The first few words of Acts 2:1 reveals that there is more going on with Pentecost than just what was happening that day.
Read more#11 The Church (Part 3)
series: Love Incorruptible
title: The Church (part 3)
date: July 9, 2017
teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: Ephesians 5:22-33, Hosea 13:9, Genesis 2:24, Deuteronomy 6:5, John 17, Genesis 3
Man is incomplete.
Woman is incomplete.
But when they come together, in the way that God designed for them to be together, suddenly you have the fullest and most complete reflection of God available to man.
Paul calls it is mystery... A mystery that He says...
refers to the church.
In this sermon, we explored the DEPTH that is "the mystery" that Paul is referring to, and we went through some VERY BIG IDEAS that are revealed in the original language of the text that Paul quotes.
Of all of those big ideas, this one (explained below) is probably the biggest, and has by far gotten the most questions and responses from people, so we have provided this additional walk through of the concept for you to follow along as you watch the sermon.
It is the concept explained in this sermon about the Hebrew words for man and woman...
This is Genesis 2:24, which Paul quotes in Ephesians 5 when he is talking about marriage and how it relates to the church. Not the words "man" and "woman"
This is how it looks in Hebrew (right to left in Hebrew, but written in English left to right--- so "aleph" is the letter farthest to the right)
See the similarities... note the differences. They both have two identical letters, and one that is unique to their word.
By removing the two DISTINCT letters and putting them in a word by themselves, it spells "yah" - a Hebrew word for God. (and one half of YHWH "Yahweh")
Naturally, this makes sense. Because when a man and a woman come together, the way that God intended it to be, it is the closest reflection available to mankind of what God is like (a lot more about that in the sermon) - perhaps this doesn't surprise you... but when you combine the unique parts of the word "man" and "woman" you spell "God" but what may surprise you, is what you are left with, with you take God out.
if you now read the letters that are remaining... the letters that are the same in each word, you get fire. and because there are two words, you get fire, fire. Which in Hebrew, there were no explanation points so to emphasize something you would double it when you really wanted to show how important something is. Its almost like someone shouting "fire" or the concept of "the worst kind of fire"
In other words…
this.
is.
as.
bad.
as.
it.
gets!
Something that was designed to be the absolutely great gift… the absolute best… can become THE ABSOLUTE WORST, MOST DESTRUCTIVE THING IN YOUR LIFE.
or...
it could just be a coincidence :)
(it's not)
He is not here
series: a week to live
title: He is not here (Easter 2017)
date: April 16, 2017
teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: Mark 16:1-8, Mark 10:33-34, Isaiah 57:15
#14 Anxiety
series: Red Letter City
title: Anxiety
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: July 17, 2016
scriptures: Matthew 6:25-34, Romans 8:28, Matthew 11:28, Matthew 8:26, 1 Peter 5:7,
#5 Lust
series: Red Letter City
title: Lust
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: May 15, 2016
scriptures: Matthew 5:27-30, Matthew 23:3, Matthew 23:25, Matthew 23:27, Luke 8:17, Luke 12:3, Romans 2:16, Genesis 39, Jeremiah 7:30-31, Ephesians 2:10, Luke 22:15, Psalm 51:10, James 1:17.
I remember picking up my kids from school on Spring afternoon... it was just a beautiful day outside and we were driving home. and on the way home, there is this stop sign at Gratiot that we have to stop at and sometimes its really easy to turn onto Gratiot and other times its a total zoo… so much traffic just flying by and the only way to merge onto the street is to turn into the left turn lane and then make your way over… it was one of those days… and even after I had merged into the lane, it only took a little while before the side of traffic I was on came to almost a stop, just tons of cars, and on the other side cars were just FLYING by.
and I looked over, and standing in the middle lane, the left turn lane, was a man just standing there on his phone, laughing. Just standing there in the middle of traffic. He wasn’t really even trying to cross the street, he looked like he was just enjoying a conversation in the middle of traffic, hanging out between the yellow lines. People were trying to get into the left lane from both directions and he was preventing them. It was almost like he didn’t even notice what it was that he was surrounded by… like he didn’t hear the horns or understand the frustration he was causing actual drivers whom that part of the road is supposed to belong to.
