Sunday, October 11

Sunday School

Love Your Enemies – Luke 6:27-36

Teacher – Joel Stoner

Our current world gives us many opportunities to love our enemies.

Who is our enemy?

Those who hate our beliefs.

Those who disagree with us.

Those who are unkind, cruel or steal our belongings – in some cases kill a loved one.

Why should we love our enemies?

Love is a witness for Christ and sometimes brings our enemy to God.

Love or hate is “fuel” for God or Satan.

To love an enemy, we must:

Respond with kindness and love

Ask God for wisdom

Walk in humility

Sermon – Jon Cassel

Accepting a Better Covenant

Hebrews 8

Believing and accepting God’s new covenant changes everything.

A covenant is a bond between two parties.

If the old covenant had worked, there would have been no need for God to send Jesus.

The Old Covenant:

The high priest was in a wilderness tent

Our High Priest, Jesus, is in a true tabernacle.

Animals were sacrificed for sin

It would have been difficult to be a high priest if no one brought sheep.

A shadow of heavenly things – but not the real thing.

Everything in the old covenant pointed to the real thing.

Pointed to Jesus – our true mediator between people and God

Pointed to a better ministry.

If the old covenant was perfect we would still be sacrificing sheep

The old covenant showed the true condition of man

Hope takes us to a better covenant.

As a gentile, we have no right to this promise – a way to God.

We can be grateful that the old covenant did not work because it was a covenant with the Jews. Most of us are not Jews. We are gentiles who were invited to be part of the new covenant.

We are privileged that God desired to graft us in by the life of His Only Son – and that the new covenant is for everyone.

I will be their God.

Wow! What a promise!

I will be merciful.

How would you like to be judged for every sinful thought you ever had.

This new covenant changed everything – because of Jesus.

The old covenant was like a stone that looks like it contains gold, but it is only fool’s gold.

The new covenant is the real thing – real gold.

We all have a clue when our physical heart is not working properly by the signs in our body.

Do we understand when our spiritual heart is dying? Do we understand the signs of spiritual death?

Three questions?

Am I allowing God to write on my heart?

Am I living like one of God’s people?

Have I accepted the forgiveness that God extended to me?

This new covenant changes everything.