Speaker: Nathan Guy

Sin is a master. It isn’t just an infection; it’s a disease. Romans 8 says whatever we yield our bodies to is our master. So don’t yield your bodies to sin. Instead, yield them to God’s Holy Spirit. Why? We know why. Because the Spirit represents abundance. Fulness. It is God’s good and best gift. And the Spirit is the overwhelming power that can change how we think, how we act, and (on the day of Jesus) how we look (1 John 3:2). We know the Spirit works in us and for us. But I wanted to highlight an important corollary: He empowers us.

Don’t you love a good dinner table? Table is where you tell stories; it’s where you share stories. And who you eat with tells me a lot about your story. The self-righteous and well-to-do tried to think up the worst thing they could say about Jesus. And here is what they came up with: “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). This is the fifth lesson in our series “The Good and Beautiful God.”

A Look at Mark chapter 5, where Jesus heals a man possessed by “Legion”, followed by an older woman and a young girl.

When Paul tells husbands to be like Jesus toward their wives, he says husbands love your wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy (Eph 5:25-26). That is truly significant. We spend a lot of time talking about what we are saved FROM. We are saved from sin; we are saved from our past; we are saved from our guilt and shame.

But it is equally important to talk about what we are saved FOR. As Paul says “he has rescued us out of the kingdom of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.” God wanted a people—a people who would conform to His image, who would showcase His likeness—so he saved us FROM our self-focused unrighteousness, and he saved us FOR a new life in Christ Jesus.

He died to make men holy.

My God pursues the saved. He pursues the lost. He even pursues the betrayer. He’s not the God who is always angry with you. He’s not the God who abandons you. He’s not the God who only loves you when you please him. He’s a lover who will fight for every single person made in His image, who will fight for his bride, and who will run after every lost soul—even you. Lesson 5 in our “Good and Beautiful God” series.

We take a look at Mark chapters 3 and 4. Who makes up Jesus’ family? What is a parable? How does God break open our world?

What do you do when you don’t feel like you have enough? Just picture the game musical chairs, and describe what happens when the music stops. But how would we be different—how relaxed would we feel, how open would we be, if we didn’t operate from a condition of scarcity, but rather, from great abundance? It would look like the kingdom of God. Lesson 4 in the “Good and Beautiful God” Series.

We look at the controversy stories in Mark 2:1-3:6 to discover a God who, in Christ, radically forgives, and a Christ who, following the Spirit, reframes how we read the law and how we see our God.

The Holy Spirit not only lives in you–He is at work in you. This is the great teaching of Romans 8:1-11, that, empowered by the Spirit, the righteous requirements of the law may be fulfilled in us as we walk according to the Spirit. Part 2 in “This Present Strength” series.