as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.
if these were silent
Everyone's Burden
Pentecost
seven: conversation
#15 Judging
series: Red Letter City
title: Judging
date: July 24, 2016
teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: Matthew 7:1-6, Acts 5, 1 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 2:11, 1 Corinthians 4:5, 1 Samuel 24:5, Numbers 15:37-41, Matthew 9, Luke 8, Matthew 13:45-46, 1 John 4:16-17
#7 Oaths
series: Red Letter City
title: Oaths
date: May 29, 2016
teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: Matthew 5:33-37, Numbers 30, Ecclesiastes 5:2, Luke 8:17, Matthew 12:36, Matthew 16:16-19, Matthew 18, James 4:7, Ephesians 6, Ephesians 4:27, 1 Peter 5:8, Luke 13:15
I don’t know Rick Warren.
But I have met him.
somewhere out there, there is a picture of me that I have, of Dawn and I with Rick Warren, but I couldn't find it this week. I only have a picture because when I met him, he said “lets take a picture for facebook!” and so we took one… but I guess I never posted it to facebook. and I now I can’t find it. But it exists somewhere. But I don’t know Rick Warren. I had emailed him a couple of times about our bands music because we wrote one particular song that I thought he would really like, and he was very encouraging and said that he did.
The last time that I put out an album with my band was in 2011, and on release day, because of our previous conversations, Pastor Warren very graciously sent out one tweet on twitter encouraging people to go and check out our record.
One tweet, and suddenly thousands and thousands of people were going and checking out our songs. For a few hours our page had more visits than it had had the whole month. Until he sent out another tweet, and the one about us got lost.
His name brought me a temporary sense of popularity.
Because he said it was good, people wanted to hear for themselves.
and I could scream from the rooftops how great I thought my own music was, but when someone who had already done something significant…
like written the best selling book of all time other than the bible… when he puts his name on it, people listen.
It is very easy to use other people’s names to elevate our purposes.
There are certain name drops that become trump cards in conversations. and in Jesus’ time and in the generations leading up to Jesus it was no different. People made promises all of the time, it was not really a big deal. But if a person were to make a “vow” or an oath, it would almost automatically be believed… and that is what Jesus was addressing here. The concept of oaths. Of promising something with someone else’s name attached to it.
But do you even know the one whose name you have attached to your purposes?
#3 The Law
series: Red Letter City
title: The Law
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: April 24, 2016
scriptures: Matthew 5:17-20, Luke 24, John 16, Matthew 11:29, Romans 7:7, Romans 7:13, Galatians 5:4, Matthew 23, Acts 15, John 1:14, John 19
One of the key questions to understanding the sermon on the mount, is the order of the sermon.
Is it coincidence that Jesus first gave us the beatitudes, speaking a blessing over the broken people who were there with him, before telling them that they were salt and light?
was it laid out in advance?
I am not sure, but I don’t really get an image of Jesus going into his sermons with an outline. I think its probable that everything he said was incredibly timely and that he discerned what it was the the people needed to hear next, and I think that its very likely that he said what he said here about the law, because he realized that these people were beginning to go somewhere in their minds.
again, you have to consider the crowd. Just take the disciples… the bible says that they were often slow to understand. they were uneducated fishermen… beyond the uneducated fishermen were a group of outcasts who had just been told that they are blessed… that they are salt and that they are light.
Could it be that these things were already getting to their heads?
He says “do not think…”
did he get the impression that they had begun to think this?
Jesus has brought a brand new, upside down Kingdom, and with it he has promised the marginalized crowd on the outskirts of the mountain and his ragamuffin group of disciples, that they were ultimately going to be the image bearers of hope.
Could it be that these people began to think in their minds, that everything he was teaching meant he was replacing the law with himself… and that in the new role he had just given them, of being salt and light, meant that they no longer needed to follow the law, but instead needed follow this new teaching.
So right away he brings them back to reality. He says “I didn’t come to do away with the law. Heaven and earth will pass away before the law does… I came to fulfill the law!’
I am sure they were thinking, okay, awesome, glad we got that out of the way. Now lets go back to our beards that we can’t cut, our side burns we can’t trim, the foods we can’t mix together, and the 613 laws that we have spent our whole lives trying to keep even though we know that it is impossible for anybody to ever keep them all perfectly… Why would we have thought that he came to do away with those laws? Silly us.
