Sermon Notes & Videos
2025-03-21 | II Peter 1:5-7 | Object Lesson: Self-Control
Faith is the foundation of the Christian life and it is a gift from God that came to you by way of His grace. And you must practice your faith if you wish to gain continual access to that grace. To do so, add these things to your faith in this precise sequence. First add virtue. That means to seek the Lord’s voice for what is right in every matter and don’t even attempt to seek new information or take any action before you are confident you’re in alignment with God’s will. Once you are certain about God’s directions, to truly demonstrate wisdom, begin by gathering any missing information before you act. It is only after you have the necessary knowledge to proceed judiciously that you should take any decisive action. It requires excellent self-control to both take wise action and to refrain from acting when God tells you to be still. It is also critical to recognize that challenges and temptations surely await; they will test you, misdirect you, and humble you. Nevertheless, one must stay the course to fulfill God’s desires, and that takes perseverance. By the way, unless you humbly come to the conclusion that you made an error that must be corrected before you continue, persist until you succeed; a display of permanent self-control is part of the process. However, if you do discover you’ve made an error, it is prudent to retrace your steps to find your mistake. Begin by reconsidering if you’ve misinterpreted God’s original instructions and proceed from there.
This entire process is meant to be pursued in every area of life. Doing so is the very essence of godliness. No doubt, your imperfections will be exposed as you progress, but godliness is not characterized by perfection. Godliness, instead, is the authentic grace-empowered pursuit of perfection, not the achievement of perfection. It’s hallmark is a never-ending desire to pursue God’s will in all things, and to make the appropriate corrections along the way. And that is how a disciple of Christ becomes an effective minister of reconciliation—one who readily imparts God’s grace. His relentless pursuit of godliness has crafted him into a man whose surrendered life is poured out in sacrifice for the priorities of others. He is a beacon of brotherly affection who exudes kindness, a true disciple of Christ recognized by the love he shares. He imitates the character of Christ, and that is the constant meditation of his heart—to look more and more like Christ by how he loves.
God is love; so, to become love is to become like Christ. Thus, to imitate God’s love is the only true measure of a perfect man—the full stature of Christ. And that is the goal of discipleship. Therefore, practice diligently if you wish to experience the fullness of God’s precious and exceedingly great promises, the greatest of which is the promise to partake in God’s Divine Nature.
2025-03-14 | Esther 1:10 | Purim 2025 | The Queen who was Willing to Die
The law of Moses describes how God’s mighty act of deliverance is the meaning behind holidays such as Passover and Tabernacles. The book of Esther is another story of deliverance, this time during the Persian period 1000 years later. God is never mentioned by name, but His clear hand of protection can be detected in the timing and combination of events. Esther shows how God intervenes once again to save the Jews, leading to the commemoration of this great rescue in a new festival called Purim. It’s the story of a Jewish exile named Esther, who becomes a queen willing to die for her people. It highlights her cousin and guardian Mordecai, an uncompromising officer at the king’s gate. They work together to rescue their people from a plot to destroy them, a diabolical plan hatched by Haman, the evil progeny of king Agag, whose family line survived when king Saul of Israel discarded God’s command to utterly destroy the Amalakites some 520 years earlier. The events take place during the reign of the Persian king Xerxes I, 486-465 BC, better thought of as the understanding king. The story has been told to every generation since, during what became the feast of Purim; it places you right in the middle of the action. You should not only join in celebrating God’s deliverance, but you should ask yourself, as Mordecai asked Esther, for what great purpose has God brought you to this moment in your life?
2025-03-07 | II Peter 1:5-7 | Object Lesson: Knowledge
Faith is the foundation of the Christian life and it is a gift from God that came to you by way of His grace. And you must practice your faith if you wish to gain continual access to that grace. To do so, add these things to your faith in this precise sequence. First add virtue. That means to seek the Lord’s voice for what is right in every matter and don’t even attempt to seek new information or take any action before you are confident you’re in alignment with God’s will.
Once you are certain about God’s directions, to truly demonstrate wisdom, begin by gathering any missing information before you act. It is only after you have the necessary knowledge to proceed judiciously that you should take any decisive action. It requires excellent self-control to both take wise action and to refrain from acting when God tells you to be still. It is also critical to recognize that challenges and temptations surely await; they will test you, misdirect you, and humble you. Nevertheless, one must stay the course to fulfill God’s desires, and that takes perseverance.
By the way, unless you humbly come to the conclusion that you made an error that must be corrected before you continue, persist until you succeed; a display of permanent self-control is part of the process. However, if you do discover you’ve made an error, it is prudent to retrace your steps to find your mistake. Begin by reconsidering if you’ve misinterpreted God’s original instructions and proceed from there.
