by weareclctinley on Nov 05, 2023
The sermon begins with the pastor introducing the concept of "Between Sermons," a podcast that aims to turn the monologue of Sunday sermons into a dialogue. The current sermon series is called "A Walk Through the New Testament," and the discussion continues from the previous sermon which focused on the general Epistles. The pastor emphasizes the importance of evaluating one's actions as a follower of Jesus, encouraging the congregation to reflect on whether they are truly embodying the five key aspects of being a follower of Jesus. He also highlights the significance of loving both God and people, and the need to show love through actions rather than just words.
The pastor then discusses a book that is being released by his wife. He mentions that although the primary audience is ladies, anyone can benefit from reading it. The book will be available on Amazon and his wife's website, and there will also be a release event at their church. The pastor then transitions to talking about the current series they are doing on studying the New Testament. He emphasizes the importance of not just reading the Bible, but studying it and becoming students of the word of God.
The pastor emphasizes the importance of fixing our eyes on Jesus rather than ourselves when faced with opposition. He encourages the congregation to follow Jesus and not their own hearts. The pastor then refers to Peter's message about living out the faith and being chosen by God. He clarifies that Peter's reference to a holy nation is not limited to the Jewish people but includes all believers. The pastor emphasizes that our national pride should be in Christianity rather than any earthly nation.
The sermon concludes with the pastor emphasizing the importance of understanding and utilizing the abilities, gifts, passions, and desires that God has given to each individual. The church aims to help people discover their giftings so that they can use them to bring glory to God and build up the body of Christ, both within the church and in the marketplace. The pastor encourages the congregation to recognize that their gifts are not just for their own benefit, but also for the blessing of others.
Key Takeaways:
- Evaluating one's actions as a follower of Jesus is crucial. It encourages reflection on whether one is truly embodying the five key aspects of being a follower of Jesus. This reflection is essential in identifying areas of weakness and striving to improve in those aspects. ([12:45])
- Loving both God and people is significant, and love should be shown through actions rather than just words. This is a reminder that faith is not just about professing love, but also demonstrating it through actions. ([18:30])
- It is important to not just read the Bible, but to study it and become students of the word of God. This involves diving deep into the history and background of the Bible, understanding the context and author's intentions, and applying the teachings to one's own life. ([24:15])
- When faced with opposition, it is important to fix our eyes on Jesus rather than ourselves. Peter's reference to a holy nation is not limited to the Jewish people but includes all believers, emphasizing that our national pride should be in Christianity rather than any earthly nation. ([32:00])
- Understanding and utilizing the abilities, gifts, passions, and desires that God has given to each individual is important. The church aims to help people discover their giftings so that they can use them to bring glory to God and build up the body of Christ, both within the church and in the marketplace. ([40:00])
Bible Reading:
1. Matthew 22:37-39: "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
2. James 2:17: "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
3. Proverbs 1:7: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Observation Questions:
1. In Matthew 22:37-39, what are the two commandments that Jesus highlights as the greatest?
2. What does James 2:17 suggest about the relationship between faith and action?
3. According to Proverbs 1:7, what is the beginning of knowledge?
Interpretation Questions:
1. How does the commandment to love God and neighbor, as stated in Matthew 22:37-39, relate to the concept of embodying the key aspects of being a follower of Jesus?
2. In James 2:17, what might be some examples of faith being accompanied by action?
3. How might the fear of the Lord, as mentioned in Proverbs 1:7, influence one's approach to studying the Bible and becoming a student of the word of God?
Application Questions:
1. Reflecting on Matthew 22:37-39, can you identify a specific situation in the coming week where you can demonstrate love for your neighbor through action, not just words?
2. Considering James 2:17, what is one tangible action you can take this week to demonstrate your faith?
3. In light of Proverbs 1:7, what is one step you can take to deepen your understanding of the Bible and become a more diligent student of God's word?
4. Reflecting on the concept of a holy nation, how can you show pride in your Christian identity in your daily interactions this week?
5. Considering the importance of utilizing the abilities, gifts, passions, and desires that God has given you, can you identify one specific way you can use your gifts to bless others in the coming week?
Day 1: Evaluating Our Actions as Followers of Jesus
Theme: Reflective Faith: Evaluating Our Actions
Description: As followers of Jesus, it is crucial to evaluate our actions regularly. This encourages reflection on whether we are truly embodying the five key aspects of being a follower of Jesus. Such reflection is essential in identifying areas of weakness and striving to improve in those aspects. ([12:45])
Bible Passage: Lamentations 3:40 - "Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD."
Reflection: What are the five key aspects of being a follower of Jesus in your understanding? Reflect on your actions in the past week. How have they aligned with these aspects?
Day 2: Demonstrating Love Through Actions
Theme: Love in Action: Beyond Words
Description: Loving both God and people is significant, and love should be shown through actions rather than just words. This is a reminder that faith is not just about professing love, but also demonstrating it through actions. ([18:30])
Bible Passage: 1 John 3:18 - "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."
Reflection: How can you demonstrate your love for God and others through your actions today? Can you think of a specific act of kindness you can perform?
