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Sermons and content from Union Church in Prescott, Arizona.

4 days ago

2 Peter 2:1-3 - Clever Stories

Listen along as we continue through 2 Peter. Notes//Quotes: 2 Peter 2:1-3 - Faith Title: Clever Stories “Christianity would then be evaporated of its essence and consist of little more than a vague reverence for “God.” Certain strands of the ecumenical movement err in just this direction. In the interests of Christian unity, they reduce the faith to its lowest possible common denominator.” - Douglas Moo “In essentials unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, charity.” - Rupertus Meldenius Apostles Creed: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; [he descended to the dead.] On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. (ELLC) “Anxiety is a truly remarkable thing. Maya walks home alone, like iron on the outside but a house of cards inside. The slightest little breeze is all it takes. Today it was the line in the cafeteria. The crowd. Someone backed into her accidentally; she doesn't know the boy's name, and he didn't even notice. They hardly touched each other. It wasn't his fault. But Maya was plunged back into hell again in an instant…Anxiety. It's such a peculiar thing. Almost everyone knows what it feels like, yet none of us can describe it. Maya looks at herself in the mirror, wonders why it can't be seen on the outside. Not even on X-rays how does that work? How can something that bangs away at us so horribly hard on the inside not show up on the pictures as black scars, scorched into our skeletons? How can the pain she feels not be visible in the mirror! She's become so good at pretending. Goes to school, sits in classes, does her homework. She plays her guitar, perhaps that helps, unless she's just imagining that. Perhaps her fingers just need to be kept busy. She's looked into the books her dad reads about "mental coaching," and they talk about the brain having to steer the body but that sometimes the reverse is the only way to survive. She's seen depressed adults do the same thing: keep moving, exercising, and cleaning and renovating their summer cottages, finding things that force them to get up in the morning: plants to be watered, errands to be run, anything so they don't have time to think about how.” —Fredrick Backman, Us Against Them
26 Jul

2 Peter 1:16-21 - How To Pay Attention

Listen along as we continue our journey through 2 Peter. Notes//Quotes: 2 Peter 1:16-21 I have seen the face of Jesus— Tell me not of aught beside; I have heard the voice of Jesus—All my soul is satisfied. In the radiance of the glory, First I saw His blessed face, And forever shall that glory Be my home, my dwelling-place. 2 Tim 3:16-17 The value of inspiration emerges, as twofold. It gives to the books written under its bearing a quality which is truly superhuman; a trustworthiness, an authority, a searchingness, a profundity, a profitableness which is altogether Divine. And it speaks this Divine word immediately to each reader’s heart and conscience; so that he does not require to make his way to God, painfully, perhaps even uncertainly, through the words of His servants, the human instruments in writing the Scriptures, but can listen directly to the Divine voice itself speaking immediately in the Scriptural word to him. BB Warfield “We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to be reminded where it has come from and where it is going to, and hence what our own part within it ought to be.” - NT Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God 1. Where in your life do you already know what needs to change, but continue to avoid the cost of changing it? 2. What has become so normal in your life that you no longer notice how much it is diminishing your vitality? 3. If someone looked only at the way you spend your time, energy, and attention, what would they assume matters most to you?
19 Jul

2 Peter 1:10-15 - Last Words

Listen along as we continue through 2 Peter. Notes//Quotes: 2 Peter 1:10-15 - Jorgen/Larry Title: Last Words “In this sense holiness refers to a state of being separate, set apart from the ordinary or mundane and dedicated to a particular purpose or use. The Hebrew adjective for "holy" (qadosh) literally means "separate," since it derives from a verb meaning "to cut off" or "to separate!" Together with its cognates it is used to designate particular places (especially the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies), objects (e.g., Aaron's garments and the Sabbath day, and persons (e.g., the priests and Levites) as specially set apart or sanctified to the Lord. An example is found in Exodus 13:2: "Consecrate to me all the first-born; whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine." Similarly, the holiness of God signifies his separateness from anything impure.” - Millard Erickson “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (1 Cor. 1:2) “The term sanctification does not appear in the Synoptic Gospels at all. To convey the idea that our lives are to be pure, Jesus emphasized instead that we are children of God. We belong to God and consequently should show a likeness to him. We should share his spirit of love: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy! But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:43-45a). To Jesus, his brother and sister are those who do God's will (Mark 3:35). Paul shares this conception that our status before God is to result in holy living. For example, he urges the Ephesians, "I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Eph. 4:1). He then goes on to specify a life of lowliness, meekness, patience, and forbearance. The fact of belonging to God is to issue in moral attributes reflecting such a status.” - Millard Erickson “Our reckoning with purity culture is good and necessary. It's helped many Christians rediscover a God who loves wounded people, not perfect performances, but I fear that in the process of tearing down purity culture, we may have kissed purity itself goodbye. And that's a problem. My generation is porn addicted, drug dependent, dopamine sick, irony poisoned, attention fractured, and spiritually starved. We've traded repression for indulgence, and the result isn't freedom-it’s decay. It turns out the Christian sexual ethic once derided as prudish is one of the last coherent frameworks for love, dignity, and belonging. Purity, rightly understood, isn't about fear. It's about reverence. It's not about suppressing desire but directing it.” - Luke Simons “15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…” (Romans 8:15&16)
12 Jul

