How would you describe living the Christian life with the Holy Spirit in you? In 2005, sociologist Christian Smith published results from surveying and researching the spiritual views of teens in America. He coined the term "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" (MTD) to describe their views of God and Christianity. This is the view of many people even today. But our passage in Romans 8 gives a radically different picture. God, through the apostle Paul, displaying out the practical implications of the gospel for your life and mine.
Previously, we learnt about the prologue, people of and promise of Rom 8:1; and how in Rom 8:2-4, we see how only Jesus Christ can give us true life and freedom from sin, by fulfilling the requirements of the law. In this study, we'll look at two different lives that we can live.
Tonight's study focuses on freedom from sin and death. If you're a Christian but do not know what it means to be saved, or you think sin is something bad that we simply need to avoid, we need to reconsider these things in this study. We will study how sin affects the Christian life tonight. Sin neither controls you, nor we it.
Romans is an important book in the Bible, and Romans 8 is an important chapter in this important book. But this chapter does not stand in isolation and it is important for us to understand where it is located in the larger argument of the book and to trace the argument in the chapter. For this first session, we'll try to see this chapter in the context of the book, and we'll spend the rest of the 12 weeks tracing the argument as it unfolds.
We end off this series in Leviticus with a pretty heavy study. Most, if not all of us would find this a difficult text to read. What is so hard about this text? What would you do if you read this in your QT? Perhaps this passage has confusing practices and conversations. Perhaps it really feels like a different God is present in this text. Perhaps we want to find out why things happen and the reasons for the event, but Scripture is silent here. Whatever your questions may be, remember the words of Rom 15:4-6, that Scripture is given for our instruction and encouragement, so that through endurance, we may have hope. Scripture does not really tell us all that we want to know, and it is for us to work through and pray through. Scripture is not like our encyclopedia of ready answers. Most importantly in our Bible studies and personal devotion, the aim is not to come up with clever explanations of obscure parts of the Bible, but to meet the living God. We know that He speaks through His Word, and though we may not always understand, we know that we must.
Leviticus 9 begins with the words ‘on the eighth day’. This is a continuation of the previous chapter, which ended off with the command for Aaron and the priests to be confined for seven days (Lev 8:33).
Leviticus 1-7 consisted of detailed instructions for the various offerings. Leviticus was written to show the Israelites, and us, what it takes for a holy God to dwell amongst sinful people. In today's study, we'll look at the setting aside of the priests, who were so important to the system. We're moving a bit away from the intricacies of the system, to focus on the people that God has set aside to serve Him.
So far, we've been looking at the 5 offerings in some depth. But to be honest, Leviticus is a tough book for many of us. What does knowing what to do with animals, sprinkling blood all over the place mean for us modern people? It all seems foreign and outdated. Today's passage takes us back to these 5 offerings again, and in doing so, perhaps we learn something about our worship, God's providence, and fellowship with Him.
Today we will consider the 5th and final offering – the guilt offering or the ‘reparation’ offering.
Today, we'll consider the next offering -- the sin offering. But before we do so, and before we can fully understand the need for such an offering, it is important for us to understand the nature of sin, and why it is a problem for us all (and may actually be an even bigger problem than we initially thought).
After the burnt offering, and the grain offering, we move on to the third offering in Leviticus 3 -- the peace offering.
Last week we studied the burnt offering, the first of the 5 offerings. Today, we continue with the instructions for the grain offering, or the minhah.
Today we look at the first of the five offerings: the common burnt offering.
To understand Leviticus properly, we need to understand the God who gave Leviticus, and the God of Leviticus. Leviticus is basically about God coming down to live among us, but we are presented with a problem because of who God is, and because of who we are. The God of the Bible is a specific being. And this God describes human beings in a very specific way too. The theology and anthropology of the Bible is very unique. Leviticus is all about how we try and deal with the problem, but continues to hint that the answer is not in us, but really in Christ. And the God of Leviticus, of all the ceremonies and slaying and fire, is the God of Christmas.
We begin our series in Leviticus, not with the book proper, but we're taking time to understand the context and purpose of this book. Leviticus is not an easy book to understand, but if we believe in 2 Tim 3:16, we know that the book of Leviticus is God-breathed and useful!
For a school choir, one of the events that can really change things is going for a tour. You do everything together on a tour and that unites everyone in a common experience. It can inspire others who may not have been very interested in choir, to like singing.
Is the cross like that for us? Is it just a catalyst for positive change? Or is it more or less than that? Is it just a significant event? These are the questions we will be considering in today's lesson.
Both passages point us to one aspect of the cross-centred life. We will see that it's not so much about the lives we live and the things we do. It's about where the cross is in our lives and what it is doing there. We must understand that the cross-centred life is one of visible unity that is empowered by the cross.
We studied what Jesus teaches His disciples after he has risen. What now for the disciples? What are they suppose to do? What does the Holy Spirit do? What does it mean to have a spiritual experience? Does it mean you can perform miracles? Does it mean that you can see a vision, a dream, signs, etc.? Today, we will look at what the Bible tells us about the work of the Holy Spirit, and how that fits into the mission of the church.
What do you expect someone who comes back from the dead to say? In today's passage, we pick up then narrative from after the resurrection of Jesus. What did He say to the disciples? What is He also saying to us today?
This last study before Good Friday takes us to Jesus' last prediction of his death before he arrives at the cross. In this study in Luke 18:18-34, we'll begin by examining verses 31 to 34 and make our way back up to verse 18.
This week, we look at the transfiguration. Luke begins his account of the transfiguration by referring to the sayings of eight days ago (v.28). Clearly, he was picking up from the words and themes in the preceding verses, where Jesus spoke about His death, and called His disciples to death to self too. Verses 28 to 45, therefore, follow from these commands to come and die.