Day 3: Becoming Students of the Word
Theme: Deep Dive: Studying the Word of God
Description: It is important to not just read the Bible, but to study it and become students of the word of God. This involves diving deep into the history and background of the Bible, understanding the context and author's intentions, and applying the teachings to one's own life. ([24:15])
Bible Passage: Acts 17:11 - "Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
Reflection: What is one Bible passage that you find difficult to understand? How can you study it more deeply to gain a better understanding?
Day 4: Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
Theme: Unwavering Focus: Eyes on Jesus
Description: When faced with opposition, it is important to fix our eyes on Jesus rather than ourselves. Peter's reference to a holy nation is not limited to the Jewish people but includes all believers, emphasizing that our national pride should be in Christianity rather than any earthly nation. ([32:00])
Bible Passage: Hebrews 12:2 - "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Reflection: What opposition are you currently facing? How can you shift your focus from the opposition to Jesus?
Day 5: Utilizing Our God-Given Gifts
Theme: Purposeful Living: Utilizing Our Gifts
Description: Understanding and utilizing the abilities, gifts, passions, and desires that God has given to each individual is important. The church aims to help people discover their giftings so that they can use them to bring glory to God and build up the body of Christ, both within the church and in the marketplace. ([40:00])
Bible Passage: 1 Peter 4:10 - "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms."
Reflection: What are your God-given gifts? How can you use them to serve others and bring glory to God today?
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Between Sermons, where we are continuing the conversation from our Sunday sermon.
A lot of times, Sunday is just a monologue, man. I mean, somebody standing on a stage talking at a group of people. So, Between Sermons is all about being able to turn that monologue into dialogue, being able to sit down and actually talk with somebody about what we've been discussing as a church.
As always, you don't have to be a part of the church or have even heard the sermon in order to get something out of this podcast. But I will say this one might be beneficial to you because we are in a series called "A Walk Through the New Testament," which should probably really be called "A Sprint Through the New Testament" because we are covering a lot of ground very quickly.
I had to talk really fast yesterday as we looked at the General Epistles—so all the letters written by guys not named Paul. We came away with some nuggets about how to really live out your faith.
So today, I want to continue that conversation with my good friend David Beasley. How you doing, man?
I'm good, sir. How are you?
I'm fantastic. I'm—uh, that's a lie. I'm great, but I'm also jet lagged. So if my brain just kind of reboots in the middle of this conversation, just chalk it up to your travel.
It's all good. No problem, no problem. I get you.
David, I'm excited to have you hang out with us. You've been a part of CLC for a while now. Actually, when did you—what's your CLC journey?
Okay, so my journey—prior to actually coming here, I knew a lot of people that went here, a lot of friends, acquaintances, and things like that. So in 2016, I believe, me and my wife and my son—he was about three, I think, at the time—we were looking to transition to another church, things like that. So we looked at a few, and then we said to ourselves, "Let's go check out CLC. We know some people there; we already have some relationships."
So we came out, and we came for one Sunday and never left. So that was about 2016, so we've been here for a little while now.
Yeah, and you guys started off by serving in our youth ministry. You did that for a while. Now you're serving as life group leaders and pretty much anything I'll throw at you, right?
Yeah, whatever you need me to do, whatever you need us to do. Hey, we fill in the gaps, whatever.
Yes, sir. And your wife actually has a book coming out in November.
Yeah, she does. November 3rd it drops.
Nice! What's the name of the book?
It's called "Dear Sis: You Can Live Free."
Nice! So it's just a story about her testimony and an attempt to help others gain freedom from whatever may be having them bound or something they may be struggling with. The primary audience is the ladies, but I'm going to tell you, as a fellow, I read it, and it impacted me. It blessed me too, so anybody can benefit from it.
So you don't necessarily have to be a lady to read "Dear Sis."
Exactly! Yeah, you could just put "Bro"—"Dear Bro." You can, yeah, whenever you read it, just put "Bro" if you're a guy.
Nice! So where can they pick up the book?
It'll be available on Amazon, sweet, as well as other outlets. My wife also has her own website and everything, so it'll be available there as well. We plan on having a release here at CLC on November 3rd. It'll be available there as well.
So nice! Yeah, we're excited about that. We're excited! Pretty cool. It's good stuff, man.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, so we're doing this series where we're walking through the New Testament. Really, the premise of this is we're trying to get people to not just read their Bibles but study their Bibles, that they become students of the Word of God.
So what does that look like for you? You know, I think sometimes people are like, "Yeah, sure, the pastor studies and does that stuff," but as just an ordinary guy, what does studying the Bible look like for you?
Yeah, so to be honest, I'm similar to you. I'm a little nerdish as well. So when it comes to the Word of God, I like to dive deep. To be honest, I like objectivity and just really understanding things from a knowledgeable standpoint.
So for me, I like to dig into the history a lot. Years ago, at a former church I was a part of, we did a class on how to study the Bible.
Okay.
