http://newgarnerchurch.com Sovereign King Church Podcasts en Sovereign King Church Podcasts Sovereign King Church no Sovereign King Church sovereignkinggarner@yahoo.com ℗ & © 2008 Sovereign King Church 720 If you are even a casual student of scripture, you will find that there are just some verses and commands in the Bible that just seem...well...hard. There are just some verses that seem practically impossible to obey and some almost don't even make sense. We look at them and think, "Well God, you will just have to do that in me if you want me to do that because I don't see that happening. For example: - Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. o Are you kidding me? Why would I hate my parents? - Matthew 5:39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. o We devise elaborate explanations about why we don't to obey this one. - Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. o We hear that and think, "Yeah, but there are few people that I know I am better than." There are always good, practical theological explanations for these verses, but when it comes down to it, obeying them is just flat out hard Here is thing. When we hear those verses and we think, "God is just going to have to do that if He wants me to obey," we are actually thinking correctly. We often fall into the mistake of thinking all the other verses in the Bible are easily within our grasp. If that was the case, Jesus surely didn't need to die. I Corinthians 15 makes it clear that Jesus' death on the cross was for the payment of our sin and His resurrection was for our new life. The only reason you and I can obey with a desire to glorify God is because Jesus' enables us to now. Otherwise we would be the dead men we've always been. You know there is an old hymn that sings, "I was sinking deep in sin/far from the peaceful shore." That hymn though sweet is completely wrong. We aren't sinking deep in sin; we are dead in our sin. The hymn really should sing, "I was lying dead in sin on the bottom of the ocean floor." If we are going to obey any verse, hard or not, it is because the Spirit helps us to obey. We don't discount the hard work obedience is, but as soon as we get away from dependence on God for that obedience, we have become lazy in our walk with Christ despite the contrary. Well this week in the book of 1 John, we are going look at one of these hard, nearly impossible passages of scripture. We want to pursue it well and understand its application for us, and then we want to ask our God to help us to obey. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/house-rules-part-3 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/house-rules-part-3.mp3 Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:34:13 CST Gordon Duncan House Rules world,worldliness,lust,flesh,pride,possessions,idolatry,obedience 30:17 Two weeks ago at Sovereign King, we started our new series on the letters of John entitled "House Rules" where we talked about how John is going to describe what it looks like to be a believer. Essentially he says that if a person is a believer in Christ, then there are going to be some family characteristics just like there are in any family. For example, my mom is five feet tall. My dad is five seven. My hopes of playing in the NBA were greatly diminished because I bear the family trait of being short. Now, I remember one time in college where I went on a retreat and there was a basketball tournament for anyone that was 5 feet 6 inches or shorter. Technically, I'm 5' 7" and 1/2 but I told a little white like so I could dominate the tournament. Sorry, didn't mean to make that confession time. The point of the story is that my height is directly related to my family, and the curly nappy hair comes from my mom's side of the family as well. In the same way, the family of God will share some similar qualities and resemble each other as well. We won't look alike physically, and I'm sure you guys are all thankful you don't have to look like me and to be honest, I'm pretty thankful I'm don't have to look like you. But we will live our lives in some similar fashion. In fact, in chapter one, John identified five of those characteristics. He said, If you are part of the family of God then you will have a consistent growing life of obedience and transformation. o The children of God will not be perfect, but their life will be described as the habitual process of walking in the light and not in the darkness. o John doesn't pull any punches. We are liars if we claim to have fellowship with God but consistently walk in darkness. If you are part of the family of God, then you must have fellowship with other believers. o Specifically, we have fellowship with each other because we all stand cleansed of unrighteousness before God. o This is not a loose, "Hey I have Christian friends," but this is a created community that comes out of the design of God before the foundation of the world. If you are part of the family of God, you walk in humility. o If you or anyone else who claims to be a Christian say they have no sin in their life, you and they are deceived and don't know the truth. Humility is described by John as admitting and walking in the realization that we are sinners. o A recent book entitled, "Unchristian" by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons surveyed folks who do not claim to believe in Jesus and asked them to describe their impressions of the followers of Christ here in America. Their top three responses were "hypocritical," "insensitive," and "judgmental" - humility was no where near the top, in fact statistically, the number of people calling Christians humble was non-existent. o We should see something wrong with that. We should hear that and repent. If you are part of the family of God, you will confess your sins regularly and you will be forgiven regularly. o A regular habit of the believer is to walk before your God, confessing sin, and asking for forgiveness of that sin. o We should walk around with in the ever present reality of both the ugliness of our sin and the beauty of the grace of Christ. If you are part of the family of God, you will be honest and admit to each other and to the world that you are a sinner. o Listen, if you aren't honest about your sin, and you present yourself as not constantly needing forgiveness, by default you are calling God your Father a liar. o Lack of honesty about your sin is evidence that the word is not in you. So we see some consistent characteristics there: obedience, fellowship, humility, confession, and honesty. So knowing what characteristics should shape the life of a believer, ... http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/house-rules-part-2 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/house-rules-part-2.mp3 Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:24:42 CST Gordon Duncan House Rules 1_john,humility,family,fellowship,obedience,confession,honesty,house_rules 24:45 Every single family has rules that are specific just to their family. They are those little things that define individual households and to a certain extent, demonstrate the values of a particular family. For example, at our house we have a few of those. One of those is, "No whining and dining," which means you cannot whine at my dinner table. You may not like what we are having for dinner, but you can't whine about. Another one is that you must at least take a "No thank you bite," which means if you are eating something brand new for the first time, you have to at least take bite and say, "No thank you," before deciding you don't like it. When I was a kid, the rule was that it was always better to confess than to be found out which meant you were going to get a much less profound beating if you told your parents what you did rather than them founding out from someone else. I remember one time walking into the kitchen and my parents said, "We know what you have been up to." I was petrified. One family in our congregation has this rule about the dinner table: "Clear, Cheer, and Chore" - clear your plate, show gratitude and thankfulness with a cheer for Mom or Dad for having prepared the meal, and chore being help cleanup afterwards. (Isn't amazing how many rules we make for eating btw?) Well, the family of God is no different. Belonging to that family comes with certain expectations and values. As we approach the letters of John, those expectations and values are exactly what we are going to find. In fact, John, the brother of Jesus, is going to use a lot of family language. His most common way of addressing the people in the letter is, "my children," or "my dear children." Sometimes, he will sound like Hulk Hogan and say, "brothers," and once in a while he will even say, "my dear friends." But no matter how he addresses the letter, the tone is always one of a kind family elder dispensing wisdom as to how to live. The interesting thing though is that this not wisdom in a vacuum. What I mean is that He is not just giving you random truths to live by. He is giving theological truth by which to guide you in greater living. Let me explain what I mean. When someone just walks up to you and starts giving you advice or just tells you what to do, most folks don't respond well. The thought is that that their advice is more or less just veiled criticism because it is not based on prior understanding. It just feels like an attack. However, if you notice, the writers of Scripture, and very much Jesus Himself, frame the practical truths of how to live our lives around the solid theological truths of who God is. Let me give you an example. In Romans 8, Paul talks about how we should endure suffering with great joy. Now that truth alone is harsh. That's like walking up to someone who is suffering and saying, "Hey, stop your whining. Nobody likes a whiner." But Paul doesn't give that truth alone or truth in a vacuum. He says: Our present suffering doesn't compare to the glory we will have in heaven. If we suffer for Jesus, we will be glorified with Him. And as we struggle, we have a great hope for the future. Just in the same that the earth groans to be liberated from the effects of sin, so do we. Framing that truth in that way is lot more gracious, encouraging, and inspiring than just saying, "Hey buck up little camper. Have some joy." We find much greater meaning and much greater sensitivity in our hearts when wisdom, encouragement, and advice are attached to truths of scripture or to theological depth surrounding the person of Jesus. That is what we are going to find in the books of 1,2, and 3 John. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/house-rules-part-1 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/house-rules-part-one.mp3 Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:31:47 CST Gordon Duncan House Rules honesty,humility,fellowship,confession,obedience,john,1john,house_rules 29:21 What is your God like? It is not an easy question to answer not because God is unknowable (He is) but because God's qualities and characteristics are so immense in number. I mean, what do you emphasize? His love, mercy, justice, knowledge, knowability...the list goes on and on. I'm sure if we made a list of the attributes of God just from among you here, we would get a cross-section of all the things that God has shown about Himself coupled with all the things that we like to emphasize. For example, out church is named "Sovereign King" and it emphasizes two things: God is the King of all creation and He is Sovereign in rule over that creation allowing no one, not even you, to usurp His authority. Sometimes I wonder though, whether or not the God we worship is the God we communicate. One way or the other, we are always communicating something about God from our lives, our choices, and the way we react to certain things. Unfortunately, what we communicate is not always what we say we believe about God. As Micah mentions, the world watches our lives. When we suffer they wonder, "Where is your God?" But when we can earnestly say, "God is just in all He does," the nations repent in dust. We don't and cannot live perfect lives, but the way we react to sin and imperfections is a powerful testimony as to who God is. So if we say, God is just in all He does, then we need to be able to praise Him in the midst of pain and suffering. If we say God is loving, we better be loving. If we say God is the God of all comfort, we better be comforting. But the world scratches their head when we say, "God is merciful and forgive," but we are slow to forgive. The world scratches their head when we say God is just in all He does, but we only get around to giving Him praise when everything in our lives get better. No matter what we communicate though, God is communicating Himself to the world. Romans 1 makes it clear that by nature itself people know that there is a God. One can just look at the beauty and complexity of the cosmos and know that at least God is creator and He creates beauty. John 13:35 say that the world will know that we are God's disciples if we demonstrate love, so constantly the message of who God is, is communicated to the world. So again I ask, "What is your God like?" This Sunday at Sovereign King, as we close out our study of Micah, the prophet is going to answer that question. He is going to tell us who our God is and what He is like. The challenge for us will be to conform our thoughts, beliefs, and actions to the truths of who He is. Then we trust that God will use those things to bring the nations in. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/love-mercy-and-justice-part-10-the-series-finale-he-will-again-have-compassion-on-us http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/love-mercy-and-justice-part-10-series-finale-he-will-again-have-compassion-on-us.mp3 Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:16:00 CST Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice micah,love,mercy,justice,finale,compassion,repentance 41:05 One of the lessons that should be learned from the economic crisis of 2008 is that the line between those in financial need and those that are not is pretty blurry. As home after home are foreclosed on, it is time to be honest with ourselves. Just because a person can afford to live in $300,000 home, does not mean that they are either doing well financially or that they have made good financial decisions. In fact, the person living in a $500 a month apartment struggling to make ends meet might actually be better off financially than many in upscale suburban neighborhoods. The main difference is that the folks in the nice communities get to walk the fine line of financial ruin in nicer accommodations. Unfortunately, it is easy to dismiss folks who file for bankruptcy or are mired in credit card debt because the temptation is to think they are just getting what they deserved. The thought, "If they had made smart decisions with their money, they wouldn't be in this mess," is easy to think. There is a sense of justice in many people's thoughts and speech that says, "Well, that's what you get if you aren't smart with your money." Now, our temptation if we are no where close to losing our house and if we don't have any credit card debt (or if we are even some where in between) is to look down on folks who make poor financial decisions. And I would say if that is the case, we need to be very careful of falling into the sin of self-righteousness. Yes, we need to obey and be fiscally responsible, but God always judges us on the heart behind our obedience. So, even though we are doing fine financially, we need to ask the question, "What is the heart motive?" Are you financially conservative and responsible because you want to be generous towards God and His kingdom or is financial conservatism just the smartest way to live the lifestyle that you want to live and the added bonus is getting to feel spiritually AND financially superior? http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/love-mercy-justice-part-9-a-message-on-giving http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/love-mercy-justice-part-9-a-message-on-giving.mp3 Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:46:00 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice economy,generosity,finances,yoke,curse,blessing,cursing,violence,wicked,fairness,treasure,time,talent,tithing,tithe,giving,justice,mercy,love,micah 29:12 An application of the lessons we learned in the Book of Micah about