Teague Bible Church

Church Christmas Party at Teague Bible Church

 

   Friday night   December 20, 2013

 

     6:00 P.M.  Potluck Dinner

 

 

         * Children’s Music Program after we eat

 

           * (If you could have the kids there at about 5:00 P.M. for

                   our practice of four songs)

 

 

                      Outside Bond Fire

 

                            Inside Table Games

 

Join us in remembering the reason for this Thanksgiving holiday. And join us this Sunday for even more reasons to be thankful…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBfQb8D2kbw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGlF8DWil5w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfEZC8eG1_Y

 

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

 

Jason.

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR SUNDAY, NOV. 24, 2013

Cleaning: Week Nov 24. —Kerrs.

Nursery: Dec. 1.—Sarah.

CHRISTMAS AT TBC: Friday, Dec. 20 @ 6pm. Potluck, Hot Dogs, & Bonfire.

Follow us on Facebook or at teaguebiblechurch.org.

ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR SUNDAY NOV. 17, 2013

Cleaning: Week Nov 17. —Chambers.

Nursery: Nov 24.—Bev.

CHRISTMAS AT THE PETTYS: Friday, Dec. 20 @ 6pm. Potluck, Hot Dogs, & Bonfire.

Follow us on Facebook or at teaguebiblechurch.org.

 

James 1:13-18

Intro:  Me-Ma’s TeaKettle

 TODAY’S TEXT:  READ James 1:13-18   *********************************************

 Background:  James wants to counter the idea that since God allows trials and temptations that He must be the author of them.

 A way to say, “The Devil made me do it!”

 A way to excuse yourself of any responsibility concerning sin.

 In your own strength you have no chance to overcome your enemy.  No amount of religious ritual,stoic discipline; no amount of emotional fervor, will overcome what you face.

(Colossians 2:16-23)

 

But if you know Christ which is to be “born-again”, you receive a new nature and the Holy Spirit comes in to give all the power you need to endure trials (1:2, 12) and grow from them; and to resist temptations (1:13-14) that arise “within you,” from the old nature.  Now you have a new nature that can overcome.

 

If not “born-again” the pattern of James 1:15  is inevitable.  READ AGAIN

 

Romans 6;23       “For the wages of sin is death (spiritual), but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

What you are up against?  Satan (James 4:7)/the World (Romans 12:2)/ the “Flesh” (Romans 5:7)

 

Will focus today on what works “inside” you; the “flesh”. *********************************

 

It is shocking to realize the enemy has an avenue to you from the “inside.”

 

Ex. Movie where the call comes from inside the house!

 

Ex. Me and Rich decide that we can stop all vices.  First time I realized sin had me as its own.  I was a prisoner.

 

Romans 7:5     “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were arounsed by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.”

 

James 1:13-14    READ

 

“carried away” = ( greek- exelkomenos)  to be “subtly” drawn away

                                                         from a  safe place.

 

“being lured” =  ( greek= deleaxomevos) to entrap/to catch with bait

“Lust” = nothing wrong with this word “desire.” The context of the passage lets you know if it is good desire or bad desire. Two examples below of the good meaning of the word

 

Philippians 1:23   “I desire to depart”

Luke 22:15  “I desire to eat this meal with you.”

 

Ex.  1 John 2:15-17

 

Ex.  The picture of a fish going in a straight course and then

               led away as the lure passes by.

 

Ex.  Oklahoma trout fishing

            Water clear, and you can see the fish following the lure.  If too slow they lose interest; if too fast it gets away from them.

 

James 1:15  READ

  LUST brings about a birth, and the child grows up to become uncontrollable!

 

Ex.  Dr. McGorman-rat trap- “Cleam the traps son – only one creature will return to the same bloody trap and walk over the bodies of fallen comrades to take his turn at death!”

 

James 1:17   READ

            Far from being the one tempting you, God gives only good gifts and perfect gifts.

            He gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.  First happens when you become a Christian, then as you daily surrender to Him, you overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit already abiding inside of you.

 

“Father of lights (plural) “The star and the moon and sun.  But they appear to come and go; whereas the Creator of light, God Himself, never cast a shadow.

 Ex.  Song – “Great is Thy Faithfulness”

            “Great is Thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father.  There is no shadow of turning with thee; Thou changeth not, Thy compassions they fail not; as Thou hast been Thou forever will be.”

 James 1:18  READ  This verse about the new birth in Christ that removes the judgment of sin that would have trapped  and condemned you for eternity (Romans 8:1).  And about a nature you have so that the Holy Spirit can work in you to overcome daily the effects of the old nature.  It is a process that gives daily hope and victory.  No more living in perpetual guilt or shame!

