Christ Covenant Church

Stranger things = Those fringe[1] subjects of the Bible which exist at the intersection of the supernatural and natural, the immaterial and material worlds.  Why we are discussing these kinds of subjects = So that we are viewing of our world in the same way Jesus and those living in the ancient near east (the bible’s authors) viewed their world since this is not only the real world but also vital to proper biblical interpretation (or the avoidance of projecting on the text/reading into the text our modern ideas and assumptions [eisegesis] – e.g., Gen 2:18-20).  “It would be dishonest of us to claim that the biblical writers read and understood the text the way we do as modern people, or intended meanings that conform to theological systems created centuries after the text was written. Our context is not their context. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is …not the modern world at all, or any period of its history. The proper context is the context of the biblical writers-the context that produced t

Stranger things = Those fringe subjects of the Bible which exist at the intersection of the supernatural and natural, the immaterial and material worlds.  “It would be dishonest of us to claim that the biblical writers read and understood the text the way we do as modern people, or intended meanings that conform to theological systems created centuries after the text was written. Our context is not their context. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is …not the modern world at all, or any period of its history. The proper context is the context of the biblical writers-the context that produced the Bible…The biblical context was produced by men who lived in the ancient near east (ANE). Seeing the Bible through the eyes of an ancient reader [therefore] requires shedding the filters of our [modern] traditions and presumptions. They processed life in supernatural terms.” – Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm) Previously discussed: Dimensional portals (def.,): doors or gates and their accompanying bridges

Resurrection (def.,): The supernatural phenomenon whereby the present state of those who have died is replaced by once more being alive in a physical/material body yet unable to die again. 1. Easter is also known as “Resurrection Sunday” since it marks the day Jesus Christ became the first person to experience resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is also the reason God’s people corporately worship God on Sunday rather than Saturday (Rom 6:9; 1 Co 15:20; Act 20:7 = Every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday).  2. Jesus’ resurrection (to Paradise): 1) proved that He is the Divine Son of God (Rom 1:4 w/Joh 10:18), 2) means His sacrificial death was sufficient to propitiate - or satisfy God’s requirements for cleansing the sins of His people and make them truly righteous before God the Father. As such, the temporary injunction of animal sacrifices (“pass-over atonement”) was forever canceled (Rom 3:23-25, 4:25 w/Heb 10:10-17; also Mat 1:21).    3. No one since Jesus has experienced resurrection since: 1) the son of the Shu

1. David had all the potential to be a great king. - 16:1, 5-13 = Divine blessing, confirmation, & guidance**notice however, humble beginning**notice also, God’s choice for ‘most likely to succeed’ v.716:18; 17:4-11, 26, 32-37, 45-47; 18:30 = Courageous, confident, & great leader (vs Saul hiding in the luggage), giving guarantees ahead of time. 2. David demonstrates his righteous careful character through extreme trials.18:10-11, 17, 19, 25, 19:6, 9-12, 18, 20:41-42, 21:13-22:2, 22:21-23 = Saul’s attempts to kill David -> Saul makes aggressive efforts to kill him, David loses one of his best friends, flees like a criminal, makes himself look insane, and Saul kills the priests in pursuing David.*23:1-14 = stands up to his people, seeks God’s guidance*24 = David’s test of sparing Saul’s life & standing up to his men. Attention to detail despite everything pointing to God’s deliverance.*26 = David spares him again & again stands up to his men. *30 = David’s own peeps talk of stoning him. Seeking God through the

1Sa 2:1-10 - Similar to Charles Dickens’ intro to his famous book “A Tale of Two Cities”, Hannah’s prayer provides for us a preview and an intro to the themes present in 1st  & 2nd Samuel. In these two books, we are told the life-stories of Israel’s first two kings, Saul & David.1. Saul had all the potential to be a great king. 9:1-2 = Rich upbringing & physical presence10:1-10 = God’s blessing, confirmation, & guidance10:17-24 = The approval of most of the people11:1-2, 5-8, 11-15- Saul was Israel’s yearbook selection for “Most likely to succeed”- Think of this from their perspective and the way Scripture lays it out2. Saul’s life falls apart because he refuses to change his character flaws.2.1. Impulsive = 1Sa 13:5-14 – Saul’s wrong sacrificeNotice Saul’s arrogance to take it on himself to sacrifice. (e.g. Uzziah doing the same becomes a leper for taking priestly duties upon himself 2Ch 26 – too big for your britches syndrome)Notice Saul makes excuses for why he did it (I feared b/c the people were scared,

