Living Water Community Church

We finished working our way through the longest sentence in the Bible. It runs from Ephesians 1:3-14. It centers on the magnificent power or God as it is displayed in the work of Jesus. It is a very heart stirring God exulting section. Paul was very familiar with the church in Ephesus and had been very involved there, not only for 3 years in establishing it, but in supporting them through Timothy...

We continued to explore the greatness of God’s work as Paul exults in it. We are in the middle of this massively long sentence which is lavishly filled with the vastness of the glory of God. The part we explored last time started with redemption and ended with how in the fullness of time all things will be united in Jesus. In the middle Paul talks about how God poured out his redemption on us and...

We began our verse by verse study of Ephesians. We began by looking at how the church in Ephesus is addressed by the Lord in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. What we see in Revelation gives us a little window into the church in Ephesus. Honestly, the church in Ephesus sounds like a pretty solid church theologically. As a matter of fact based solely on how the church here is describ...

We worked through an overview of the book of Ephesians. We laid out the people and context of the area it was written to. We explored the ideas of the book in a broad overview. And we looked at the unique aspects of the letter. How Paul wrote in a general sense and this makes the letter very relevant for Christians of all times and ages. It was probably written this way with the idea it would be c...

We are going to consider Mary and how her role as the one chosen to bear Jesus points us to His greatness. In the Biblical picture we are betrothed to Jesus. That means the commitment to marriage has been made and we are for all intents and purposes married but not yet united. This is part of the reason scripture speaks with anticipation of the great marriage supper of the Lamb. Jesus has committe...

In particular the highlighted person was Bathsheba. But in this instance she is not mentioned by name. She is referred to as the wife of Uriah. She is the mother of Solomon by David. What this does for us as readers is it highlights David as a sinful man. David is and was almost always thought of as the greatest king of Israel. As we looked at last time in Jeremiah 30 the people are prophesied to...

The story of Ruth continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Ruth was a Moabite woman who ends up coming to Israel because she had married an Israelite man. Boaz shows favor to Ruth because of what he's heard Ruth has done for her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth proposes that...

The story of Rahab continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were mainly pagans and gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Which is particularly striking since Matthew was written to Jews. This is very important because grace to gentiles is poured forth in even the line of Christ. Rahab was a prostitute who probably also had a hous...

The story of Tamar continues to show the idea that the women talked about in this passage were pagans and mainly gentiles. Yet God chooses these women to be the women in the line of Christ. Tamar loses her first two husbands because of their wickedness before the Lord. Tamar appears to be 'tainted goods' and Judah doesn't want to give his youngest son over to Tamar even though he's come of age. Th...

Today we looked at how Babylon came and conquered Jerusalem. How Zedekiah was made ruler and how he rebelled against the King of Babylon. Destruction followed this rebellion as Nebuchadnezzar came and destroyed Jerusalem and carried into exile a great many of the people. The remaining people left in Judah, flee to Egypt after Gedaliah the governor is murdered. The promises of God are seen to be fu...

We worked through the section of Kings which describes how Judah came to be under the authority and rulership of Pharaoh Neco the king of Egypt. The people of Judah had made Jehoahaz king when his father died even though he was not the oldest son of Josiah. We don’t know why this was and there is no good explanation given. He only reigned 3 months and the immediately returned to the evil which had...

We worked our way through the reforms brought about under the reign of Josiah. He was a righteous king which had been prophesied about at the beginning of the separation of the Judah and Israel. He brought reforms with real passion for turning the people back to God. No other king before him or after him had been as passionate for the exultation of God before the people. He sought to wipe out all...

We worked our way through the beginning of the story of Josiah. He is a remarkably good God honoring king over Judah from a very young age. He begins to reign at 8 years old. He fulfills a prophecy given to Jeroboam at the very beginning of his reign over the newly separated 10 tribes of Israel. A prophet told Jeroboam that a king named Josiah would cast down false places of worship and call peopl...

We worked our way through the story of Manasseh. In typical fashion the writer of Kings is most concerned with the broader brush strokes of the story. We don’t hear in Kings about Manasseh becoming repentant when he is taken captive or the fact of his attempt to make things right after his return from captivity. While these were important personally they didn’t make a huge difference for the peopl...

We walked through the near death of Hezekiah. It is a really serious illness and he is really incapacitated by it. Isaiah comes to him and tells him to prepare to die. Hezekiah believes him and it grieves him because he is very sick. Hezekiah cries out to God from his deathbed asking for healing and restoration. Isaiah soon returns with the message Hezekiah will recover and will go up to the templ...

We worked through the last part of Hezekiah’s conflict with the king of Assyria. In chapter 18 we ended with a very dark scene, Hezekiah and his leaders are in sackcloth before the Lord facing a grim and dismal threat from the king of Assyria. In chapter 19 we witnessed the Lord’s deliverance. It is a supernatural intervention as the Lord sends an angel who kills 185,000 men of the Assyrian army i...

We followed the opening story of Hezekiah and his reign as the king of Judah. He is one of the most God honoring kings of the kings of Judah. He is one of the only kings to remove the high places where people worshipped. He destroyed the idols people worshipped including the bronze serpent Moses had made, since people had come to worship it as well. The record of Hezekiah’s reign includes the stat...

Examples of times when peopled prayed to God. We look at the contexts of when peopled prayed and what they prayed about. Continuing this study of prayer is the focus of this Sunday. Ezra's confessionary prayer and Nehemiah's silent prayer of heart are two examples we looked at. Nehemiah also prays for protection and we see Job praying on behalf of other men. Daniel prays to God in the midst of dan...

We worked through the last half of chapter 17. We see the pagan people the Assyrians moved into the land of Israel dealing with attacks by lions. The response is, “We don’t know how to appease the God of this land!” and so they send word to the king of Assyria for help. He orders a priest to be sent back to the land to teach the people about God. The amazing thing about this is how God is using th...

We worked through the first half of 2 Kings 17. Here we see the judgement of God being poured out on the 10 northern tribes for their unfaithfulness. Again and again the point is made how this is happening because of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. They had adopted the customs of the people who were driven out before them. They rejected the one true God who had delivered them from Egypt and sl...

We worked our way through chapter 16 dealing with the rulership of king Ahaz of Judah. There is a lot of detail about his life especially when we consider how he is described as a king who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. This is the first time this kind of description is applied to a king of Judah. It is a sad commentary an a life spent turning away from God at every point. He w...

We are looking at many different ways in which people in the Bible prayed. The examples of prayer are very rich and it will take a few weeks to go through these examples of prayer we find in the Bible. Different words are used for "prayer" depending on the way the person was seeking to approach God. Join us as we look through the ways we see prayer done in the Bible.

We worked through a section which showed us one of the longest reigns of any king in Judah. King Uzziah also known as Ahaziah reigned 52 years. Here was a king which in many ways honored God and yet as he entered the end of his reign he became proud and entered the temple to offer incense to God. This angered God and he struck Uzziah with leprosy in front of the 80 priest which assembled to stand...

We explored the time when the kings of both Israel and Judah demonstrated halfway commitments to God. They either started out strong for the Lord and ended worshipping idols or they simply seemed to want God and idols too. It is a sad time in Israel of halfway commitments. People seem to be seeking for the Lord because of their oppression and God hears them and gives them relief but they continue...

We worked our way through the lives of some of Jehu’s descendants as they ruled over Israel. We also witnessed the last acts of Elisha as he wrapped up his ministry and died. The descendants of Jehu were very much like their father. They seemed to have a certain type of zeal and regard for Yahweh but they continued to worship the golden calves and other false gods. It is a tragic act of disobedien...