The Town

What are your worries about tomorrow? What is on the agenda? What is bothering you? W hat gives you great concern? Is it your job? Your kids? Your lack of a spouse? The spouse that you have? Money? Success? What gives you great consternation? What seeds of doubt have been planted concerning the future. God makes promises about the future in the Bible. He tells us that there will be good times, bad times, and that ultimately, He will win, Jesus will rule, and we will be made like Jesus. It is a pretty great future when you think about it for a minute.

The doctrine of assurance is so important to the lives of Christians because it gets at the heart of the nature of salvation and of God's character. Our war with sin has been won already, but in the battles left to fight until we're glorified, Christians often get discouraged. One of the most unfortunate and darkest ends of this discouragement is when one believes that they are no longer under the grace that saved them in the first place. This is a horrible predicament, because they are left in a position where they still believe in the existence of God and his justice, but now feel they are under his judgment. This obviously can be completely debilitating in every area of life.

There is perhaps no more fertile soil for seeds of doubt than suffering. Suffering can produce feelings of animosity toward God, feelings of isolation, or perhaps a full-out denial of God. Psalm 46:1 says that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." This is true, and should bring us assurance. But the working out of this truth is hard, because we are temporal people who live our lives one day at a time. God's purposes in suffering usually take time (sometimes a very long time) to be revealed, and sometimes it never is fully.

Is doubt the enemy of faith? Is it a sin to doubt? Can doubt be a good thing? Is it okay for a Christian to doubt? Doubt can destroy us or it can lead us to deeper knowledge of God. Doubt can be the cause of anxiety or reliance on Jesus. To be sure, every human being that has ever walked the face of the earth has struggled through doubt, but Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith gives us good reason to lean into Him when we doubt.

If we want to do something well in life we have to discipline ourselves in order to become accomplished. Many in the church today have steered clear of devotions, prayer, and the spiritual disciplines. The reasons are many and varied. Yet the Scriptures make it very clear that in order to know God more we have to draw near to Him in prayer, worship, the Scriptures—we need to be disciplined.

Many of us have questions about the character and nature of God. Questions like "why does God allow evil to happen?", "does God know everything?", and "does God hear me?" all point to a deeper question of "what is God, what is he like, and how can I really know him?" The Bible addresses these questions and confronts us with Jesus' claims about how we can know God and be in relationship with him.

Many of us have questions about the character and nature of God. Questions like "why does God allow evil to happen?", "does God know everything?", and "does God hear me?" all point to a deeper question of "what is God, what is he like, and how can I really know him?" The Bible addresses these questions and confronts us with Jesus' claims about how we can know God and be in relationship with him.

We live in a terrific and fascinating age of science. We make new discoveries every day that effect our lives and how we look at the world. It is no secret that the Church has often clashed with science, especially when a scientific discovery seemed to conflict with the church's agenda, power over government, or influence over people. Even the brightest theologians have often made fools of themselves when confronted with scientific discovery. We will take a look at how God is the God of science and how all truth allows us to understand God more deeply and intimately.

This sermon was preached by Tom Harr from Faith Presbyterian Church (http://www.faithwilmington.com) about how our sufferings as Christians lead to joy because of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.

We spend so much time, money and resources on getting ready for Christmas. Most of us, by December 25th are ready for the big show. You are ready for Christmas but are you prepared for Christ? Christmas is a time of year when we can remember the birth of Christ but also look forward to his return. It's great to spend time with family and preparing for a special day of presents, family time and memories. But is your life spent preparing for the return of the Savior?

We were in a bad situation and Jesus was born to change the situation. We were in debt, lost, dead, orphaned and condemned and yet Jesus came to earth to become our Lord and change the situation. There were reasons why Jesus came and reasons why calling him Lord changes everything. Joy has dawned!

