Christ Fellowship Church: Recent Episodes
Christ Fellowship Church
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Discussion Questions
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Discussion Questions
Slides
Audio Block
Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3.
Learn more
Discussion Questions
Slides
Discussion Questions1. Nixon’s “it’s not illegal if you’re the president” and Roosevelt’s “I’ve just been shot” are both pretty shocking statements. Can you think of some other famous sayings that were shocking when first spoken?
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The term “shock value” usually carries a negative connotation. But are there times when shock is helpful? Can you think of an example when being shocked led to a positive result?
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Creative exercise: Imagine that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Spend some time thinking about how a group of uneducated, poor common folks were able to start a brand new “religion.” With no access to political, economic, educational or cultural power- how might such a group successfully make a new religion “stick?”
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What were the three arguments Greg cited to suggest that the tomb of Jesus was actually empty?
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Which one of these arguments resonated with you the most- why?
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Read 1 Corinthians 15:20-20. How foundational to the Christian faith was the resurrection? What do you think Paul would have said to the idea that even if there was no resurrection, Christianity has merit just the same?
Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. – Augustine
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When we worship the Creator let us increase our trust in our Comforter. Did he create all that we see, and can he not preserve us from evils which we cannot see? – Charles Spurgeon
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The pilgrim’s gaze did not stop when he looked upward to the hills but that he looked beyond them to God, who made the mountains. – James Montgomery Boice
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“Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh!" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"... "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver... "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you. – C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
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I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. - Woody Allen
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What we believe about who God is, determines how much control other people have over us.
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Just so, I tell you, there will be more joyin heaven over one sinnerwho repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Luke 15:7
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The truth is that the God of the Bible is the kind of God whose greatest delight comes not from making demands but from meeting needs. – Sam Storms
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The fear of God is the death of every other fear; like a mighty lion, it chases all other fears before it. - Charles Spurgeon
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There is no need for two to care, for God to care and the creature too. – Charles Spurgeon
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Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I risk my whole eternity on the resurrection. - Charles Spurgeon
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There is a certainty that we are quite safe in His hands. Wherever else we are insecure, if we ask Him to receive our spirit, and He receives it, who can hurt us? Who can pluck us out of His hands? Awaken, Death and hail! Come forth, all you powers of darkness! What can you do when once a spirit is in the hands of the Omnipotent Redeemer? We will be safe there! - Charles Spurgeon
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Jesus died with the cry of the Victor on His lips. This is not the moan of the defeated, nor the sigh of patient resignation. It is the triumphant recognition that He has now fully accomplished the work that He came to do. – Leon Morris
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God may thunder His commands from Mount Sinai and men may fear, yet remain at heart exactly as they were before. But let a man once see his God down in the arena as a Man – suffering, tempted, sweating, and agonized, finally dying a criminal's death – and he is a hard man indeed who is untouched. – J. B. Phillips
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It is wonderful to remember that even as he hung dying on a Roman cross, suffering as the Lamb of God, he took thought of and made provision for his mother. – D. A. Carson
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The thief had nails through both hands, so that he could not work; and a nail through each foot, so that he could not run errands for the Lord; he could not lift a hand or a foot toward his salvation, and yet Christ offered him the gift of God; and he took it. Christ threw him a passport, and took him into Paradise. – D. L. Moody
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I believe that as often as I transgress, God is more ready to forgive me than I am ready to offend. – Charles Spurgeon
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In this final encounter the book comes full circle. At the beginning it was the story of just two personalities: Jonah and God. After Jonah had run away, the sailors came into the story and then eventually all the people of Nineveh. Now, at the end, we are again back to God and his rebellious prophet. It is always that way. God gives us work to do; the work involves other people. But in the end, when it gets right down to basics, it is always a question of each of us as an individual and God. It is a question of whether or not we have obeyed him. – James Montgomery Boice
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I was so obsessed with what was going on in the fish that I missed what was going on inside of Jonah. – John Thomas Carlisle
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Our reliance on the Spirit is not intended to foster an attitude of “I can’t do it,” but one of “I can do it through Him who strengthens me.” The Christian should never complain of want of ability and power.– Jerry Bridges
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God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. – C. S. Lewis
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My observation of Christians is that many tend to base their relationship with God on their performance instead of on his grace. In this sense, we live by works, rather than by grace. We are saved by grace, but we are living by the sweat of our performance. – Jerry Bridges
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I am sure He wouldn’t have loved me for this long if He hadn’t been a changeless Lover. If He were going to grow weary of me, He would have been tired of me long before now. If He hadn’t loved me with a love as deep as hell, and as strong as death, He would have turned away from me long ago. Oh, joy above all joys, to know that I am His everlasting and inalienable inheritance, given to Him by His Father even before the earth existed! Everlasting love shall be the pillow for my head this night. – Charles Spurgeon.
