James Reed's FORGE

Luke 24:13-34- "We Were Hoping"- I had the honor of being with the good folks at Community Presbyterian Church, Live Oak, FL for Easter Sunday. It was a great time. May this sermon be a blessing to all those who hear it. I have been gone for a while. For anyone who still gets my episode updates, please keep me in prayer as I continue on with my Clinical Pastoral Education on my way to be...

Keywords Ephesians, Paul, Gentiles, unsearchable riches, church, grace, gospel, diversity, wisdom, faith. Summary: In this sermon, Pastor James explores Ephesians 3:7-13, focusing on the Apostle Paul's ministry to the Gentiles and the unsearchable riches of Christ. He emphasizes the importance of grace, the diversity of God's creation, and the role of the church in revealing God's wisdom. The mess...

Summary: In this sermon, Pastor James explores Ephesians 3:1-13, focusing on Paul's ministry to the Gentiles and the unsearchable riches of Christ. He emphasizes the importance of grace, the role of the Church in displaying God's wisdom, and the eternal purpose behind God's plan for salvation. The sermon encourages us to study the Word of God and recognize our identity as part of God's covenant fa...

Summary: In this sermon, Pastor James explores the themes of God's calling, the transformation of Paul, and the Christian life characterized by self-denial and service to others. He emphasizes the importance of understanding one's calling, the mystery of inclusion of Gentiles in the gospel, and the necessity of living for others while maintaining openness without compromising the truth. Th...

In this sermon, Pastor James explores Ephesians 2, emphasizing the transition from being outsiders to becoming citizens of God's kingdom through Christ. He discusses the nature of the Church, the significance of the covenants, and the reconciliation achieved through Jesus' sacrifice. The message highlights the importance of understanding our identity as members of God's family and the...

In this sermon, Pastor James explores the theological concepts of new birth and regeneration as presented in Ephesians. Salvation is a gift from God, not a result of human effort. This sermon discusses the importance of understanding God's grace.

Last week, we learned from Paul the nature of the blessings which are ours in Christ. Paul the Apostle now gives thanks to God for Gentile conversion and assures them of his prayers inverses 15–16. Paul goes on to pray that God will give the Ephesians that wisdom and knowledge of Himself. Paul reminds them and us that it is the Spirit who is the author of this wisdom and knowledge in verse 17. In...

Paul wrote letters to the churches which he planted in the ancient world. So much of Christian theology comes from these letters. He wrote letters as a pastor charged with the watch-care of the flock of God. The Book of Ephesians is one of thoseletters.

Abram and Lot are opposite in many ways. Abram walked by faith; Lot walked by sight. Abram was magnanimous; Lot was greedy. Abram looked for city whose builder and maker wasGod; Lot made his home in cities built by wicked men which were later destroyed by God. Abram becomes the father of all them that believe; Lot becomes the father (through incest) of 2 different pagan nations—the Moabites and Am...

Faith is always tested, and now we learn that there was a famine in the land. Abram steps out in faith, and now comes face to face with famine. In fact, Abram now heads downto Egypt as if to be driven into a famine enforced exile from the very land God promised. I’m glad that God’s Word not only records the great victories of our great God, but it also records the humanity—the shortcomings and sin...

There is a lot to study in chapter 11, and I encourage you to read it on your own time. It will lead us to the text for today. As a summary of the things you will find there, there is a genealogy that takes us from Shem, the son of Noah to Abram who will soon experience a name change to Abraham. The setting is a time of warriors, shepherds, and builders all leaving the tower of Babel and the plain...

I’m going to suggest to you today that the human heart is a Babylonian heart. God scattering the people at the Tower of Babel, but don’t forget that centuries later, Nebuchadnezzar took a look around and said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?” ( Daniel 4:30 ). Then there was King Herod who addressed his people an...

I would like you to think about forgiveness. It can be difficult. In fact, I’d be willing to say, we have a difficult text . It’s notdifficult because we cannot possibly understand it; it’s difficult because we have to live it. I’m sure that each of us have experienced situations which have required us to forgive someone. Perhaps you have found it very difficultto do. Have you ever thought, “Why s...

HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!

To understand what happened on what we call "Palm Sunday", we must understand history, prophecy, and context.

Picking it up from last week, let’s imagine what it must have been like. The Bible gives us a picture of Noah and his family standing there in this new, and I believe replenished world inthe sunlight. Take the time to think about what it must have been like, and allow the Word of God to impress your imagination. It represented a new beginning, with Noah as the human centerpiece. Last week we notic...

This one arrives late, but I had a lot going on over the last 2 weeks. How do you view covenant, blessing, and grace? What does propitiation mean? Why did Noah make a sacrifice when he got off the ark? How did Noah know what a clean or an unclean animal was? Answers to these questions and more await...

We continue to explore the life and times of Noah. During this study, we will see incredible judgment, but we will also see incredible grace. Remember Christ is our only perfect Savior!

We come now to a part of Genesis which is the most debated subject in the entire Book of Genesis. It is more debated that the creation story itself. I honestly did not want to cover this, and in the interest of keeping us moving at a good pace through Genesis, I thought I would have a good excuse to either pick another subject entirely or just skip it and move on. However, one of the things which...

Did people really live over 800 years? Where did Cain get his wife? What's in a name? Can we really trust Genesis? Hasn't science already shown us that there's no possible way Genesis can be true? What's any of this got to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

RC states of our text for today, “The prophesied hostility between the offspring of the serpent and the offspring of the woman (cf. 3:15) takes shape immediately in the hostility of ungodly Cain against godly Abel (vv. 1–16), and in the contrast of Cain’sungodly offspring (which we will see later) versus the godly line of Seth (4:17–5:32). There is a horrendous escalation of sin from Cain to Lamec...

We continue on from where we left Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I did not bring this out last week, but in 2:15 Adam was given a job to do. He was not to be idle doingnothing. His was a labor of keeping and tending the garden. Now, exactly what that looked like we are not told, but whatever it was- it was rewarding. It did not entail hard labor, the sweat of Adam’s brow, and the production o...

Today, we will begin our study through the Book of Genesis. I love the Book of Genesis for a number of reasons which I’m sure will come out as we move through it. For the longest time, my approach to the Book of Genesis was defensive. I felt as though I had to be ready to give an explanation for everything Darwinian evolutionary and atheistic thought could throw at me. I have talked with many skep...

In Chapter 4 we have the wedding of Boaz and Ruth. If we were looking for a case illustrating the law of God as given in Dt. 25:5, there is no better example. But there’s a lot more going on here than a study in case law. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is here in pictures, shadows, and symbols. And, as I’ve brought out since the first chapter, a descendant of this marriage will be David the King, and...

At this point in our narrative, we are moving toward a major resolution for Ruth and Naomi. We are moving from despair to hope. We are going to see the power of faithfulness, courage, and hope. We’re going to see that even in the face of uncertainty, God’s loving-kindness, His steadfast love—what is called “hesed” in Hebrew will conquer all the things these ladies are facing and Ruth’s needs will...