Elijah was commissioned by the Lord to relate a word from the Lord during the showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. With the people of Israel assembled he said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” The people said nothing. Elijah sets up the ultimate test to see which “god” answers with fire. The altar for Baal was ready for the sacrifice; ready to go! The altar for the Lord was dilapidated and in ruins. Before the Lord could answer with fire, the altar had to be repaired. What about our altar; the way, the time, and the places we worship God with our life and our service? Is it in disrepair? We need to fix our altar before God will answer with fire!

Jesus restores Peter and instructs him to feed His sheep. Peter is a huge component (or rock) in which the Church is built. Jesus asks him three different times if Peter loved him. We will look at what love is and see how Peter answered Jesus by actually choosing a different word for love in his response. We will then as a church celebrate the blessed union of Paul and Bonnie in matrimony.

The disciple Thomas has become known as ‘Doubting Thomas’ because of this account in John.  We are quick to criticize Thomas for not believing the resurrection of Jesus Christ but in reality if we had been in his shoes would we have readily believed or would we have our doubts.  The reality we all have to come to the moment Thomas did and believe that Jesus is truly the risen Savior.  What proof are you waiting for before you will believe that Jesus can deliver you from sin, from addictions, from the life YOU have made for yourself?

Jesus meets with His disciples and gives them His marching orders. Jesus then breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He still wants to clothe us with power from on high to be His witnesses. Just as Jesus was sent to the world to glorify the Father, we are sent into the world equipped with His active presence, the Holy Spirit, to penetrate our world with the gospel proclamation and demonstration. His Spirit is breathed into us to awaken us from the dead.

Response: Conclude with a prayer and a time of prayer up front for those who need to be revived and resurrected spiritually.

A meditation on the passion of Christ, with scriptures from Old and New Testament, pictures, and narrative describing the physical torture that Christ endured for our sin.

Before Jesus’ crucifixion He was tried in court. First, in the religious court of the Sanhedrin before Caiaphas (Matt 26) Jesus remained silent until he was asked if he was the Christ (the King), to which Jesus replied it is as you say. His fight was not a religious fight. Second in the governmental court before Pilate (the governor). Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus said yes- it is as you say. Jesus came to install a government over His people, not a religion. The phrase, ‘Kingdom of God/Heaven’ in Scripture is a dynamic concept—it means the action of God’s rule, more than the realm or place of God’s rule. Jesus said, ‘If I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you’ (Matt 12:28). He didn’t say a religion has arrived. “For this purpose the Son of God appeared, that He might destroy the works of the evil one” (1 John 3:8) The Kingdom of God in Scripture is not an idea; it is an event, an intervention of God in human history. What is our role in bringing His Kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven?

In John 17 Jesus is praying to the Father. He was praying to the Father together with the disciples with him. In this beautiful prayer he says some amazing words but there is one theme that jumps out within his prayer and that is the unity of the disciples as a witness to the world. It was almost as if Jesus knew the church would struggle with unity as it grew. In the message on Sunday we will talk about the concept of ‘perfect unity’ as it relates to us as believers.

We need to get to know intimately the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit possesses the characteristics of a Person. He is not just some active force or abstract or metaphysical idea. We will look at these characteristics and especially focus on His convicting and convincing the world of guilt, righteousness, and judgment.

Our world and society has increasingly grown hostile toward God and the gospel. If we belong to the world, the world will love us as its own. But because we belong to Jesus, our world system hates us, because they first hated Him. Many who have gone before us have experienced persecution, even if we have not. Jesus warns His followers to expect the same. We should too. We also have a mandate to testify to our world, just as the Holy Spirit was sent to testify of Jesus.

Jesus said that the very things that He did on this earth, His disciples would also do. In fact, He followed that by describing what we are capable of doing as “greater things than these.” We will talk about the reasons for this happening given within the text. One of our mandates in Scripture and also one of our “Circles of Discipleship” for The Church at Whistling Pines is to “Get Going”. Within this, we have the promise that Jesus will not leave us orphans but instead has sent us the Holy Spirit, the very active presence of God in our world to not only teach us, but to do the work. We will also talk about a few easy and practical things we can do to “Get Going”. Our legacy is to do what Jesus did; even greater things than these!