This entire process is meant to be pursued in every area of life. Doing so is the very essence of godliness. No doubt, your imperfections will be exposed as you progress, but godliness is not characterized by perfection. Godliness, instead, is the authentic grace-empowered pursuit of perfection, not the achievement of perfection. It’s hallmark is a never-ending desire to pursue God’s will in all things, and to make the appropriate corrections along the way.
And that is how a disciple of Christ becomes an effective minister of reconciliation—one who readily imparts God’s grace. His relentless pursuit of godliness has crafted him into a man whose surrendered life is poured out in sacrifice for the priorities of others. He is a beacon of brotherly affection who exudes kindness, a true disciple of Christ recognized by the love he shares. He imitates the character of Christ, and that is the constant meditation of his heart —to look more and more like Christ by how he loves.
God is love; so, to become love is to become like Christ. Thus, to imitate God’s love is the only true measure of a perfect man—the full stature of Christ. And that is the goal of discipleship. Therefore, practice diligently if you wish to experience the fullness of God’s precious and exceedingly great promises, the greatest of which is the promise to partake in God’s Divine Nature.
2025-02-28 | II Peter 1:5-7 | Object Lesson: Virtue
Faith is the foundation of the Christian life and it is a gift from God that came to you by way of His grace. And you must practice your faith if you wish to gain continual access to that grace. To do so, add these things to your faith in this precise sequence. First add virtue. That means to seek the Lord’s voice for what is right in every matter and don’t even attempt to seek new information or take any action before you are confident you’re in alignment with God’s will. Once you are certain about God’s directions, to truly demonstrate wisdom, begin by gathering any missing information before you act. It is only after you have the necessary knowledge to proceed judiciously that you should take any decisive action. It requires excellent self-control to both take wise action and to refrain from acting when God tells you to be still. It is also critical to recognize that challenges and temptations surely await; they will test you, misdirect you, and humble you. Nevertheless, one must stay the course to fulfill God’s desires, and that takes perseverance. By the way, unless you humbly come to the conclusion that you made an error that must be corrected before you continue, persist until you succeed; a display of permanent self-control is part of the process. However, if you do discover you’ve made an error, it is prudent to retrace your steps to find your mistake. Begin by reconsidering if you’ve misinterpreted God’s original instructions and proceed from there.
This entire process is meant to be pursued in every area of life. Doing so is the very essence of godliness. No doubt, your imperfections will be exposed as you progress, but godliness is not characterized by perfection. Godliness, instead, is the authentic grace-empowered pursuit of perfection, not the achievement of perfection. It’s hallmark is a never-ending desire to pursue God’s will in all things, and to make the appropriate corrections along the way. And that is how a disciple of Christ becomes an effective minister of reconciliation—one who readily imparts God’s grace. His relentless pursuit of godliness has crafted him into a man whose surrendered life is poured out in sacrifice for the priorities of others. He is a beacon of brotherly affection who exudes kindness, a true disciple of Christ recognized by the love he shares. He imitates the character of Christ, and that is the constant meditation of his heart —to look more and more like Christ by how he loves.
God is love; so, to become love is to become like Christ. Thus, to imitate God’s love is the only true measure of a perfect man—the full stature of Christ. And that is the goal of discipleship. Therefore, practice diligently if you wish to experience the fullness of God’s precious and exceedingly great promises, the greatest of which is the promise to partake in God’s Divine Nature.
2025-02-14 | II Peter 1:5-15 | The Disciple Factory
If you are willing to engage in all that it takes to become a diligent disciple, intense intimacy with Christ will be your reward, regardless of how challenging it is to live that life. You can expect one victory after another, as you overcome every weakness of your past sinful nature. And each day you endeavor to live a life of purity, you will become more like Christ. Then you are called to take the things which you have learned and practiced, as witnessed by others, and commit them to those who desire to be the next generation of faithful disciples, diligent and willing to also pass on what they’ve learned from you to the next generation. And that generation should pass it to the next, and so on! Imagine it as a multilevel discipleship copy center that duplicates diligent disciples — a sort of discipleship factory.
It’s a difficult topic for certain, so let us pray in the immortal words of the Apostle Paul, “Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.” And if we borrow the same imagery that Paul used to help us comprehend the various character qualities of diligent disciples, we can even better understand the stages of development and the process. Let us begin by first agreeing that the process will not be easy; difficulties certainly await! Then, to encapsulate his creative ideas, let’s unwrap Paul’s three object lessons; he taught us to recruit soldiers, train athletes, and incentivize farmers.
