Announcment on Pictorial Directory

From the LBC Church Office -

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

We are producing a new pictorial directory for our church. Families will have the opportunity to have their photographs taken and will receive a complimentary 8x10 portrait and a directory at no cost for participating.

To make our directory a success we need VOLUNTEERS!

If you can help schedule appointments before and/or after worship services on April 27, May 4 and/or May 11 or serve as a host or hostess during the actual photography sessions beginning May 13, please sign up below, email Jeanne Hultgren jeanne@lenexabaptist.com or call the church office.

Our Next Study - Marriage, Parenting, Employment

As mentioned in the email we will begin a study of Ephesians on April 20, 2008.

I am really excited about this study and all that we can learn from this book. In the next week I will be publishing notes and readings again. Each post will be for the upcoming Sunday.

Please let me know either here or via email what you think about this study, if you have concerns or comments, or anything else you would like me to know before we begin.

Andy

Experiencing God Follow Up

There is one group now starting up the Experiencing God study at the church. I would appreciate any comments, concerns, or questions you would have wanted to know about or would like to post for that class or future classes of this study.

You can post anonymously so please speak your mind openly.

Thanks!

Andy

Encouragement for Day 1

I encourage each of you today to complete Day 1 of Experiencing God. If you haven't already, take your 30 minutes and review the material and answer the questions for this study.

If you were unable to complete today take heart! You have 13 days to do the 5 studies!

We are praying for each of you over the next 2 weeks.

Pray also for those we haven't seen in awhile. There are many struggling with many issues including just plain being busy with all the demands like jobs and kids.

Take care!

Andy

Outline from Sunday December 30 - with verses

Here is the outline from last Sunday with the verses we reviewed. Have a great week! We will start experiencing God next week!

Scripture, God, and Christ
· Scripture is ONE book written by the same author - Hebrews 1:1-2
· Christ is God - Hebrews 4:14-16
· All is made by Christ - Colossians 1:15-16
· All is paid by Christ - Philemon 18

Struggle with Sin and ‘our kingdom’
· What is Christ’s blameless example? What do will we struggle with? - Matthew 5:3-12
· Continuous spiritual dangers -
o Danger of Neglect - Hebrews 2:1-4
o Danger of Unbelief - Hebrews 3:7-4:13
o Danger of Immaturity - Hebrews 5:11-6:20
o Danger of Failing to Endure - Hebrews 10:26-39
· On this earth we will never be at peace with others - 2 Kings 17:6
· We will have corrections from Him and even through unbelievers - 2 Kings 25:8-10

Living in His Kingdom
· Lay down our sin which so easily ensnares us - Hebrews 12:1-2
· We should stay focused on Him - 2 Kings 22:2
· We should not be deceived - Colossians 2:8
· Acting towards Believers - Colossians 3:12-13
· Acting towards un-Believers - Colossians 4:5-6 and Philemon 6
· Don’t be a slave - be a brother in the LORD - Philemon 16

Class Notes and Questions for December 23, 2007

Hello All!

I am very excited about this Sunday. While we will have many gone on trips I am sure we will have visitors as well. Please pray for those both new to the area as well as those visiting. Coming closer to God is not just ‘good’ or ‘important’ at this time of year, it is fundamental to the type of life we live now and forever. I pray to the Lord thanksgiving for each of you and what you mean to Kenna and I and our family. It is a true blessing from God our father that you all are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Please note we will be finishing Philemon this week. Verses 23 to 25 will be our key verses. If you were unable to be with us last week please do read through the first 22 verses. If you need your name added to the class email list please let us know your email address this Sunday and we will add it.

So, class notes and questions for this week:

Read Philemon 23-25 –

What stands out as the most important item for these verses?

Read Philemon 23 again out loud –

Is Epaphrus a prisoner? Of what?

What does it mean to ‘send greetings’?

Who are these greetings sent to? (See v1-3)

Read Philemon 24 –

Who is Mark? What is Mark’s occupation/job?
Who is Aristarchus? What is his occupation/job?
Who is Demas? What is his occupation/job?
Who is Luke? What is his occupation/job?

How is Paul a fellow worker of each of these people? What work is it that he is talking about?


Read Philemon 25 –

Write this entire verse down (do it slowly) and think about each word separately as you write it.


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What is Grace?

Why does Paul call out Jesus Christ as ‘Lord’? Why can or should He be called that? Read Hebrews 1:5-13, 3:1-6, Luke 5:24, Luke 1:32-33, Matthew 8:26, John 7:28, John 3:18, John 8:19, Luke 10:17-18, Revelation 1:5-6, Hebrews 7:26-28, John 1:1-18

What is ‘Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ’? Is there a difference between this and generally ‘grace’?


What does it mean to ‘be with your spirit’? Read Hebrews 10:22-24


In Summary –

What is it that Paul told Philemon and what did he appeal to him about? What attitude should Philemon have and why?

How should we treat, understand, accept, other Christian brothers/sisters?

What is it that Christ told YOU and what did He appeal to you about?

Do you have ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ’ in ‘your spirit’? How do you know?

What circumstances are you in right now? In prison? A Slave? A rich aristocrat? A fraud? A doctor? A minister? An apostle? All of these are in Philemon. All of these are called and encouraged to be ‘fellow workers in Christ’. What is holding you back?

