What was the topic of your church's teaching today?

[Laura Ingalls]

I didn't go to my church today, as I had to stay home to help my granny who has a fractured back and can't move around much. However, after lunch, I did listen to a sermon by Phil Johnson, who I greatly enjoy listening to. It was about Samson, his strengths and weaknesses. If anyone is interested, you can hear it here: http://www.thegracelifepulpit.com/Sermo ... 3-03-03-PJ

[Christian A.]

The Sunday school service was part two of a study on chapter four, "Declension of Prayer," in Octavius Winslow's book Personal Declension and the Revival of the Soul. This week's lesson was about recognizing when your prayer life is declining. Examples given included when prayer turns into a mere habit and you don't feel intimacy with God, when the form of prayer is present, but the spirit is absent. Also, ther private prayer life declines when family and corporate prayer are forsaken, and vice versa.

The morning sermon was an exposition of Psalm 110:3, which talks about the citizens of Christ's kingdom. According to the verse, they will be volunteers for His army, willingly enlisting in His service. The pastor took the opportunity to preach on the doctrine of regeneration and rebirth, when the old heart is exchanged for the new, and the sinner is made willing and able to serve Christ, whereas before he was both unable and unwilling to come to Him.

The evening sermon was an exposition of the next verse, Psalm 110:4. This verse is considered by many old Reformers and Puritans, as well as more recent preachers like Charles Spurgeon, to be the highlight verse of the entire Old Testament. It is the climax of Psalm 110, the climax of the Book of Psalms, and ultimately the climax of divine revelation before Christ, as it is a clear, vivid promise and prediction of the office of Christ as Priest. As a priest, Christ would offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of His people, His Bride. And as a priest, Christ now forever sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding on behalf of us, His chosen ones. He mediates between us and the Father, and this mediation is assurance of our salvation; as long as Christ lives to pray and intercede for us, we know that we will inherit eternal life, and that nothing ever could separate us from His saving grace.

[Termite]

My School of the Bible class was about being a doer of the Word and not a hearer only...

Regular church was on 'being a participator, not a spectator' in our race.

I think last night was on faith; I was in the nursery, so I only heard a bit when we put some of the kiddos on a buggy and pushed them around.

[Jesus' Princess]

The topic of my churchs sermon this morning was on prayer, particularly the power of prayer, and of a praying people. Then, after lunch my family listened to a sermon on gratitude.

[ric]

The main service was about giving back to God...yup, it's approaching the end of the church's fiscal year.

And the high school service was about homosexuality. I actually thought my youth pastor handled the topic quite well. I got a bit tired of all the apologizing for how horrible the Church treats gays (I always think that's a bit exaggerated, but then again I don't really know), but otherwise I think he did a good job of stressing how we should love them without compromising on the fact that homosexual behavior is sinful. He also said that he doesn't think having homosexual attractions is sinful, which I thought was an interesting thing I'd never heard before, but is kind of obvious.

[Laura Ingalls]

It was my turn to stay home with my granny again, so we listened to another sermon by Phil Johnson. He was in Philippians and was teaching on contentment.

[Jesus' Princess]

We had a guest pastor this morning, and his sermon was on the parable of the prodigal son, specifically focusing on the older son and father. His basic point was that the older son was just as lost as the younger son was while he was away, it's just harder to identify. The same way that we can be compliant, people pleasing "christians" and yet still be sinful and lost. It was really thought provoking I thought.

[EvangelineWalker]

My pastor talked about anger and forgiveness ("love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs" in 1 Cor. 13:5). We are going through 1 Corinthians, and have been in the love chapter for a couple months. I am personally glad we are studying that, because love should be our main focus as Christians and is the core of the Bible. You can't talk about it enough in my opinion. It's easy to say and hard to do, especially with those who are....less than lovable.

[AshleyWhittaker]

My pastor talked about anger and forgiveness ("love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs" in 1 Cor. 13:5). We are going through 1 Corinthians, and have been in the love chapter for a couple months. I am personally glad we are studying that, because love should be our main focus as Christians and is the core of the Bible. You can't talk about it enough in my opinion. It's easy to say and hard to do, especially with those who are....less than lovable.

We're going through 1 Corinthians too!!! But we're going through chapter 12 right now. All about spiritual gifts

[EvangelineWalker]

My pastor talked about anger and forgiveness ("love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs" in 1 Cor. 13:5). We are going through 1 Corinthians, and have been in the love chapter for a couple months. I am personally glad we are studying that, because love should be our main focus as Christians and is the core of the Bible. You can't talk about it enough in my opinion. It's easy to say and hard to do, especially with those who are....less than lovable.

We're going through 1 Corinthians too!!! But we're going through chapter 12 right now. All about spiritual gifts

Almost to where we are! We have been in I Cor longer than he anticipated, because, as he jokes, he always goes overtime. Actually lately he's been joking that it's our fault. Not that I mind; he's a good preacher and you can get a ton just out of a few sentences, esp. of the verses we've been studying lately.

[Sunshine]

Yesterday's topic was on social media. One of the points the pastor made was how we can so easily find our identity in the comments of other people. We can control what people online know about us, and what they don't. When we find our identity in Christ, then we can pour out our lives to other people - even online - and we aren't relying on how many "likes" we get. =) I also appreciated how he talked about the benefits of social media, and how we can use it for the glory of God.

