Sunday Quotes

Below are the quotes from Joe Lechner’s message on Sunday.

“The person who has no experience of the Lord’s discipline may well question whether he truly belongs to him.”  - Raymond Brown (The Message of Hebrews pg.233)

 “All God’s disciplinary processes are directed to our good… By his very nature as our loving and generous Father, he could not possibly introduce any form of discipline into our lives which would not be of real help to us.” – Raymond Brown (The Message of Hebrews pg. 235)

 “When we are unable to make any sense of our circumstances, we need to come back to the assurance in Hebrews 12:7- “God is treating you as sons.”  …He knows exactly what and how much adversity will develop more Christlikeness in us and He will not bring, nor allow to come into our lives, any more than is needful for His purpose.  Endure all hardship as discipline.  I don’t want to trivialize hardship, but all of us know there are varying degrees of adversity.  Some is life-shattering, such as the death of a loved one or a permanently disabling injury.  At the opposite end of the spectrum are situations that are really no more than temporary nuisances… All of these circumstances and events, whether trivial or serious, are intended by God to be means of developing more Christlike character.” – Jerry Bridges (The Discipline of Grace pg.223-224)

Mission 28 Update

Hello CrossWay Community Church,

 This is Tyler LeVan and I wanted to give you an update on what is going on with Mission 28 right now.  We are now half way through a semester that has seen a lot of change.  The main change is that we have switched from bi-monthly meetings at CrossWay to weekly meetings on campus.  With meeting more often it has felt like the new people have become apart of things a lot more quickly.  This has been cool as the Lord continues to bring many new faces around.

 Also as reports come in, there have been many students, most of whom are unbelieving, attending our Open Discussions.  For those of you who don’t know, “Open Discussions” is a context in the dorms every week where students come together to discuss God, politics, life, morality, etc.  It is an awesome time to build friendships and love people who would most likely not step foot inside of a church building.  It is amazing how God is continuing to use these meetings to draw people for every avenue of life.  Please join us in praying that Lord would use this context to lift up the goodness and saving power of Jesus.  How cool would it be to see our church in 10 years with several people loving the Lord who first got started in OD’s?!  God can do it.

 Well famliy, be encouraged that the Lord is working.  I will leave you with just one brief story.  I sat down with a guy recently and was so encouraged.  I knew the Lord was working in his heart but didn’t have much clarity on all the particulars.  As we sat and talked he expressed how he was sick of the hollowness of the “party” lifestyle.  Next, I began to ask him more questions about Jesus.  He then began to explain how at a recent Sunday service at CrossWay he gave his life to the Lord.  He couldn’t stop telling me how everything was different now.  I assured him that I understood and we rejoiced together.  We are now going to start doing some discipleship and he is already inquiring on how he can join the church.  Thank you Jesus.  You are so glorious.

 Be blessed.  Thank you for your prayers.

 Tyler

Rescuing Ambition

If you haven’t heard the messages from the SGM Men’s Conference on Rescuing Ambition, we highly encourage you to take the time to hear them.  Dave Harvey does an excellent job showing that there are differences between godly ambition and selfish ambition and that “ambition” is not always a bad thing.

July Humor, part 4

Again, not all of our guys are proficient on the computer. I (Mike) have had conversations with Larry about Facebook and so I thought this was a funny video for Larry’s video of the month.  Rhett and Link are great online comedians and brother in Christ. 

Pride Goes Before the Fall…a Visual

If you need a good reminder of Proverbs 16:18…here you go!

Cancer does not define me…

“Cancer does not define me. Neither does being a wife or a mother. All these things are part of who I am but they do not define me. What defines me is my relationship with Jesus.”

This is a quote from Rachel Barkey.  She has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Rachel is a 37 year old wife, a mother of two children, and she is not expected to live to see her 38th birthday.  Listen to her powerful testimony called “Death is not Dying: A Faith that Saves“

HT:  Justin Taylor, Joshua Harris, GirlTalk, Desiring God

Family Nights

Manhood and Creativity…does it go together? I think it can, but I know a lot of guys who struggle with this. We are trying to be creative and romantic on date nights and then we want to be fun and spontaneous on family nights. Our goal must be to love our families and point them to Christ, but I know we can lose sight of that goal when creativity seems distant. So here is a little “cheat sheet” for all of the guys out there for creative “family nights.” This is a work in progress, but I thought it would be helpful. Please feel free to add to this list. The comments are “open” for this post. 

Even if you don’t like the list below, I encourage you to make your own list. I can guarantee one thing…if you don’t start planning for family nights, you are never going have them.

