When Mark introduced this book, he said simply in vs1, that it was the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Gospel means good news, and was from the Greek word euangellion which was in use throughout the Roman Empire to announce festivals associated with emperor worship. When a new ruler took power, there was a herald that went through the kingdom announcing his coming, proclaiming the good news and calling the people to get ready for his appearing. So in like manner, Mark uses this word to describe the coming of the Kingdom of God.

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Today we begin our study in the gospel of Mark. Mark is the shortest of all the gospels. It is thought by some to be the first of the four gospels written. And yet, I have saved it for last. We have finished Matthew, Luke and John and now it behooves us to look at this book. And following Mark’s example at directness and terseness, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on an introduction and filling in all sorts of biographical details. I want to get right to the message, just as Mark did. I will only

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I thought I was going to be through with John last week. We finished up 1 John last Sunday, and I had planned on beginning the book of Mark, which is something I wanted to do months ago actually. But when I began to study Mark in preparation for this week, I did not feel that God was leading me to do so at this time. I think that there is still some more that He wants to teach us from John’s letters. And so this Sunday we are going to look at this very small book of 2 John

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We are coming to the end of our study in 1 John. This is the last message in this epistle, and I trust it has been as beneficial to you as it has to me. As I have said from the beginning, the theme of 1John is that of fellowship. Fellowship with God and with His body, the church. Last week, if you were here, we looked at the confidence of fellowship. That message is available online for those of you that are interested. This week we look more completely at the idea of assurance of fellowship, looking specifically at

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We are coming to the close of the epistle of 1 John. We will more than likely finish it next Sunday, Lord willing. I came into this epistle with naive expectations that we would spend a short study in it, and then we would begin the gospel of Mark as we started out the summer season. Turns out God had other plans. This is the seventeenth message in 1 John, with one more to go. This little epistle has taught me much concerning the life of a Christian, particularly in regards to what is Christian fellowship. There have been a

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If you have been following along with us in our study of 1 John, then you know that the theme of John’s epistle is that of fellowship. Fellowship means communion and union with God and with His people. John uses a number of different words or phrases which all speak of fellowship. For instance, he talks about abiding. That is fellowship. He talks about walking with God. That is fellowship. He talks about loving God. Love is the epitome of fellowship. So as I have said repeatedly, John is teaching that fellowship is the goal of our salvation. It is

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My kids are some of my greatest critics. If you have kids, then you know what I mean. Especially now that they are older, they have heard all my old stories again and again. And so now days, they never fail to let me know when I am repeating myself. We are usually driving in the car or something like that, having some sort of a discussion, and I start to launch into this story which I think illustrates the point, and they say something like, “Dad, you’ve told us this story before.” And I say, “I have?” with this

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Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” And essentially what that means is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth of life. It is the source of life, and it’s the way of life. Belief in Christ’s gospel gives us life, and it teaches us how to live. You cannot truly live unless you have accepted this gospel as truth, and trusted in Christ as your Savior. Without that new life, the gospel teaches us that you are essentially dead in

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If you have been studying with us for the last few months as we have been going through the epistle of 1 John, you will know that the theme of this book is fellowship. We were created for fellowship with God. Another way of saying that is we were made to be in union with God, to have communion with God. We were created in God’s image, according to His likeness, that we might be, as it were, the bride of God. That He would abide with us, and we would abide with Him. But sin broke that bond of

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