Scripture: 2 Samuel 11-12, 1 Corinthians 10:12, Psalm 51, Matthew 21:9.

This message deals with the difficult topic of moral collapse, specifically in David’s life. Painful as it is, it can teach us much about the importance of walking faithfully before the Lord and resisting temptation.

David fell into temptation after seeing Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam (a trusted soldier) and the wife of Uriah (one of David’s elite soldiers). David had her brought to the palace and he slept with her resulting in her pregnancy.

Instead of coming clean, David goes deeper into a dark place with more plans. After trying multiple times to cover his actions, David arranges for Uriah’s death and has him killed.

2 Samuel 11:27 tells us that what David had done displeased the Lord. What does the Lord do? 2 Samuel 12:1, God sends Nathan to David. Nathan, in great wisdom, tells David a story and when David hears the story he was incensed saying that the man must die. At this point, Nathan looks at David and confronts him eye to eye, and says, “YOU are the man!”

David is confronted with the horror of what he has done. He had committed a huge moral failure, but David was also a man who understood the heart of God. His response to Nathan is, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

Here’s what we can learn from David. 

LESSONS
    ⁃    Awareness – recognizing that we are all vulnerable and we are all sinners. Be aware of the temptations.
    ⁃    Consequences – come when we go against God’s purpose and plan in our lives. Consequences can be horrific. There are consequence to disobedience.
    ⁃    Repentance –  after his sin was exposed David freely admitted he had sinned, he did not try to make excuses, he repented. Repentance brings about a change of direction, a turning away. David understood he had fallen. We all sin, but God calls His people to repentance, to not only admit our sin, but to turn away from it and begin anew all over again.
    ⁃    Forgiveness – The Lord takes away our sin through the death of His Son and we see how good and gracious God really is. He loves us and offered up His own son for us all.  **Pastor shares divinely given wisdom around the loss of David’s son, be sure to listen to this message so you don’t miss out on some profound revelation.**
    ⁃    Restoration – comes from our Father who restores us to relationship with Him through His Son. God restores to us the joy of our salvation and sustains us with the Holy Spirit.

David is described as a man after God’s own heart, yet he made some horrible decisions in his life. David’s story compels us to take seriously the danger of going against God’s plan and purposes for our lives. But this story also shows us the grace and mercy of God. These truths powerfully impact and transform us all.

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The Gospel of John Week 10
Scripture: John 6:22-7:24.

Our teaching today starts with Jesus saying He is the Bread of Life.  He is teaching from the synagogue at Capernaum. Jesus is the rabbi that is teaching. In a service in the synagogue in the first century, people talk back and forth asking questions and engaging with the rabbi.  It can get heated – and what Jesus says is causing things to become heated.  He continues to say many things in this dialogue:
    ⁃    I am the Bread of Life
    ⁃    Believe in Me and you will not hunger or thirst
    ⁃    You’ve seen Me yet you still do not believe
    ⁃    Whoever comes to Me I will not drive away
    ⁃    I have come down from heaven to do the Father’s will
    ⁃    I will raise them on the last day
    ⁃    My Father’s will is that everyone look to the Son and believe in Me 
    ⁃    In Me is eternal life

Pastor talks about a current day synagogue built on the first century synagogue there in Capernaum in Jesus’ day and shares pictures. This current day synagogue is built on the foundation of the synagogue of Jesus’ day.The foundation of black basalt from the first century is still visible. On this basalt foundation is built the several other synagogues with the newest synagogue built over these others. But the basalt rock shows us just where Jesus was as He gave the teaching we are studying today.  

Pastor also shares what the inside of a synagogue in Jesus’ day would have looked like in order to help us visualize today’s story

As our story continues, John 6:53-57 “Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.”  

Pastor helps us understand this:
    ⁃    Jesus is Jewish
    ⁃    The crowd He’s talking to is Jewish
    ⁃    Hearing what Jesus is saying – the listeners would have processed what Jesus was saying through a Jewish perspective – their thought would have gone to temple sacrifices where they brought their sacrifices to the Temple
    ⁃    The blood was drained from the animal and sprinkled on the altar because without the shedding of bleed there is no forgiveness
    ⁃    We have sinned against a Holy God and that requires blood to be shed
    ⁃    Jesus is saying here that He is the real sacrifice
    ⁃    “I am the One who offers up My flesh and blood for the life of the world”
    ⁃    “If you do not realize who I am, that I am the One the Father has promised, then you don’t have life”The scriptures all along have said that God Himself would pay the price for our sin.

Old Testament offerings were offered up day after day, year after year, but Jesus is the offering made once for all.  Jesus is saying that He is the “Once for all sacrifice” and many of the people following Jesus turned away from Him after He said this. 

Jesus then turns to His disciples and asks if they want to leave Him too, but Peter answers: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Note Peter says, “we have come to believe” and then he says, “and to know that You are the holy One of God.”This is highly significant as we human beings think that we know in order to believe. Pastor shares a personal story of an interaction from a friend who brought this truth to light that “I do not know in order o believer, instead, I believer in order to know God.” 

So many time we say, “if you prove this to me (once I know it)  then I’ll believe.” But what Jesus calls us to do is to believe FIRST and then we will know Him. When we trust and follow Him – He reveals himself to us.

Pastor comes with a look at three Jewish festivals – and how each has its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.
    

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    ⁃    The Gospel of John study is part five of five of our Two Year Study of the Gospels. 
    ⁃    The Gospel of John may be one of the most powerful books ever written. Many people have come to faith after reading only this book of the Bible.  Scholarly and archeological discoveries in recent decades give us new insight on details in the Gospel of John. We can now understand it as the most Jewish rather than the most “Gentile/Greek” of the Gospels, and when we do that we see many things that we missed before.

Our 2 year study of the gospels is great for large group, small group or home group study and can be started at any time!

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