First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service

First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/service-index/evening-service Jephthah of Gilead Cory Brock Sun, 21 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/jephthah-of-gilead https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/2/4839 Jephthah of Gilead Audio of Jephthah of Gilead An All Too Common Story David Felker Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Old Testament book of Judges, Judges chapter 8. This summer on Sunday nights we’re in a sermon series in the book of Judges, and tonight we are looking at the conclusion of the narrative of Gideon. It’s a sad story; it’s a tragic story, this pathology of decline. It’s an all too familiar story, and so we’ll be considering Judges chapter 8, verses 22 to 35.  ]] Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0500 https://www

Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Old Testament book of Judges, Judges chapter 8. This summer on Sunday nights we’re in a sermon series in the book of Judges, and tonight we are looking at the conclusion of the narrative of Gideon. It’s a sad story; it’s a tragic story, this pathology of decline. It’s an all too familiar story, and so we’ll be considering Judges chapter 8, verses 22 to 35. 

Judges chapter 7 is about weakness, and the truth is, whether we feel it or not, we are all weak. All of us. We sometimes fool ourselves into thinking that money and training and status will get the results that we desire. But that’s not how God works, is it? Instead, God works through unlikely men and women, unlikely boys and girls, to accomplish unlikely purposes in unlikely ways. And He does that so that He may demonstrate His own power, His own strength, and that He receives the glory that is due to His name. And we’ll see God working in those very same ways in the story of Judges chapter 7, the story of Gideon, as he goes up against the Midianites. And we’ll consider two points from this passage as we study tonight. We’ll consider the weakness that pursues and the strength that prevails. 

Well we’re carrying on in the book of Judges tonight as we’ve been marching through it all of these Sunday nights lately and we’ve come up to, as Wiley mentioned, chapter 6, which is the story of the call of Gideon. And it’s a little bit of a longer reading tonight, so I just want to dive right into the text. So I’m going to pray and then we’ll read verses 1 to 27 in Judges chapter 6. 

And tonight, we’re going to look at Judges chapters 4 and 5 and I want to do it in two acts. So first, act one, Judges 4, which gives us the narrative; it gives us what everyone could see. And then act two, we will look briefly at Judges chapter 5, which gives us the song. And it tells us that more was happening than anyone could see, that more was happening than meets the eye. “The Stars Fought From Heaven.” Another way to say this - act one, we will look at the great story and act two, we will look at how through this great story we learn something about how to read our own stories. And so act one and act two. 

First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/service-index/evening-service Double Trouble, the Fat Man, and Cries for Help Wiley Lowry Sun, 17 May 2020 00:00:00 -0500 https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/double-trouble-the-fat-man-and-cries-for-help https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/2/4807 Double Trouble, the Fat Man, and Cries for Help Audio of Double Trouble, the Fat Man, and Cries for Help The Meaning of History Cory Brock What we just read, commentators typically call the cycle of the Judges, and this pattern, it’s a pattern or a cycle that makes Judges really easy to outline. First, in the book of Judges there’s always peace in the land, peace in Canaan, and then the Israelites sin against God through idolatry and God judges them and gives them over to those sins and they are oppressed

What we just read, commentators typically call the cycle of the Judges, and this pattern, it’s a pattern or a cycle that makes Judges really easy to outline. First, in the book of Judges there’s always peace in the land, peace in Canaan, and then the Israelites sin against God through idolatry and God judges them and gives them over to those sins and they are oppressed by a foreign nation, a different people group. But then God unexpectedly comes in and sends a judge, a rescuer to save them. There’s a brief peace in the land again and then it starts over. 

So we’re looking tonight at a half-hearted people and a whole-hearted God. And because starting a sermon series in the book of Judges is kind of like picking up The Chronicles of Narnia halfway through. It’s like starting to watch the “Star Wars” movies in the middle of the story. You start reading or you start watching and you think, “How in the world did we get here? What is going on in this story?” Because that’s the case, we’ll consider first the place of Judges in the story of the Bible. And so how did we get here? So first, the context, the historical context of the book of Judges. Second, a half-hearted people. And then third, a whole-hearted God. 

We’re going to look in our Bibles tonight at Jeremiah chapter 9, and we’re going to look at verses 23 and 24 together tonight. And when I was in my teens, I had a couple of different jobs, but whether it was packing bolts and screws or selling shoes, the thing that nobody really wanted to do was to take inventory, was to take a count of the things that we already had. Taking inventory is time consuming. It’s tedious. And it doesn’t seem to accomplish anything tangible. It would be easier to stay busy doing anything else other than taking inventory. But taking inventory is very important; it’s essential for running a good business.

So I want to come back to Proverbs tonight and look again, because we didn’t cover in that series something that’s treated pretty regularly and specifically throughout the book, and that’s that Proverbs over and over again talks about the human heart, and specifically talks about the heart in the condition, or the fact that the heart is broken; that we have broken hearts. We’ll talk about the human heart, it's importance, why it breaks, the cure, and seeking a wise heart. 

