Union Church

1 Peter 2:1-8 - Discard, Desire, Build

Listen along as we continue through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 2:1-8

Psalm 19:7-11

Every other ethical system calls us to the costly effort of becoming what we are not. But in the full salvation already bequeathed to us in Christ, the new nature is already ours, waiting for expression, poised for growth, until its potential is triggered by our obedience to the word of God - Alec Motyer

What God desires from us, he graciously forms in us as we grow in our love for him. Ruth Chou Simmons

1 Peter 1:13-26 - Exilic Exercise

Listen along as we continue our time through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 1:13-26 - Chris F Reading
Title: Exilic Exercise

“The tidings were mostly sad and ominous: of gathering darkness, the wars of Men, and the flight of the Elves…And I warn you that peril is now both before you and behind you, and upon either side…. ‘But where shall I find courage?’ asked Frodo. ‘That is what I chiefly need.’ ‘Courage is found in unlikely places,’ said Gildor. ‘Be of good hope!” 
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship Of The Rings

“So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness.” (1 Peter 13-16, MSG)

“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that is distinctively Christian… is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.” 
— J. I. Packer, Knowing God

“Christianity is completely and entirely and utterly hope — a looking forward and a forward direction; hope is not just an appendix. So Christianity inevitably means a new setting forth and transformation of the present…[The hoping person] can never come to terms with the inescapability of death or with the evil that continually breeds evil. For him the resurrection of Christ is not merely consolation in suffering; it is also the sign of God’s protest against suffering. That is why whenever faith develops into hope it does not make people serene and placid; it makes them restless. It does not make them patient; it makes them impatient. Instead of being reconciled to existing reality they begin to suffer from it and to resist it.” 
— Jürgen Moltmann, Experiences of God

1 Peter 1:10-12 - Trust and Temptations

Listen along as we continue our series through 1 Peter.

Notes//Quotes:

1 Peter 1:3-12

“Jesus matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weaknesses he gives us strength and and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity.” - Dallas Willard

Peter opens the body of the letter by providing a theological and hermeneutical basis for the Christian life that introduces the major motifs and themes of the letter. In the Greek, these verses constitute one very long sentence that is composed of a series of subordinate clauses modifying the main clause “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Doxology provides the context for Christians’ new life in Christ (1:3–5) because both their experience of suffering grief in trials (1:6–7) and their present and ultimate salvation is the goal not only of their faith but also of the plan of God as revealed to the prophets - Karen Jobes

We would like a church that again asserts that God, not nations, rules the world, that the boundaries of God's kingdom transcend those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is the formation of people who see clearly the cost of discipleship and are willing to pay the price. As a society of unbelief, Western culture is devoid of a sense of journey, of adventure, because it lacks belief in much more than the cultivation of an ever-shrinking horizon of self-preservation and and self-expression. - Stanley Hauerwas

Luke 24:25

Image

“Ask the questions that have no answers.
    Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
    Say that your main crop is the forest
    that you did not plant,
    that you will not live to harvest.” 
- Wendell Berry

1 Peter 1:1-9 - Intro to 1 Peter

Listen along as we begin our series through 1 Peter.

Revelation 21:1-5 - The Kingdom to Come

Listen along as we wrap up our series on the kingdom of God and celebrate Easter.

Notes//Quotes:

Revelation 21:1-5 - Karen Reading

Revelation 21:1-5

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“The resurrection completes the inauguration of God’s kingdom…It is the decisive event demonstrating that God’s kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven…The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.” N.T. Wright

 Eph 1:13-14

Romans 8:22-25

John 3:16-17

The Kingdom of God: The Kingdom Arrives

Listen along as we look at the Palm Sunday story.
Notes//Quotes:

Mark 11:1-10

Luke 17:20-21
Matthew 11:4-6

Zech 9:9 

“One the one hand this looks like all other triumphal entries. Two hundred years earlier Simon Maccabeus had defeated foreign armies and kept Israel independent and he rode in to Jerusalem with people shouting cheers and waiving Palm branches because he delivered them… This triumphal entry parodies the entries of kings and armies. Victors in battle do not ride into their capital cities riding on donkeys but on fearsome horses, but this kind does not, and will not triumph through force of arms.” Stanley Hauerwas

“Jesus is the Lord of all and under his hand nothing but harmony and peace comes about. The animal knows and loves his true master for who he is. This is a foreshadowing of the healing and completion of all nature as found in Isaiah 11, the wolf shall live with the lamb” Tim Keller

Donkey cross 1/2/3/4

 

 

“Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together…What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?” - Lysa TerKuerst - Not Supposed to Be This Way

Isaiah 35:1-10: Kingdom Promised

Listen along as we begin a 3 week series on the kingdom of God.