Good soldiers are recruited to leave their non-commissioned lives behind, to faithfully shift their thoughts away from the affairs of civilian life, and to instead focus all their attention on impressing their commanding officers with the utmost integrity. Elite athletes marshal all of their resources on training and strategies for improvement; they are determined to advance and compete with excellence and to consistently win at the highest level possible. Productive farmers study and work the soil tirelessly to increase its fertility and to make it most hospitable to the seed they plant. They are innovative, patient, and appreciate that everything has a proper timing and season. They sow seeds with utter anticipation of reaping an abundant harvest, a harvest in which they fully expect to participate. And they expect such, season after season, because sustainability too is a consistent practice of the productive farmer.
The imagery in Paul’s object lessons is brilliant: to make disciples we must recruit soldiers, train athletes, and incentivize farmers. Each has its own great attributes, but they also share many common strengths that ought to receive mention for their use on our discipleship factory assembly line: a willingness to follow leaders and lead followers; recognition of the value of mentorship and teamwork; a strong work ethic which translates into doing hard things and the ability to work effectively under pressure. All three require mental fortitude, grit, resilience, and adaptability. Each must demonstrate commitment, dedication and discipline. As things oftentimes don’t go as expected, perseverance is required to overcome challenges and to remain composed under pressure. All must possess a deep desire to be experts at their craft and a willingness to be perpetual students. And to round off these impeccable characteristics is the need for a strong proper functioning physical body.
Peter acknowledged Paul’s greater wisdom in how he elaborated on what Peter himself taught, albeit Paul on a much deeper level and with more difficulty to understand. And Paul was sensitive to the depth of his own teachings, hence again his prayer, “Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.” Understand what it means to recruit, train, and incentivize Christians, if your hope is to commit these things to faithful disciples who will also be able to teach the next generation.
2025-02-07 | II Peter 1:2-4 | To Partner with God
In an awe-inspiring grace-empowered moment of massive revelation, a feeling of serenity envelops you as you discover God’s perfect will. The magnitude and excellence of His plan for you is sobering; He wants you to be His partner and to know Him on the most intimate level possible. In human terms, it can be compared only to the experience of consummating a marriage. It is in that moment the feeling of oneness is so real that you cannot discern where you end and your partner begins. When that occurs between you and God, you will know what it is like to have His power at your disposal, in addition to everything good you could ever imagine for your life, and more. Your life will become a never-ending joyous pursuit of sustaining that intimacy with God, while apprehending His every precious and exceedingly great promise.
Having then experienced this intimacy, every lustful desire to please your carnal nature and every temptation to reattach your source of satisfaction to the pleasures of this world will have faded into oblivion. It is only then that you will truly understand what it means to be God’s partner, as if His essence has become your essence. We have a word for this in our language; it’s called love. And all of a sudden this immortal idea finally makes perfect sense. You can come to know and believe the love God has for you by first recognizing that God is love. He who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in Him. God is love and God is perfect. The relationship between love and perfection is that love is the unifying force in the universe that glues together all of the component parts of perfection, what eventually becomes the mature finished product, —a Christlike human! In other words, love is the connective tissue that binds together all the parts that unite man with God as one—what makes a disciple look like Y’shua!
And because God is love, without it you won’t ever know true intimacy with God. Furthermore, how can you claim to love God if you don’t love others—it’s just a lie. As such, you owe one another just one thing—love. God’s will can literally be summed up in that single idea because he who truly loves others simultaneously fulfills all of God’s law. This is possible because each of God’s commands is ultimately represented by that single idea—to love your neighbor as yourself, while never willingly bringing harm to another person. In other words, love in action completes, or binds together, every one of God’s legal requirements, and is indeed the only way you can recognize a true disciple of Christ.
And that is why love is the ultimate goal of a mature disciple; you must be diligent to practice your faith by adding to it these things: virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and finally you arrive at—love. And that is why to know that level of intimacy with God was Y’shua’s ultimate prayer for you before He went to the cross. He prayed that, “We would all be one; even as He and His Father are one, the Father in Him and He in the Father.” Y’shua also revealed how it is through the impartation of God’s glory that you can develop this intimate relationship, “The glory which You have given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one, I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” Peter acknowledged that same path to intimacy in his final letter; “through the intimate knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and virtue.” It is paramount, as such, that you believe these prayers and begin to think like Christ. If anything short of that is acceptable to you, break that stronghold and destroy every image in your mind that exalts itself above knowing God with this level of intimacy. Bring every thought into captivity that disagrees with this calling and bring it into submission to the truth of Christ. Then call others to do the same. That is what it means to be a disciple and to become a true ambassador of Christ, as if God actually speaks through you to the world! That is what it looks like to become a partner with God—to partake in His Divine Nature.