Friends, if ever there was a day that reminds us and gives us hope it’s Resurrection Sunday, isn’t it? It’s a celebration that Jesus is alive, that in Him we have hope both in the here and now but also hope in the life hereafter. It’s the hope of forgiveness. It’s the hope of peace with God. It’s the hope that we have assurance that what God has begun He will bring to completion. It’s the hope of heaven and being with Jesus Christ, seeing Him face to face. And you see, all of our hope is centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ Himself.

We’re going to focus on the three crosses that we see in the passage, these three figures on Calvary, because each of them shows something to us, something important about how we respond to Jesus and about what Jesus offers to us. Hanged upon the first cross is an unrepentant thief. The first cross shows us the tragedy of a resistant heart. The tragedy of a resistant heart. Hanged on the second cross is a thief who turns from his sin, who seeks for mercy. The second cross reminds us of the necessity of a repentant heart. The tragedy of a resistant heart and the necessity of a repentant heart. And of course hanged upon the third cross, with these two criminals on either side, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And the third cross shows us the love of Christ’s redeeming heart.

Well tonight we’re doing something a little different from the usual sermon that we have. It is going to be a message, a sermon from God’s Word, but rather than the regular exposition of a single text, we invited you over the last several weeks to submit questions about theology or the Christian life or about the Bible or about the present crisis. 

Well we’re going to look at another miracle that Jesus performs in Matthew chapter 8. Five short verses in 23-27. It’s a short story, it’s a great story, and it has an enormous point. And that is found by answering the question, really the question of all the gospels, the question at the center of all of Christianity. And it’s what the disciples ask in verse 27. They say, “What sort of a man is this?” And during the time that we’re living in of coronavirus, of isolation, of fear, it is important that we ask, “What sort of a man is this that the gospels is presenting to us?” And the answer of this passage is, “Look at the man who sleeps.”

Well we’re going to look at another miracle that Jesus performs in Matthew chapter 8. Five short verses in 23-27. It’s a short story, it’s a great story, and it has an enormous point. And that is found by answering the question, really the question of all the gospels, the question at the center of all of Christianity. And it’s what the disciples ask in verse 27. They say, “What sort of a man is this?” And during the time that we’re living in of coronavirus, of isolation, of fear, it is important that we ask, “What sort of a man is this that the gospels is presenting to us?” And the answer of this passage is, “Look at the man who sleeps.”

Well we’re going to look at another miracle that Jesus performs in Matthew chapter 8. Five short verses in 23-27. It’s a short story, it’s a great story, and it has an enormous point. And that is found by answering the question, really the question of all the gospels, the question at the center of all of Christianity. And it’s what the disciples ask in verse 27. They say, “What sort of a man is this?” And during the time that we’re living in of coronavirus, of isolation, of fear, it is important that we ask, “What sort of a man is this that the gospels is presenting to us?” And the answer of this passage is, “Look at the man who sleeps.”

First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi Evening Service https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/service-index/evening-service Resurrection and Mission Ed Hartman Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0600 https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/sermons/resurrection-and-mission--2 https://www.fpcjackson.org/resource-library/2/4660 Resurrection and Mission Audio of Resurrection and Mission The Fuel for Mission Gary Sinclair The same God who condescended to redeem us in Christ, the One who has promised and told us in Scripture that He prepares a home for us, He is the same one who calls and who burdens and who sends His church - local congregations, ordinary men and women in local congregations - into the world to bear witness to His grace, making the Gospel of Christ clear and compelling to those who have not yet heard this good news. And what we’re going to see in these ver

The same God who condescended to redeem us in Christ, the One who has promised and told us in Scripture that He prepares a home for us, He is the same one who calls and who burdens and who sends His church - local congregations, ordinary men and women in local congregations - into the world to bear witness to His grace, making the Gospel of Christ clear and compelling to those who have not yet heard this good news. And what we’re going to see in these verses as we look at verses 9 through 12 is that Peter tells us that a church on mission thinks consistently, speaks consistently, and acts consistently.

We have been working down the Beatitudes on Sunday nights. And the Beatitudes, we said the very first week, is the description of the blessed life found in Matthew chapter 5. The blessed life is a life of beauty, and a life of beauty is where truth and goodness meet together. In other words, it’s what life looks like for the citizens of the kingdom of God. It’s how the citizens of the kingdom of God act into the world; that’s the Beatitudes. It’s describing, really, just the Christian life. And we have come to the Beatitude about mercy, about the merciful.

And so we’ll work this evening just section by section looking at this single verse, verse 6, and we’ll look first at our appetites, our spiritual appetites - that we are hungry and we are thirsty. Second, we’ll consider the righteousness that Jesus has in view here. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” What is Jesus talking about? And then third, we’ll close and consider what it means to be satisfied in Him. What it means to be satisfied in Him.