Notes//Quotes:

Text: Isaiah 35:1-10
Title: Kingdom Promised

“The God in whom we believe is the creator of the world, will one day put this world to rights. That solid belief is the bedrock of all Christian faith. God is not going to abolish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it, to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it. ‘The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom, and rejoice with joy and singing; the desert shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.’ The last book of the Bible ends, not with the company of the saved being taken up into heaven, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, resulting in God’s new creation, new heavens and new earth, in which everything that has been true, lovely, and of good report will be vindicated, enhanced, set free from all pain and sorrow. God himself, it says, will wipe away all tears from all eyes.”
- N.T. Wright

“From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6 And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 
(Matt. 11:5&6)

“This is a story of a man who is disillusioned with Jesus just like we are sometimes–with Jesus or with God, or with the church, or with the whole Christian faith. But, you know something? That may not be so bad as it seems. Disillusionment means literally to have our illusions “dissed.” It’s very painful, but it’s not a bad thing. Disillusionment can be a gift. When we are disillusioned we have discovered that God does not always conform to our expectations. We look at our requirements for God and begin to see our own selfish illusions–the kinds of things we tell ourselves to feel good or comfortable, or to make sense of it all. But when God yanks away our illusions, we are free to discover the real God. Taylor says, “Every letdown becomes a lesson and a lure. Did God fail to come when I rubbed the lantern? Then perhaps God is not a genie? Who then is God? Did God fail to punish my enemies? Then perhaps God is not a cop. Who, then, is God? Did God fail to make everything run smoothly? Then, perhaps God is not a [cosmic] mechanic. Who, then, is God?” When God does not meet my expectations I am drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery of who God really is and what God is really doing in my life and in the world.
- Leonard J. Vander Zee

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.”
(Matt. 6:10-13)

Acts 28:17-31 - Finish Line

Listen along as we wrap up our series through Acts.

Notes//Quotes:

Acts 28:17-31 2 Timothy 4:6-8 - 

“Readers always experience “gaps” in narration, but the gap at the end of Acts threatens to widen into a canyon.” Beverly Gaventa

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Jn.1:43-46)

“They have been looking for a temporal prince, he does not come with the magnificence they expected; he is a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness; they see nothing of Solomon’s splendour in the poor scion of the dried-up stock of David and therefore they walked away.” Charles Spurgeon

2 Cor 4:16-18

Vs.16) At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! 17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (2 Tim. 4:16-18)

“Death is the supreme festival on our road to freedom.” —Bonhoeffer 

2 Tim 1:8-14

Acts 28:1-16 - Snakes Bite

Listen along as we near the finish of our journey through Acts.

Notes//Quotes:

Mike reading - Acts 28:1-16

“No crowd gathers for Paul’s preaching, and no description illumines the situation of those believers who journey out to meet him. That minimalistic assessment should not obscure the importance of Paul’s thanksgiving in v. 15. The journey all along has less to do with what will happen in Rome than with the God who directs Paul to that place.” - Beverly Gaventa

Map Picture (attached)

“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.” - Augustine, City of God

Col 1:19-20

“There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety – let us pray that we may always know it!” Corrie Ten Boom

Acts 27:1-44 - Small Ship, Big Storm

Listen along as we continue our series through Acts.

Notes//Quotes:

Acts 27:1-44 - Jack
Title: Small Ship, Big Sea

“Chiding is indeed cruel, and brings no comfort; but if it be tempered with some remedy, it is now a part of the medicine.”
- John Calvin

“Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisors they succeed” (Prov. 15:22)

“We do not worship a deistic God, an absentee landlord who ignores his slum; we worship a garbageman God who came right down into our worst garbage to clean it up.” 
- Peter Kreft

Oh Maker of the mighty deep
Whereon our vessels fare,
Above our life’s adventure keep
Thy faithful watch and care.
In Thee we trust, whate’er befall;
Thy sea is great; our boats are small.

We know not where the secret tides
Will help us or delay
Nor where the lurking tempest tides,
Nor where the fogs are gray.
We trust in Thee, whate’er befall,
Thy sea is great; our boats are small.

Beyond the circle of the sea,
When voyaging is past,
We seek our final part in Thee;
Oh bring us home at last.
In Thee we trust, whate’er befall;
Thy sea is great; our boats are small.
- Henry Van Dyke