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We are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel....Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. – C.S. Lewis
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An “impersonal God” – well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own head – better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap – best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps, approaching an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband – that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: Was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s search for God!”) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us? – C.S. Lewis
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Few preachers of religion do believe thoroughly the doctrine of the Fall, or else they think that when Adam fell down he broke his little finger, and did not break his neck and ruin his race. – Charles Spurgeon
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All of our warfare and all of our activity must take place in the context of constant, unceasing prayer. Just as a soldier on the battle line has to keep in constant communication with his general headquarters and his commanding officer, so the Christian who is on the battle line must be in constant communication with his Lord. He might be fully equipped with all the armor, but if he is cut off from personal communication with his own commander, then he will be isolated and vulnerable. – R. C. Sproul
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Grace makes us the servants of God while still we are the servants of men: it enables us to do the business of heaven while we are attending to the business of earth: it sanctifies the common duties of life by showing us how to perform them in the light of heaven. – Charles Spurgeon
Below is preview footage of our new video equipment set up. We plan to go live and film consistently starting December 2. The sermon begins around 26:44
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When a young mother cannot bring herself to discipline her child, when a father will not supply the time or attention to discipline, when the latest childrearing book has made us question whether we should just ignore some improper outburst from a child—in each of these moments we need the straightforward simplicity this Scripture supplies. If we love our children too much to require them to do what is right, then we have not really loved them enough. - Bryan Chapell
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Compatibility is not the key to marriage… It is our conviction, based on experience in ministry and God’s Word, that two Christians who share an attraction, who are committed in faith to God through Christ, and who are determined to obey the Bible’s teachings will be able to love each other in marriage.– Richard and Sharon Phillips
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Such are the wholesome results of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They all concern our relationships. If we are filled with the Spirit, we shall be harmoniously related both to God (worshipping him with joy and thanksgiving) and to each other (speaking and submitting to one another). In brief, Spirit-filled believers love God and love each other, which is hardly surprising since the first fruit of the Spirit is love. – John Stott
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But the reason why Christians should dislike and avoid vulgarity is not because we have a warped view of sex, and are either ashamed or afraid of it, but because we have a high and holy view of it as being in its right place God’s good gift, which we do not want to see cheapened. All God’s gifts, including sex, are subjects for thanksgiving, rather than for joking. To joke about them is bound to degrade them; to thank God for them is the way to preserve their worth as the blessings of a loving Creator. – John Stott
We had a malfunction this week with the sermon recording computer. We apologize for the audio quality!
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It is marvellous to see how easily Paul can descend from lofty theological talk about our two humanities, about the Christ we have learned and the new creation we have experienced, to the nitty-gritty of Christian behaviour—telling the truth and controlling our anger, honesty at work and kindness of speech, forgiveness, love and sexual self-control. – John Stott
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Advance in the Christian life comes not by the work of the Holy Spirit alone, nor by our work alone, but by our responding to and cooperating with the grace the Holy Spirit initiates and sustains- Donald Whitney
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Here is incontrovertible evidence that the New Testament envisages ministry not as the prerogative of a clerical élite but as the privileged calling of all the people of God. Thank God that in our generation this biblical vision of an ‘every-member ministry’ is taking a firm hold in the church. - John Stott
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United in him, we share the same testimony: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. These are the terms that characterize the testimony of all who are truly Christ’s. We testify that Jesus is Lord; we testify that faith in his work on our behalf is our only means of salvation; and, by our baptism, we testify that we are cleansed of sin and united to him by his grace alone. – Bryan Chapell
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Do you know the difference between God's empowering grace and Satan's immobilizing guilt? Its's the difference between life and death.
God’s grace does not come to people who morally out perform others, but to those who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a savior.” – Tim Keller
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In a classic "only once-in-awhile" sermon, Greg presents a unique view of what happens when the believer dies. His position is an example of something Christians have the freedom to intramurally debate. The facts are unchanged- when a believer dies he is in the presence of Jesus instantaneously! Have fun thinking through this unusual message!
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The final message of the series- Revelation showcases the cosmic, majestic, all-powerful and all loving Savior. Jesus is our future!