 

“word of truth” – gospel message (Romans 10:17)

 

“first fruits” – first in reference to the glorified resurrected body of Christ (1 Corinthians 15), but then referring here to us, and the same thing happens to us. (Philippians 3;20-21).

 Final:  You have to have a daily plan or you will continue to get lured away 

                         by lust residing inside of  you.  “Just taking life as it comes”

                                will not work!

 

QUESTION:  What is your daily plan?

 

Great Scripture to build your daily plan:  Hide these in your heart!

 

Romans 12:1-2                       Daily surrender

Romans 8;12-14         How the process works

I John 5:4-5                We overcome because He overcame

I John 4:4         Greater is He that is in you, than he (Satan) that is in the world

Hebrews 2:14-18        Draw near with confidence

I Corinthians 10:12-13      Nothing unusual happening;

                                                                 God will give you power

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James 1:9-11   Feeling Good  About Your High Position

 

Question: Would you walk away from a job paying 625,000 per year?

 

The John Moffitt Story

 

Text Intro: James has four passages on money.

 

16 of 38 parables about money

 

1 of 10 verses in the gospels; 288 total; deal directly about money

 

Entire Bible has; 500 verses on prayer / 500 on faith ;

but more than 2000 on money or possessions

 

George Barna reports,,,

 

50% of Christians consider money the primary indicator of success

 

19% of Christians believe you can tell how successful a person is by examining

WHAT they own.

 

TEXT:   READ  James 1:9-11  ************************

 

 

God really gives more than the poor man lacks; or the rich man possesses

 

Question: What do you think rich “feels” like?

 

(I did not ask what rich looks like; that’s easy; it is having more than

you can possibly use)

 

Rich looks like:   ***********

 

Freedom to buy/ travel/ for leisure time

 

Power to get your way

 

Security and safety

 

Fame and being the envy of others

 

Respect and honor

 

Giving to charity = You are seen as generous; even when you may only be giving

from your excess

 

Do the rich always “feel” rich, and on top of the world ?   Apparently not.

 

Think of all the magnates, actors, musicians, professional athletes, and politicians who cover the news every day who have miserable lives, and yet they lack nothing materially.

 

 

I feel most sorrow for those who are deceived;

 

The worst materialist the world has ever known? The super rich? NO!

 

The average person who thinks he can imagine that rich will make

    him “feel” complete!

 

We continually get fooled on how a certain set of circumstances will feel

   once we acquire them

 

Ex- Star Trek– Spock is to get married- Bride chosen since birth-

Another man manipulates to take her away with the bride’s blessing

Both men are fine men, but the wife is a horrible person,

Both men now realize how terrible it will be to be married to evil person

 

Spock, after he gives her up- speaking to soon-to-be husband ;

 

“You may find that the wanting is better than the having”  (or words to that effect)

 

The problem with wanting to get rich is you imagine how it will make you feel; you dream about it; and all the while you are already rich in Christ but refuse to look into it because you may have to stand apart from your friends and family to live it out.

 

The problem with wanting to get rich is it infects your identity; your personality.

 

READ Matthew 6: 19-21

 

Your “heart” is the very core of your eternal being! It is all that remains after this life.

 

The real misery is you sell out your family time; your church; relationships; all for money. Even as you increase the money you make; it never feels like enough!

 

Example: Read or do verse 1,  and chorus of

“In The Palm Of Your Hand”- Allison Krauss

Particularly the line-    “ then life was torn from me

 

 

READ  I Timothy 6: 7-10

      About 35 years after Paul wrote this letter this happened,,,,,,,

Example: Show pictures of Pompeii-

 

Question:  Do you know what these are?

These are plaster cast of real human bodies destroyed in a volcanic eruption in 79 A.D.

 

We saw the exhibit a few years ago and it was eerie walking around these bodies.

Mt. Vesuvius went off and the town of Pompeii was destroyed instantly!

 

The art work and frescos so nasty that you are not allowed to take children in. They adore Priapus; god of sex and fertility.  10,000 die that day

 

They were killed by the heat, as ash 13-20 feet thick covered the town. Heat of 482 degrees! (They used to think they choked from the dust, but the cast speak a different story.)

 

Story of woman grasping for a bag of pearls. Now frozen in time- all about money!

 

Feet toward freedom of the city gate to escape; her hands turned back toward a bag of pearls.

 

 

Final: How to “fee” really rich, and that wealth based on historical facts? Even when you are not rich, by this world’s standards?

 

 

“On This Day” Devotional book; December 17

 

  READ:  BORDEN STORY

 

 

Final thoughts:

 

Our great witness, in these hard economic times, is to walk among the disappointed- seekers- of- riches; and let them see what it means to be content by having and living within the riches of Christ.

 

Could they see and hear in you, that you are context? Could you desire for them that they FEEL like you do?

 

How do you FEEL about your life right at this moment?