Stranger things = Those fringe subjects of the Bible which exist at the intersection of the supernatural and natural, the immaterial and material worlds.  “It would be dishonest of us to claim that the biblical writers read and understood the text the way we do as modern people, or intended meanings that conform to theological systems created centuries after the text was written. Our context is not their context. The proper context for interpreting the Bible is …not the modern world at all, or any period of its history. The proper context is the context of the biblical writers-the context that produced the Bible….The biblical context was produced by men who lived in the ancient near east (ANE). Seeing the Bible through the eyes of an ancient reader [therefore] requires shedding the filters of our [modern] traditions and presumptions. They processed life in supernatural terms.” – Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm) Dimensional portals (def.,): doors or gates and their accompanying bridges connecting the immat

Stranger things = Those fringe subjects of the Bible which exist in the intersection of the supernatural and natural, the immaterial and material worlds.  What to keep in mind when discussing subjects like this: (1Ti 1:3 “strange doctrines”) = Doctrine that does not agree with orthodoxy – e.g., Gen 6:1-4 according to 1Enoch (fallen angels mated with human women who gave birth to the giants who actions and dead, demonic spirits are the main reason for humanity’s corruption [tbd under Divine Council]).Why talking about these subjects are important: 1) we are living in stranger times (e.g., The US secret program that employed what is known as remote viewing [clairvoyance] from 1978-1995 [Project Stargate]; UFO/UAP and alien phenomena and their possible connection to world govts, the divine or demonic and other dimensions, our culture’s current obsession w/the supernatural [super-heroes, aliens, stargates/portals to other dimensions or multiverses [The Marvels, Avengers Infinity War and End Game, Doctor Strange i

Stranger things = Those fringe subjects of the Bible which exist in the intersection of the supernatural and natural, the immaterial and material worlds.   What to keep in mind when discussing subjects like this: (1Ti 1:3 “strange doctrines”) = Doctrine that does not agree with orthodoxy – e.g., Gen 6:1-4 according to 1Enoch (fallen angels mated with human women who gave birth to the giants who actions and dead, demonic spirits are the main reason for humanity’s corruption [tbd under Divine Council]). Why talking about these subjects are important: 1) we are living in stranger times (e.g., The US secret program that employed what is known as remote viewing [clairvoyance] from 1978-1995 [Project Stargate]; UFO/UAP and alien phenomena and their possible connection to world govts, the divine or demonic and other dimensions, our culture’s current obsession w/the supernatural [super-heroes, aliens, stargates/portals to other dimensions or multiverses [The Marvels, Avengers Infinity War and End Game, Doctor Strange

1. The problem is not ours, but theirs.2. We are in good company.3. Our primary mission is to be the aroma of Christ to the lost, not win the lost to Christ.4. Our primary audience and antagonist is and will be the false churches of the world.5. God uses the persecution of false churches to purge the apostate from Christ's true church.6. Persecution serves as one of the greatest and most reliable assurances that we are going to heaven.7. The evangelicals rejection of the true gospel may also be another sign that Jesus will be returning soon.

Common belief today: “We have the right to transfer our membership whenever we want, for whatever reason we want, as long as we believe the other church to be biblical.” Those who believe such things indicate they are not only completely ignorant – or rebellious to, what the Bible actually teaches on this subject, but also the church’s divine authority in such matters[1]. 1. We cannot transfer to another church without our current church’s allowance or approval. Why? Because our membership is attached to our baptism and our baptism is the property of the church currently possessing it -not us. 1.1. God only recognizes us as a member of a specific church when that church performs/possesses our baptism (Act 2:41 “added” [to the church as members] at the point of baptism). IOW: Membership = Baptism. 1.2. To transfer our membership to another church therefore requires the transfer of our baptism to that church.  1.3. Given that baptism is also the way we receive initial forgiveness or the washing away of our sins