He only is claiming that he will fulfill them.
"oh... much better... and to think I actually thought he was saying........"
and then its likely they had another moment… one of those “Wait a second!” moments.
Fulfill the law? Is this guy crazy?!!!????!?!!?!?!?!!!!?
The law was not something that the Hebrew people thought needed to be fulfilled. They thought the law was a book of rules that they were bound too. They didn’t understand that they all pointed, as did the rest of the bible, to the coming Messiah. and so for him to come here and say, “I am going to fulfill the law” they would have been totally, utterly, shocked.
but not only the law… but the prophets as well! For those of you who have been joining us at Equip as we have been studying each beatitude in depth, we have been talking a lot about Luke chapter 4, when Jesus said that he had fulfilled the first half of what the Prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 61… and how the crowd was shocked by that statement.
But here, Jesus is making, without a doubt, the boldest statement anybody could ever had made in that culture.
He is saying in this moment… “I am going to fulfill the entire thing.”
#2 Death of Hope
title: Death of Hope
series: Lets talk about Hope
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: March 20, 2016
scriptures: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Ephesians 2:10, Isaiah 53, 1 John 4:10, Leviticus 16:10, Leviticus 16:22, Hebrews 12:2, Matthew 28:18
BABY DEDICATION:
#1 Loneliness
series: Jesus & Me (and the people we need)
title: loneliness
teacher: Jacob Bender
date: February 7, 2016
scriptures: John 17:6-11, Genesis 1:26, Genesis 2:18, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Proverbs 5:14, Isaiah 59:14, Romans 5:8, Luke 5:31, 1 John 4:7-8
We want our relationships to look like the gospel.
and the only way to do that is to understand the gospel, and then let it trickle into the way that we relate to one another. Everybody, deep down, has a desire:
to be fully known.
to be fully accepted.
and to be fully loved.
and the good news, right out of the gate, is you are all of those things!
Jesus Christ knows everything about you. He knows you fully. And yet he still accepts you just the way that you are and he still loves you with all of his heart to the point of literally laying down his life for you.
and the types of relationships that are worth having, look like that… they look like the gospel. The gospel should trickle. It should apply everywhere. We love, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19) – well how did he first love us?
He loved us, and accepted us, fully knowing us.
#1 The Decalogue
Series: Realities
Title: The Decalogue
Teacher: Jacob Bender
Date: September 13, 2015
scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 1:1-3, Exodus 11, Exodus 19:17, Deuteronomy 5:7, Exodus 34:28, Hebrews 1:1-2, Hosea, John 1:1, John 1:14
The word we translate as “commandments” is the Hebrew word dabar, and it really has a much simpler meaning than you would think. It means “words.” So the Hebrews said it this way, “The Ten Words” – or like we talk about in this teaching, they called it a ten word Ketubah. It was the terms of their marriage.
In the Greek, the Ten Commandments are “deka logos” – again, on the surface, it means, “the ten words” – many of you who grew up in a Catholic tradition or Lutheran or any more traditional denominations, you have probably heard of the ten commandments referred to as “The Decalogue.” And this is where get this term from. From “deka logos.”
So “the Decalogue” is a pretty famous name for the Ten Commandments, and it is the way the Greeks translated it.
Well, deca, as we said means ten, and logos which we just said means word, comes from the word… “Logue” means logic… and in the Greek it is the principle behind reality. You know the phrase “it’s only logical….” Well that may be a better way to look at the commandments… It’s really pure logic. It’s more of a reality than it is a law.
When you think of laws, you probably think of things like these:
Things like “No skateboarding” – but if you are a skateboarder, most likely, that sign is not going to stop you. Unless there is a police officer right there or someone of authority who can enforce the regulation that the sign is placing on you, then it is just a sign. Its more like a request that should you choose to not obey, may be met with a consequence of some sort.
A speed limit sign represents a law.
A “Do not Liter” sign represents a law.
But these, these are realities:
When you look at it this way, rules seem nice, don’t they? Rules you can break. Most rules you can screw up some times, and even if you do get caught, you will pay a price, in most cases do your time, and move on.