Our culture says that fear and anxiety are as much an inevitable part of the human experience as birth and death and are to be accepted. Yet when the angels appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of a Savior they commanded the men to "fear not". Why? Because Jesus brings the world great joy which crushes fear and anxiety. When we know who is in the manger and we look upon the face of Christ all of our fear must turn to joy.

Jesus defeated the grave and rose again. We hear the story every Easter. We gather to remember it every Sunday. The women in the text had forgotten the promise of Jesus that he would rise on the third day. That is the reason that they are afraid when they find the stone rolled away. We also forget. Despite the holiday and the church gatherings and the reminders we have in our lives, we forget that Jesus is alive. That is why we need to be reminded. In the New Testament, Paul often writes to churches to "remind" them of things they have already heard (1 Cor 15:1). As disciples, we are forgetful. Therefore, we must be reminded of the gospel frequently.

Oh, the irony. Puny men are trying to pass judgment on the God who judges the world. Men are flocking to bear false witness against the God who commanded not to bear false witness. The chief priest is accusing the God in whose Temple he serves of blasphemy. This is a picture of how blind we can become. Do we get so caught up in religiosity that we can't see God standing right in front of us? It seems to be getting darker and darker as we read these verses. If it weren't for Jesus' predictions about his own death, these events would come as a complete shock. Mark has spent the majority of the book persuading us of Jesus' identity. Mark has shown us Jesus' kingship, Lordship, and leadership. But now the King must die in order to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus' humiliation gets worse and worse.

The murder of Jesus was not a just event. His accusers show up in the middle of the night to arrest him. Jesus proposes a wise question: "Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me" (vv. 48-49). These men did not have the courage to arrest Jesus in the day; they waited until no one else was around so that the darkness might hide their deeds. They also brought excessive weapons to arrest Jesus; maybe they remember him overturning the tables in the Temple and don't think their manpower would be enough to restrain him. Either way, their actions are cowardly. These events feel more like a city mugging or a schoolyard brawl than an arrest.

The road to the cross is a difficult one. Sometimes, we can get so caught up with Jesus' divinity that we forget his humanity. In this passage, all the events that have been predicted numerous times are now starting to take place. Jesus knows that his friends are not going to be steadfast in his time of trial. Jesus knows that his friends are going to make bold promises about their loyalty to him and pathetically under-deliver. Jesus knows that he will have to endure hell in the next hours at the hands of Gentile dogs, religious hypocrites and his own disciple.

Every week at Stone's Throw, we break off a piece of bread (trying not to pick the spot that results in you taking half of the loaf for yourself) and dunk it in some grape juice (trying to make sure you aren't the guy whose finger touches the juice, disrupting the holiness of the event for everyone in line). In this passage, we see the introduction of that practice. In the parallel account in Luke 22, we see Jesus command us to do this when we gather in remembrance of him. When we take communion each Sunday, the truths of this passage should enter our minds as we remember Jesus.

In this scene, a woman interrupts a dinner party. She breaks an expensive bottle of ointment open and anoints Jesus. A denarii was the average daily wage during Jesus' time period, so 300 denarii is in the neighborhood of the average yearly wage for a Palestinian. We can understand why some disciples are upset that this bottle is being "wasted" on Jesus. Their argument makes sense; imagine how much good you could do for the poor if you had a year's worth of salary to spare.

In theological circles, eschatology is known as "the study of last things." One thing I think we can all agree on is that eschatology can get very, very weird. The study of the end times can get very muddy between some terrifying biblical imagery, some whack-job pastors making gloom and doom predictions, hilariously bad Christian movies and books that are written for entertainment. This next section of Scripture is called the Olivet Discourse; that is because Jesus and his disciples are sitting on top of a mountain overlooking the temple. There are hundreds of interpretations of these upcoming verses, but the central truth is that Jesus is the omniscient, omnipotent God who knows and controls all the events of history.

God is faithful and He has made His church fruitful. He is changing people and saving people. We celebrate what God is doing in our midst and what better way than under a Big Tent! Complete with outdoor worship, a baptismal tank, BBQ, and moon bounces!