Forgiving Grace Ministries

 Our look this week was to Simon, Andrew’s Brother.Simon also called Peter is a man that personally I can really relate to, a man who is strong in his faith, yet at times he seems to waver. He is a man who is impulsive, who sometimes sticks his foot in his mouth.  A man, who is acts before he thinks, yet finds himself bitterly weeping over his failures. Wow, can I relate. How about you? Can you relate? Well, if you think that God can’t use you or that you have nothing to offer, then our study in Peter will give you a new perspective. If you can relate or if you just want to learn some more about the Apostle Peter, then go check it out.

Well, today we began our series on the Apostles; I decided to look at them more or less individually rather than as a group. The reasoning behind such an undertaking was really quite simple; I wanted us to learn more abut the men that Jesus chose. In doing so there is much to be gained, first as we know more about these men we can see traits in them that we can identify within ourselves. For example, Andrew was the kind man who wanted and did bring people to Jesus and within the scriptures we can clearly see that from the very beginning to the very end we can see Andrew bringing other to Christ. Another thing we noticed from his life was that he was a man that was very passionate, in the account of Andrew telling his brother about Jesus our English text does not give us the picture that the Greek text does. For example in John 1:41, the English text tells us that Andrew “said” to Simon “we have found” the Messiah, the words in quotation marks are the keys to Andrews demeanor, in English said is a past tense verb no big deal, in the Greek, the word is NOT past tense nor is the single word for “we have found” in the Greek both of these are present tense active verbs which tells us that Andrew did not just simply go to Simon and say we have found the Messiah. No, this clue leads to a clearer picture of an excitable man who was intense in the repetitive telling Simon we found Him, we have found Him, we have found the Messiah We have found the Messiah. So as we learn about these men we will be looking for clues to their character, clues to the attitudes and behaviors, we will be looking and identifying their passion, their fears and failures the strengths and victories and in doing so we will see little glimpses of our own selves in the men that Jesus chose, and in that we will realize that Jesus still seeks men like with their qualities today and on any given Sunday morning churches all around this world are filled with men and women that fit the bill. Are you one of them, I bet you are! However, this question remains are you serving Him like they did, or like you should? 

That is probably one of the most agonizing questions one can ask. Go on I dare you, ask God if your worship is insulting to Him! You may be surprised at the answer. The whole idea of these last two weeks was born out of the sense and knowledge that America has slipped away from God and while many profess to be His children, increasingly they act like the world, and demonstrate an overwhelming lack of knowledge of God’s Word. This is a problem, our study this Lord’s Day is found in Malachi chapter one, but the heart of this message is the same as last weeks, and that is God’s heart. God’s desire for us is to be intelligent, loving, passionate, and diligent in our study and service to Him and His Kingdom.  

            Some of the questions, which we need to ask ourselves, are; are we doing what we are doing with passion or out of a rote mechanical programming? Are we going through the motions and like Jesus said just giving some pretty lip service, but having hearts that are far, far from God? The truth is it does not take much to gain a cold heart and from there even less for it to become black and in serious danger of dying. You can check out the message here.

Just as an fyi for everyone, starting next week and carrying on for 8-9 weeks we will be doing a in-depth study on the disciples. The series will be called “Who Are Those Men?” and we will begin with Andrew, with all that said I may not be blogging on each one as I am behind on several projects both here at home and at school, so I need to devote much extra time to getting caught up. I will be keeping up with getting the sermons up but that is about it for right now. Good luck, may God bless you in your desire to get to know Him more.

Brothers and sisters this is a very disturbing topic, Biblical Illiteracy is a huge cancer not only in our world, it is also very prevalent in our churches. There are a lot of churches that are dying, homes that are wrecked, lives that are faltering, and the reality is that this very problem “Biblical Illiteracy” is likely the major contributor to the all the rampant immorality in our midst.

Well, I guess I need to ask the question; Are you Biblically Illiterate?

I want to encourage you to take to heart the reality of this message; your eternity will depend on your answers to some very powerful questions that will be asked of you.

I am just in awe at the wonder working power of God, maybe I am just easy to amaze but God is just doing some amazing work in our midst. I want to just share this, it is just so amazing, but several weeks ago, I got some visitor information cards for the church and began to pray over them and distribute them in the pews, that same day we had two visitors that have been pretty regular attendees since, and today we had five more visitors, God is so faithful and so good, and I am so thankful for all He is doing in our midst.

This week we looked at 2 Timothy chapter 4, and this was a very different sermon for me and while I normally flesh out a fair amount of my sermon here, instead I want to ask you the reader the same questions I asked of my congregation and then encourage you to go and listen to the sermon for yourself.

Do you have any regrets about the way you have lived your life?

What about the things you have done or have not done?

How about this are there any regrets in any of your relationships, ones you have currently or ones that are strained or broken?

How about any regrets with the way you have raised your children?

Within your marriage, have you done things, said things that you regret?

If you answered yes to any of these then I would encourage you check out this weeks message