Coastal Church Podcast

<p>The only invitation from God to anyone to come and visit Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus is to a group of shepherds. They were common people on the bottom of the social ladder of the day, perhaps the last people that you’d expect God to send as the first VIP guests to see His Son.</p><p>The shepherds represented Jesus’ identity as a descendent of King David, who was also a shepherd. They also remind us that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb. Because of the Messiah’s perfect life and death, we have a restored relationship with God.</p>

<p>The genealogy of Jesus, in the opening verses of the New Testament, is often overlooked. Found in this genealogy are four women, all of them foreigners and each one of them had a season in their life that was R rated. They had to overcome shame, dead babies, dead husbands, lying men, being foreigners, being broke and insecurity. From these grandmothers of Christmas, we can learn some rich lessons in faith and divine grace.</p>

<p>A child was born for us. Perhaps we have heard this so often it no longer strikes us as unusual or perhaps we are hearing it for the first time and it strikes as absurd. The question that begs to be asked is: “Why would an all-powerful God give us His son?”</p>

<p>A special Christmas message from Pastor Dave Koop, spoken at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver.</p>

<p>This is the eighth and last Beatitude in our message series that touches on persecution and opposition to our faith.</p>

<p>Jesus was sitting with his followers and the crowd of people who came to hear from him, teaching them about the Kingdom Realm, what it is to live in the Kingdom Realm, how we activate the Kingdom Realm in our life to live heaven on earth and why we are blessed when we live in His Kingdom Realm.</p><p><br></p>

<p>In the beatitudes Jesus gives the assurance that the pure in heart shall see God. True Christianity lies in the purity of heart.</p>

<p>“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” Matt 5:7<br><br>To be merciful is revealed in action. It is actively compassionate. Treating people better than they deserve. God showed mercy in sparing us from the judgment we deserve for our sins through the saving work of Jesus Christ. We imitate God when we show mercy.</p>

<p>Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. – Matthew 5:6 NKJV</p>

<p>In the midst of setbacks in life, we know that God has a plan! Rather than shrink back, we press ahead and sense God has great things in store for those who put their trust in Him.<br> <br>And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. – Romans 8:28</p>

<p>Thankfulness is more powerful than we might think. It is the key to wholeness in our relationships and contentment in life. More importantly, it is the key to receiving the wholeness God has promised for every area of our lives.</p>

<p>In our culture today meekness may be perceived as weakness. However, meekness is not weakness, but supreme self-control empowered by the Spirit to live an overcoming life on earth.</p>

<p>God has designed tears and mourning to release that pain we experience and to be part of a healing process. When pain is bottled up and kept inside, it can poison our spirits. For those in the kingdom God has promised that those who mourn will enjoy His comfort.</p>

<p>Everyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ is a citizen of God’s kingdom. And in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gives us the beatitudes, the characteristics He expects every Christian to manifest. The beatitudes are more than pithy sayings, they are radical truths that are as relevant today as they were two thousand years ago.</p>

<p>The end of time is revealed in the book of The Revelation Of Jesus Christ. The whole Bible story leads up to a climax in this book. Here the author, the apostle John, gives us a glimpse into what heaven will be like. What began in the first pages of the Bible is accomplished in the last pages of the Bible.</p>

<p>As we approach the end of the book of Acts, we find Paul on his final missionary journey, spreading the Gospel of Jesus to the known world. He is a prisoner on a boat headed to Rome. He’d been arrested in Jerusalem for causing a disturbance and, while under arrest had shared the Gospel with King Agrippa, almost compelling him to become a Christ follower. Now he was on his way to stand before Caesar and accomplish his mission of bringing the Gospel to gentiles and rulers (Acts 9:15).</p>

<p>This week we will continue in the book of Acts. As the church begins to reach beyond the Jewish world, the question is, who is going to take the message of Jesus and what He has done to the world? Peter is featured in the first 12 chapters of Acts and then Paul takes the spotlight in his mission to take the message to primarily the people outside the Jewish community. His life is a thrilling adventure of someone fully devoted to preaching the Gospel to a culture much like ours today.</p>

<p>The book The Acts Of The Apostles reveals the new beginnings of the church. The early church believed and preached the resurrection of Jesus and the power of His name. The prophet Isaiah had spoken of a Child to be born whose name would be called “Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” and now the church would live and die for that name.</p>

<p>In the upper story God is watching over the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of mankind. From the book of Genesis onwards the scarlet thread of redemption was woven into the bible. It may be obvious for us to look back and see the plan, but for people living at the time, despair was all they experienced until they saw the resurrected Lord Jesus.</p>

<p>In the upper story we see God’s plan of redemption through the death of Jesus on the cross. As Jesus is about to die, He utters these words, “It is finished.” At that very moment, the temple curtain was torn, an earthquake split rocks and tombs were opened. It was finished. What could compel the Son of God to endure such torture? Finishing. Finishing the work that the Father sent Him to do.</p>

<p>Jesus knew that His trial and death was quickly approaching. He now for the first time introduces the term “church” and purposes to prepare His followers for the next dispensation. This is the first use of the word church in the New Testament (or the Bible for that matter), using the ancient Greek word ekklesia. Significantly, this was well before the beginnings of what we normally think of as the church on the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.</p>

<p>Kingdom of God appears 70 times in the New Testament<br><br>“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” - Romans 14:17</p>

<p>John the Apostle used two characters in this week’s chapter of The Story to “sandwich” the best-known verse in the whole Bible - John 3:16.</p>

<p>Heaven had been very quiet for 400 years. Now, after hundreds of years and many glimpses of the Messiah, we finally arrive at the birth of Jesus.<br>Even as God has existed for eternity past so has Jesus. In fact, Jesus was the Genesis Word. How did God create the universe? With words. “Let there be.” And there was. In John’s account of the Gospel, he tells us that the voice saying “Let there be” was the voice of Jesus speaking.</p>