Woodland Friends Church

Corinth, you must recognize, perhaps in the heart of Paul was a place that would test Paul’s faith in Christ’s ability to redeem. Does Christ really own the whole world? Can He really save the likes of Corinth? I once read a post going around on social media, “If St. Paul were alive today, the Church in America would be getting a letter,” friends America already got a letter, two actually, and its the letters to the Church in Corinth!

Paul says two manifestations of the Righteousness of God have been given to us. The first, we cannot acquire, we fall short. The latter, in all of its good news, is a gift: imputed onto us out of God's grace and kindness. This is the core of Romans!

What do you think people mean by that statement: “I wish the Church was more like the church of Acts?” In which ways? What did the early Church have that we don't have?

Listen to Jacob Walker, missionary with Overland Missions headed to DR Congo. Support him here: https://portal.overlandmissions.com/donate/sowingintothekingdom

Surrounding the Resurrection of Jesus were doubters from the unlikeliest of places. What do they teach us about doubters today, and what is the one persisting factor in such doubt that turns all doubters on their heads? Where's the hope?! Where it always is!

God's Word is in, throughout, sustaining everything and it's so clearly on display in all of Passion Week. What does that truth mean for us?

So what? Why is it important if you, or I, Christian believe in Jesus in this way, that He’s fully man and fully God? One word. Mediator.

The Northern Israelites, if the paid any mind to the prophet from the south, Isaiah, could have wondered just who this Gideon figure was that would break their oppressor?! Their oppressor was Assyria! The Messiah comes several years later, and He's not breaking oppressive rods that anybody expected, He breaks a rod much more oppressive: sin!

Who were the prophets of the books who bear their name in the Old Testament? Why is hard to read them? What were they all about? And do their prophecies contain the sensational, future-predicting stuff like Nostradamus, or what DO they contain? We answer all of that here...

As we continue an overview of the Bible, we find in Solomon's books a search and unpacking for the meaning of life. We also find that where Solomon painted the background of the picture, he leaves a silhouette only Jesus fulfills.

Guest Speaker, Passage text: John 15:4,5

In this overview of the Psalms, the biggest book of the Bible, we go through such an overview only hitting the tip of the iceberg: Christ from the Psalms, how the Psalms inform our conscience, and how the Psalms help us converse with God.

This is what we need to remember, and if we miss this, we miss Job. Because many people, myself included even after I came to this truth, this fact, what this book is about… many of us think, “Job - oh that’s about suffering. That’s why bad things happen to good people. That’s about the mystery of suffering.” This isn't so, and the book itself says so.

For me growing up, this was probably the least-touched on major narrative arc for me in all the Sunday School classes and VBSs I attended. I could remember the Flood and Ark, seems like I heard David and Goliath a thousand times, and I knew the names Elijah and Elisha and sure I knew the Esther story but couldn’t tell you when it happened… But the exile? The deportation to Babylon? I mean, also, sure, a few stories in Daniel I would know — but the general picture, the overwhelming, superintendency of God to say, “I have condemned you to exile. You have forfeited your side of the Covenant, and I’m disciplining you to Babylon, pagan overlords.” I never heard much teaching on that.

In the Kings of Israel (both kingdoms) we get snapshots of their hearts. Alarmingly, many echo the heart of Solomon in places like Ecclesiastes 2. Self-indulging. Pursuing the wind more than things that matter. What do these heart-pursuits teach us about the Christian life?

After the dark time of the Judges, God graciously gives Israel a time where His Voice was suddenly accessible and throughout Israel again by the ministry of Samuel. Even so, Israel desires its own voice at the rejection of God's (1 Sam 8:7-9) in their request of a King instead of the Office God had given to them at this time. By the end of 1 Samuel, we see how people can be so hard-headed against God's Voice that they think He's being silent, when it's really people themselves who through disobedience choose not to hear Him!

As we examine the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, we might get weighed down in the first two about the epic, nation-building, nation-moving, nation-disastrous truths to think the points of the story are far removed from us. But then Ruth tells us that even when we can't see it because things look so "ordinary," God's promises and His rescue still providentially takes place in the every day! Woodland Friends now receives online giving! Consider giving on the "GIVE" tab at woodlandfriendschurch.wordpress.com

Unknowns. There are lots of things one could focus on for the first five books of the Bible. For our purposes, let us examine these themes in these books: Unknown Consequences, Unknown Destination, and an Unknown Fulfillment. What's the unknown in your life, and is the Answer of the Bible still your answer? You can give, now, to the ministry of Woodland Friends Church online by clicking on the "GIVE" tab at www.woodlandfriendschurch.wordpress.com

Gifts don't care about feelings, yet we approach Christ often considering our feelings and neglecting His gift.

