The Trinity Baptist Church Podcast

March 12, 2017 What Is Your A.S.K. In Life? | Matthew 7:7-11

Let’s turn to Jesus to see how His famous saying, “Ask, Seek, Knock” (A.S.K.), relates to your life. Jesus promised us, “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.” This is Jesus’ 7:7 PROMISE. So it is important that what you A.S.K. is connected to God’s best desires for your life and our world.

 

Ask - What are you asking? What are you curious to know? Are your questions connecting to what God wants to show you? What does God want you to ask that you are not asking? Ask God directly. Ask wise people. Ask and you will receive God’s direction. The asking humbly positions us before God.

 

Seek - What are you seeking? What do you need to find to move your life forward? What seems to be missing in your life? Have you lost something, someone, some feeling that needs to be rediscovered? Following are some of God’s promises about seeking:

 

Deuteronomy 4:24 - “Seek the Lord with all your heart and you will find Him.”

Jeremiah 29:13 - “You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.”

Luke 19:10 - “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” 

Luke 15 - Here are 3 famous parables of asking, seeking, and knocking. 

 

More than anything God wants you to seek His presence so you can find what He is ready to show you. 

 

Knock - What doors of opportunity are you knocking upon? What doors have been closed to you? How are you knocking? More than anything God wants you to knock with a loving heart’s desire so He can open the treasures of His Kingdom to you. Jesus said, “But seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all that is important to your life will be opened to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

So A.S.K.

 

Textual note: Jesus spoke The 7:7 Promise in the present tense and as an imperative, which turns His word into a continuous promise. (Called iterative in the Greek.)  Therefore, The 7:7 Promise never ends. The 3 verbs of A.S.K., stress intensity and progression. Continually asking.

 

Continually receiving. Continually seeking. Continually finding. Continually knocking. Continually living in the abundant life.

March 5, 2017 Making Gold With the Golden Rule | Matthew 7:1-6, 12

By how we live, we help people to get a feel for the Golden Rule as we work together - day after day, week after week, year after year. At school events, HEB check-outs, business deals, political elections, community gatherings, ball games, and scouting responsibilities - the words of Jesus need to be lived out. 

 

By how we live & share we show that life includes us but is not just about us. 

We need each other. We are in this together. God loves everyone, and we can treat each person with love and respect - just like we want to be treated.

 

We do this through working as dedicated - school officials, business owners, professionals, ranchers & farmers, organizational volunteers, elected officials and ... We “pay it forward” by contributing to others. 

 

By how we live - “Doing unto others as we would have them do to us” - we fulfill God’s call for mercy & justice. By this we feel the touch of God’s nobility upon our soul. By this we build gold into our people, our city, our state, our nation, and our world. 

February 26, 2017 Living A Worry-Free Life | Matthew 6:24-3

Freedom from being worried about things is Christ’s prescribed cure for
materialism. The how is described in Matthew 6:24-34. In these 10 verses Jesus asks 8 questions. Through each question He guides us into seeing His meaning. And through our trust in God’s character we can relax in His care. 

 

Note that the word worry, used by Jesus, implies strangling.  Worry chokes off the oxygen flow we need for trusting in God. And what we seek sets our direction, “By seeking God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, then all the things we need will be shown to us.” Matthew 6:33

February 19, 2017 FASTING TO FACE GOD: Purifying Our Heart To See God Matthew 6:16-24

 

Fasting is the spiritual practice of intentionally doing without something that is normal for us to have in order to purify our connections from body, mind, and spirit with God. Through fasting we learn to be more simply in God’s presence. While feeling the ache of absence from what is normal and using that absence to prompt us in thinking about God, we can then better allow the insights and messages of God to penetrate us.

 

Fasting from food is the most common application mentioned in the Bible. Though, at times, Jesus chose to fast from being with the crowds (Mark 1:35-37)... In the 21st century we can find it occasionally helpful to fast from our regular activities: shopping, non-work related online activity, and television.

 

The following Five Be’s are practical how-to’s:

1) Be clear that you are not fasting to lose weight (though you will) and that you are not fasting to impress God or people, but that you are fasting to regain or maintain the balance of leadership your spirit is to have over your body and mind.

 

2) Begin simply and progress—begin preparing for a 7 day fast with a preceding 3-day fast that is to be preceded by a 36-hour fast that is to be preceded by a 24-hour fast which is to be preceded by a 12-hour fast, and preceding each of these with several days of eating smaller than usual meals–  especially eating fruits and vegetables.

 

3) Be prepared for the side effects of fasting by knowing that hunger pains are not starvation pains, and that headaches are temporary nuisances necessary in the withdrawal process.

 

4) Be set by knowing your spiritual focus so that you can know more clearly how to use the extra time and energy, and so that you can receive maximum results. God will be faithful to bless your preparations, and you will be surprised with insights that you’ve never known before.

 

5) Be ready to stop the fast with the new empowerment given you to apply that which you’ve learned from the fast.

 

Fasts are meaningful and life-shaping when we pursue them from our dsire to know God more clearly. Try the fast and see what God will do. 

February 12, 2017 Reconciliation: Speak Healing Words to Heal a Hurting World Matthew 6:14-15; 18:21-35

February 5, 2017 Living the Lord’s Prayer | Matthew 6:1-13

How on earth can we meet the demands of our daily life? Everyday faith heroes answer that question by trusting God in everything they do, during each and every day. Which is why Christ gave us the Lord’s Prayer. By learning how this prayer was lived out by Christ we can know how to live by this prayer in our daily lives.

