Category: Uncategorized
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https://pastors.ai/sermon/hope-joy-peace-overflow
Check out some clips from yesterday, along with a short Daily devotional for each day this week… Please pass along the links via social or email
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Pastor and Missionary Tim Jones shared from Romans 15:20 on Sharing the gospel in the RV Camper ministry across the country
https://pastors.ai/sermon/living-on-mission-holy-spirit#quotes
if you like to know more about their ministry click here https://gotothetruth.org
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Oswald Chambers speaking on Enoch said, “the test of a man’s life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments in life, but what he does in the ordinary times.”
Enoch was a man, a husband, a father, a grandfather, and he walked with God… He was in the 7th Generation of Man in Creation.
Genesis 5:23-24 Enoch’s life lasted 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was not there because God took him
So he lived walking with God, and then he was no longer on the earth, but he was still WITH God.
There are just five verses in Genesis, two in Hebrews, two in Jude regarding this man. Yet the first verses and the last verses are 3000 years apart, and here we are 5000 years after, and we still know him.
Genesis 5:19 tells us that his father’s name was Jared. That name means, “to go down, bow down.” he is recorded to have lived 962 years, and yes I believe in a literal understanding. Though we can’t relate to that, he was 162 when he fathered Enoch. That’s sort of hard to imagine, but if I live to be 100, it would mean that my oldest son was born about the same time in my life, which is about 20% of my life, just like Jared’s son was born at about the same ratio of his life.
Interestingly, Enoch was 65 when his son, Methuselah, was born, which turned out to be roughly the same ratio of his life.
If he lived 1/5th of his life, he had done many things, seen many things in life.
He worked, working the ground, raising animals, probably lived close to his family. He met a woman, fell in love with her, and she became his wife. Then, they had a son.
What was life like? Don’t know much, but his son, Methuselah, had his son Lamech, and Enoch would have been 252, and lived another 48 years, yet was not still on earth when his Great Grandson, Noah, was born. Yet Lamach said about Noah, “this one will bring us relief from the agonizing labor with our hands, caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.”
Well, seven generations, and the sin of Genesis 3 was hard. He was working the ground, raising a family, and he had other sons and daughters…
What else do we know? 3000 Years after he left his earth…
Jude wrote Jude 14-15 tell us that he was a Forceful Preacher of Prophesy saying that he prophesied, “Look! the Lord comes with tens of thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and convict all the ungodly…”
WOW… we don’t know much more
But most significantly, the writer of Hebrews has the “Hall of Fame of the Faithful” in Hebrews 11…
Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen… by this our ancestors were approved… Hebrews 11:1-2…
Then 11:3 By faith we understand the universe was created by God… made from things that are not visible 4 by faith Abel offered a better sacrifice… he was approved as a righteous man… because God approved his gifts… though dead, he still speaks through his faith
Point being, God gave instructions for how to live, how to worship – Abel followed, Cain did not.
Then step forward many generations to Enoch.
Hebrews 11:5 by faith, Enoch was taken away… did not experience death… God took him away… FOR before he was taken away he was approved as one who pleased God.
That word, approved is the word, martyreo = testify, bear witness. The Testimony of Enoch’s life was that he pleased God – euaresteo = pleasing and interestingly this word is both a verb AND a noun. Because he acted in pleasing God, he WAS pleasing to God.
Now, then, just to be sure that we GET THE POINT… the context then of verse 6 is often quoted alone, but here in the context of the life of Enoch, it is a challenge to us to be like Enoch and these faithful in Hebrews 11
… he was approved as one pleasing to God 6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draw near to him must believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek him.
Oh, some believe IN God, but don’t obey God, believing that God has expectations that we must follow.
Compare Abel and Cain… both came to God in perceived worship, but only one of them worshiped as instructed and from the heart.
Remember God told Cain… if you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? He had been told, but he would not.
Yet, Enoch was approved, his life gave a witness, that as a man, husband, father, grandfather, worker, friend, preacher, he believed God, sought to obey God, drew near to God, walked close to God, in line with God, according to the Lord…
… and then, he was no more on earth… yet he was still WITH God.
