By Grace Alone

Someone over at www.sbcvoices.com has too much time on their hands for sure… Very Funny

  ”I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel” (Philippians 1:12, ESV)

 

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Trials and suffering to further the Gospel is Biblical as we see in the verse above. In fact, being tried as in fire and purified, so as to remove any impurity, runs through the entire Bible. (Job 23:10; Ps 66:10-12; Pro 17:3; Isa 1:25; 48:10; 1 Pet 1:7)

So we see, it is not a matter of the chains themselves (or any other trial), but what we do in the chains that counts. We can claim to have faith all day long but when the trial comes what really comes out of our mouths? Do we act on fear or faith? Are we trusting in Christ alone or do we trust in the things of this world to get us by? (2 Cor 4:7-10)

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Corinthians 4:7-10, ESV)

May the Lord advance His Gospel through our suffering and afflictions…

 Jeff

All Sermons in the Series “Life of Joy in Christ”

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*Photo Courtesy of www.freefoto.com

Have you noticed that all the scripture verses in this blog have now been tagged to biblegateway.com and have a “L” icon next to them as well. (Like Romans 8:28-39 here) This is the new RefTagger from Libronix that will automatically tag all your bible verses and if you own any form of Libronix (www.logos.com) all you have to do is click on the L icon and go to work. If you don’t you can still click the links and go to biblegateway.com. This is an awesome utility and if you blog and are a Christian, then I believe this is a must have. Read the full blog post here.

Enjoy

This was encouraging to see…

Photo Courtesy of Carol J. Phipps

I found this list in Willmington’s Book of Bible Lists when I was finishing up a sermon on Philippians 1:12. I found it to be right on. What do you think? Download the verses in the ESV here (Verses for 25 Reasons Christians Suffer).

25 Reasons Christians Suffer 

1. To produce the fruit of patience (Rom. 5:3; James 1:3-4; Heb. 10:36)

2. To produce the fruit of joy (Ps. 30:5; 126:5-6)

3. To produce the fruit of maturity (Eccles. 7:3; 1 Pet. 5:10)

4. To produce the fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:11)

5. To silence the devil (Job 1:9, 10, 20-22)

6. To teach us (Ps. 119:67, 71)

7. To purify our lives (Job 23:10; Ps. 66:10-12; Isa. 1:25; 48:10; Prov. 17:3; 1 Pet. 1:7)

8. To make us like Christ (Heb. 12:9, 10; 1 Pet. 4:12-13; Phil. 3:10; 2 Cor. 4:7-10)

9. To glorify God (Ps. 50:15; John 9:1-3; 11:1-4; 21:18-19; Phil. 1:19-20)

10. To prevent us from sinning (2 Cor. 12:7, 9-10)

11. To make us confess when we do sin (Judg. 10:6-7, 15-16; Ps. 32:3-5; Hos. 5:15; 6:1)

12. To chasten us for our sin (1 Pet. 4:17)

13. To prove our sonship (Heb. 12:5-6)

14. To reveal ourselves to ourselves (Job 42:6; Luke 15:18)

15. To help our prayer life (Isa. 26:16)

16. To become an example to others (2 Cor. 6:4-5; 1 Thess. 1:6-7)

17. To qualify us as counselors (Rom. 12:15; Gal. 6:2; 2 Cor. 1:3-5)

18. To further the gospel witness (Acts 8:1-5; 16:25-34; Phil. 1:12-13; 2 Tim. 4:6-8, 16-17)

19. To make us more than conquerors (2 Cor. 2:14; Rom. 8:35, 37)

20. To give us insight into God?s nature (Job 42:5; Rom. 8:14-15, 18)

21. To drive us closer to God (1 Pet. 4:14; 2 Cor. 12:10)

22. To prepare us for a greater ministry (1 Kings 17-18; John 12:24)

23. To provide for us a reward (Matt. 5:10-12; 19:27-29; Rom. 8:16-17; 2 Cor. 4:17)

24. To prepare us for the kingdom (2 Thess. 1:5; 2 Tim. 2:12)

25. To show God’s sovereignty (Rom. 8:28; 1 Cor. 10:13; Ps. 66:10-12; Gen. 45:5-8; 50:20)

Willmington, H.L.: Willmington’s Book of Bible Lists. Wheaton, IL : Tyndale, 1987, S. 318

Mike Huckabee is hilarious in this skit as he pokes fun at himself and his party on the issue of “overstaying his welcome” in the race.

Enjoy

I ran across these messages from a 2004 Singles Conference. These are incredible and I am going to see about incorporating them into premarital counseling. If you haven’t heard them they are good for all to hear both single and married.

 http://www.narel.org/

Blessings
Jeff

After attending Camp Logos II this past week and making all kinds of customizations to my machine. I sat down and wrote a simple batch file to back up all the changed files to an external hard drive on my Vista Machine. Then I wrote this restore batch file to my Office PC which is running XP. All you have to do it download the zip file and right click on the batch file and choose “open with notepad.” Change the user name “Jeff.Brown” to whatever the name you log in your machine with and change the external drive letter “f” to whatever your drive is. Run the batch file and then go to your Libronix and see if your files are there.

Download it here (Logos Restore to XP)

Enjoy

Do you use your cell phone in the drive thru? At the bank counter? Other places where people have placed signs and asked you not to? Why? Because “I had to take the call?” or because your phone call is more important than their “silly little sign” anyway. As Christians we are called to live a life of obedience to Christ and His kingdom and not to this world. It means we become “slaves to obedience” and share in the “sufferings” of Chirst. It means being obedient in even the smallest of things so that our Father who are in Heaven is glorified. In this message we talk alot about obedience to the Lord and His Word.

 

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All Sermons in Life in Christ Series

Sermon Notes

In Flock we are studying What is a Healthy Church by Mark Dever and the 9 Marks Ministry. The lesson from chapter 11 was on Biblical Church Discipline. It was a great class with some heavy feedback at the end (which is good) and if makes us think about what has been missing from most evangelical circles for a long time. Here is a great article from Bible.org on church discipline. You can also download this article in Word format here (Church Discipline Article from Bible.Org).

 

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All Classes on “What is a Healthy Church”

Class Notes