Love, Mercy, and Justice. The last time we were in the book of Micah, we were confronted with the question that God's people were asking where they wanted to know, "With what do we come before our Lord?" To help us understand what they were asking, we restated that question a bit more simply. What the people of God really wanted to know was this: "Hey God, what do you want us to do?" Now we made a distinction in that last sermon that was important for us as we approached their question. They were not asking God, "How can we be saved?" No, they were asking, "How do you want your children to live?" God's response to His children as to how they should live is found in Micah 6:8 which reads, 8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Now last time we talked about this, we just scratched the surface as to what that meant, and we asked ourselves a very specific question in response. We asked, "How do we know if WE are demonstrating love, mercy, and justice?" I would answer that question and say that we only know that we are living out that verse if our lives are given over to serving others and proclaiming Jesus. That was Jesus' encouragement in Matthew 22 when He was asked what the greatest commandment was. He said, 37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself". To truly love God by demonstrating a love of neighbor at least equivalent to the love of self, you have to put yourself in some pretty uncomfortable situations where you have to step outside of your comfort zone to serve and help someone. Demonstrating love mercy and justice, considering others better than yourself, and loving others as you love yourself are all very similarly themed verses. Actually obeying them is not done on paper or on the computer (though those things might play a small part) or by protesting or petitioning or even by obeying the laws of the land. Those things may all have elements of justice in them, but living out those verses is always done by getting our lives dirty by helping others who are suffering from injustice or need and doing it all in the name of Jesus Christ. It would mean that your life, and I say this with no hyperbole, is no longer yours because you have given it away to God and you have also given it away to others so that they might experience the mercies of Jesus. We cannot make the mistake that the people of God in Micah's day made, and we cannot make the mistake the Pharisees of Jesus' day made. Their mistake was to measure their relationship with God solely by their personal obedience. They thought, "Well I did all the personal dos and don'ts so that's enough. God is pleased with me." To make that practical, we can never be like the people of Micah's time where we say, "Well I've offered sacrifice or I've tithed or I've been honest on my taxes so God should be pleased with me." No, Jesus Christ had a rebuke for folks who thought that they could measure their relationship with God just by looking at their own personal obedience to the rights and wrong s of scripture. He said Matthew 23:23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. Jesus said, "Yeah you have obeyed and you tithe and you are good law keepers, but you're neglecting true obedience which is being faithful in showing justice and mercy to those that need it." So, here is where ... http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/love-mercy-and-justice-part-8-application http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/love-mercy-and-justice-part-8-application.mp3 Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:01:39 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice 25:30 Two weeks ago at Sovereign King, we looked at a passage in Micah where God was literally holding court against His people. In His case against them, He accused them of forgetting several key things. They had forgotten… That God had taken them from slaves and made them children. That God had protected them from their enemies when they came into the Promised Land. That God had not always punished them as their sins deserve. That God had given them the freedom to worship Him without fear. Our take away from that sermon was that even though we may remember what God has done for us in the past, just remembering is not enough. If that memory doesn't give us hope for today, then we are essentially forgetting God as well. I encouraged us all in the day to day to remember what Jesus has done for us by His work on the cross. We can do that in some very simple ways: By sharing with others what Christ has done for us. By recognizing that Jesus' death was sufficient for us and therefore not living in guilt. By celebrating the fact that when we are faithless, He is faithful still. As we return to the book of Micah and we find that God's court case has come and gone, the people of Micah's time finally get around to asking the right question. They want to know, "Well, what should we do?" Now it is difficult to determine exactly out of what motivation the people of God were asking their question, but I do think this is the best time to ask that question. Knowing that God has been, is presently, and is always going to be faithful to you because of Jesus Christ, that is the perfect time to ask Him what He would have you do because you know that no matter what, even if you fail or succeed, God is going to be there for you. This is sort of like learning to ride a bike when you were a kid. My experience wasn't very good because my brother put me on the bike at the top of a hill and just pushed me down. I wound up with a broken nose, so that didn't end very well. No, most folks have a parent walking beside them, steadying them on two wheels. And if the child starts to fall, the parent catches them. Eventually, the child figures out that they can risk falling and risk riding because they know they have their parent there to catch them either way. That's what it is like if you are asking God what He would have you do when you know that He will be faithful to you even if you are faithless. So having said all that, in the sermon this Sunday, why don't we seek to answer the very question that the people of God were asking. They asked that in light of God's faithfulness, "What should WE offer back to God?" Let's find out. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/what-then-shall-we-do-love-mercy-and-justice-part-7 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/what-then-shall-we-do-love-mercy-and-justice-part-7.mp3 Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:41:24 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice repentance,faithfulness,court,justice,mercy,love,remember,micah 24:07 I knew a couple who told me a story about the morning of the wife's birthday. This couple generally made a big deal out of birthdays. I can relate because Amy and I are like that; birthdays in some ways are bigger than Christmas for the two of us. Well, this couple got up in the morning, and the husband didn't mention anything about the wife's birthday. At first, she thought maybe he was going to surprise her and was just playing it cool, but after a few hours, she started to worry. Well, the time came for them to head to the wife's family's house to celebrate her birthday, so she said, "I guess we need to head to my parent's house." The husband was getting ready to ask, "What for?" when the reality that he had forgotten her birthday hit him full on. Now instead of manning up and just saying, "I forgot sweetie; I'm sorry," he said, "Oh, hey the money was tight this week so I couldn't afford to get you a card. I'm sorry, but hey, happy birthday." Now, we've all forgotten something that was important at some point in time whether it was a meeting or even a commitment. Sometimes those slips ups come from just being busy, and sometimes they come up because honestly we are just not very considerate. But when we forget something really important, it hurts the people that are involved because when we forget something for someone, it is like forgetting them personally. That is the point that God is going to make in the book of Micah this week: forgetting what God has done is the same as forgetting God. So we should approach our study from the book of Micah this week asking, "What have we forgotten that God has done for us, and what would change about our life if we remembered?" http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/i-remember-you-love-mercy-justice-part-6 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/i-remember-you-love-mercy-justice-part-6.mp3 Sun, 14 Sep 2008 15:09:07 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice micah,forget,love,mercy,justice,remember,repentance,sin,balak,moab,balaam,beor,shittim,gilgal,egypt,aaron,moses,miriam 23:02 When I was in college, I didn't have a standard meal plan where you could just go to the college cafeteria and eat. I just couldn't afford one, so I made it through 4 years in the dorm room by cooking all my meals in a toaster oven and a microwave. There was a particular semester, when classes were over, that I was flat out of money. I had $.27 in my bank account and the cupboard or the dorm fridge, if you will, was bare. Since I was an RA in the dorm, I had to stay a couple of days after the semester ended to wrap things up. I was extremely curious as to how I was going to eat. Well as one my residents was leaving, he wished me an enjoyable break and said he would see me next semester. A few minutes late he walked back and said, "Hey I've got 4-5 meals left on this meal card, do you want it?" A similar story happened when Amy and I were engaged. We had absolutely no money for a honeymoon just weeks before the wedding, and we did not know what we were going to do. I got a phone call one night as we were making last minute wedding plans. It was from an insurance adjuster. You see, I had been a passenger in a head on collision about 6 months prior, and the insurance adjuster wanted to know how I was feeling. After a brief conversation, he wanted to know if $700 was adequate for the suffering I had incurred in the wreck. I thought to myself, "$700 is adequate for a honeymoom at the beach." I imagine we all have had those situations where you had a bill and you just did not know how you were going to pay for it. And then, either a friend, or a spouse, or your mom and dad just happened to be setting some money aside in case something like this happened. A good friend of mine calls that J.I.T. – Just in time. Once again this week, I asked for the congregation's help, and they gave me some examples of similar experiences. We came up with some great stories. Let me give you a few examples. · We had one couple who told me about when they first got engaged. One partner brought in some bills and debt to the relationship. It just so happened that her fiancé happened to have the exact amount tucked away for a rainy day and was able to pay the bills. · Another one of our folks talked about being stuck with a huge car payment and all of a