My desire and full expectation for now and into eternity is to be with God, pleasing to God, giving that testimony – One Step One Walk… at a time…
Enoch walked with God – halak = to go, to come, accompany, to behave
Let it be said of me… that I “behaved, accompanied God, coming and going”
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Here are some clips, devotions, summary, and study for yesterday …
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We are beginning to work with sermons.ai as they take our message each week, bring in 5 weekly devotions, a sermon summary, and bible study, along with some clips from the message
Hope you enjoy
Click the link
https://pastors.ai/sermon/freedom-christ-body-mission#quotes
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Pip: Pastor Goforth opens with the words "let me just ramble for a minute" — and then proceeds to cover Paul, John the Baptist, the role of the best man, the nature of boasting, and the seduction of Eve. Quite a minute.
Mara: That ramble has a destination, though. Today we're following one sustained argument about what it means to protect a community's devotion — and why Paul's strange boasting strategy is the key to understanding it.
Pip: Let's start with the bride, the groom's friend, and a very particular kind of jealousy.
Promised Bride and the Friend of the Groom
Mara: The post works through 2 Corinthians 11:2-3 by asking what Paul's actual job is — and the answer turns out to be borrowed from John the Baptist's description of himself in John 3.
Pip: John 3:29 gives us the frame: the best man's whole role is to prepare everything, bring the bride, and then step back. Decrease so the groom can increase.
Mara: Paul maps his own ministry onto that exactly. His concern, as the post puts it, is "to bring them TO the Groom and protect them from distraction from that destination."
Pip: Which makes the boasting chapters suddenly coherent — he's not grandstanding, he's running interference.
Mara: Right. There were deceivers in the Corinthian church building a case on credentials and self-promotion, so Paul decides, as the post describes it, to play that game. He offers a resume of suffering, then pivots: "I'd rather boast in my weaknesses." The whole sequence ends at 12:9 with God's grace being sufficient precisely because strength is made perfect in weakness.
Pip: The boasting contest where the winning move is to lose — Paul would have been terrible at LinkedIn.
Mara: The verse at the center of all of this is 2 Corinthians 11:2-3 in the CSB: "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy… because I have promised you in marriage to one husband — to present you a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ."
Pip: That word "seduced" carries real weight here. The post flags the Greek — phtheiro — which means corrupt, destroy, ruin. Not just distracted. Undone.
Mara: And the post draws the line straight back to Eden: Adam and Eve had the closest relationship with God anyone has ever experienced, and they were still vulnerable. The implication for the church is that no community is too grounded to be at risk.
Pip: So the job description the post lands on — bring people to Jesus, protect from false teaching, guard against deception — isn't pastoral modesty. It's the whole stakes of the thing.
Mara: The post closes with a call that follows directly from that: be in love with Jesus, stay on mission, and preach a clear gospel faithfully enough to stand between the congregation and whatever would corrupt that devotion.
Mara: Godly jealousy as a protective instinct — that's the thread running through everything here.
Pip: Present the bride. Step back. Don't let the serpent get a word in. Simple job, enormous stakes.
Mara: More from Pastor Goforth next time.
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Let me just ramble for a minute as I did yesterday morning looking at this passage.
The Word “boast” or “boasting” is kauchaomai – Paul kind of likes this word. He uses it 10x in his letter to the Romans, as well as 10x in his First Letter to the Corinthians. but in the Second Letter to the Corinthians he uses it 16x just in chapters 10-12.
Paul is going somewhere. In 10:17 he says, let the one who BOASTS, boast in the Lord. Paul is not boasting for approval, but for attention because he has a JOB to do. and he knows 10:18 that the Lord will be on the one who commends him, whose approval he seeks.
Then in chapter 11 Paul describes his “job” in a similar fashion to John the Baptist in John 3. Remember when John’s disciples came up to him about this new “upstart” that’s getting all the attention, and he’s doing “our thing” and baptizing people.
John then says in John 3:29, that he is just a friend of the groom. It was the role of the best man, as we would know him, to make everything ready and bring the bride to the groom.
All the friend of the groom wanted was to make arrangements, bring the bride, for the groom to be pleased, and the bride find fulfillment in the arrangements. Other than that, the friend took a backseat. Certainly, he wanted / needed to present himself well, as a representative of the groom, but then he would decrease and he (the groom) must increase, John explained (3:30)
Paul has his role in a similar way. Paul’s great concern was for the people of the church, as he desires to bring them TO the Groom and protect them from distraction from that destination.
Reading these chapters, there were obviously deceivers in their midst, and to build their case, they had been boasting about their knowledge and qualifications. So, Paul decides to play that game.
