matthew 28:18–20

Scripture: John 12:20-33 Key Takeaways: + By his death, Jesus opens up heaven to the world. + By his death, Jesus shows us how to truly live. Galatians 6:14 + The world no longer tells me how to live and the world no longer tells me if I’m truly living.

Scripture: Genesis 3:7-24 Key Takeaways: + The Ruin “The effects of sin touch all of creation; no created thing is in principle untouched by the corrosive effects of the fall. Whether we look at societal structures such as the state of the family, or cultural pursuits such as art or technology, or bodily functions such as sexuality or eating, or anything at all within the wide scope of creation, we discover that the good handiwork of God has been drawn into the sphere of human mutiny against God. ‘The whole creation,’ Paul writes in a profound passage in Romans, ‘has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time’ (Romans 8:22).” – Creation Regained, Albert Wolters. -       Loss of Perfection -       Loss of Peace -       Loss of Presence   The Restoration -       The Search -       The Seed -       The Skins Revelation 21:1–5 Revelation 22:1–6

Scripture:  Genesis 3:1-7 Key Takeaways: + The Serpent -       Revelation 12:7–9 -       Ephesians 6:12 + The Scheme -       Ephesians 6:11 -       2 Corinthians 2:10–11 Questions God’s Word Questions God’s Truthfulness Questions God’s Goodness Appeals to our Desires -       2 Corinthians 11:13–15 + The Sin -       2 Corinthians 11:2–3 -       John 8:44

Scripture: Genesis 2:18-25 Key Takeaways: + Marriage is a good gift from God. + Marriage is designed for companionship and partnership “…not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.” – Matthew Henry + Marriage is designed for permanence and exclusivity “So, in the one-flesh union of marriage, all the boundaries between a man and a woman fall away, and the married couple comes together completely, as long as they both shall live. In real terms, two selfish me’s start learning to think like one unified us, building a new life together with one total everything: one story, one purpose, one reputation, one bed, one suffering, one budget, one family, and so forth. Marriage removes all barriers and replaces them with a comprehensive oneness. It is this all-encompassing unity that sets marriage apart as marriage, more profound than even the most intense

Scripture: Genesis 2:4-17 Key Takeaways: + Work is a good gift from God. “Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meet they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meet for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.” – Dorothy Sayers, “Why Work?” + Work is to be done for God and for his glory. Ephesians 6:5–8 + Good work that glorifies God is ethical work. + Good work that glorifies God is excellent work. "The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is

Scripture: Genesis 2:1-3 Key Takeaways: Proverbs 26:15 + SHABBAT = Sabbath Isaiah 40:28  + God created this world and put us in for: -       His good pleasure -       His glory Exodus 20:8-10 + Sabbath Keeping: Principle vs Rule -       As Christ followers are we required to keep the Sabbath as a rule? Mark 2:23-28 Romans 14:1; 5-6 + Summary of work and rest: -       Work diligently as unto the Lord. -       Rest consistently centered on the Lord.  “Our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in You.” – Augustine Matthew 11:28-30 John 19:30  + “TETELESTAI”

Scripture: Genesis 1:26-31 Key Takeaways: + God made us male and female to bear his image -       Matthew 19:3-6 + Our bodies are a good gift from God and tell us who we are “This is hugely important. If the body is merely a vehicle or a costume for the real you, then it is the equivalent of property. But we know this can’t really be the case. However much we might privilege the mind or soul over the body as the ‘real’ us, we know deep down that the body is an essential part of who we truly are. When people hurt your body, you know that they have not just damaged some of your property; they have violated you. What you do to someone’s body, you do to a person… We cannot escape our embodied-ness. Alastair Roberts sums it up neatly: ‘The body isn’t just something that clothes the self but is itself the self.” – Sam Allberry. What God has to say about our Bodies. + Some people feel an incongruence between their biological sex and their internal sense of self “In many Western countries, we’ve seen a m

Scripture: Genesis 1:26-31 Key Takeaways: “The historian Tom Holland, a longtime secular progressive, recently wrote that despite his faith in God fading during his teen years, he now realizes his most fundamental instincts about life only makes sense as an inheritance from the Christian story. Holland’s book, Dominion, is a journey through Western history to narrate how our culture’s moral ideals derive “ultimately from claims made in the Bible: that humans are made in God’s image; that his Son died equally for everyone; that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.” Human rights, a universal concern for the vulnerable, human equality, sexual restraint, the reverence for humility, and the notion of moral progress itself are just a few of our common ideals that have developed in light of the Christian story. Holland can’t get past the irony: “The West, increasingly empty though the pews may be, remains firmly moored to its Christian past.” – Joshua Chatraw, Telling a Better Story

Scripture: Genesis 1:26-31 Key Takeaways:  + Every human being possesses dignity as an image bearer of God “But human rights are just like Heaven, and, like God, it’s just a fictional story that we’ve invented and spread around. It may be a very nice story. It may be a very attractive story. We want to believe it, but it’s just a story. It’s not a reality. It is not a biological reality. Just as jellyfish and woodpeckers and ostriches have no rights, homo sapiens have no rights, also. Take a human, cut him open, look inside. You find their blood, and you find the heart and lungs and kidneys, but you don’t find any rights. The only place you find rights is in the fictional stories that humans have invented and spread around.” – Yuval Noah Harari, TED Talk + You Matter + All People Matter + Christianity Matters + Every human being is fully dependent upon God Image: I make a sacrifice to the God → The God gives me what I want Acts 17:24-25 Image: God reaches down in unmerited grace → We respon