 

If your body and mind and heart we frozen in time for all to see, would they say you were context and lived a rich life in Christ?

 

 Do you FEEL rich or lacking?

 

 

 

J.B.Phillips   “Resident Policeman”   Conscience  

                          (from “Your God Is To Small”)

    “To many people conscience is almost all they have by way of knowledge of God. This still small voice which makes them feel guilty and unhappy before, during, and after wrongdoing, is God speaking to them. It is this which, to some extent at least, controls their conduct. It is this which impels them to shoulder the irksome duty and choose the harder path.

    Now no serious advocate of a real adult religion would deny the function of conscience, or deny that its voice may at least give some inkling of the moral order that lies behind the obvious world in which we live. Yet to make “conscience” into “God”  is a dangerous thing to do. For one thing, as we shall see in a moment, conscience is by no means an infallible guide; and for another, it is extremely unlikely that we shall ever be moved to worship, love, and serve a nagging inner voice that at worst spoils our pleasure and at best keeps us rather negatively on the path of virtue.

    Conscience can be so easily perverted or morbidly developed in the sensitive person, and so easily ignored and silenced by the insensitive, that it makes a very unsatisfactory god. For while it is probably true that every normal person has an embryo moral sense by which he can distinguish right from wrong, the development, non-development, or perversion of that sense is largely a question of upbringing, training, and propaganda.

Dear Family,                                                                        ( this is from 2011)

 

I am really enjoying our study through Luke. It was J.I. Packer who said to, “study all, but live in the Gospels.” Churches that function properly as a family, will like a family, go through seasons of growth; then what appears, (or may be,) stagnant times; then growth again.

I liken it to tree ring growth. The reason you can see tree rings to begin with, is because they grow out quickly in the spring, but then stop their outward growth for a while to get hard and solid the rest of the season. Trees do not grow at a steady pace.

Likewise, we learn something new in the Word and begin applying it to our daily lives. Not much to look at during those times of becoming solid inside, but it leads to whole new growth as we are prepared for the next set of truths from the Word of God, and  its application to daily living.

In the Great Northwest, where I lived 11 years, there was a tree that began its growth in 1292 and was cut down in 1964. An 8 -inch slab was cut and laid sideways for viewing in the Mt. Rainer Park.

It was amazing to count the rings and see the years go by. Marked alone the way were many of the famous events in history marked on the tree at different points. Just a few points listed; 1492-Columbus / 1776- Independence Day /  1915 -WW1 /  1940- WW2 / 1969 moon landing.

You could see the sadness of the years when the tree grew poorly, because of lack of water or essential nutrients. Makes you wonder how large and strong it could have become if properly nourished. Being a tree, it could not move itself to a source of water to help itself stay strong.

However, we as Christians, can move toward the nourishment we need.  The key to spiritual growth is steady intake of the Word of God, prayer, fellowship, and witnessing.

There are big adventures that come to us in our walk with God,  but they come to us if we have made the commitment to stay in the Word, stay in prayer, stay in fellowship, look always for divine appointments to witness, no matter what our moods may be.

My prayer is for us to have renewed growth in our personal walk, which should translate to all other kinds of growth. The best gift you can give to a lost world, and to other struggling Christians, is the benefit of the overflow of your walk with Christ. To use another analogy; you cannot give a drink of water out of an empty bucket.

May God bless your week ,

Jimmy Petty

II Corinthians 5:14-21

 

WASHINGTON —  The White House announced Friday that a Pennsylvania soldier who jumped on top of a grenade in Iraq and saved the lives of his comrades will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor.

The nation’s highest military honor will be given to 19-year-old Army Pfc. Ross McGinnis of Knox, Pa., on June 2.

McGinnis “distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism,” said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto.

McGinnis was perched in the gunner’s hatch of a Humvee when a grenade sailed past him and into the truck where four other soldiers sat. He shouted a warning to the others, then jumped on the grenade. The grenade, which was lodged near the vehicle’s radio, blew up and killed him.

Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said McGinnis easily could have jumped out of the truck and saved himself.

“The instinct is, jump out of the vehicle, but his four buddies were in the vehicle with him … and he chose to place himself on top of the grenade and absorb the impact, and it saved their lives,” Edgecomb said.

McGinnis was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, in Schweinfurt, Germany.

He died on Dec. 4, 2006.

Three others have also been awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for their actions in Iraq. They are Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul R. Smith, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor and Marine Cpl. Jason L. Dunham.

 

Announcements:
Cleaning–Week of Nov. 17–Twittys
Nursery–Nov. 17–Linda C.
MINISTERIAL ALLIANCE DINNER: Sunday, Nov 17 @ 5pm at the Over 55 Center.

Follow us on Facebook or at teaguebiblechurch.org.