Family Night ideas for families with younger children
· Chucky Cheese Night—eat an early dinner (we don’t like their pizza…so eat at home or somewhere else) and then purchase lots of tokens and have a blast as a family
· “Fish Store” Night—Even with having three daughters, our girls love to go to Bass Pro Shop and then look at the fish. Then we go to Rocky Mtn. Chocolate Factory and share a caramel apple .
· Big Shows—always be on the look out for the circus, shows, or plays coming to town. You can sign up for Ticketmaster to e-mail you weekly for updates about what is coming to the Charlotte area
· Role Play Night—this started off as training our girls in discipline situations, but they loved it. Now we will play through scenarios where Mommy acts like our oldest daughter and Daddy will act like our baby. The girls love to “play” mommy and daddy
· Cinderella Night—for girls, it has been fun to have popcorn and rent Cinderella. I did a “Cinderella scavenger hunt” around our house by writing a story that was similar to Cinderella on note cards. The prize was the DVD of Cinderella
· Movie Night
· Hide and Seek Night—use the whole house and play “hide and seek”
· NASCAR speed park—go cart racing
· Carowinds–any theme park for a “family day”
· Candy Night—purchase a lot of different kinds of candy and then play Candy Land
· Pajama Run—go to Dunkin Doughnuts spontaneously either late at night or early in the morning

Family Night Ideas for families with older children

· Music Night: Find two songs on the Internet for everyone to play

· Cooking night: Cook up something really outlandish and bizarre
o Beet Soup
o Fondue Night
o Banana Splits

· Movie Review Night: Instead of watching a movie all the way through, watch several movie trailers. Movies that we would not normally watch. Review each for future viewing purposes.

· Family website night and/or BLOG
· Shopping for $10 Night: see how many creative things you can buy at the mall for $10. Divide up in pairs and have a great time. Meet at a designated spot in one hour to share your purchases.

· Game Night: Purchase a new “exotic” or “classic” game and play it together with popcorn or a new dessert that we all made together.
o Scattergories
o Scrabble

· Cappuccino Night: Create new cafe beverages together. Find recipes online and have a holly jolly good time.

· Bowling

· You Tube
o Promo for the Coffee House
o Shark Attacks
o Ninja Video
o Flight of the Concords
o Scary Clips

· Putt Putt

· Digital Camera Scavenger Hunt

· Coffee at Local Coffee Shop

· Local College…basketball game, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, Coffee Shop
· Special Theatre
· Drive Inn Movie Theatre

(written by Mike Seaver, but many thanks to Lloyd Odell for  ideas and suggestions I used!)

16 Passages that Emphasize God’s Uniqueness

[This is a helpful post by Abraham Piper and the folks at Desiring God Ministries]

Bruce Ware began his message today saying, “One of the clearest and most forthright themes in Scripture is this: There is one and only one God.”

Then he read us these verses:

Exodus 8:10

 Exodus 15:11

Deuteronomy 4:35

Deuteronomy 4:39

2 Samuel 7:22

Psalm 86:8-10

Jeremiah 10:6-7

Isaiah 40:18

Isaiah 40:25

Isaiah 43:10-11

Isaiah 44:6-8

Isaiah 45:5-7

Isaiah 45:18-19

Isaiah 45:21-22

Isaiah 46:5

Isaiah 46:9-10

Scriptural Guide for Witnessing (Part 2)

Last Monday, we posted part 1 of Mickey’s Scriptural Guide for Witnessing.  In that post, we saw key verses for the doctrine of sin.  Today, we want to continue with the second part and see key verses about bringing the gospel to an unbeliever.  Also, watch a video by Penn (of Penn and Teller) a famous magician in Las Vegas, speaking of his encounter as an atheist with a Christian.  The truth that this man speaks to the Christians is staggering and motivating.

 

The Gospel, Its Meaning and Its Application

 

* Romans 6:23 (NIV) ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

 

Matthew 1:21 through Matthew 1:23 (NIV) ²¹She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,  because he will save his people from their sins.”  ²²All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

 

Hebrews 9:26b (NIV) ²⁶But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

 

Hebrews 2:9 (NIV) ⁹But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

 

* 1 Peter 3:18 (NIV) ¹⁸For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God…1 Peter 2:24 (NIV) ²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

 

Romans 5:1 (NIV) ¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

 

·   Others on who and what – John 1:1, Romans 3:25, 1 Corinthians 15:3-42, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Philippians 2:5-8, Hebrews 2:14-15

 

·   Others on results – Romans 8:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17

Race as Biology?

At Together for the Gospel 2008, Thabiti Anyabwile gave one of the most compelling and insightful sermons I have ever heard on how our society associates race and biology.  Please download this, listen to it yourself, and then seek to discuss it with your family.  Our society and our church will be blessed by racial reconciliation and this sermon points to the building blocks that the gospel provides as well as the improper foundations we often have when thinking about the topic of race.

[written by Mike Seaver]