sudden getting a new job that exactly covered the payment. Well, the reason I tell these stories is because the idea of sticking aside a little money for a rainy day or saving some money just in case you have an emergency in similar to the idea in scripture called "a remnant" – a remnant is something that is saved for a later time with a specific purpose. We see two explanations of who or what a remnant is in scripture. · Romans 11:5 speaks of God saving a remnant of Jewish people. Through out the biblical days and in the present, the majority Jewish people do not believe in Jesus Christ, but God has promised to specifically choose a remnant of Jewish to believe by His grace and not their by their own doing. But that is not the only description of a remnant in scripture. · Acts 15:17 also describes any that would believe in Jesus from the Gentiles as a remnant. Essentially, if you believe in Jesus you are a remnant chosen out of the world to believe in Christ. This is very important to remember as we look at these next few verses in Micah because the application of the promises found there meant something specifically to the people that first heard it and also something very specific to us. So let’s look at those promises and seek to understand how they apply to them and to us. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/the-purpose-of-gods-remnant-love-mercy-and-justice-part-5 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/the-purpose-of-gods-remnant-love-mercy-justice-part-5.mp3 Sun, 07 Sep 2008 09:31:46 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice love,mercy,justice,remnant,micah,blessing,cursing,curse,bless,communion 33:46 Now, many of you may know this, but in case you don’t, Amy and I have 3 children: 3 wonderful girls Meredith, Landry, and Emma. Now I can tell you what my initial reaction was when we found out that Amy was pregnant with each of them. I can tell you what it is like to be in the delivery, and I can even tell you what it is like to cut the cord. What I cannot tell you though is what it is like to find out that there is baby growing in my tummy. I can’t tell you the emotions that occur when that baby begins to grow and move, and I definitively cannot tell you what happens emotionally when you give birth. But scripture sure does speak about the concept of being pregnant or being in labor a whole lot. It is a metaphor that immediately strikes an image in your heart and mind whether or not you have ever been pregnant. Either way, towards that end, for anyone who has difficulty relating to scripture, I’ve enlisted the help of those who do know what scripture is talking about.. Here are a few examples from ladies in our church who shared with me via email what it was like to find out that they were pregnant. Great joy, followed by sadness as the child was miscarried after a only a few weeks into the pregnancy My response was joy, disbelief, amazement, panic, awe, and worry...all mixed together. Then I threw up. You don't want to use those words I'm your sermon! At first I couldn’t believe it when the nurse called & told me that I was pregnant & then I was very emotional & gave thanks to God for blessing me with a child. We even had one mom say that doctor got her due date horribly wrong and it made it look like she had been cheating on her husband. They soon got a new doctor. I must admit reading those responses was entertaining and hopefully they helped all of you to get a picture of what it means to be pregnant. Clearly, finding out you are pregnant and being pregnant are life changing and life altering occurrences. Not everyone person has the opportunity to experience pregnancy and in those situations, we trust that God has some other incredibly amazing experience reserved for us. Well, this week at Sovereign King in the book of Micah, we are going to see the prophet use this pregnancy and labor image to set the minds of God’s people to a sense of expectation. So, whether we have been pregnant, never been pregnant, or even pregnant right now, lets do our best to get in the mindset of waiting for something with expectation. With that, we will ask, what is it that God is asking us to look forward to with similar expectancy as a pregnancy? http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/congratulations-youre-expecting-love-mercy-justice-part-4 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/congratulations-youre-expecting-love-mercy-justice-part-4.mp3 Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:50:36 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice old_testament,repentance,prophet,judgment,justice,mercy,love,pregnant,pregnancy,micah 30:08 The 5th amendment to the US Constitution affirms the right of every American citizen to own land, and it also affirms that no one can take that land from you without compensation…including the government. Owning land is one of the rights that is held dear in America. For the most part, America has been built on a premise that agrees with Delmarr O’Donnell from the movie “Oh Brother Where are Thou” when he says, “"You ain't no kind of man if you ain't got land” There is a general sense in America that you’ve made it once you finally can buy your own plot of dirt – even it is only .17 of an acre in a neighborhood where every house looks the same. Theoretically, if you own land in America, no one can take it away from you. Well in the OT, we see that God had given His people land and it was divided up among the 12 tribes