Living Water Community Church

We worked through verses 4-7 as we dealt with the magnificent work of God done on our behalf to save us from the state of corruption we were in. We began by looking at the rich mercy and love of God for us. A love which was poured out on us even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins. He made us alive together with Christ. He saved us by His grace and seated us with God in the heavenly places in Christ. The reason for this is to show us the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Jesus. Verses 1-3 show us our state and verse 4-7 show us the great reversal God has brought about on our behalf. 

We worked through the beginning of chapter 2. These first 10 verses are really a continuous flow of thought culminating in verse 10. We are taking the verses in 3 sections. The first section dealt with the radical corruption which plagues mankind because of the fall. This corruption is rooted in the fall of Adam. In Adam we became dead in our trespasses and sins. Our spiritual death makes all men pursuers of the passions of the flesh. This complete corruption means we will not desire God but only follow the desires of the flesh. 

We worked our way through the end of chapter 1. The 8 verses which wrap up the end of the chapter really highlight the unlimited almighty power of God which is in Christ and because the Holy Spirit indwells us it is also in us. Its existence in us is for the glory of Jesus. He blesses us and He sustains us in the midst of difficulties. It is there to help us come to know God better. This happens as we trust Him and He sustains us. It is primarily relational and it comes through faith in Jesus. As we live this life of faith our actions will be characterized by love. This happens because we are trusting in the power of God which raised Jesus from the dead. Which means as we experience weakness and attacks from those who hate Jesus we are able to trust God to be our strength and shield. Will we always do this perfectly? Of course not! But the truth is as we cultivate a life of totally trusting God in all situation we will find our hearts more inclined to leaning on Him and finding our strength in Him. Today we b

We finished working our way through the longest sentence in the Bible. It runs from Ephesians 1:3-14. It centers on the magnificent power or God as it is displayed in the work of Jesus. It is a very heart stirring God exulting section. Paul was very familiar with the church in Ephesus and had been very involved there, not only for 3 years in establishing it, but in supporting them through Timothy and his ministry. The soul stirring call to worship invoked by these verses may be because Paul knew they were struggling with getting their hearts engaged in loving God. This is certainly cited as a problem of this church in the book of Revelation. Paul calls on his readers both in Ephesus and all who pick up this letter to engage their hearts in what is essentially a call to worship and adoration of God. 

We continued to explore the greatness of God’s work as Paul exults in it. We are in the middle of this massively long sentence which is lavishly filled with the vastness of the glory of God. The part we explored last time started with redemption and ended with how in the fullness of time all things will be united in Jesus. In the middle Paul talks about how God poured out his redemption on us and forgave our trespasses with all wisdom and understanding. The wisdom and understanding here speaks of God’s wisdom and understanding and ties back to the redemption which is poured out on us. This means God did this not ignoring our sin but in full understanding of what He was doing in Jesus. This really brings out the greatness of His grace because it was not blind to our sin but rather God wisely took care of the penalty for our sin and brought us forgiveness. Again emphasizing the majesty of the redemption which God has brought to bear on us. God’s will is described as being the uniting of all things in Jesus. All

We began our verse by verse study of Ephesians. We began by looking at how the church in Ephesus is addressed by the Lord in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. What we see in Revelation gives us a little window into the church in Ephesus. Honestly, the church in Ephesus sounds like a pretty solid church theologically. As a matter of fact based solely on how the church here is described most churches today would love to be described like they are. Yet the truly shocking thing about Ephesus is how in spite of their refuting of false teachers and their zeal for God’s word they are reprimanded for losing their first love. If this is the core problem in the church in Ephesus then we might have a really good clue about what God is doing through Paul here as he pens this letter to the Ephesian Christians and really all Christians throughout all time. This letter opens with a magnificent heart stirring exultation of God. If the church is struggling with a heart felt love for God then this is certainly a

We worked through an overview of the book of Ephesians. We laid out the people and context of the area it was written to. We explored the ideas of the book in a broad overview. And we looked at the unique aspects of the letter. How Paul wrote in a general sense and this makes the letter very relevant for Christians of all times and ages. It was probably written this way with the idea it would be circulated among the churches. 

