Thursday, December 08, 2005
TNF - Lesson Notes December 8, 2005
Thursday Night Fellowship
December 7, 2005
Christmas Hymns
Order
Snack/Fellowship
Games
Singing
Lesson
Singing
Introductory Questions
What is your favorite Christmas song?
What is a Christmas tradition in your family?
Why or what do unbelievers celebrate at Christmas?
The message of Christmas is amazing both really clear and really skewed in our culture. We have Christmas parades, Christmas caroling, Christmas cookies, Christmas parties. Many secular artists sing the traditional Christmas hymns without even editing out some of the words that are politically incorrect and downright intolerant. How can our culture be so immersed in this most celebrated holidy and yet miss the Christ of Christmas? Busyness, shopping, focused on giving or receiving gifts. Who knows?
The point is that we don't want to miss Christmas. We want to celebrate the baby who was born, and celebrate the man that he became who died on the cross for us. This man was God in the flesh. What's the best way to remind us of the reason for the season? It's not family or snowmen or turkey dinners. I think one way is to sing Christmas songs and to understand what they mean.
Let's look at the two we sang tonight.
Turn back to hymn 214, Angels We Have Heard on High.
Let's look through the lyrics together to see what they mean and some of the scriptures they come from.
Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o'er the plains.
Who heard the angels? The shepherds is the answer given to us in verse 2.
What were they singing? Gloria in excelsis deo. (Can angels speak Latin?) I wonder what that would sound like in Hebrew? Literally “glory to excellent God”
Were the mountains singing too? No, just echoing. Praise the Lord!
Shepherds why this jubilee? What's a jubilee? A celebration.
What are you shepherds talking about? Why are you so excited? Well that is verse 3, but it comes from Luke 2:8-15. Let's read that together.
Come to Bethlehem and see? Who's speaking now?
Whoever this is must be pretty important. I don't recall hearing any angels singing when Simon was born.
Why would shepherds bend their knee to a baby in a feeding trough?
What was harder to believe? The Messiah had finally come, or there's a baby wrapped in clothes lying in a manger?
Because the shepherds saw the one part they believed the other.
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
Jesus means savior.
How long has he been expected? The plan was in place since the foundation of the world, but more specifically Genesis 3:15 at the fall. Let's read that together.
Here's some other scriptures on the coming of Jesus.
Isaiah 7:14 – promised a birth of a son named Emmanuel to a virgin. That doesn't happen too often, only once in fact.
Isaiah 9:6-7 – who would you be expecting?
Micah 5:2 – O little town of bethlehem
Luke 2:25-35 – Simeon announces Jesus as Israel's consolation and for the rest of us too
What was the purpose of Christ's coming? To set his people free.
Free from what? Fears and sins.
What fears, what sins? When we are free we get rest. Aaah.
Jesus is the answer for the world today: Dear Desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart. Jesus is the joy and desire of our hearts.
Born to deliver...we talked about that.
Born a child, yet a king? People aren't born kings. They inherit the kindom of their father when he dies or is killed. This was a unique situation. Jesus was already king of the world when he was born.
Where is Jesus kingdom? Well the whole world, but for now it's in us. He should be reigning in us.
His own sufficient merit...We are not worthy to be in God's presence. Jesus puts his merit on our account so that we can be raised to his glorious throne, both now in Christ (see Ephesians) and later in the body.
So let's sing these songs again now that we know more about them.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Thursday Night Fellowship Lesson Notes December 1, 2005
Thursday Night Fellowship
December 1, 2005
Study of John
Week 2
Order:
Fellowship
Songs
Lesson
Game
Leave
Introductory Questions:
T or F – There is no record of Joseph speaking in the Christmas story. (T)
T or F – The wise men were three kings from the orient. (F)
T or F – The little drummer boy came to the manger after the shepherds left. (F)
T or F – The star did not appear above the manger. (T)
T or F – Jesus' ancestral line included a prostitute, an adulterer, a woman who committed incest, and a non-Israelite. (T)
T or F – The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary first and then to Joseph. (F)
T or F – There is no story of Jesus' birth in the gospel of John. (T)
Review:
Matthew – 16:16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,the Son of the living God."
Mark – 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Luke – 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.
John – 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
Let's read John 1:1-18 together.
Things I learned from Dr. Dan Wilson:
Do john 1:1-18! Most basic fundamental point in Christian theology, who Jesus was, who he is, and what he did, the prologue tells the whole story in a nutshell, very similar to the Septuagint version of genesis 1:1, God reveals himself through the Word, the man Christ Jesus, why he reveals, to adopt children, both Jew and Gentile did not know God.
Why is there no story of Jesus' birth in John?
King, Servant, Human, Deity – reviewed from last time. John was writing from a specific perspective, to a specific people, with a specific purpose. That purpose was to show the deity of Jesus, that is that Jesus is God. The “beginning” of Jesus is bigger than Mary and Joseph and a baby in a manger. In fact before the beginning, if you can grasp a thought like that, Jesus existed. Let's read John 8:58. Notice what Jesus said. He did not say, “Before Abraham was born, I was.” He said before Abraham was born, I AM. This should conjure up hazy thoughts of Moses at the burning bush. Who did God call himself? “I AM.”
The prologue of John is paramount to understanding who Jesus is, and if you don't grasp and believe chapter one, then the rest of the book is merely mythological. Who could turn water into wine and feed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish? Who could raise a man from the dead after he's been dead for four days? No one! No human being could do such a thing. How could Jesus claim over and over again that God is his Father and that He is equal with his Father. There is no way that a mere man could die on the cross, pay for the penalty of all mankind's sin, and then come back to life again unless he was not just a mere man. He has to be God. Only God has the power over life and death.
The main point:
The main point of John 1:1-18 is that the Jesus you heard about wasn't just a man, he is God.
Questions
Who is the Word? How do you know?
How do we know that Jesus is God from these verses?
He existed before the beginning
He was God
He created
Life is in him
He gives the right to become children of God
Glory of the Father
Verses 10-11 – the people didn't know who he was
Verse 15 – Did John the Baptizer know who he was?
John the Baptist was Jesus' cousin who was born six months earlier than Jesus. John here says that Jesus existed before He did. John understood that Jesus was more than just a man.
As we study John, try to read John as if you were reading it for the first time and you don't have the rest of the New Testament. All you know is what you heard people talking about Jesus, the stories you've heard. I have been reading John from a skeptic's point of view. I am trying to take it as face value and put myself in the shoes of the disciples, the pharisees, and the other people Jesus knew. What would I have thought of Jesus, of his miracles, of his claims, of his teachings? Would I have believed? I want us to see Jesus in a new way. I want us to come to admire the man Jesus Christ who is God himself. Pray for that as we study through this gospel.
Homework:
Read John chapter 1 three times before next Thursday.
Guys night Friday night!
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