We will be talking about this concept of “abiding” off-and-on throughout this year. This morning, I want us this to consider the implications of Psalm 91 on “abiding” when you look at it through the lens of God’s promises and our steadfast obedience to His Word. Remember what we learned in part one of this short series: God does not promise to keep us from trouble and difficulties in this life—He promises to see us through it! So as we considered His promises to protect us in Psalm 91, do not lose sight of the fact that He is working all things—the good, the bad, and the ugly—together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
The overall theme of this psalm is the promise of God to protect those who have trusted in Him—in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. Next week, we will focus on what these promises are and how they relate to life in a world threatened by a global pandemic, but the questions that we want to consider today are: “How do we understand God’s promises in Psalm 91? How do we interpret these promises in light of the teaching in the rest of Scripture?”
I want to invite you to join us online this Thursday evening—December 24th at 5:00 pm—for our Virtual Christmas Eve service. The service will be premiered on both Facebook and YouTube. We have spent the last couple of weeks capturing video of many of you guys so you might want to watch to see if you make the final cut! One of the highlights of the service will be getting to see the Christmas Story through the eyes of some of our children here at Temple Rogers. Again, it is helpful to consider the “Age-Old” story from different perspectives from time to time. That is exactly what I would like to do today—I would like to consider the role of the shepherds in this narrative. Who were they? What did they do? How do they contribute to the overall story? Why were they included?
Through out our life, we are faced with times of abundance and times of great need. In our last sermon of “Separate but Connected”, we are reading through Philippians 4:10-23. Paul here not only models a Spiritually Mature Contentment, but shows us how we can obtain it. Today let’s strive for a spiritually mature and content Christian life.
The Bible has much to say about our thought-life and how our thoughts influence not only what we say but also what we do—and ultimately who we become. This is why Paul encouraged us to have the same mind-set as that of Christ in Philippians 2. If we allow the Holy Spirit to transform our minds—as the Bible instructs us to do—our words and actions will soon follow.
Unity is a huge theme throughout Philippians, and actually it is a huge theme carried throughout a lot of what wrote in his letters. There is a personal cost as well as a corporate price that we pay when we do not prioritize unity in the church body. Today we are going to discuss the ways we should approach conflict, and protect ourselves from falling into faithless worry.
The Bible is clear in its teaching about the goal of the Christian life—God wants us to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). That is the goal—that is the “end” that God wants for each one of His children. So if we are to live our lives with the end in mind, we must always be thinking about what it means to be conformed to Jesus’ image—what will my life look like if I look like Jesus? If we do not start now to think about what that life should look like, we will never be able to do it in the last weeks or months of our lives. We need to begin living with our eternal end in mind.
This week we will be in Philippians Chapter 3, dealing with the first 11 verses. Paul here is warning us of false righteousness, giving us an example of his own self-righteousness, and describing what and who is true Righteousness. What is your faith placed in today? Is it Flesh, or Faith in Jesus Christ?
In this passage, Paul is presenting us with two examples of lives that are worthy of the gospel—Timothy and Epaphroditus. In each of these examples, Paul celebrates the ways in which God has worked in and through these men. He presents them as examples to us to follow, and clarifies for us the benchmarks by which we should measure success in the ministry.
In Matthew 5:14, Jesus calls His followers the light of the world. God intends to use His people to influence the world around them for His glory. But how do we successfully accomplish this mission? In today’s passage, Paul explains to the Philippian believers how they might shine brightest as lights in the darkness.