We are going to consider Mary and how her role as the one chosen to bear Jesus points us to His greatness. In the Biblical picture we are betrothed to Jesus. That means the commitment to marriage has been made and we are for all intents and purposes married but not yet united. This is part of the reason scripture speaks with anticipation of the great marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus has committed Himself to His bride and has paid the price for her with His own shed blood. This is a serious commitment of God to His people. In addition this is why a relationship with God is a serious matter and not a light and casual thing. This is the type of relationship Mary had entered into with Joseph. Mary is not chosen because she was a remarkable person. Mary is a remarkable person because she is chosen. God made Mary to be the person He needed her to be. Mary was chosen because she was the right woman betrothed to the right man at the moment in time in which God planned to bring Jesus into the world. This is not to s

In particular the highlighted person was Bathsheba. But in this instance she is not mentioned by name. She is referred to as the wife of Uriah. She is the mother of Solomon by David. What this does for us as readers is it highlights David as a sinful man. David is and was almost always thought of as the greatest king of Israel. As we looked at last time in Jeremiah 30 the people are prophesied to one day serve the Lord their God and David their king. This points out how highly the people thought of David. Because this verse is clearly the referencing the future king who is descended from David. What Matthew is doing is drawing our attention to the fact that while David was a great king he was also a sinner and could not be the greater and better king we all needed. That king is the one Matthew is writing about. The other thing we saw as we looked into the situation with David and Bathsheba is the prophecy Nathan made of how the child Bathsheba carried would die because of David’s sin. It is easy to read past

The story of Ruth continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Ruth was a Moabite woman who ends up coming to Israel because she had married an Israelite man. Boaz shows favor to Ruth because of what he's heard Ruth has done for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth proposes that Boaz should redeem the inheritance of Elimelech. Boaz figures this out and ends up being the redeemer of Ruth and takes Ruth as his wife. Ruth, a Moabite, is brought into Israel and made part of the line of Christ.

The story of Rahab continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were mainly pagans and gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Which is particularly striking since Matthew was written to Jews. This is very important because grace to gentiles is poured forth in even the line of Christ. Rahab was a prostitute who probably also had a house for prostitution. Why did the spies go to Jericho? Because God had a Canaanite women in Jericho that He was going to save from the destruction that He was bringing upon Jericho. It's almost like Rahab was participating in the passover that the Israelites were just starting to share in, for the first time, in the promised land.

The story of Tamar continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Tamar loses her first two husbands because of their wickedness before the Lord. Tamar appears to be 'tainted goods' and Judah doesn't want to give his youngest son over to Tamar even though he's come of age. The picture of Jesus and Adam are also seen in this passage in the bearing of the twins by Tamar.

Today we looked at how Babylon came and conquered Jerusalem. How Zedekiah was made ruler and how he rebelled against the King of Babylon. Destruction followed this rebellion as Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed Jerusalem and carried into exile a great many of the people. The remaining people left in Judah, flee to Egypt after Gedaliah the governor is murdered. The promises of God are seen to be fulfilled in bringing judgement upon Judah for there sin and rebellion against God.

We worked through the section of Kings which describes how Judah came to be under the authority and rulership of Pharaoh Neco the king of Egypt. The people of Judah had made Jehoahaz king when his father died even though he was not the oldest son of Josiah. We don’t know why this was and there is no good explanation given. He only reigned 3 months and the immediately returned to the evil which had marked the reign of the kings which came before his father Josiah. After 3 months Pharaoh Neco came and captured him and carried him off to Egypt where he lived out his days and died. He made his older brother Eliakim king and changed his name to Jehoiakim. He also placed a tribute on Judah of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. Jehoiakim complied with this and extracted even more from the people. He used the extra to build himself a royal palace and he too did evil in the eyes of the Lord. For 3 years he became servant to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He rebelled against Babylon after 3 years at the same

We worked our way through the reforms brought about under the reign of Josiah. He was a righteous king which had been prophesied about at the beginning of the separation of the Judah and Israel. He brought reforms with real passion for turning the people back to God. No other king before him or after him had been as passionate for the exultation of God before the people. He sought to wipe out all idolatry including the worship of household gods. He wiped out the shrines which had even been built by Solomon on what is now known as the mount of olives. He even went into the territory which had formerly been occupied by Israel and tore down all their idols and altars to false gods. He did all of this knowing that after his death Judah was going to be taken captive for her consistent idolatry for hundreds of years. This reveals how Josiah was not being driven by a hope of God relenting or with the hope of establishing a legacy but simply by a passionate love for God. 