They obviously were boasting in themselves, but Paul says, boast in the Lord.
But I love the game he plays starting in 10:15 – “Alright… I’ll play the fool and boast a little. 11:20… I’ll take the dare, talking foolishly… and boast.
Then Paul gives his “resume” for suffering in 11:23-29 – read that… woah.
Then 11:30 – “I’d rather boast in my weaknesses”. But 12:1 It’s not really profitable to boast, but if necessary, I could talk about visions I’ve seen. 12:6 just telling the truth here… Then he boasts of the great struggles, 12:7-10 – physical afflictions / weaknesses, that God has allowed and will not take away because God’s grace is sufficient and God’s strength is made perfect in his weakness.
I know I’m rambling… but why all of this? Paul wants a faithful, blessed, purely presented Bride
11:2-3 (CSB) I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy… because I have promised you in marriage to one husband – to present you a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
What is his job?
- Bring people to Jesus
- Offer them to Christ as an act of “Evangelistic Worship”
- Protect them from false teachings and false acting
- Guard against deception
Adam and Eve took their eyes off of truth, love, and promises. The evil one has always called into question the Goodness of God and the Word of God, and those who knowingly or unwittingly do his work, still do the same.
These followers were in danger of the same, and so it happens in the church the danger of being seduced – phtheiro = corrupt, destroy, ruin.
What we teach, in the church, what we allow is very important. Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with God like none other have ever experienced, and yet still they were seduced, corrupted, destroyed, ruined.
Well, we have an opportunity to now be another voice in the struggle against deceivers and deception
So,
- Let’s be IN Love with Jesus
- Let’s be On Mission
- Let’s be Careful and Faithful to step in between truth and deception
- Let’s Preach a Clear Jesus, that is based on the Word of God, and offer a Pure gospel, Clearly and Faithfully, doing everything in our power to present the Bride to Christ.
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Pip: Pastor Goforth opens with a question that sounds simple and lands like a conviction: what exactly is the church supposed to be doing right now?
Mara: That's the thread running through today's episode — the church's silence on ethnic division, and the scriptural case for why silence isn't neutral. Let's start with the opportunity that silence might actually create.
What an Opportunity
Pip: The post opens with a frustration that a lot of people probably share — the church is either missing from conversations about ethnic division, or it's making noise in the wrong direction entirely.
Mara: The framing is direct: "the church is either silent, or so loud that you can't hear, and generally loud about the wrong things." That's the diagnosis. And the argument is that silence, paradoxically, creates an opening.
Pip: Right — the person who never speaks commands the room when they finally do. The post is essentially saying: church, you have accumulated credibility by staying quiet, now spend it on something that matters.
Mara: And the theological grounding comes fast. On the question of racial supremacy, the post is unambiguous: "The truth genetically is that there really is only one race, the human race." Ethnicity, nationality, culture — real distinctions. But not a basis for hierarchy.
Pip: So if supremacy is off the table even as a concept, what's the model? The post goes straight to Philippians — Christ, who had every claim to supremacy, emptied himself and served.
Mara: That's the pivot point. The most Supreme Being in the universe, as the post puts it, did not flaunt it. He took the form of a servant. The implication for the church is: you don't get to claim innocence and do nothing.
Pip: And the scriptural case for action is extensive. Exodus, Deuteronomy, Psalms — the post builds a pattern: God defends the alien, the fatherless, the widow, and expects his people to do the same, because they were once the outsider too.
Mara: Deuteronomy 10:19 is the hinge verse there — "you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt." The reason for the command is embedded in the command itself.
Pip: Then First John ties it to something material. Not just spiritual solidarity — actual need, actual response.
Mara: "Let us not love with words or tongue, but with action and in truth." That's the close. The post ends with a rewritten Psalm 68 — the church cast as a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, settling the lonely in families. A vision, not just a critique.
Pip: It's a long post, but the argument is tight: silence is not innocence, the model is Christ, and the ministry of reconciliation is already assigned.
Mara: The through-line is reconciliation — between people, not just between people and God.
Pip: And the church, apparently, has both the assignment and the opportunity. Whether it shows up is the next question.
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Photo by Mitch Teemley Why do we need to believe in him? One night many years ago, I ran into a young woman “witnessing” on a street corner. 248 more…
Why Do We Need to Believe in Him?
