Trinity Evangelical Church | North Reading, MA: Recent Episodes
Trinity Evangelical Church
- The Day is coming soon after Jesus returns when He will establish justice upon the earth.
- What will happen on ‘that Day’? (Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 7:22)
- God will send His King with divine authority to judge.
- All people will stand before Him and recognize Him as Lord.
- That day will usher in the just, everlasting kingdom of God.
- We can easily receive Jesus as the God of love, but God’s judgment seems unloving.
- God’s love cannot be excluded from His justice, nor His justice from His love.
- If we expect to sweet talk or earn our way into the kingdom of heaven, we will be surprised.
- When the words of ‘Lord’ are devoid of real-life obedience, it proves only a show.
- We cannot impress Jesus enough to get into His kingdom.
- Knowing Jesus is not just knowing the right answers about Him or doing ministry for Him, but it’s a genuine relationship of love with Him.
- If Christ is in you and you desire to live for Him above all others, you can rest in His grace.
- What are those things that only the Spirit of Christ can produce in us? What can we look for to assure ourselves that we belong to Jesus?
- Is there a desire within you to be like and serve Jesus?
- Do you love those Jesus loves?
- If Christ is in us, we can look forward to the Day He returns not with dread but hope.
- Because history answers to Him, I don’t have to control all aspects of my life.
- Because Christ paid our debt, we don’t need to punish ourselves.
- Because Christ is the Judge, we don’t need to condemn others.
- If you’ve surrendered your life to Jesus in this life, the greatest surprise on the Day of Judgment will be His open arms of grace.
- God always intended His people, the Church, to be a colony of heaven in the world.
- Jesus, the better Moses, taught us who His kingdom people are to be and what they do.
- The beatitudes are a description of who Jesus is.
- While Moses gave us God’s Law, our King Jesus fulfilled God’s Law on our behalf.
- Since Jesus isn’t like any other king, His people won’t be like other kingdoms.
- The poor in spirit are those who recognize their spiritual bankruptcy without God.
- When we see the reality of sin in ourselves and others, it causes us to mourn.
- When we have a true view of ourselves, sin, and God’s grace, we become meek.
- Kingdom people don’t only grieve over sin but crave God’s righteousness.
- If we crave things to be made right, we work to show mercy to those in need.
- We’re less concerned about being pretty on the outside as much as pure on the inside.
- Kingdom people work for peace even when people refuse to live at peace with us.
- Blessed are those who embody the way of King Jesus, for they will experience His kingdom come among them.
- We cannot become like Jesus with our strength but in recognizing our weakness.
- Every time we as the Church do not look like Jesus, it’s evidence that we’re trying to be the Church without Him.
- The kingdom that arrived in Christ is the same one promised in the Scriptures long before.
- The Kingdom of Heaven is the “realm in which God’s reign may be experienced.” - George Elden Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom
- Even though we failed to give our Creator and King the allegiance that’s due Him, He didn’t give up on us. He promised His kingdom would come again.
- In Jesus, God’s kingdom has come and is coming.
- When Christ’s kingdom comes, it demands we pledge our hearts to Him and Him alone.
- Repentance isn’t just about a change in what we do but who we love.
- Jesus declares that in light of the kingdom, now is the time to decide who we will love and who you will follow because we can’t serve two Kings.
- The challenge of the Kingdom is not just to believe in God, but to pledge the allegiance of our entire heart to Him.
- The question of the kingdom to us personally: ‘is there some relationship, purpose or security in my life that when threatened or taken away causes me to question whether I can trust God?’
- As we gaze on the cross where the King of glory died in love for us, it dawns on us that He is the only King worthy of our whole lives.
- Why do we withhold part of our lives or heart from our Creator and King?
- I don’t trust God will do what I think is best.
- I’m ashamed of what God might show me if I opened my heart to Him.
- Christ is called the Light in the dark 1) because He was radiantly different.
- Christ was also called the Light 2) because He overpowered the dark.
- The one, true King has come. Step out from the shadows. His Light has dawned.
- If we insist on trusting in ourselves first, God will allow us to reach the end of ourselves.
- Since the Garden of Eden, each of us have lived under a warped version of reality that it is smarter to trust in ourselves than God.
- If we trust in ourselves first, we learn to depend on our power and abilities, not God’s.
- As we become more self-absorbed, we close our hearts to God and His love.
- In the end, if we insist on trusting ourselves, God will allow us to experience the consequences of the path we choose.
- In the deepest of pits, the Lord hears you, still loves you, and has the power to save you.
- But even though Jonah made his own grave, God was waiting there to rescue him.
- God Himself already went ahead of us into death to make a way for all of us to life.
- Jesus descended to the pit of hell and came back with the keys, so that all who call to Him may know that salvation comes from the Lord.
- When God’s grace overwhelms our guilt, our hearts overflow with gratitude.
- Even though his circumstances still stink, his heart is full of gratitude.
- When we realize that none of what we have is what we deserve, it opens our hearts to the joy of gratitude.
- “Gratitude is a sort of laughter of the heart that comes about after some surprising kindness.” - David Brooks, New York Times columnist
- When God speaks to us, His word disrupts our lives to lead us toward greater freedom.
- If our self-prescribed loyalties or fears are keeping us back from what God’s doing, He will confront them so we can move beyond them.
- When God moves toward us, it is to move us closer to Him and to those He loves.
- When God’s word sounds like a threat to our lives, we naturally want to resist and run.
- When we insist on trying to run our own lives, we will try to run from God.