of Israel. The land was theirs and their families and no one could take it away from them. You could sell that land if you wanted to, but every 50 years during the Year of Jubilee, all land returned to its rightful owner, so as you can imagine, not a lot of buying and trading of land occurred. You would imagine that the people of Israel viewed their owning of land a lot like most Americans do. They thought, “This is my land and no one can take it from me. It is my right to own it, and this is especially true because God gave it to me.” This was part of what made up their opinion and view of God. Now last week at Sovereign King, we talked about how the folks of Micah’s time didn’t always think correctly about God. They thought certain things about God that just weren’t true. For example, the people of God trusted their own devices and fortifications for security and they couldn’t imagine God thinking any thing of it. Well, last week, we saw God’s declaration of judgment against the people of God. We saw God saying that He would tear down the stone walls that His people had trusted in because they trusted those walls and not God. The people also engaged in immoral worship and they didn’t think God was going to do anything about that either. Last week, we saw God say that He would burn up all the profit that His people had earned from their illicit and immoral temple prostitution that had been rationalized as worship. Well, imagine what’s going to happen to the people of God when they think that no one can take their land from them. This week as we approach the next sermon in our Love Mercy Justice series, we are going to continue to see people with false presuppositions or ideas about God and we will see scripture expose them. These folks are very slow to change their presuppositions and despite God’s declarations against many of them, they continue to hold them tightly. So, I would like to ask a slightly different question in this sermon this week. The question I want to ask is this, “What hope do we have of changing our false presuppositions about God if we are so blind that we don’t see them?” http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/love-mercy-and-justice-part-2 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/love-mercy-and-justice-part-2.mp3 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:16:56 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice micah,love,mercy,justice,judgment,substitution,redemption 37:44 An introduction to the sermon series, "Love, Mercy, and Justice", a teaching from the book of Micah. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/love-mercy-and-justice-introduction http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/love-mercy-and-justice-introduction.mp3 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 14:45:48 CDT Gordon Duncan Love, Mercy, and Justice idolatry,prophets,micah,love,mercy,justice,israel,judah 27:59 Part 2 of the how the book of Galatians applies to us as the Body of Christ and as a church organism http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/galatians-the-gospel-and-the-church-part-2 http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/galatians-the-gospel-and-the-church-part-2.mp3 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:05:56 CDT Gordon Duncan Galatians galatians,church,body_of_christ,membership,unsaved,grace 25:21 Application of the recent study in the book of Galatians as to how it relates to the Church. What does Galatians point towards as a church body? How does Galatians affect the organization of the Church? http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/galatians-the-gospel-and-the-church http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/galatians-the-gospel-and-the-church.mp3 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 14:21:40 CDT Gordon Duncan Galatians galatians,gospel,church,body_of_christ,organization,structure,discipline,commitment,government,membership 29:58 What is your self image? How do you see yourself? How do you identify yourself? Do you consider yourself a saint or a sinner? How is your righteousness determined? Do you identify yourself as a child of God first? Galatians tells us how we should identify ourselves in life and in the world. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/galatians-the-gospel-and-self-image http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/galatians-the-gospel-and-self-image.mp3 Sun, 20 Jul 2008 13:30:42 CDT Gordon Duncan Galatians galatians,righteousness,identify,image,identity,grace,christ,self_image 25:24 Application of the teaching in Galatians for the purpose of overcoming temptation. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/galatians-the-gospel-and-overcoming-temptation http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/galatians-the-gospel-and-overcoming-temptation.mp3 Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:04:50 CDT Gordon Duncan Galatians sin,temptation,galatians,grace,series,overcoming 24:25 Now that the verse by verse study of the Book of Galatians is complete, we are going through applications in daily life. Today's study is on the effect of Galatians on evangelism. http://www.sermoncloud.com/sovereign-king-church/galatians-the-gospel-and-evangelism http://media.monkserve.com/EKK/1963/galatians-the-gospel-and-evangelism.mp3 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 13:37:19 CDT Gordon Duncan Galatians galatians,evangelism,grace,gospel,legalism,freedom 25:07