"He passed through their midst and went on His way." Now there are all sorts of speculation on this. None of the possibilities makes any difference. No matter how He did it. What’s telling is that Jesus is leaving. What’s telling is that, He gets over those who reject Him. In the sense that, probably quicker than I get over people rejecting Him. There are people you and I have likely been praying for, for years, and that’s good. And again, I know that Jesus desires all people to be saved. But if there is a person unable to accept Him, and another person more than willing and wanting to receive Him, guess who Jesus is going with for the time being?

The key to diving in and finally unpacking this conversation between Jesus and His opponents came when I acknowledged a lack of parental respect and devotion in our time. The Jews saw their lineage, and fathers as ones to be devoted to. In this discussion, Jesus reveals why His hearers aren't in fact sons of Abraham, but sons of another father altogether, and His revelation isn't pleasant or flattering.

Jesus, saying He was the Bread of Heaven, was no doubt a claim to Godhood. Upon hearing this, His opponents state, “We’ve known Jesus! We’ve known His parents, and we’ve known Jesus growing up, and - you know - if He was always God we thought there should've been some obvious signs that we apparently missed!” It’s hard. it’s a common response. To minimize. Explain away. Make less of. Jesus instead invites HIs hearers

Sometimes it seems like one step forward, two steps back… Sometimes the world seems dark, and the elites, the troublemakers have their way but somehow though, hope rises up and a counter-cultural champion comes along the way. Finally, someone saying, doing, pressing for, pushing for the right things and enough people with common sense champion him! Maybe the movement they’re making will spread! Maybe the hope he’s bringing will catch on, and will fight back. But before he's entirely and totally successful, he's taken away! What to do in those moments? And is the world lost without such a champion to grace their lands?

The same God who can be aggravatingly merciful is also the God who can be offensively unbending. One hundred soldiers and their captains lost their lives being burnt up alive. Why? Is God too harsh? What are we to learn from the fiery judgment of God?

“Faith that grasps mercy enlivens.” Mercy is not a small term. This story of Naboth's vineyard sets the table for some scandalous, aggravating mercy, and when was grip that with our emotions, we understand mercy all the more.

On Oct 31, 1517, one Catholic Monk named Martin Luther forever changed the church background. He was a guy, who by his own words, "Hated the righteousness of God." What did he bring to the Church tradition? And how did he grow to agree with Paul to no longer be ashamed of the Gospel?

Elijah had just been witness to probably one of the most vivid and clear realities he’d ever see of the God He served: fire out of the sky to consume a sacrifice. Rainstorm out of nowhere. And Elijah likely anticipated what we would anticipate: people would see it and have no room to argue and thus submit. Surrender. But they don’t. But after the fire and wind, what will people have left in reference to God bringing about His desired outcome? The gentle wind of Providence.

When God showed up miraculously to consume a sacrifice (and spilled water), and then bring rain out of nowhere for the first time in 3 years.... Jezebel chose to willfully ignore the obvious in pursuit of killing the Voice of Truth. Ironically, we find when Elijah flees, he sees things worse then they really are, making his own deliberate oversights...

Eat Christ's Flesh? Drink His Blood? How about the Prince of Peace coming to bring a sword? And those who do works in His Name may be declared as never being known by Christ?! Listen to the unpacking of these hard sayings and more!

When Jesus prayed the High Priestly Prayer, four verses grab the entire Christian message of being separated, sanctified, sent and saved. Followers are not of this world, but here to save the world. How are YOU doing in that Mission?!

This is how it is for us today. Sometimes God can show up so clearly and there’s a blindness to it. Because people, like Jezebel, want their power over reality. People have been so primed and pumped into their own narratives, “Oh Elijah was the one who caused the drought, he’s the troubler of Israel,” or they’ve been lured into thinking, “Baal has always brought the rain, and this thing on Mount Carmel, that’s a fluke,” while the reality is as Paul says it, "[people]... suppress the truth by their wickedness. For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them,” (Romans 1:18,19). Both in fire and rain!

This widow in Zarepath had the wrong son as payment of sin! It is the Son of Yahweh who must die for her sins, and will die several hundred years later for her sin! For your sin! For my sin!

Baal culture. Unholy culture. God-hating culture. And followers. "And boy did you hear when they did this? And man, they just did that! And I hate how they characterize followers of God! And enough is enough…." What does God do when enough is enough? He takes His righteous One, exiles him in the famine near a river that’s drying up due to the famine. He feeds him with ravens. Unclean animals. Then He sends him deeper into the heart of that wretched, depraved, unholy culture of demonism. Baal-worship. And God says, “You need to meet one of the lowest, if not the lowest class of person!”

You ever feel like the world's going down the drain, and no one cares... and you thought God cared, but He doesn't appear to either? Enter into the Northern Kingdom if Israel where powers and principalities ruled it, but one man rises up to face the tide of the culture with truth: it is indeed Yahweh who brings the rains, not Baal.