 

To get started, I encourage you to 3M the prayer:

MEMORIZE the prayer. Learn the 68 words from the King James Version, since this is the translation known by most Americans and is the version used for public occasions.

MEDITATE through the prayer. Feel the words as you think the words. See the prayer’s big picture, trusting God to empower you to live a heavenly life on earth. See each phrase in the prayer as a building block.

MOBILIZE the prayer by enacting it in your life. Put the prayer into play. Learn by experiencing the prayer. See how God will answer other prayers you pray by how He answers this prayer in your life.

 

“Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  God, who created all of us,  works for all of us to be winners in life. To make this clear, Jesus used “Abba” when calling out God’s name - which can be translated “daddy”. God is our tender & tough Heavenly Father.

 

“Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread?”    Bread, as food, is essential to living. Bread for Communion is the sign of Christ’s presence.

 

“Forgive Us Our Trespasses As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us?”.       Forgiveness is the biggest “game changer” we can make. When and why  we choose to forgive or not forgive reveals our strength to build a future better than the past or to doom ourselves to waddle in a failed past. The choice is ours to make.

 

“And Lead Us Not Into  Temptation But Deliver Us From Evil?”  We benefit from God trumping evil if we trust God during life’s dark days...Temptations are lures used by evil’s fishing attempts to hook us into thinking that bad is good, and good is boring. God exposes evil for what it is - boring, bad, and deadly.

 

“For Thine Is The Kingdom And  The Power And The Glory Forever. Amen.”              Happy endings are God’s specialty. Write a happy ending for your life by daily living this Prayer of prayers. Live with the King in His Kingdom. Be empowered by His power. Know the glory that never fades. Amen. So be it!

 

January 29, 2017 LOVING DIFFICULT PEOPLE: Strengthening Your Kingdom Capacity To Impact People | Matthew 5:43-48

January 22, 2017 OBEDIENCE: Shaping Your Habits To Win | Matthew 5:17-26, 48; 7:2

Every second Google is asked 40,000 questions.  Which means each day Google processes 1.2 billion questions and 1.2 trillion queries per year. If this is true for the Google search engine, imagine how many questions God is asked a day. 

 

But here is what I find most interesting about Q&A conversation. In the Bible, roughly 3,300 questions are asked. And most of those questions are asked by God to people. Not because God didn’t already know the answer but because He wanted to know if those queried knew the answer. And if they didn’t, did they know they didn’t know. Questions like: “Adam, where are you?”; “Who do you say that I am?”; “What is most important?”;  “Which one of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man in need?”. 

 

In the Sermon of the Mount, many important questions are asked about our habits. 

 

How do your habits help you to win in life? Are some of your habits self defeating? Do you shoot yourself in the foot with some of your habits? Essential among these questions is our motivation with people. By knowing why we do what we do we are able to let God set us free from self defeating habits. How we feel and think  about people are key indicators of our level of obedience to God’s pathway for living. For instance,  “For in the same way you condemn others, you will be condemned, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”   Matthew 7:2

January 15, 2017 Light & Salt: Living Out Your Divine Purpose | Matthew 5:13-16

Trinity is known as a lighthouse on the hill. People from around the heart of San Antonio can see our steeple @ Mulberry and TriPoint off 281. They are inspired to think of their life purpose in light of God. We pray that our lives will then help them, like a light, to see how they can live out God’s inspiration. United we become as Jesus said, “a city set on a hill that can not be hid.”

 

We are commissioned by Jesus, to let our “light shine before people that they may see our good works and give glory to God in heaven.” Jesus blessed us with his teachings on our being “the light of the world” and our being “the salt of the earth.” He also warned us not to lose our “saltiness” and not to hide our “light”. What are we to make of this blessing & warning?

 

CLAIM your identity. Jesus said, “You are.” Your “saltiness” and “light” enables you to know your place on the earth and in the world. Otherwise we get lost.

 

CARE for your identity in light of your purpose. Salt is meant to preserve and provide taste. Care for God’s message in your life and in the earth. We become worthless if we lose our saltiness. Light makes things visible. Don’t hide your light but give care to let it shine so people can see. 

 

CONNECT your purpose, your salt & light, to honor God and you will be renewed and rewarded. 

 

BE LIGHT: Light enables us to see. Light reveals what was hidden in darkness. Light shows the way.

 

BE SALT: Salt preserves. Salt adds taste. 

 

BE YOUR TRUEST SELF. You are made in God’s image. You are reborn in Christ.  You BECOME light in the world. 

 

Christ is the Light who lights up our lives. Christ is on the bold mission to shine through us as Light into darkness. 

January 8, 2017 CHARACTER: Changing the World by First Changing Ourselves Matthew 5:1-12, 48

C.S. Lewis prophesied the truth by how he could see heaven and earth. He wrote, “Aim at heaven and get the earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” Heaven is ultimate. Earth is penultimate. Understanding the difference is the key to getting everything else right.

 

So Jesus laid out this truth in what we call the Sermon On The Mount and its opening, The Beatitudes.  The first and last verses of the Beatitudes highlight that all the Beatitudes are filled with Kingdom of Heaven qualities. So between being “poor in spirit” and being “persecuted for righteousness sakes” are connected with: (5:4) “mourning to be comforted”; (5:5) “being meek to inherit the earth”; (5:6) “hungering and thirsting after righteousness to be filled”; (5:7) “being merciful to obtain mercy; (5:8) “being pure in heart to see God”; (5:9) “being a peacemaker to be called the children of God”.

 

Christ embodied heaven on earth and by following Him we see how to live a heavenly life on earth.