With Rev. Brian Moseley
Mankind lives in a “bubble” of their own making. It is our perspective of the world we live in and our identity in it. We only see the world from how it affects us and what our abilities are based on our identity, to respond. We consider our time to be the worst in history. We consider ourselves to be the most advanced, educated, intelligent, prosperous and powerful in history. We view our world to be more evil than ever before. This is what one who cannot see past the “bubble” into the halls of history, sees. Scripture teaches us that the rise of evil in this world has been the same since the fall. Satan is limited and defeated! He only responds to the movements of God, and God reverses his destruction. Each revolution, either personal or on the world stage, begins with the resurrection!
– Fear (hopelessness), is what creates and allows the effects of sin and death to manifest in our lives, and it is what kills us. Sin equals suffering and death equals destruction.
– Our hope as Christians, delivers us from death, taking the suffering in this world that we experience, using it and molding it into something that purifies us. It makes us stronger (wise), and sanctifies us, making us more Christ like. This is God reversing the works of the devil in our lives.
1 Peter 1:3-8
“Born Again to a Living Hope
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
- The hope isn’t in our abilities, but specifically in Jesus’s resurrection.
- The resurrection is the proof of Jesus’s glory and power in heaven and on earth!
- Our hope is in the constant desire of God’s heart, to reverse everything sin and death does.
- His intent (His will) to do so through those who possess faith in him (the father), and his son Jesus (his word), who suffered all and rose again.
– Our hope is in his guarantee of the treasures in heaven (the spiritual realm) and on earth through the atonement of Jesus that we obtained through salvation in this life.
– Our hope resides and can be found if sought out, in the bosom of God’s love. This journey ends at the mercy seat!
Romans 3:21-25
“The Righteousness of God Through Faith
21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
– Our hope gives birth to joy. As the provisions of hope are eternal and available now, so is the joy and peace that are produced by it.
Nehemiah 8:10
“10 Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
- – The cycles of good and evil in the Bible repeat and are repeating today. These circumstances may be different each time, but the ways of God are the same forever.
- – We are to use the examples of God’s responses and actions through his people, to know what and how he expects us to act today.
- – This story, the actions of God in the face of rebellion, is a cycle that repeats over and over throughout the time of man. It is all in revolutions.
- – To know these responses of faith to the evil of the times by the nation, and people of God, is to know the expectations of God today and our responsibility to act on them. This is a result of wisdom.
Proverbs 4:7
“7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.”
Proverbs 9:10
“10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”
James 1:5
“5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
James (Jacob), the half brother of Jesus, was an unbeliever.
Early on, James, his brothers, and even his mother thought Jesus had “lost his senses” and showed up once when he was teaching to take custody of him in Mark 3: 21.
Another time, Jesus’s brothers told him to go to Judea, where the Jews were seeking to kill him in John 7: 2-4, “since not even his brothers were believing in him”
in John 7: 5. In Mark 6: 4, Jesus said “a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.”
During Jesus’s public ministry, his brothers rejected his message, criticized him, and refused to follow him. Later, after Jesus’s ascension, we see these same family members in the upper room praying continually with the disciples in Acts 1: 14. Something made a tremendous difference.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15: 7 That Jesus personally appeared to James alive after the crucifixion. The difference is the resurrection! Before his conversion, James was nicknamed “the just” because he followed the mosaic law so well. One of the things a law-abiding Jew would know about God is that he is perfectly righteous. The resurrection left James without excuse, and he later wrote his blessed book describing our responsibilities as followers of Christ, and our place in this world.
James used two main resources for his short but powerful book. Chapter 1 was mainly using Proverbs 1-9 and chapters 2-5 were based on Jesus’s teachings from the Sermon on the mount.
Here is the overview:
- – Testing your faith: trust, relying, and waiting on God, builds endurance and patience. Patience is faith over an extended period.
- – Hearing and doing the word: Sacrificial doing causes remembrance and an experience (knowing). We find the blessing in the doing. The doing causes the intimate knowledge of God’s character.
- – The sin of partiality: we must treat and see all people the same. All sin is equal, and sin is death. We must focus on the suffering not the person’s station in life. This requires selflessness.
- – Faith without works is dead: works are faith in action. Faith does not come from works; the works are a result of faith. Active faith comes from true salvation.
- – Taming the tongue: only by submission to Jesus do we reach sanctification. We are reminded of the power of the tongue. The weight and power of a big ship is steered by a small rudder.
- – Wisdom from above: proof of sanctification
- – Warning against worldliness: faithless desires is the enemy of God. God is the only judge.
- – Boasting about tomorrow: plan and live, focusing only on god’s will.
- – Warning to the rich: earthly works results in corruption.
- – Patience in suffering: the Kingdom minded in the midst of your suffering.
- – Prayer of faith: live out the atonement in faith and prayer.
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