Moses could mediate the law; Mohammed could brandish a sword; Buddha could give personal counsel; Confucius could offer wise sayings but none of these men was qualified to offer atonement for the sins of the world. Christ alone is worthy of unlimited devotion and service. He alone is able to redeem. He alone is worthy of worship. – R.C. Sproul
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The portrait of Jesus that emerges from the rich letter to the Hebrews is one of priest. A priest stands in the gap between sinful man and Holy God. And unlike every earthly priest who came before, Jesus does what none of them could do!
His was a life of continual bodily, mental, and spiritual labour; his whole man was exercised. But now he rests; there is no more toil for him now; here is no more sweat of blood, no more the weary foot, no more the aching head. No more has he to do. He sits still,and the very fact that he sits still, and rests, and is at ease, proves that his work is finished and is complete. – Charles Spurgeon
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Jesus emerges as the morally transformative teacher in the book of James. The once unbelieving half-brother of Jesus (see John 7:5), James came to see that Jesus was the supreme teacher, the only one who can show us how to live a transformed life.
He never entered a classroom as we know a classroom. He never had a degree as we understand an educational degree, yet all the world was his classroom. No degreed teacher did anything greater than what Jesus Christ did. He was truly and absolutely the Master Teacher and the greatest teacher of all time. – Ray Pritchard
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There are constant references in 1 and 2 Thessalonians to the return of Christ- history's most amazing event. But what makes the event amazing- as always- is that Jesus is at the center of it. He is our hope in this life and the next!
The apostolic church thought more about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ than about death and heaven. The early Christians were looking, not for a cleft in the ground called a grave but for a cleavage in the sky called Glory. – Alexander Maclaren
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Two famous passage in Philippians show us what a treasure Jesus was to the apostle Paul. May he be such a treasure to us!
Oh, to think of heaven without Christ! It is the same thing as thinking of hell. Heaven without Christ! It is day without the sun, existing without life, feasting without food, seeing without light. It involves a contradiction in terms. Heaven without Christ! Absurd. It is the sea without water, the earth without its fields, the heavens without their stars. There cannot be a heaven without Christ. He is the sum total of bliss, the fountain from which heaven flows, the element of which heaven is composed. Christ is heaven and heaven is Christ.– Charles Spurgeon
* Note about audio recording *We had a technical issue with our usual recording equipment did not capture the direct recording of the sermon. We should be back to normal next week!
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Drawing on Christ's headship of and love for his church (Ephesians, Colossians, 1-2 Timothy and Titus) we consider the wonderfully comforting portrait of Jesus as our Shepherd.
Our Good Shepherd has become the model for under-shepherds. His great concern is the good of the sheep. A good shepherd gives himself to the sheep. A thief comes to get something form the flock – wool or mutton. Jesus our Lord made every personal claim subservient to the blessing of his flock; even to giving His life that they might live. – Walter Chantry
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Galatians is the battlecry of the freedom concerning the good news of God's Son. Because Jesus has lived the perfect life we could not live and because Jesus died the death that we should have died, he has met all the demands of God's perfect law. So what are we doing making up ridiculous rules about what "good Christians" should and shouldn't do? Jesus died to free us from such things- we are right with God and are FREE to live boldly before God, pleasing him out of our renewed hearts- not according to some person's code of conduct.
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The church at Corinth was a total disaster- a complete mess. And Paul loved them. Why? Because he knew they were more than the sum of their abhorrent behavior and life choices. Jesus was in the midst of them. He was their very life.
Spirituality is not about being fixed; it is about God being present in the mess of our unfixedness. – Mike Yaconelli
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Some have called the book of Romans "The Christian's Constitution." It may be the most important book in the New Testament for understanding just exactly how sinful people can stand in a right relationship with a Holy God. We can't earn the perfect righteousness God requires. But- praise God- we can receive it as a gift!
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Luke offers a wonderfully unique take on who Jesus is- the Savior who has come to earth to rescue sinners from themselves! He comes not to be found by the righteous. Instead he comes to seek the unrighteous and bring them into a relationship with God.
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The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus in a counterintuitive way. He is a King (Matthew), but he did not come to wield his authority in the way most kings do. He came not to be served but TO SERVE!
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The first message in a new series- "Just Jesus- Rediscovering The Beauty of Christ." Each week we will see what one New Testament book says about Jesus. Matthew goes to great lengths to show us that Jesus is our long-awaited king- the ruler we have been waiting for- whether we knew it or not.
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