2 Peter 1:1-9 - End of Life Concerns

Listen along as we begin our series through 2 Peter. Notes//Quotes: 2 Peter 1:1-9 Knowing God is more than knowing about Him; it is a matter of dealing with Him as He opens up to you, and being dealt with by Him as he takes knowledge of you. Knowing about Him is a necessary precondition of trusting in Him, but the width of our knowledge about Him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of Him. JI Packer “Participating in the divine nature” is, then, a great and precious privilege: Through our union with Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we share in something of God’s own holy nature, separated from the corrupt world around us. And it is precisely “for that reason” (v. 5) that we called on to progress in holiness and godliness. But the very fact that Peter goes on to encourage us to make such progress shows that participating in the divine nature does not bring us into a state of sinlessness or even into a situation in which we can lay back and simply enjoy our new status.” Douglas Moo Christian faith is the root from which all these virtues must grow, and Christian love is the crowning virtue to which all the others must contribute. In a list of this kind, the last item has a unique significance. It is not just the most important virtue, but also the virtue which encompasses all the others. Love is the overriding ethical principle from which the other virtues gain their meaning and validity. Thus the author of 2 Peter sees that some of the ethical ideals of pagan society should also be Christian ideals, but only if they are subordinated to and reinterpreted by the Christian ideal of love. - Richard Bauckham Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone- Dallas Willard I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would live my life if he were I. I am not necessarily learning to do everything he did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that He did all that he did. - Dallas Willard
5 Jul

1 Peter 5:6-14 - Challenging Times Now, Better Times Ahead

Listen along as Mike Gaston wraps up our series through 1 Peter. Notes//Quotes 1 Peter 5:6-14 - Mike G Teaching Slide 1 Big Idea Our faith in God allows us to navigate challenging times now, as we await better times ahead. Slide 2 Challenging times now (vs 6-9) We are called to humility before God We have an adversary Suffering is part of life Slide 3 “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” Jonathan Edwards Slide 4 “Peter recognizes that a great barrier to putting others first and thinking of them as more important is the legitimate human concern, ‘But then who will care for me?’ The answer is that God himself will care for our needs. He is able to do so far better than we are (his hand is ‘mighty,’ v. 6), and he wants to do so, for he continually cares for his children. Therefore casting all your anxieties on him is the path to humility, freeing a person from constant concern for himself and enabling him or her to truly be concerned for the needs of others.” Wayne Grudem Slide 5 “… because he cares for you.” Slide 6 “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” CS Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters Slide 7 “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:6-8 “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.” Isaiah 7:9 Slide 8 Better Times Ahead (vs 10-11) The description of God The promises of God The timeline Slide 9 God will have the last word! Slide 10 “Mark, my son”
28 Jun

1 Peter 5:1-5 - Pastors, We Have a Problem

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter. Notes//Quotes 1 Peter 5:1-5 - Faith 1 Peter 5:1-5 The vocation of pastor(s) has been replaced by the strategies of religious entrepreneurs with business plans - Eugene Peterson “By all our ministry activity to mistakenly be like God, we’ve actually made it hard for people to see or hear him.” John Calvin Matthew 20:25-28 “It is possible for ministry leaders to desire greatness in ways no different from anyone, anywhere in our culture. Attaching Jesus’s name to these desires doesn’t change the fact that they look just like the cravings of the world.” - Zach Eswine John 21:15-19 It is possible for ministry leaders to desire greatness in ways no different from anyone, anywhere in our culture. Attaching Jesus’s name to these desires doesn’t change the fact that they look just like the cravings of the world. - Zach Eswine Ezekiel 34:1-16
21 Jun

1 Peter 4:12-19 - Suffering and Stories

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter. Notes//Quotes: 1 Peter 4:12-19 John 16:33 Romans 5:1-5 James 1:2-4 Certainly there is unanimous teaching among the NT writers that there is no condemnation for those who believe in Christ and that they will be delivered from the destiny that is coming to those who disobey God by rejecting the redemption he provides in Jesus Christ. But there is ample teaching that Christians will nevertheless be judged and that it is their standing with Christ that will bring this judgment to a good end. Those who profess Christ are the first ones to be tested in God’s judging action, and it occurs during their lives and throughout history. Karen Jobes 1 Cor 3:10-17 “While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy. Suffering can refine us rather than destroy us because God himself walks with us in the fire. God will allow evil only to the degree that it brings about the very opposite of what it intends.” Tim Keller
15 Jun

1 Peter 4:1-11 - Lock In

Listen along as we continue our series through 1 Peter. Notes/Quotes: Jon reading Title: Lock In “We prefer a gospel in which God gives us healthy bodies and bulging wallets. And we too readily think that material blessing is the entitled reward of the gospel. To put it bluntly, the democratized West expects Jesus, comfort, ease, and acceptance from the world.” - David Helm “Indeed the only way in which I can make real to myself what theology teaches about the heinousness of sin is to remember that every sin is the distortion of an energy breathed into us—an energy which, if not thus distorted, would have blossomed into one of those holy acts whereof “God did it” and “I did it” are both true descriptions. We poison the wine as He decants it into us; murder a melody He would play with us as the instrument. We caricature the self-portrait He would paint. Hence all sin, whatever else it is, is sacrilege.” - C.S. Lewis

Sermons and content from Union Church in Prescott, Arizona.

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Union Church AZ
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2019 - 2026
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100
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