1/12/25 Worship Service & Sermon: Human Suffering & The Sovereignty of God - Various Scripture

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1/12/25 Worship Service & Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA.

Scripture: Various
Title: Human Suffering & The Sovereignty of God
Speaker: Steve Estes
Worship Leader: Steve Boyer

Notes:

1. Introduction
A. Where is God when we suffer?
B. The story of Rabbi Harold Kushner
C. Many evangelicals are like Rabbi Kushner
D. Some people take the opposite view

2. The causes behind suffering in the Book of Job
A. What caused Job's troubles?
B. God governs nature and its laws
C. God governs both intentional and unintentional actions of people
D. God governs Satan and demons

3. An objection...and two answers
A. The objection
B. God is drawn to suffering people
C. God's motives for decreeing evil are good

4. Summary
A. What about suffering is God sovereign over?
B. For what purpose?

#suffering #sovereignty #God

1/5/25 Worship Service & Sermon: The Christians Eternal Rest - Hebrews 4:9-10

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1/5/25 Worship Service & Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA.

Scripture: Hebrews 4:9-10
Title: The Christians Eternal Rest
Speaker: Steve Estes
Worship Leader: John Sletta

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.

Notes:

1. Introduction
A. Baxter's life/illnesses
B. Old Testament saints in the desert were promised rest
C. Christians have hard lives, but God has promised eternal rest

2. Our eternal rest
A. Our eternal rest means the end of tiring effort
B. Our eternal rest means we will experience perfect love
C. Our eternal rest means we'll have the capacity for all heaven's delights

3. How our souls will respond to all this in heaven

#eternalrest #richardbaxter

12/22/24 Worship Service & Sermon: An Angel, A Virgin - Luke 1:26-38

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12/22/24 Worship Service & Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA.

Scripture: Luke 1:26-38
Title: An Angel, A Virgin
Speaker: Steve Estes
Worship Leader: TJ Waldy

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,

27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.

31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.

32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,

33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God.

36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.

37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Notes:

1. The angel

2. The place
A. Far from Jerusalem
B. Of "inferior Jewishness"
C. The town of Nazareth

3. The time

4. The virgin
A. Her need for a Savior
B. Her modest role
C. Her godliness

5. The conversation
A. Gabriel's graciousness and Mary's fear
B. Gabriel's reassuring message
C. Mary requests an explanation
D. Gabriel's astounding, mysterious answer
E. Gabriel's help to Mary's faith
F. Mary's courageous, submissive reply

6. The applications

#God #Jesus #time #gabriel #mary

12/15/24 Worship Service & Sermon: When the Time Has Fully Come - Galatians 4:4-5

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12/15/24 Worship Service & Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA.

Scripture: Galatians 4:4-5
Title: When the Time Has Fully Come
Worship Leader: Luke Stoltzfus
Speaker: Steve Estes

NIV: But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.

ESV: But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Notes:

1. "When the time had fully come, GOD sent his Son"
A. The Father behind the Christmas story
B. God moved toward us

2. "When the time had fully come, God sent his SON"
A. Doctrine of the Holy Trinity
B. Relationship of love
C. Relationship of likeness
D. The self-existent Son

3. "When the time had fully come, God SENT his Son"

4. "When the TIME HAD FULLY COME, God sent his Son"
A. God sent His Son when He alone knew the time was perfect
B. God sent His Son when the means were in place to spread the good news
C. God sent His Son when the felt need for Him had ripened
D. God sent His Son when the time had fully come

#God #Jesus #time

12/8/24 Worship Service & Sermon: Weary of Waiting for Messiah - Malachi 3:13-4:6

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12/8/24 Worship Service & Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA.

Speaker: Steve Estes
Worship Leader: Tyler Estes
Scripture: Malachi 3:13-4:6
Title: Weary of Waiting for Messiah

"You have said harsh things against me," says the LORD. "Yet you ask, 'What have we said against you?' You have said, 'It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.'"

Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name. "They will be mine," says the LORD Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not."

"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty. "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."

Notes:

1. Background
A. Return from exile
B. Weary of waiting
C. God's list of grievances

2. The general problem: Religion wasn't paying off
A. They had religion
B. But their hearts weren't in it
C. From a resentful heart come resentful words

3. How true believers responded to Malachi's preaching

4. God's reaction to the conversations of believers
A. God paid attention
B. What God did for these believers

5. The future Day of the Lord
A. What unbelievers experience
B. What believers experience

6. God's closing words
A. "Remember the law of my servant Moses"
B. "I will send Elijah"

12/1/24 Worship Service & Sermon: A Covenant Keeping Advent - Matthew 1:1-18

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12/1/24 Worship Service & Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA.

Scripture: Matthew 1:1-18
Title: A Covenant-keeping Advent
Speaker: Matt Carter
Worship Leader: Randy Hepler

Notes:

1. A Gospel built on two covenants
A. Davidic covenant
B. Abrahamic covenant

2. Grafted to Jesus' Family tree

3. God's faithfulness through generations
A. Famous and kingdom-advancing generations
B. Invisible generations
C. Foreign generations
D. Scandalous generations
E. Generations of division and exile
F. Generations in which kingship has vanished
G. The final generation

4. Two takeaways from our time in Matthew 1

#Jesus #david #abraham #covenant #generations

11/24/24 Worship Service & Sermon: Israel’s December: Hoshea, Exile, Samaria Resettled - 2 Kings 17

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11/24/24 Worship Service and Sermon from Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, PA

Sermon: Steve Estes
Worship Leader: Matt Carter
Scripture: 2 Kings 17
Title: Israel's December: Hoshea, Exile, Samaria Resettled

Notes:

1. The beginning of the end
A. Picture an imaginary future for the United States
B. Israel's situation in today's text

2. Israel's final days and ultimate collapse
A. Too little, too late
B. Hoshea's folly
C. Assyria's vengeance

3. Why God let this happen

4. What counterfeit religion looks like
A. Counterfeit religion often begins with ingratitude toward the one true God
B. Counterfeit religion focuses on what is aesthetically pleasing
C. Counterfeit religion invents itself; biblical faith receives what is revealed
D. Counterfeit religion is after results; biblical worship is after God
E. Counterfeit religion rots a person's soul
F. Counterfeit religion ruins not just ourselves, but also our descendants
G. Counterfeit religion leads to judgment

5. How counterfeit religion is guarded against

6. The weeping Judge

#hoshea #israel #samaria #assyria