Ken Noakes preaches this Father’s Day message.
Aware of false teachings, the Apostle Paul encourages the church to resist these teachings and continue preaching the gospel messages as originally taught.
There is great encouragement here for all Christians to remain rooted in the Gospel as first delivered by the apostles, not following the lies and “clickbait” of our world.
Read the text – 2 Thess 2:13-3:5
As a society, we have become somewhat immune to hearing outrageous claims. They are issued, capture some newsworthy attention, and then are fairly quickly ignored or pushed aside. Jesus issued some outrageous claims, in fact, claims that were far beyond what we hear today. In this Bible Talk series, we look at the “I AM…” statements from the gospel of John. Newsworthy – yes. Ignored – yes. Pushed aside – yes. Yet, to look into them we will see the glory of God in the person of Jesus Christ. It would be to our loss to be immune.
This talk investigates one of Jesus’ boldest claims – he is the way, he is the truth, he is the life. Jesus invites us into his Father’s house with plenty of rooms – the best house we could ever imagine.
Read the text – John 14:1-14
Why is sound doctrine important and why should a church seek to appoint elders/leaders who are sound in doctrine. It has something to do with the true faith established.
Read the Bible Text – Titus 1:1-16
– Ken Noakes
Love, Truth and Obedience are three Christian values that together define Christian Love. Christian love, is love where truth is valued. Christian truth tells us how to obey. Christian obedience demonstrates true love.
In the previous posts from this series we have looked at each.
What happens if you corrupt any one of those values?
What is love that is pleasing first to God? It has something to do with obedience in the context of truth. We have considered ‘Love’ (Part 3 of this series) and ‘Truth’ (Part 4 of this series), so this time let’s focus on ‘Obedience’.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them (1 John 3:21-24)
A love that is pleasing to God is a love that obediently follows his commands.
What does it look like for Christians to love the other? It has something to do with that which is true and something to do with obedience. We considered ‘Love’ last time (Part 3 of this series), so this time let’s focus on ‘Truth’.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:16-20)
Without love, truth will not be valued. Without truth, it is difficult to know how to obey. Without obedience, it is impossible to demonstrate true love.
To understand Love, it will help to understand how it is integrally connected to Truth and to Obedience, such that you cannot separate the three. These three ideas intersect with one another at almost every point.
Taking our lead from the letter of 1 John, we have looked at Perfect Love (Part 2 of this series). We turn our attention now to the relationships between Love, Truth and Obedience.
Let’s consider ‘Love’.
Love is a many splendored thing,
Love lifts us up where we belong,
All you need is love!
Love is just a game.
I was made for loving you baby,
You were made for loving me.
You’d think that people would’ve had enough of silly love songs…
So goes the lyrics of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge (2001). It is a mash-up of love songs that highlight how confusing ‘love’ can be and captures many of the different ideas that exist about that wonderful little thing called ‘Love’.
I remember the call. Nothing seemed right about what I was being asked to do!
I was in Damascus. The gospel work there had been growing as more and more became followers of Jesus. The rumour was that Saul of Tarsus was on his way to Damascus. This was unsettling.
Saul had led the charge against many followers of the Way. He had issued murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples and had arranged permission from the High Priest to travel around the synagogues seeking out Christians to imprison for their faith. He was a piece of work. We all knew the threat he posed.
And then the Lord called out to me in a vision:
I was asked the question: ‘What are the major challenges, and/or ministry opportunities, facing Australian churches in 2018?”
It is far above my station to be able to speak for just the church in which I serve let alone all Australian churches! And so with that caveat, I humbly offered this opinion in answer to that question:
Christians face the continued challenge to be in the world but not of it.
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