James 1:22-25; 2:12-13; John 5:24, 37-40; Luke 24:25-27
February 23, 2020
preached by Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Take away the cross of Christ, and the Bible is a dark book.”

~ J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), English author, pastor and the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool.

“The deity of Christ is the key doctrine of the scriptures. Reject it, and the Bible becomes a jumble of words without any unifying theme. Accept it, and the Bible becomes an intelligible and ordered revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.”

~ J. Oswald Sanders (1902-1992), New Zealand author, speaker and missions director

“Once we truly grasp the message of the New Testament, it is impossible to read the Old Testament again without seeing Christ on every page, in every story, foreshadowed or anticipated in every event and narrative.”

~ Michael Horton (1964-present), American author, professor and theologian

“We find Christ in all the Scriptures. In the Old Testament He is predicted, in the Gospels He is revealed, in Acts He is preached, in the epistles He is explained, and in Revelation He is expected.”

~ Alistair Begg (1952-present), Scottish born American pastor, author and actor

“Christ is the center of the circle, and all stories in Holy Scripture, viewed aright, have to do with Christ.”

~ Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian, composer, author and seminal figure in the European Protestant Reformation.

“When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories, but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves. ”

~ Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), pastor, scholar and author

Sermon Passage

James 1:22-25; 2:12-13; John 5:24, 37-40; Luke 24:25-27 (NIV)

James 1

²² Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. ²³ Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror ²⁴ and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

James 2

¹² Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, ¹³ because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

John 5

²⁴ “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.