No.21 - A new heart

Understanding wisdom and rejoicing in God's word being taught.

Verse of the Week

'I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.'

Ezekiel 36:26-27

I was so moved by these verses. What incredible grace, that God would take his sinful rebellious people and enable them to follow him. As we start to dwell on the evil nature of our sin, the destruction we deserve, and how, on our own, we are helpless to change, these verses become so sweet. By God's power we can please him. By his grace we no longer have hearts of stone but hearts that by his spirit can obey him. And one day will will be able to fully obey and glorify him forever!

Encouragements

I had the joy of looking at the theme of 'Wisdom' in the bible at my bible training course in Cambridge. It was really wonderful to see how God has given us so much help to gain wisdom. I particularly enjoyed thinking about how proverbs helps us develop practical skills to live well in God’s world.

Over the weekend I got to help out behind the scenes at a Women's Conference. Praise the Lord there were almost 200 women there! It was such an encouragement to see so many women praise God and seeking to learn more from his word.

On Sunday morning I gave a bible talk on Mark's gospel to the children at our church. It was really helpful to think more about how it really is worth it to live for Jesus now, even if it means sacrificing everything. Though we may suffer now, we will gain far more in the new creation

A Little Update

Here are a few of the things we've been up to and some of what we've got coming up.

The Past Week

• Prepared for - Kids Talk, TEAM Bible talk, Bible Study

• Wednesday - TEAM bible course in Cambridge

• Thursday - Life group

• Friday - Led mid-day bible study group

• Friday / Saturday - Helping with a local Women's Conference

• Sunday - Gave a talk on Mark at our Sunday kids bible group

  
  

The Next Few Weeks

• Life group, Mid day bible study, TEAM bible course

• 3rd-7th March - Media Fast Bible Feast

• 6th March - St Helen's Associate Scheme Interview

• 7th March - Helping with the music and giving a bible thought at an evangelistic event

• 9th March - Doing a slot in church on Media Fast Bible Feast

• 16th March - Giving a talk on Mark at our Sunday kids bible group

• 19th March - TEAM open teaching day on - 'Things God can't do'

• 21st March - Meet to study the Westminster Confession of Faith with a group from Church

• 21st March - Church music band leaders meeting

• 4th-6th April - Attending a Bible study Training Conference

  
  
  
  

Prayer Requests

We would love prayer that:

God would strengthen us to be able to love our church family well as we seek to encourage them with God's word.

This week we will be trying to meet up with people from church pretty much every morning and evening to pray and read the bible together. We are really looking forward to it, however we would love prayer for energy as it will probably be quite tiring and we really want to be loving our church family well.

We really are so grateful for you love and prayers. You are such an encouragement! God bless :)

Joshua & Luci.

P.S. - Here's another video I've made where I share some of the ways I have been delighted by Christ over the last week or two. I found it really encouraging thinking back over the week and delighting in all the different things I've learned about God. So I thought I'd share my reflections here with you :)

TEAM Bible Course Notes

Bible Overview

Exile Timeline

605 BC - Judah defeated, people taken as tribute (Daniel?)

597 BC - Jerusalem besieged and defeated, more in exile (Ezekiel?)

587/6 BC - Jerusalem destroyed, more taken into exile

539 BC - Persians (Cyrus?) take over Babylon

537/6 BC - Return of exile and start of rebuilding the temple

Exile Prophets

• Daniel

• Ezekiel

• Lamentations

• Obadiah

The exile was awful

• Horrific experiences

• Lives changed forever

• Seemingly out of God’s presence

The faithfulness of God in exile

• God kept his promise to judge

• God promises restoration after 70 years

• God shows he is in control even in exile

• Very rare for a people group to survive exile

• God shows he is with those who are faithful to him

• Promise of a greater rescue

• Promise of a greater king

The faithfulness of God’s people in exile

• They pray to God

• They set themselves apart form others

Does Judah ever really return from exile?

• God doesn’t seem to return to the temple

• There is no Davidic king on the throne

• The people in Jesus’ day are still waiting

Wisdom and the bible

Wisdom is mentioned most in

• Proverbs

• Ecclesiastes

• Job

At the fall humans searched for wisdom separate from God

The law gives you principles to be wise

But you need to wisdom to apply the law well

Helpful definitions of wisdom

• Understanding how humans and the world words

• Understanding the nature and purpose of the world

• Understanding how to live well in God’s world + doing it

The opposite to wisdom is

• Naivety - doesn’t know any better - needs teaching

• Folly - refusing to be wise - needs rebuking

The bible says

• Wisdom is really important

• Only God is fully wise

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

• Recognising God is God and we are not

• Looking to him for wisdom not inside yourself

Jesus was the most wise human

His life was characterised by

submission, sacrifice and forgiveness

Proverbs

The aim of proverbs

• Develop practical skills to live well in God’s world

• Be wise

There is a rough structure

• Intro - Ch1-9

• Basic wisdom - Ch10-15

• Intermediate wisdom - Ch16-22

• Advanced wisdom - Ch23-29

• Conclusion - Ch30-31