"Resolve that today you will press the Bible app three times during the day. No five times. Ten times! Maybe you will lose control and become addicted to Bible! Again and again get a two-minute dose of life-giving Food. Man shall not live by Facebook alone."

[Laura Ingalls]

Yesterday the Sunday school lesson was on the command to speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, the importance of congregational singing, etc.
The main sermon was about Nehemiah and his leadership during the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

[TigerintheShadows]

I didn't go to church this past Sunday, but my mom let me see the Sunday School lesson, which was about unity in the body of Christ. I was particularly interested by the section that discussed the unity of the Spirit in firm truth that still required acceptance and love of others; I think we place too much emphasis on either acceptance/"tolerance" or beating people whopside the head with a Bible without focusing on the real emphasis--God, what Jesus has done for us, and what His Spirit is doing now in us.

[Stop Wooton' Around]

Ooh, I think I am going to like this thread. After church tomorrow, if I remember, I will be sure to post. I wish I would have seen this sooner because we had good preaching at our Church Camp and it was live streamed. Which was nice for those of us who were stuck at home doing schoolwork. I specifically remember the last sermon because I was there. The evangelist used the example of a homing pigeon and when times get rough to fly higher. He also spoke of how a homing pigeon is not just a common bird and he always knows his way home. This evangelist was very good at getting his main point across to you.

I also love another illustration he gave in which a man put up the words God is Nowhere and a kid got all excited. The man was perplexed and tried to explain but the kid responded in saying it says "God is Now Here."

[John Chrysostom]

Today my parish hosted a convention on science fiction, fantasy, and faith. http://doxacon.org/

[Kait]

Today my parish hosted a convention on science fiction, fantasy, and faith. http://doxacon.org/

Those breakout sessions and keynotes look incredibly interesting. I would have been interested in listening to some of the perspectives.

[John Chrysostom]

We recorded all the sessions and we'll be posting some of them for free. I'll let you know when that happens.

[Stop Wooton' Around]

Sunday school was about the Sower and the seed, morning service was based in Malachi and the night service was in Titus. I really liked an illustration from the night service. Our guest minster (pastor and his wife were at a family reunion) was talking about God's grace and how it is a remedy for all. He used to work for Eli Lilly, which is a pharmaceutical company and said the three criteria for medicine is 1) it has to taste bad, 2) be a certain color and 3) expensive. Then he alluded that to God's Grace, which doesn't taste bad, doesn't have to be a certain color and its free and there only good side effects such as love, peace, happiness, forgiveness...

He also went on to talk about other things about grace, it was a good message.

[The Old Judge]

My church is in the middle of a pastoral change, so currently we have no pastor, no youth pastor, no principal for the Christian school, and the music director (we do have that) was on vacation today. Anyway, because of that, the man that has been filling in as the church youth pastor stepped up to preach today. (Well, he was supposed to anyway.) He's an amazing man. The spirit in the building was just wonderful. Even with 30-35 regulars missing, we still had a good crowd, and it was exciting to see what the Lord was doing. He normally "emcees" the services for us anyway, but because of the music director being gone, he had to emcee, lead music, lead choir, then he sang a special, and preached. But it was the best time we've had this whole transitional stage.

Back to topic: In the morning he preached a message about Noah's Ark, and how it's not just a cute Bible story for children, but a story of destruction and salvation for all of us to heed. He then tried in Noah's salvation in the ark to the salvation offered to us by Jesus. It was just incredible. Everybody at church felt like:

This evening he preached a sermon titled, "Keep Your Hand on the Plow; Move Forward, Don't Look Back." The key text was Luke 9:57-62 about the wannabe disciples of Jesus that turned back for various reasons. He applied that to our lives in that there were three things we as Christians can't look back at, and that instead we should focus on Christ wholly.

[EvangelineWalker]

Today our youth pastor spoke in the regular church service, about Revelations 3:14-18 and the church in Laodicea. He said basically that the American church is the Laodicean church in many ways, because even if we're financially "poor", we're richer than most of the rest of the world. It keeps us spiritually poor while those in poorer countries are richer than us spiritually because they depend on God, not on riches, which give us a false sense of security. We also tend to hoard our wealth and not give it to others. Throughout the Bible, when people were successful, they tended to forget God. It doesn't have to be this way, however. Our riches can be a blessing that we can share with others, and we can be a testimony to others around the world if we would let God work through us.

The youth pastor said it was a hard sermon to have to preach, but I think it was a good message to have after Thanksgiving and before Christmas, because after we have thanked God for the bounty that He's given us, we should get into the true spirit of Christmas and focus on giving rather than what we can get.

I have been convicted that even though I don't have lots of money, I have fallen into the trap of seeking riches and hoarding what I have because I've earned it and 'what if I need it for an emergency' etc. And 'I'll give when I have enough money" (I do tithe but haven't been giving beyond that for a while... ) But if I have faith, God will take care of my needs. In America, we can almost not help but buy into this seductive message of gathering more money, more things, when people in other countries are just searching for something to eat each day.

It was such a good message I wish I could share it. It'll go on YouTube as soon as the church uploads it. Our regular pastor also has good sermons. Here is their channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb26B7kRwaf7wPb9rtzwTbA