The fancy term was it was a hermeneutics class. It basically taught you how to—the art and study of biblical interpretation. So I like to look at the fact that you have to understand the history of what's going on, look at the background, see who wrote what, why it was written—which is what we're going through in the series that you and all the other pastors are leading. Just understanding who wrote it, why it was written, why the letter or the book was written, and just trying to dive into what the audience was and get into the mind of the author.
Yeah, yeah. That helps me tremendously because when I do that, I can understand better how to apply it for myself.
Yeah.
Then I go a little further. I go into dictionary definitions, repeated words, because I feel like there's an emphasis there when something's repeated. God wants us to catch something there. I look at—I'm not a scholar, but I dabble in a little bit of Greek and Hebrew too, concordances and commentaries and stuff like that.
So for me, that's what I do. Now, that doesn't happen all the time, right? Because life is life. Life be life. But whenever I have time and if there's something that piques my interest, I try to dive in to try to fully understand exactly what's going on.
What tools do you use to help you in that? Because, like, I was talking with somebody yesterday after the service that said, "All I have is my Bible." Like, you keep talking about all these other things, but all I have is my Bible. What should I do? What should I get?
Yeah, so first, the Bible is a great way to start. That's the primary thing. So if you have the Bible, I would suggest getting a good study Bible.
So for me, I like the ESV Study Bible. It's called the English Standard Version. There you go. I love that translation. It helps me understand it better, and it has great notes.
But then there are other good Bibles, other good study Bibles. You have the NIV, the NASB, the New King James. There are a lot of Bibles out there that are good study Bibles with a lot of good notes and references that will highlight the passages for you.
So I'll start there.
Yep.
Then I go from there to commentaries. There are a lot of brilliant scholars and theologians and stuff like that. They've done all the hard work for us over the years. They've gone to school; they got the credentials. So I like to look at what they say and see how it highlights a passage, see what it talks about, and then I learn that way as well.
So that's a commentary. They have some commentaries that actually cover the whole Bible. They have some that cover books, just a whole commentary on Matthew or Mark and things like that.
So I do that. Then I'll look at things like a Bible dictionary just to understand certain words back then. Because I've learned that sometimes the meaning of a word is based on the context in which it's used. So sometimes a word today doesn't mean the same thing it meant then.
And you got to look at the context, you know, just to understand it a little bit better.
So you got that, you got Bible dictionaries, you got commentaries, concordances. So I look at a concordance. The concordance is the Greek and Hebrew aspect of it, and I look at that as well.
And then it helps me dive into the meaning of certain words and terms as well, even more so. Those are my primary tools.
Now, man, you're such a nerd!
I mean, yeah, I'm telling you, I'm similar. I'm similar to you, buddy.
Yeah, yeah. So that's my approach a lot of times—not all the time—but if I'm really diving into something, that's what I do usually.
I love it. And what's cool is a lot of the things you mentioned, there are free resources out there for it. You can go to Bible Gateway; it has access to a lot of those things. Blue Letter Bible has access to a lot of those things.
And then, man, just go to Amazon, type in "Study Bible." My three favorite study Bibles that I've got that I use regularly—so I've got the first Study Bible I ever got, which was the New Living Translation Life Application Study Bible. It's like this big green one. It's like the classic—like everybody has the big fat green one.
1. "If this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, then we need to kind of evaluate, okay, which am I doing that right? Am I doing these five things? If I'm not, I should probably start, right? Or maybe if there's an area where I'm really strong in these four, but this fifth one I'm really weak in." [01:09:30]
2. "Opposition comes, I don't think there's any better advice than fix your eyes on Jesus, don't fix your eyes on yourself, don't follow your heart, follow him." [49:33]
3. "As we're looking at what's our guide to living out the faith, the living out the faith is recognizing God chose you. Peter says you're a holy nation, you are God's chosen. So, our national pride is Christianity, like we're part of a new kingdom." [57:17]
4. "If you're going to pursue that purpose that God has for you, it includes loving people, it includes prayer, and it says to serve others. Whatever gift God has given you, use it to serve others." [58:32]
5. "Understanding the word of God...one of the things that helps you understand it is trying to get a basic understanding of the fact that the Bible has is broken up into Covenant, context, and culture...these things matter." [45:36]
6. "If I love God with everything I have, I'm not going to want to sin against Him. It goes then, it bleeds to your neighbor. If I love my neighbor like I love myself, I don't want anybody to harm me, lie to me, steal from me, belittle me, disrespect me. Therefore, I won't do that to anyone else." [25:55]
7. "We're really trying to get people to not just read their Bibles but study their Bibles that they become students of the word of God." [03:36]
8. "God wants you to utilize it for his purposes which can bless the church and the world...which shows the world who you got it from, which is what ultimately all of our gifting should do - point us Point everybody back to him." [01:02:08]
9. "When you fix your eyes on Jesus, you run towards Jesus. When you fix your eyes on yourself, you run towards yourself... one of those is going to end up great for you, the other one is going to end up in destruction." [55:30]
10. "Just demonstrating love for somebody, buying them a meal, buying them coffee, or buying them a gift, is a way of communicating that you love them. It's the little things that can make a big impact." #!!31:40!!#
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