Study Guide 8, Sunday March 6th 2011

This week welooked at a somewhat obscure passage from Exodus this week, which actually had a lot to showus in regard to why we need God’s Spirit on the one hand and what God’s empowering Spirit accomplishes on the other.   We learned that we need God’s Spirit in order to obey his commands.  Just like Bezalel and Oholiab needed God’s Spirit in order to obey his commands, we need the Spirit totransform our lives and empower us to proclaim the Gospel.  We also learned that the Spirit of God empowers us in order to glorify Him.  Just like Bezalel and Oholiab were given God’s Spirit in order to make God look beautiful and reflect his holiness and wonder into the wilderness, we too are given God’s empowering Spirit in order to bring him glory here on earth.  In short, the Spirit empowers us to fulfill his commands and to bring him glory.

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Small Group Study, Sunday February 27th, 2011

This week’s message was an extremely relevant passage for most of us here at ICF, especially those who find themselves to be foreigners in a strange land.  Like Daniel, we also are meant to be resident aliens in our culture as well.  God used Daniel in a mighty way to transform the Babylonian culture.  Daniel serves as a fantastic model for how God uses faithful and obedient people to change the world.  If we study Daniel’s behavior we will see how God intends for each of us to be transformative agents in our culture as well; Daniel: 1) resolved not to become defiled by his culture; 2) Established authentic relationships; 3) Strove for excellence in all things as God gifted him.  As a result, over the course of time God used Daniel to transform culture.  But above all, Daniel (el = God, dani = my judge) held himself accountable to God has his final judge, lord, and king!  We too then, can learn from Daniel’s behavior but above all we must see ourselves as accountable to Christ first before any worldly power.

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Small Group Study, Sunday February 20, 2011

This week’s message came to us through the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan.  We often make the mistake of reducing this wonderfully rich passage into a mere moral platitude that goes something like “everyone is your neighbor and we need to love everyone with a everyone-loving kind of love”.  Now this isn’t a bad thing in and of itself.  But it is a bad thing if this is the only thing we take a way from this parable.  The reality is this parable is Jesus’ own commentary on his ministry.  He is the good Samaritan and we are the hurting wounded soul on the side of the road.  The law has passed us by unable to save.  If we read the parable in this way, then we will see the command to love our neighbor means more than just a few kind words here and there, but it is a call to lay down your life for your neighbor; to be moved with a compassion that inspires action.  If Christ is our greatest treasure, which He is, then we ought to be philanthropists of the Gospel, giving generously and often.  Loving neighbor therefore, means being moved with a compassion leading to action on account of those that don’t know or love our Lord.

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Small Group Study Guide, Sunday February 13th

This week’s message moves into the first of three qualifiers expanding upon what a Christ-centered community should look like.  We cannot possibly love God without first realizing, one, the depth of our sin and, two, the depth of God’s love for us; the cross is where these two meet.  The passage from Romans 5:1-11 can be divided into three parts: 1) A celebration of our peace with God through Christ (vss.1-5); 2) A description of how this peace is made possible (vss.6-8); 3) The consequences of the cross (saved from the wrath of God and a reconciled relationship with Him vss9-11).  The challenge to us then is to love God on account of Christ’s saving work alone; NOT to get something in return (i.e. we don’t love God just to avoid hell).

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Small Group Study Guide, Sunday February 6th

Paul’s letter to the Colossians is one long reminder that Christ alone is their salvation.  In Col 3:1-4, Paul defines a Christ-centered life as being a life wholly directed towards Christ.   In verse 3 Paul teaches that our life is hidden with him and in vs 4 Paul writes “he is our life”.  Christ should occupy the primary position in our heart, superior to any other love.  The effect of this upward focused Christ-centeredness is almost counter-intuitive as Paul goes on to teach that our relationship with Christ should affect our behavior and attitudes here on earth.  He then goes on to describe the kinds of attitudes and behaviors we need to “take off” (vss.5-11) and “put on” (vss.12-17).

The Colossians greatest error was that they had allowed themselves to be influenced by their culture (2:16-23), displacing the superiority of Christ in their life and exchanging his salvation for a form of works righteousness.  In turn, our message on Sunday challenged ICF in particular to NOT follow the Colossian error.  The question was posed how are we tempted to displace Christ in our life by allowing our attitudes and behaviors to be affected by culture rather than by a Christ-centered love.  We touched upon our society’s consumer-oriented mentality and general apathetic spirit and the effects this can have on a church

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Small Group Study Guide, Sunday January 30th

This week we walked through a major theme within the biblical narrative: God’s call (or reaching out) to his lost creation.  We then briefly touched upon a sampling of some of the biblical narratives where this theme is prominent.  We observed that the call of God is always: 1) A call to return to him and; 2) it disrupts the lives of settled people.  When we ask how it is that we should respond to God’s call?  We find that Levi’s actions illustrate Jesus’ teaching on repentance.  So, like Levi, our response should be to “get up, leave everything, and follow him”.  Jesus goes on to explain that true repentance and healing can only come after we have realized the depth of our own illness; he came “not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  The challenge to us then, is to ask ourselves are we following Levi’s model or the Pharisees?

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BUNCO Women’s Social, Friday 28th of January @19:00!!!

Small Group Study Guide, Sunday, January 23rd

The message this morning brought our attention to Paul’s financial appeal to the Corinthian church on behalf of the famine-stricken Jerusalem church in 2 Corinthians 9:6-15.  We can summarize our passage in this way: God is the giver of all (vs. 10) and our response to his gifts should be one of radical generosity and thanksgiving (vs 11).  The motivations behind our giving are laid out for us in verses 12-15:

1. To help those in need (vs. 12)
2. To bring praise and glory to God (vss12-15)
3. Giving presents an opportunity to test our faith, a chance to practice that obedience, which should accompany our faith (vs 13).

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Small Group Study Guide, Sunday 16th January

Acts 2:37-47 is one of the earliest descriptions we have of the early church.  Written just 30 years after Christ’s death, this summary is particularly relevant for our church as we consider what we want ICF to look like in the future.  Luke describes four practices or spiritual disciplines to which the early church “continually devoted” themselves: 1) The Apostles’ Teaching; 2) The Fellowship; 3) The Breaking of Bread; and 4) Prayer.  Luke goes on in vss.43-47 to describe the extent of this early community’s devotion to God and neighbour.  In conclusion, I posed the question what role do these practices play in our daily life, corporately and privately?    If any of our commitments to the above practices are lacking than we should not fall into the trap of “trying harder” or working for our salvation, rather we should go to the heart of the matter by going back to examine Acts 2:37, “they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter’s answer in vs 38 provides the way forward, “Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Click below for the Small Group study guide:

Envisioning Life Together-1

Pastor on Vacation until January 10th!

This is just a quick post to remind you that the pastor will be on vacation until the 10th of January!  We have two great preachers filling the pulpit in this time:

January 2nd: Dr. Denton Lotz

January 9th: Dr. Jimmy Martin (elder)

So, I would personally like to wish all of you a blessed and happy new year!!!

Much love in Christ,
Carsten Lotz