We worked our way through the beginning of the story of Josiah. He is a remarkably good God honoring king over Judah from a very young age. He begins to reign at 8 years old. He fulfills a prophecy given to Jeroboam at the very beginning of his reign over the newly separated 10 tribes of Israel. A prophet told Jeroboam that a king named Josiah would cast down false places of worship and call people to return to Yahweh. Josiah began with having work done on the temple to repair it. During the repair work they found the book of the law. This book was taken to the king and read. The response of the king was to tear his clothes because he knew based simply on the book how the people had done evil in the sight of God. Josiah sent a delegation of his advisors to Huldah the prophetess to inquire about the things which had been read. She pronounced the coming wrath of God against Judah because of the way she had turned her back on Him. God promised however this would not happen in Josiah’s lifetime because he had tor

We worked our way through the story of Manasseh. In typical fashion the writer of Kings is most concerned with the broader brush strokes of the story. We don’t hear in Kings about Manasseh becoming repentant when he is taken captive or the fact of his attempt to make things right after his return from captivity. While these were important personally they didn’t make a huge difference for the people of Judah because his son which became king after him continued to carry out the evil which Manasseh had initially begun. The writer of kings though does record how God continued to send prophets to Manasseh and Judah during this really long time of spiritual apostasy. One of the questions which naturally comes up when we look at a passage which essentially covers for the most part 57 years of hardened refusal to repent is, “Why did God allow this to continue?” Certainly, God was patient with bringing Manasseh to repentance. But the bigger point and the one which most likely comforted the people in exile is how God

We walked through the near death of Hezekiah. It is a really serious illness and he is really incapacitated by it. Isaiah comes to him and tells him to prepare to die. Hezekiah believes him and it grieves him because he is very sick. Hezekiah cries out to God from his deathbed asking for healing and restoration. Isaiah soon returns with the message Hezekiah will recover and will go up to the temple in 3 days. Because he is so sick Hezekiah finds this declaration unbelievable and he asks Isaiah for a sign. The sign he is given is the shadow moves back 10 steps on a time keeping device Ahaz had built. Hezekiah recovers and worships at the temple in 3 days just like Isaiah had prophesied. His sickness and recovery were talked about even in the halls of Babylon which was over 670 miles away. The king of Babylon sent an envoy with gifts to congratulate Hezekiah on his recovery. There may have been alliances made at this time. But Hezekiah is clearly caught up in the celebrity of the moment and proceeds to show the

We worked through the last part of Hezekiah’s conflict with the king of Assyria. In chapter 18 we ended with a very dark scene, Hezekiah and his leaders are in sackcloth before the Lord facing a grim and dismal threat from the king of Assyria. In chapter 19 we witnessed the Lord’s deliverance. It is a supernatural intervention as the Lord sends an angel who kills 185,000 men of the Assyrian army in one night. Sennacherib returns home in defeat and shortly after this is killed by his own sons. It is a good reminder that God loves His people and delights to rescue them. In this story we also see how Sennacherib declared his greatness above the god’s of all the other kings he had conquered and he boasted of how he would conquer Jerusalem as well. God will not be mocked by men, and God demonstrates His power by sending His angel to strike the army of the Assyrians. 

We followed the opening story of Hezekiah and his reign as the king of Judah. He is one of the most God honoring kings of the kings of Judah. He is one of the only kings to remove the high places where people worshipped. He destroyed the idols people worshipped including the bronze serpent Moses had made, since people had come to worship it as well. The record of Hezekiah’s reign includes the statement that there were none like him either before or after him in the way he trusted God. He not only trusted God but was recognized for seeking to be obedient to the commandments of God. The Lord was with Hezekiah and blessed him. We see Hezekiah breaking the reliance on Assyria his father had established. He also has success in going against the Philistines. This is all seen as a result of God being with him. In his fourth year as king of Judah the king of Assyria came against Samaria and besieged it for 3 years. After 3 years Samaria fell and the nation of Israel was conquered and carried off as captives. 7 years