He was so engaged in the world of his seemingly happy conversation, that he paid no attention to the potentially deadly environment that he was literally standing in the center of himself, or the way it messed up other people just trying to get through their commute. and I merged onto the highway and moved on, uncertain of what happened to that guy. But I know this. What he was doing was causing grief and frustration to others… probably unbeknownst to him. and if someone who needed to turn got over and didn’t see him…
he wouldn’t be laughing on the phone anymore.
It had the potential to fall apart very quickly.
It was a fine line he was walking on, one that he willingly gave up a certain level of control over his own safety for, to engage in this moment privately on the phone, yet surrounded by hundreds of cars who could take him out at any moment whether on purpose or on accident. I think that sometimes we find ourselves in trouble, and we don’t even realize it. We don’t realize that we are hurting others. We don’t realize the danger that we are in. We are think things like, “Oh, it is only in my mind… it will never go beyond this… and its not hurting anyone.” and we forget that devastating reality behind iniquity…
“whatever your eye hooks to, multiplies.”
and you can think that you have your own little private life in your head and think that its not affecting anyone but I assure you, that as whatever your eye hooks to, begins to multiple your life will begin to change. And you may not notice it right away, but it will wear on those around you. It will cause grief to people and they may not even be able to figure out why. But the truth is… that the reason that Jesus deals so dramatically with the Spirit of the law is because he knows that where your thoughts go… and what you dwell on, is a window into what you are becoming.
So Jesus says “lets cut this off at the source.”
#5 Ekklesia
Please note: We experienced technical difficulties when recording this sermon. There are two places that the audio loses quality significantly.
series: Jesus and Me (and the people we need)
title: Ekklesia
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: March 6, 2016
scriptures: Ephesians 2:13-22, 1 Peter 2:5, Ephesians 5:25-32, Deuteronomy 6:4-5, John 17, Acts 2,
#1 Beginning with Grace
Series: The Narrative of Grace
Title: Beginning with Grace
Date: November 15, 2015
Teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: Matthew 1:1-17, Genesis 12, Genesis 38, Joshua 2, Hosea 6:6, 1 John 3:18
Do you ever find yourself keeping score of failures? Or do you tend to assign a guilt you have to some current life circumstance?
I am alone because __________
I can’t go home because __________
I’ll never do that because __________
I don’t deserve grace because __________
But what if I were to tell you that the because doesn’t matter?
In fact, the only BECAUSE that does matter is That Jesus loves you BECAUSE you are his child. I try to tell my daughters that, as often as I can… Milly I love you…
“I know” she’ll say.
And I don’t do this every time, but sometimes, when I am at the top of my parenting game, I will ask her “Do you know why I love you?
“No”
Because you are my daughter. You are my daughter…
I love her because she is my child.
Well you are children of God. And nothing can change that. The bible says that nothing separates us from the love of God. Not death nor life..
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39 NIV)
The because does not matter. Because nothing can not separate us from the love of God any more than anything else.
You think you are jacked up? That God can’t use you anymore?
Look no further than the first of names on the list we read at the beginning… the names of those in JESUS’ family line…
Mathew one… The lineage… A genealogy was something that told people who you were… There was a sense of pride in where you came from, and the fact that God chose this particular family to be the one to birth Jesus into has great significance.
These people weren’t just jacked up like sometimes I think I am jacked up. These people were JACKED UP.
We invite you to join us as we explore this jacked up family for the six weeks leading up to Christmas.
Most of us try and separate worship from working. Ministry is what we do on Sunday's, and everything else is "life" - but it doesn't work.