No matter where Jesus arises from, His history, His story, the truth He offers to the entire world is salvation - and when you hear salvation, don’t just think forgiveness, but think rest, think abundant life, think active, sure, hope… but here’s the truth, the one truth: the truth Christ offers for the world is found nowhere else but Himself. That’s it. What we offer as Christians, is Jesus, no more or less. It’s Jesus.

What are you living from when it happened last time to when it happens next time? What's your go to, to recharge? What's your FINAL, MUST-HAVE, thing that you sure will provide what you're looking for? And when will you learn it can't offer what you're looking for?

Do we ever forget that we’re introducing people to Jesus, but we don’t need to introduce Jesus to those people? He already knows the someone you need to invite to Him! God REVEALS Himself to you and me and He eventually reveals Himself to the people we invite, because He’s real! He’s still inviting people into His Kingdom, and He still shows Himself to people like Nathanael who might be at first resistant to think, that this Jesus guy that all the crazy Christians talk about might be anyOne worth knowing!

You never know what’s in a person's heart, do you? I mean at first glance, this is an odd response. Peter listens to a sermon or some teachings from Jesus, the people disperse, Jesus tells him to fish, Peter catches this miraculous load of fish and now, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

As long as you or I are content with the world, in all of its dark ways, and we aren’t BEING or REVEALING something new... If we’re not sharing the light of the world, if we aren’t being the city on a hill? There’s no news to spread, then! If we’re just people with busier Sundays, what do we have to offer for the searching soul?

Ever been in a hotel and see a Gideons' Bible? Who are these people? Why are they everywhere in hotels, Doctors' Offices, or even coming home with your kids from school at times? John Swan, a local Gideon presented this Sunday at Woodland Friends Church.

Meet Fred and Jonelle Liddell, missionary candidates to the Balkans. In this presentation we hear their call, and their passion. Learn more and support them at: https://catalog.friendsmission.com/campaign/efm-missionary-candidates-or-the-liddell-family/c580952; and see the video at our YouTube. "Both Fred and Jonelle have felt a strong calling to serve overseas and have diligently prepared themselves spiritually, emotionally, and practically for this endeavor. They have expressed interest in serving in the Balkans region, including countries such as Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia."

The antidote for complacency is Christ. If you or I know, love, serve, and follow Christ, and know Him as He reveals Himself to us, then we cannot be complacent. When Christ comes, He ignites a fire in your soul!

“It’s pointless to serve God. Others who don’t serve Him are ahead in life. That’s why its pointless,” some argue. To put it in opposite terms, perhaps a question that God might be asking is this: "what if serving Him is not about getting ahead in life? What if being at the top of the food chain is not where worth or value or identity is even to be had?"

What if robbing God is actually robbing ourselves when we do so? We miss out on blessings when we disobey God because we feel the costs are too high. What if the costs are to high to NOT obey? What if our predicaments now that we're in is actually due to past disobedience, and the only way out now actually is our obedience?

We might see so much injustice, “God why aren’t you doing anything?” His patience is not a sign of His inactivity. His patience is not a sign of His non-existence. It’s a sign of mercy. And the irony is, is His patience is meant for our repentance and redemption concerning where WE have been unjust and don't even know it.

It's a simple enough logic that Malachi is preaching. He's essentially saying, “the man who can’t be faithful to his wife whom he knows and sees, obviously demonstrates he cannot be faithful to God whom he cannot see.” What does faithfulness with your fellow brother, sister, friend or spouse say about your faithfulness to God?

Integrity is defined as, a “firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values,” and the dictionary points readers to see the entry for INCORRUPTIBILITY. Or, another definition states that integrity is “the quality or state of being complete or undivided.” I like that. When you or I act one way here, and another way there, that is divided. The Priests of Malachi were divided, claiming to be descendants of the likes of the Levites who cleansed Israel with Moses, or Phinehas, but acting in the present, less than that.

Respect. Is that a lost commodity in this world? A lack of respect for God leads to a complacent heart... and many times, as the definition of complacency implies, we're blissfully unaware of how our going-through-the-motions betrays a lack of respect of God and the way He wants worship? Maybe we should begin to ask God in our prayers, "Father, am I respecting You?"

Jesus many times puzzles His hearers with his words. Sometimes they are enigmatic and mysterious. Other times they seem to constitute a tall order that hardly seems surmountable. What are they, and why does He speak so?

Israel had been through a school of hard knocks. You ever have a history? You ever get that scarred chip on your shoulder? “Yeah I'm a believer. I guess. I don't know why. XYZ happened. That threw me for a loop,” and then you kind of - either vocally OR subconsciously get to this, “God owes me,” sort of feeling. Embittered. “I guess I grew up. I thought He was with me. For me. I guess not.” Even so, God has the audacity to look Israel in the face after all they've been through when they thought they could trust Him - and He says, "I HAVE loved you!"