Our Billboard campaign has begun! Below are the mission critical truths we need to know if we are to be successful in fulfilling our evangelistic ministry (2Ti 4:5): 1. Salvation requires you believe/practice the right gospel (i.e. the gospel of gain by faith in Jesus Christ and maintain by faithful obedience to all His commands versus the false gospel of faith alone). 1.1. (Rom 3:28 [gain] AND Jam 2:24 [maintain]; 1Jo 1:6, 2:3-4) = We need more than faith to get to heaven. We must be faithful, otherwise what was gained initially by faith wb lost and we wb counted as “liars” (to our covenant oaths) before God. GRAVEDIGGER: Can a Christian get to heaven whose life is characterized by disobedience? (No, Jam 2:14ff). Obedience is therefore another condition of salvation and the FAG is (therefore) false.1.2. Popular today is the idea that precision/correctness w/respect to the gospel doesn’t matter. What God cares about is strictly belief and practice. IOW: Even if our gospel is wrong/false, we are good as long w

Just as children bear the image of their family, God created us as image-bearers to be a part of His family. He also created human families with this goal in mind: we would teach our human families to join - and be supremely loyal to, God’s family -i.e., to embrace “the blood of the covenant [family as] stronger than the water of the womb”. The wonderful gift of family is therefore a deep and divinely constructed part of our DNA. It is what gives us identity and purpose. And it is central to God’s Creation and Christian mandate: we conquer for Christ and His kingdom only as a united family (Mat 28:18-20 w/Phi 1:27-30). Satan and sin have however taken this wonderful gift and perverted it: pitting human families against the family of God (e.g., Gen 11:1-9 = the Tower of Babel: the human families of Noah’s evil son Ham, stand against God and His family, Noah’s righteous son Shem and his descendants including Abraham [11:10-23] who was not only alive at the time of the Tower, but Jewish tradition records him as

We live in a world dominated by feelings and that is not by accident. It is God’s ordained trial for us (and as such, Satan’s most prized strategy). Here then is what we need to know:1. Getting to heaven requires that we stop living by our feelings[1] and become characterized by a life of obedience to Jesus’ words (i.e., God’s will [Law and mission]): 1) the terms “flesh”,  “fleshly”, “passion”, and “sensuality” or commands to deny ourselves are often a reference to our feelings (Mat 16:24; Col 3:5-7; Gal 5:19 w/24; Rom 8:12-13 w/13:13-14; Tit 2:11-12; 1Pe 2:11, 4:1-3; Consider also Mat 7:24-27 = The “sand” or foundation of the second man’s house – the man not living in obedience to Jesus’ words, more than likely represents his feelings. He lives according to his feelings. As a result, when the storms or trials of life come, he is fickle and falls apart). 2) the command for self-control is a call to have command over our feelings (i.e., emotional intelligence) (Act 24:25; Gal 5:23; 2Pe 1:5-6; lack of s-c is w

A major reason churches fail to trust or follow their shepherds — or identify them as legitimately from Jesus, is bc they are ignorant of their job description - or more accurately, the job description they possess for that position in the church, does not agree with Scripture. BC I want to avoid that pitfall in this church, this morning we are going to discover and be reminded of what God says about this subject or, What you should expect if your church truly possesses a shepherd from Jesus 1. They wb IMITATORS:Jesus the Great Shepherd (Heb 13:20) promised to give Jesus-imitating shepherds as a gift to His people and primary caretakers of His body, the church, while He is in heaven. (Jer 3:15a “I will give you shepherds after my own heart”) = Shepherds w/the same heart (likes/dislikes, affections, agenda and desires) as Jesus (i.e., sheps who are imitators of Jesus in their shepherding). It’s fulfillment: (Eph 4:8 w/11 [“pastors” = shepherds] w/12 [“equipping…building up” = A caretaker]). POINTS NOT TO MISS:

WGO?Peter heals a lame beggar and preaches to the crowd who have gathered because of the miracle.  WTP?1. Evangelism can look like going to another church’s bible study (1; Act 17:1-3; Deu 33:10; Mal 2:7; Joh 18:20 = Temple courts [e.g., Solomon’s Portico] were where the people in Jerusalem would go to find teaching from various experts on the Law [priests/scribes, lawyers/judges, Pharisees, Sadducees, etc.,]. Hence the reason Jesus went to the Temple to teach – because He knew the religiously inclined wb there; Similar Act 16:13 = Bible studies were not always held in synagogues or the Temple [see also Act 20:20 “teaching…house to house”). 2. It is the job of the covenant community to see that those born w/disabilities are provided with the financial support necessary to care for their needs (1-2, “alms” = Financial donations; Act 4:34 “not a needy person among them”; Lev 15:4). 3. We must graciously accommodate the theological ignorance of those whose soteriology is right (1, [“going up to the Temple at the

1. The Christian Pentecost should be viewed as Sinai 2.0. given: 1) the sacred holiday of Pentecost (Shavout - Feast of Weeks, Exo 34:22) represented not only a celebration of God’s bountiful giving of physical food (or harvest), but also spiritual food since according to Jewish tradition, Pentecost was the day Israel received the Law from God at Sinai (Hag Matan Torateinu – The Festival of the Giving of Torah[1]) (1, “Pentecost…they were all together in one place”[2]).  2) the parallels that exist between Sinai and the Christian Pentecost: (Exo 19:16-18 w/20:1, 18) = Fire and awe (“fire…people trembled”) accompanying the presence of God speaking about His mighty deeds and Law (“God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the LORD your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery’”) which all the people experienced/heard (“All the people perceived”).(Act 2:2-12) = Fire and awe (“fire…They were amazed and astonished…they all continued in amazement and great perplexity”) accompanying t

1. Important people can help us advance the Kingdom (1; “Theophilus” – See Luk 1:3 “most excellent Theophilus” = Title reserved for those with high social status, power or influence [Act 23:26, 24:3, 26:26]. Given that Luke’s audience was much larger than just Theophilus, strongly implies the mention of his name was for the purpose of adding extra validity - and therefore readership, to his writings – possibly to those in the Jewish community. Luke was a Gentile and therefore would have carried no respect in the Jewish community. Such an assumption infers that Theo was an important and highly respected Jew.).2. Jesus did not go back to heaven until equipping His Church w/: 1) authority: He passed the mantle of Holy Spirit authority [anointing] to His “chosen” leaders (2, “after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders [or “charge” – Mar 13:34] to the apostles”, Joh 20:21-23). 2) assurance: He proved He was alive after His death (3, “many convincing proofs” = Evidence that removes doubt – e.g., Joh 20:17 [Mary M

Acts stands for “Acts of the Apostles.” IOW: What the apostles did, endured or experienced as God used them to spearhead the first genuine Jesus movement after His death and ascension back to heaven. Given the purpose of Scripture, those actions and events can be considered the signs of when such a movement is taking place today. In broad strokes, they are the following:1. The gospel message being preached will have teeth.1.1. Two things are meant by this figure of speech:1.1.1. the message wb offensive not only to the world, but also the majority of those claiming to follow God (e.g., the Jews of Jesus’ day; Evangelical Christians) (Act 7:51-54) = Like the messages preached by the former prophets, Stephen’s gospel was offensive to the majority of those already believing themselves to be the followers of God (the Jews of Jesus’ day; popular Christianity) (Act 17:6 “upset the world”, Act 28:22 “it is spoken against everywhere”). Most people (pagans and “Christians”) will hate the gospel of a genuine Jesus move

Canon (definition): Those books containing God’s spoken words (the Old and New Testaments otherwise known as Scripture, God’s Word or the Bible) preserved for the purpose of saving (physically, spiritually) His people (the covenant community). A major deterrent to canonical confidence[1], is not only a poor understanding of the canon’s formation, but the intended function of God’s spoken words as communicated in the canon itself. Having addressed the latter (function), this study will address the former (formation). With that in mind, there are several important truths that must be understood with respect to the formation of the Canon – or those books believed to contain God’s spoken words: 1. By the time of Jesus and the apostles, the Old Testament had long been accepted by the Jews as the first installment of God’s spoken words.1.1. First century Jewish historian, Josephus claims that the same books found in (our modern-day) Old Testaments, had long been considered God’s spoken words by the Jews, “For altho