Posts filed under 'Post'
ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR SUNDAY, NOV. 24, 2013
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
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.
Podcast – Sermon 11-17-2013
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
Podcast – Sermon 11-10-2013
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?
Conscience not enough
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.
tree ring growth
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
Veteran’s Day
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 for Sunday, Nov. 10
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.
See yourself in your marriage
Disrespectful Judgments Questionnaire
Circle the number that best represents your feelings about the way your spouse tries to influence your attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. If you circle a number greater than 1 for any question, try to think of an example that you can share with your spouse and write it on a sheet of paper.
1. Does your spouse ever try to “straighten you out?”
Almost Never—————Sometimes———-Much of the Time
1———-2———-3———-4———-5———-6———-7
2. Does your spouse ever lecture you instead of respectfully discussing issues?
Almost Never—————Sometimes———-Much of the Time
1———-2———-3———-4———-5———-6———-7
3. Does your spouse seem to feel that his or her opinion is superior to yours?
Almost Never—————Sometimes———-Much of the Time
1———-2———-3———-4———-5———-6———-7
4. When you and your spouse discuss an issue, does he or she interrupt you or talk so much that you are prevented from having a chance to explain your position?
Almost Never—————Sometimes———-Much of the Time
1———-2———-3———-4———-5———-6———-7
5. Are you afraid to discuss your points of view with your spouse?
Almost Never—————Sometimes———-Much of the Time
1———-2———-3———-4———-5———-6———-7
6. Does your spouse ever ridicule your point of view?
Almost Never—————Sometimes———-Much of the Time
1———-2———-3———-4———-5———-6———-7
The scoring for this questionnaire is simple. Unless all of your spouse’s answers are “1,” you’re probably engaging in disrespectful judgments.
3 dollars worth of God
$3 Worth of God
“I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.
I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant.
I want ecstasy, not transformation.
I want the warmth of the womb not a new birth.
I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.
I’d like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”
Wilbur Reese
It doesn’t require all that much to be a church member. The time commitment isn’t too bad; at its worst, we’re talking about three hours on Sunday and one on Wednesday (and you can easily cut it down to just 45 minutes on Sunday if you play your cards right). The cost isn’t bad either; nobody really knows how much you drop in the plate. Outside of church, all you have to do is avoid doing anything to publicly embarrass the church. It’s not a bad hobby.
But what does it take to be a disciple? That’s where things get tough, talking about denying ourselves and taking up crosses and being different from the world. That’s not really the life that most of us signed up for. It’s kind of like signing up for the safety patrol at school and finding yourself a Navy SEAL. We want to be Christians, but do we have to be fanatics about it?
Men have turned Christianity into a religion focused on gathering in a building on Sunday and doing certain things the right way. Success is measured by how many people we can gather to do things the same way that we do them. Evangelism is convincing people to come and do things the way we do them. Good church leaders organize the Sunday meetings well and make sure that the place that we meet is well taken care of. For many, that is what Christianity is about.
If we consider this to be Christianity, then we have to feel that Jesus really didn’t do a very good job of setting things up. Couldn’t He have spent at least a little time talking to us about how to do this Sunday “worship service” since it’s the center of our religion? Couldn’t He have spelled out a little better the exact rules for songs, for prayers and for taking the Lord’s Supper? Better yet, couldn’t He have left us at least one sample order of worship? Why did He spend so much of His time talking about other things?
If we want to be the Lord’s church, we have to be about the Lord’s business. If we are going to be imitators of Christ, it only makes sense that we are going to try and do the things He did. We will want to talk about the things He talked about and concentrate on the things He concentrated on.
Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) That’s every day. Not weekly. Not twice a week. Daily.
It’s all or nothing. Total commitment. We are His or we aren’t. God wants an intimate, daily relationship with us. He compares it again and again to a marriage. He doesn’t want to be a part of our lives; He wants to be our lives.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30) Not some. Not part. All.
Not $3.00 worth. Not one day a week’s worth. Not “inside the church building” worth. God wants all of us, every day. That’s what it is to be a disciple. That’s what it is to be a Christian.
Someone said that instead of focusing on being the right church, we should focus on being the right kind of Christians. The gathering of the right kind of Christians will be the right church.
$3 worth of God? Why don’t you supersize that?