Sermons & Teachings

James: Wisdom for when it’s the Lord’s will

James 4:13-17

  • Our will for our lives
    • 13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.
  • The Lord’s will
    • 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 
  • The Lord’s will for our lives
    • 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

The gospel and the shape of Christian relationships

1 Corinthians 16

  • Why letters?
  • The gospel and the shape of Christian relationships
    • Giving (v1-4, 23) and the grace of Christ
    • Partnership (v5-9, 12) in the gospel of Christ
    • Recognition (v10-11, 15-16) for those who do the work of the Lord
    • Urgency (v13-14, 22) and the return of Christ
    • Love (v19-24) for the Lord, and for each other
  • The shape of our relationships

Church, Love and Edification

1 Corinthians 14

  • A meeting without a manual
  • Three determining factors
    • The purpose we meet for (v1, 26)
    • The God that we worship (v33a)
    • The Scriptures God has given us (v33b-38)
  • A case study: Tongues and Prophecy in Corinth
    • The differences between them (v1-5)
    • The value of intelligibility…
      • …for the sake of each other (v6-19)
      • …for the sake of the visiting unbeliever (v20-25)
    • Ordering tongues and prophecy (v26-40)
  • Applying the case study