Peace with God

Ben Foust

1 John 4:10

What does it mean (and look like) to have peace with God? Paul describes us as utterly helpless because of our moral guilt before God, and we deserve God's condemnation. But God moved towards us and showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. The peace with God we have available to us starts with the foundation of Christ's redemption and is cultivated in our hearts as we move closer to God.

Jesus Reaches Rejects

Conrad Hilario

Luke 5:12-32

Jesus shows mercy and love to the rejects of society including the leper, the paralyzed man, and the tax collector. The Pharisees, by contrast, tried to protect themselves from evil. Jesus was able to transform the rejects of society because they were humble rather than self-righteous and recognized their need for forgiveness. If we want to be Christ-like, we need to be prepared to go beyond what is comfortable in order to share our faith and love all people as Jesus did.

Why We Can't Earn It

Ryan Lowery

Isaiah 65:1-2

How do the rules and rituals in the Old Testament show us we can't earn God's forgiveness? In fact, the point of God's Law is to show us how far we are from God and how we can not earn His forgiveness. He set His son on the cross in order to bridge that gap and open the possibility of a relationship with Him. But we are still in danger of taking up a religious mentality even if we have God's forgiveness. Maybe we're still thinking that we can be justified to God through our works.

Jesus Calling

Dennis McCallum

John 3:36

A distinction is made between a decision to receive the free gift of God's forgiveness and a decision to respond to God's call to follow Him. The case for evangelism is made, pointing out peoples' need to be told about their position before God and how to be forgiven. There is no logical or loving reason not to tell others about Christ. This appeal is for people to make the first decision. The second decision is to respond to God's call for the believer to follow him and present his or her life in service to God in order to reach people with the Good News.

Jesus is the Christ

Mike Sullivan

Isaiah 53:11

John makes the claim that Jesus is the Christ, which means that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied about in the Old Testament and that He is God, man, Lord, and Savior. This claim is supported by various lines of evidence including Christ's baptism, his death, and the Holy Spirit. Those who examine the evidence for Jesus must reach a conclusion for themselves about his claims, and those who accept that he is God have the privilege of serving him for the rest of their lives.

Jesus' Genealogy

Conrad Hilario

Matthew 1:7-12

Jesus' genealogy reveals God's ability to carry out His plan exactly as He said He would through prophecy, e.g., the Davidic Covenant. The accounts in Luke and Matthew both explicitly link Jesus the Messiah with the line of King David. Jesus' genealogy includes unseemly characters, revealing God's desire to use common, sinful people in His plan to rescue humanity.

God's Shameless Love

Ryan Lowery

Romans 1:8-16

Paul expresses intense love and excitement for the Christians in Rome as well as a longing to visit them. In spite of Paul's history of killing Christians and extensive training as a Pharisee, he is able to be shameless in preaching the Gospel of Christ. Paul's overt confidence can only be due to Jesus' shameless acts of self-sacrifice as well as Paul's understanding of the saving power of the Gospel. The only thing that is more powerful than the impact of shame is love.

God's Good News

Ryan Lowery

Romans 1:1-7

Paul explains what it means to be saved and what the good news of Jesus really is. He describes the good news as: 1) coming from God; 2) revealed from scripture; 3) bona fide due to Christ having a dual nature and being raised from the dead; 4) intended by God to be spread by people who are empowered by Him; 5) a free gift to anyone who desires it; and 6) purposed to reveal God's greatness. Paul concludes his explanation of what the gospel is by disclosing to his audience that all people are called to the mission of sharing it with the world.

Motivating Disciples to Become Faithful Evangelists

Catrina Bogart

Doug Patch

John 4:34

God's call to evangelism is universal to all believers in Christ. Therefore, it is important that we spend time and energy helping our disciples to become self-motivated, faithful evangelists. This first requires that we ourselves are modeling evangelism and its importance. We must also correctly define what a faithful evangelist is, separating our role from God's. Other key elements include prayer, sowing seeds abundantly, making nonbelievers more comfortable, and planning moves ahead of time.