Jesus the Servant, Messiah, and Redeemer

Last week, I was able to lead our Connect Group lesson via a Facebook live post due to the Coronavirus. This week, we are still not able to meet in our small groups due to the restriction of public gatherings by the Governor of Maryland. As a result, we are going to have to do things a little differently when it comes to church. Our entire service will be virtual. I will be teaching via Facebook live and then our senior pastor will preach a sermon via Facebook live. The church will gather in the virtual sphere, which is a blessing in our modern times. In the last lesson, we learned that Jesus was born to be the King, the Savior, and the Servant. This lesson will focus on Jesus as Servant, Messiah, and Redeemer. We continue to study through the Gospel of Luke. This week, we will continue to look at chapter 2.

The Judgment of the Lord

As we continue to walk through the Word, we have discovered many insights about the Lord and about ourselves. This week, we are going to cover II Chronicles 36. Throughout the Bible, we see the Lord offering hope over and over to the people. In Jeremiah 31, in one of our previous lessons, we covered the transformational power of the New Covenant. In the midst of a very difficult time in the history of Israel, the Lord reminded the people of the hope found in the coming Messiah. This Messiah is going to bring a New Covenant between God and the children of Israel. The people of Israel were familiar with the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was to point the people to the coming Messiah. The people were unable to obey the Old Covenant because of their sin nature. The New Covenant was going to deal with mankind’s sin nature so that those in the New Covenant would be able to obey the Lord and no longer be enslaved to their sin nature.

The transformational power of the New Covenant

Here are Southern Calvert Baptist church, we have completed the first year of a three year project of walking through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. We have been tracing the promise and fulfillment of Messiah, the Savior of the world. In Exodus, we witnessed the giving of the Law and how Israel entered into the Old Covenant with God. This was another step in the process of bringing the Messiah to the earth. In the book of Jeremiah, we are going to discover that the Messiah is going to bring a New Covenant with Him to the children of Israel. This covenant will also be available for the Gentiles (everyone who is not Jewish by birth). It is a different covenant from the first one because it is going to do something that the first covenant was never intended to do. That is what we are going to discover in this lesson. Our passage for consideration this week is Jeremiah 31:31-40. Take a moment and read it below.

The Gospel: The Power of God

I had the honor of teaching our Journey Kids during AWANA last night at Southern Calvert Baptist Church. These are all high school students who are trying to figure out what life is all about. They have millions of voices via the internet and mass media pulling them in all different directions. Praise the Lord that they are involved in a weekly Bible study that helps ground them in reality. Last night, we began a study on the book of Romans. What an amazing book of the Bible!!! I would like to share some of the insights that we learned last night during our study time.

Mephibosheth and God’s Kindness

Over the past few weeks at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, we have been looking at the life of David. The Bible teaches us that David was a man after God’s own heart. What are the characteristics of David that make him a man after God’s own heart? He had a teachable spirit and a servant’s heart. David experienced the grace of God and he wanted to extend that grace to the people around him. David lived for the glory of God. David was not a perfect man. He had a sin nature like all of us have. David made mistakes, like all of us do. David, as we will see in our next lesson, when confronted with his sins, was quick to confess and repent. He was the polar opposite of King Saul.

Christ’s Resurrection and Commissioning

I have been teaching through the Gospel of Mark with a group of men and it has been amazing to see the ministry of Jesus Christ, especially how relevant it is today. This is the final lesson in a 3 part series on the Gospel of Mark. I began teaching it back in the Fall of 2018. We are currently in the Summer of 2019. It is the shortest Gospel in the New Testament but, it is powerful and full of amazing information that stirs up life transformation. If you have not been following along through the entire study, the following 16 articles will be very helpful in helping you catch up.

A sanctified soul, spirit, and body

I am getting ready to teach a lesson to a group of elementary kids this morning and the lesson is supposed to be about the importance of spiritual health and its role in an overall, healthy lifestyle. In this lesson, we are going to come across the English word “sanctified”. It is a translation of the Koine Greek word, “hagios” and it means to be set apart, different. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are to be different from the people who do not follow Jesus. This difference is seen in our intellectual life, our spiritual life, and our physical bodies. What does this look like in reality? Let’s turn to the Scriptures to discover the answer.

The Day of Atonement

In our walk through the Old Testament, we have arrived at the Day of Atonement. This was an important event in the yearly calendar for the children of Israel. It is also a foreshadowing of the eternal sacrifice for sin. The Day of Atonement is described in the book of Leviticus, chapter 16.

Freedom in Christ

I am excited to prepare and teach this lesson during our Connect Group meeting this coming Sunday. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are walking through the entire Bible over a three year period, from Genesis through Revelation. Last Sunday, we jumped into the book of Exodus. Genesis was amazing and I am excited to see what Exodus holds for us. We just saw how Moses answered God’s Great Calling in Exodus 3-4. This week, we are going to see how God extended that Great Calling to the children of Israel through Moses and how God extends that Great Calling to us today, through Jesus Christ. Our passages for consideration today are Exodus 7 and Exodus 12.

People of faith vs. People of the flesh

I am preparing to teach my Connect Group this coming Sunday and wanted to share some of my insights with you here. We have been walking through the book of Genesis week by week. This lesson will cover parts of Genesis 25 and Genesis 26. As a class, we have been tracing the Promised Messiah from Genesis 3 all the way through the book of Genesis. We will follow this thread all throughout the Old Testament. This week’s lesson will focus on the two categories of people God places all of mankind in for life and eternity. Abraham’s son, Isaac, received God’s eternal calling from his father. Isaac has two sons, Esau, and Jacob. Even though they were both raised in the same family, one of the boys inherited the faith of his fathers while the other chose to live like on of his forefathers, Cain, and be mastered by his sin nature. This lesson will shed some light on what the Apostle Paul wrote in his epistle to the Roman church.