- We may like the idea of God’s purpose for our lives, but we cannot fulfill His purpose and keep our throne.
- Fear tries to convince us we’ll be happier running our own lives, but without God, it’s really a slow death.
- Even when we try to run away from God, He doesn’t stop running toward us.
- Signs of God’s mercy to Jonah…
- When Jonah was asleep to God’s voice, He used the storm to wake him up.
- God used an ‘unbeliever’ to convict the heart of the ‘believer.’
- When Jonah deserved death for his rebellion, God provided the rescue.
- What does the fish symbolize? God’s endless mercy.
- Even when we run from God like He’s a threat, His mercy pursues us like a Father.
- When darkness appears to be winning, it leaves us feeling hopelessly alone and looking for the quickest way out.
- When adrenaline subsides, tiredness hits, or loneliness sets in, the lies often come.
- Satan waits until we’re weak and susceptible so he can either entice us to sin or overwhelm us with fear of the darkness.
- Because we live in a society where sin has been normalized, it’s easy to ask ‘what’s the point in believing anything can be different?’
- God’s grace meets us in our discouragement so His truth can untangle the lies.
- First, God in His love addresses Elijah’s practical needs.
- Second, God invites him to untangle His fear.
- Third, God speaks truth to Elijah in the language of grace not judgment.
- Although darkness appears to be winning at times, God is still on the throne, we are not alone, and His purposes still stand for us and the coming generations.
- No matter what kings say or do, God is on the throne.
- We are not alone.
- God’s purposes still stand for us and the coming generations.
- When the darkness seems to have won, the still voice of God invites us to step out in the light because He’s not done.
- The need to be in control becomes a terrible burden when we’re forced to realize how little we can control.
- Control becomes a burden when we work for it without God or try to control that which belongs only to God.
- This is a key sign of pride – trusting we can control things better than God can.
- When our human control proves weak, our self-confidence turns into heavy anxiety.
- God invites us to humbly relinquish our need for control so we can joyfully rest in Him.
- A calm lightness came over his soul after he chose to trust that His Father is good and walk the path of humility with Him.
- Pride darkens our hearts with its restless promises of freedom, but Christ freely followed the road of humility.
- There are moments and seasons when Jesus will allow that burden of control to feel so heavy that it takes us low.
- From that place of humility, we learn to trust God for what we cannot control, diligently seek His wisdom for what we can, and treat all of life as a gift from Him.
- How could we learn to calm and quiet our souls with God?
- Identify what people or things you are trying to control on your own.
- Write out a list of what you can control and what you cannot control.
- Turn your list into a daily prayer for wisdom and trust.
- As I control what I can with God and trust Him for what I cannot, life becomes a joy.
- The road from anxious control to joyful rest winds through the valley of humility.
- Shame afflicts us with the burden that we will never be good enough.
- Shame mercilessly burdens us with a standard we cannot hold.
- Once we can’t live up to its standard, shame condemns us and isolates us from God.
- Shame cannot give us rest. It can only lay more burdens upon us.
- While fully knowing your shortcomings and guilt, Jesus invites you to come to Him.
- Jesus doesn’t invite the self-sufficient, but the weary and the burdened to come.
- The accuser yells, ‘you’re never good enough’, but Jesus invites, “Come to Me.”
- As we learn to come to Jesus, He teaches us to quiet the accuser and rest in His grace.
- Even before you feel worthy, come to Jesus.
- Ask Jesus to teach you what’s His voice and the voice of the accuser.
- Honestly offload your sin to Christ and ask for His way.
What have you been trying to fix on your own that Jesus wants you bring to Him instead?
- The peace of God isn’t just the absence of fear or war, but it’s the presence of a King.
- God has promised ever increasing peace through His everlasting King.
- God’s King did not just come to remove conflict but make us and all things whole.
- The Prince of Peace has to be God’s King because only God has created us and only He knows what it looks like to make us whole again.
- Instead of leaving us searching for a façade of peace in our human power, Christ came in humble love to be our everlasting peace.
- Caesar Augustus claimed to bring about an absence of hostility in the world, but it was by dominating power from on high.
- Heaven’s King came as a baby to bring His peace to the whole world through the means of humble love.
- With the life of our King in us, we are His representatives of His peace among one other and within our communities.
- Christmas morning was the inauguration, unto us a child was born, but God promises His shalom will cover every corner of creation.
- As we realize that Christ’s life is at work through us restoring all things to Himself, we start seeing all aspects of our lives as His work.
- The eternal King has come to be our peace, and the increase of His peace will not end until every corner of His creation is made whole.
Text: Luke 1:46-55
Title: A Song of Hope
Series: Advent: Heaven Come Down
Date: November 28, 2021
- As we humbly learn to take God at His word, we find hope even when life looks hopeless.
- When the circumstances threatened to overwhelm her, Mary chose to magnify the glory of her God.
- Optimism looks for the best in our circumstances, but hope looks to who God is even in the darkest of circumstances.
- Hope is the direct result of a humble faith in who God says He is.
- What was the source of Mary’s hope?
- Our God sees you and comes to you with mercy not judgment.
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We serve a mighty God who promised to establish His justice and peace on the earth.
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If the Spirit of Christ is within us, we, too, have a song of hope to sing.
- When we take God at His Word, our faith becomes hope, our hope becomes a song, and the song becomes an invitation to others to believe, too.
- This Christmas, as we remember that our God has come and His salvation has dawned, we sing our song of hope again.