We will begin ‘Experiencing God’ on January 6, 2008. Please do the following:

Pray for the study to be fully glorifying our Lord and specifically that nothing would hinder people coming closer to the Lord or being saved through this study.
Pray for the Lord to guide you through the study and lean on Him for understanding and a willing heart.
Pray for the Lord to lead you to anyone that He would like to be there. If you know someone or
Pick up a book this week or next if you haven’t already. Pray over the material a look through it ahead of time.

We celebrate the savior’s birth and the fulfilling of over 300 prophecies next week. Let us not forget this week that it was Christ himself that told us He must come as a man to fulfill and show us the HE IS GOD. “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” (Luke 24:44). He, in one man, fulfilled that 1 in 83 Billion chance that all these prophecies would be fulfilled. Praise to the Lord for again showing us He is sovereign throughout the ages.

Have a wonderful week in praising Him,

Andrew

Why did God send Jesus when He did? Why not earlier? Why not later?

I saw this posted this week and thought it would be great to add to the blog. Please note it comes from gotquestions.org:

Question: "Why did God send Jesus when He did? Why not earlier? Why not later?"Answer: "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law," (Galatians 4:4). The above verse declares that God the Father sent His Son when “the fullness of time had come.” There were many things occurring at the time of the first century that, at least by human reasoning, seem to make it ideal for Christ to come then. These include the following:

1) There was a great anticipation that the Messiah would come among the Jews of that time. The Roman rule over Israel made the Jews hungry for the Messiah’s coming.

2) Rome had unified much of the world under its government, giving a sense of unity to the various lands. Also, because the empire was relatively peaceful, travel was possible by the early Christians to spread the gospel that would not have been possible during other times.

3) While Rome had conquered militarily, Greece had conquered culturally. A “common” form of the Greek language (different from classical Greek) was the trade language and was spoken throughout the empire, making it possible to communicate the gospel to many different people groups through that one common language.

4) The fact that many people’s idols had failed to give them victory over the Roman conquerors caused many to abandon their worship. At the same time in the more “cultured” cities, the Greek philosophy and science of the time left others spiritually empty in the same way that the atheism of Communist governments leaves a spiritual void today.

5) The mystery religions of the time emphasized a savior-god and required worshipers to offer bloody sacrifices, thus making the gospel of Christ, involving one ultimate sacrifice, not unbelievable to them. The Greeks also believed in the immortality of the soul (but not of the body).

6) The Roman army recruited soldiers from among the provinces, introducing these men to Roman culture and to ideas (such as the gospel) that had not reached those outlying provinces yet. The earliest introduction of the gospel to Britain was the result of the efforts of Christian soldiers stationed there.

Again, the above statements are based on men looking at that time and their speculation why that particular point in history was a good time for Christ to come. But we understand that God’s ways are above our ways and these may or may not have been some reasons for why He chose that particular time to send His Son. From the context of Galatians 3 and 4, it is evident that God sought to lay a foundation through the Jewish Law that would prepare for the coming of the Messiah. The Law was meant to help people understand the depth of their sinfulness (in that they were incapable in keeping the Law) so that they might more readily accept the cure for that sin in Jesus the Messiah (Galatians 3:22-23; Romans 3:19-20). The Law also served as a “tutor” (Galatians 3:24) to bring people to Jesus as the Messiah. It did this through its many prophecies concerning the Messiah which Jesus fulfilled. Add to this the sacrificial system that pointed to the need for a sacrifice for sin as well as its own temporary nature (with each sacrifice always requiring later additional ones). Old Testament history also painted pictures of the person and work of Christ through several events and religious feasts (such as the willingness of Abraham to offer up Isaac or the details of the Passover during the exodus from Egypt, etc.).Lastly, Christ came when He did in fulfillment of specific prophecy. Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of the “seventy ‘weeks’” or the seventy “sevens.” From the context, these “weeks” or “sevens” refer to groups of seven years, not seven days. We can examine history and line up the details of the first sixty-nine weeks (the seventieth week will take place at a future point). The countdown of the seventy weeks begins with “the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem" (verse 25). This command was given by Artaxerxes Longimanus in 445 B.C. (see Nehemiah 2:5). After 7 “sevens” plus 62 “sevens,” or 69 x 7 years, it states that “Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself and that the city and the sanctuary would be destroyed” and that the “end of it shall be with a flood” (meaning major destruction) (verse 26). Here we have an unmistakable reference to the Savior’s death on the cross. A century ago in his book The Coming Prince, Sir Robert Anderson gave detailed calculations of the sixty-nine weeks, using ‘prophetic years,’ allowing for leap years, errors in the calendar, the change from B.C. to A.D., etc., and figured that the sixty-nine weeks ended on the very day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, five days before His death. Whether one uses this timetable or not, the point is that the timing of Christ’s incarnation ties in with this detailed prophecy recorded by Daniel over five hundred years beforehand.The timing of Christ’s incarnation was such that the people of that time were prepared for His coming, and the people of every century since then have more than sufficient evidence that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah through His fulfillment of the Scriptures that pictured and prophesied His coming in detail.