Surrender, Serve, and Suffer for the Lord

Today is Friday but Sunday’s coming! If you have never heard that sermon by S.M. Lockridge, I invite you to listen to a clip of it here. Three days after the crucifixion, Jesus resurrected from the dead. What does that mean for His followers today? We celebrate His victory over sin and death but what does that mean for us in the 21st Century? That’s what I am going to speak on during our Sunrise Service this coming Sunday morning.

Overcoming difficult circumstances

How are you doing? 2020 has been a very difficult year for all of us. Many have given up, choosing to end it all instead of facing these difficult times. Others have fallen into depression and need someone to rescue them. This pandemic has led to some very difficult days. About 2,000 years ago, when the Apostle Peter was living out the Great Commission, the days were similarly difficult as they are today. Through Peter, God gives us advice to overcome these difficult times in which we live. As we examine I Peter chapters 1 and 2, we are going to discover how to cling to Christ during these difficult days.

Jesus’ Trial

I have been teaching through the Gospel of Mark in an online Bible study that meets once a week. Mark has been racing through the stories to get to the cross. In Mark 15, we take a look at the trial of Christ. In a couple of the previous lessons, we covered:

• The Second Coming of Christ
• Peter’s Denial of Christ

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I am preparing to teach our upcoming Connect Group at Southern Calvert Baptist Church and the title of this article is the title of our lesson. We are going to take a look at Job to discover why bad things happen to good people and what that means for us today. For the purpose of time, we have selected chapters and verses that will capture the heart of Job’s story. Our chapters for consideration are Job 1, 9, and 42. The three main characters of this story are God, Satan, and Job.

Our Salvation in Christ

On Wednesday nights at Southern Calvert Baptist Church, my wife leads a small group Bible study on the Peter’s first epistle. Last night, we covered lesson two which was a chapter study on I Peter 1. In order to get caught up to speed on I Peter 1, I need to give you some context. Peter is writing to believers, people who have chosen to bow to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and follow Him for the rest of their lives. This decision to follow Christ has cost them everything. They are heavily persecuted for their faith, to the point where they are on the run, fleeing to new areas to escape. Peter tells us his reason for writing in I Peter 5:12:

The Lifestyle of a Child of God

It has been amazing teaching through the New Testament this quarter in our Sunday School classes. We started the year off with walking through the book of Acts. Since the beginning of this new quarter, we have been studying the epistles in the New Testament. God has much to teach His church in these epistles and we have learned a lot. Some of our previous lessons include:

Jesus sends out the disciples to preach

I was studying Matthew 10 today and as I was going through the passage in context, I discovered something that I had never seen before and I wanted to share that with you in this article. By the time we get to Matthew 10, Jesus’ disciples had been following Him for a while. They heard the message of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. This calling was in the context of discipleship. Jesus taught them about repentance, and called them to follow Him as His disciple. The 12 answered the call. This calling was for any and everyone, but, the 12 were the ones who had answered the call. As they were walking with Jesus, He began to teach the crowds and at the same time, He was modeling ministry to His disciples. In chapter 10 of Matthew, Jesus is about to give the disciples a practical assignment. This is one of the things that makes Jesus’ teaching special. He not only taught theory (concepts), He also gave practical assignments so that the people could apply what they were learning. Jesus’ teaching was practical. This is extremely important. If teaching is not practical, people are not able to use it in their daily lives. Take a moment to read Matthew 10.

Trained soldiers needed!

As we have been working through II Timothy as a staff, we have noticed that God has given us an amazing treasure in the Gospel and He wants us to use It for daily life, as we seek to serve Him by making disciples.

Last week, we learned that the Gospel is a treasure because It is the power of God to transform our lives and set us free from our slavery to sin. It equips us for daily life. Next, we learned to guard the Gospel. We guard the Gospel by retaining the high standard and pass It on to others who will guard It and pass It on to others. Paul was an example in retaining the standard by passing the Gospel on from person to person. Timothy, himself, is proof of Paul’s faithfulness.

How do you handle the difficulties of life?

Once a person gets “saved” everything does not turn to champagne and caviar. Life is still hard. In fact, life gets even harder once you start living for the Lord because now people will watch you more closely to see how you handle difficulties since you claim to trust God in all things.

How do you handle things once you get sick and suffer through tough times? How do you handle the sickness of a child? How do you react when you see injustice or if it happens to you? These are all very real situations. What about when good friends suffer because of their kids’ mistakes and hardheadedness, how do you respond? Your response is very important and like in anything in life, the better prepared you are the better you will do.