But with these, there is no slipping through the cracks… There is no “NOT getting caught”… and in fact you may not walk away at all. And if you do walk away, there is permanent damage.
And that is the Ten Commandments. Each and every one of these, if you do not follow them… You are going to crash. You are going to get burned.
You are going to hurt yourself. You are going to hurt your community. It is going to destroy you. Not because God is mad at you because you did something he said not to do so now you are getting punished… No, it’s not like that.
These things in and of them themselves are toxic.
Dr. Frank Seekins was the first one that I heard use an example like this, he gave the example of a speed limit sign vs. a low clearance sign and the differing consequences of ignoring the two… and in fact it was that description that inspired this entire series on the Ten Commandments that we are calling “Realities.”
So we hope that you will join us over these next 8 weeks as we look at an ancient text, hopefully through fresh eyes.
RESOURCES:
Here is more information about the Hebrew letter “yod”.
This ebook is a transcript of a multi-part teaching by Shane Willard. In it, he makes an amazing correlation between the five parts of a Jewish wedding, and the process that God brought the people of Israel through leading up to giving them the Ten Commandments. Pastor Shane is a friend of my Pastor in New York, and has been a guest in our church there. This low-priced ebook will be an amazing resource to you.
Dr. Frank Seekins is one of the leading authorities on Hebrew word pictures alive today. He did an amazing teaching about the Ten Commandments in word pictures, and this message “The Ten Realities” is in part the inspiration behind the series we are doing and the perspective which we are coming at this classic passage of scripture. “The Ten Realities” is the second teaching in this video, so to watch it you would either need to skip ahead, or first watch his teaching on honor.
#10 Self Control
Date: September 6, 2015
Series: The Fruit of the Spirit
Title: Self Control
Teacher: Jacob Bender
scriptures: Proverbs 25:28, 1 Corinthians 9:25, Joshua 6, Nehemiah 1:4, John 14:26, Hebrew 4:14, Romans 7:19, 1 Peter 5:8, Nehemiah 2:17, Proverbs 16:32, Luke 4:1-15, 1 Kings 3:1-15, John 1:1, John 1:4, Luke 23:34, Luke 23:37, Psalm 91:11-12, Luke 3:21-22, John 14:16, 2 Corinthians 3:17
Self Control, or as the King James version calls it, temperance, is the Greek word egkrateia and it means “The Virtue of One who masters his desires and passions” – It is the word “krat” which means lordship, combined with the word “ego,” meaning “self.” It essentially means that you have “Lordship over your self”
Perhaps a better, more applicable way to say it is like this, that your “self” does not have lordship over you.
You are not controlled by the quick impulses, the fleshly desires, or even the first instincts.
Jesus had to demonstrate incredible self control when he was being tempted by the Devil, and he is our ultimate example of “Self Control” as well as every other fruit.
Come and See
Date: May 3, 2015
Teacher: Jacob Bender
Title: Come and See
scriptures: Isaiah 61:1-2, John 1:43-46, Genesis 33, 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, Luke 4:16-21, John 12:47-48, 2 Corinthians 6:2
“optimum remedium contra opiniones praeconceptas”
Bengel in his commentary of the conversation recorded in John 1:43-46 between Philip and Nathaniel, uses this latin phrase to describe Philips response to Nathaniel’s question “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
It means “The best remedy against a pre-conceived opinion.” The only remedy to a pre-conceived opinion is to show him something different.
Well, we have only been here, living in Detroit for a few days now, so we don’t want to pretend like we know everything about this city yet, but one thing is for sure. We live in a place that has a lot of pre-conceived opinions formed against it.
It kind of sounds like the church.
People who draw conclusions about the church based on past experiences, probably in most cases justified. About the way someone treated them in the “name of Jesus” – someone who didn’t act like Jesus but did so while claiming to represent Jesus. And I think that its time that those people “come and see” – but when they do come and see, will they see anything different than what they saw in the past? Will we be any different than the pre-conceived opinions that they have already formulated in their minds? What will they see?
By the grace of God, when they do come and see, I want them to see Jesus.
I want them to see a place that is all about restoring them back to Jesus.
A place that is all about reconciliation.
