Skillman Church Of Christ's Podcast

As Jesus nears the time that he will leave earth, he encourages the disciples to understand that a Companion is coming and will be with us in the place of Jesus. We find in these words of Jesus that God is within us, and when we are able to most fully be who God created us to be, we see and know that it is the Spirit working out the image of God in us that allows us to fully become who we were created to be. 

The New Testament gives quite a bit of attention within the early church to the various gifts that a believer might have. We see in these gifts that God is active within ourselves by forming us into specific kinds of people—people who are able to encourage, teach, lead, prophesy, even provide relief and healing to others. God is working through us and our gifts to help show each of us and the world what God is doing in our lives.

The Skillman church has big plans.  This month we will speak about our hopes, dreams, and visions for local and international missions.  Last week Mike Young also spoke of a season of prayer and discernment for the direction and mission of the congregation.  In all these discussions, are we including the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to give us power to do great things.  In our modern world, we often unintentionally leave God our of our plans to spread is kingdom.  We put our faith in the "right" hire, the development of an effective mission and vision plan, events, and outreach programs.  All of these are important, but it is also vital to remember that first and foremost we are a spiritual institution.  We ultimately rely on God's Spirit to open doors, to make things happen, and create opportunities for growth.  

In Romans 8, Paul reveals much about the working of the Spirit. Surprisingly (or perhaps not surprisingly at all), Paul includes that the Spirit intercedes in our moments of pain and weakness on our behalf, and that all of creation is groaning for the age to come when we will be revealed fully as God’s sons and daughters, made in the image of Jesus. In that time, suffering, sin, and death will be defeated and the goodness of God’s creation will be restored. And so, today, as believers, we can have confidence and trust that God is working in us and in history through the Spirit to bring that goodness back to all of creation. We can join in with our brothers and sisters in groaning for the age to come, and we can call out to God in our weakness, knowing that the Spirit intercedes for us.

Today, we encounter the active, working Spirit of God in our lives. As we consider our world and the darkness of sin, pain, and death around us, we may wonder whether God is active, whether the Spirit still plays a role in our world. We see in the early life of the church that the Spirit was at work in their testimony about who Jesus was. That Jesus was Lord and Messiah. As some of us seek the Spirit, and as others experience God’s Spirit, we confess that Jesus is Lord and join with the work of the Holy Spirit in announcing the good news of God’s restoration of all things back to goodness and back to God.

This week, we begin a new sermon series focused on the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. While the word “Trinity” does not appear in Scripture, we still find evidence that God is revealed to humanity in a multitude of ways. We learn of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. As we begin this series, we will contemplate and discuss the Triune God who appears in the Bible, and we will encourage one another to awake our attention to the presence of God among us in the Holy Spirit. We will not ignore God working among us, but instead will be encouraged to live faithfully and to seek to worship this God.

John Mark welcomes us back into the Worship Center of the Heritage building by reminding us that all breath, all life, all wind, and even all Air Conditioning (ha!) comes from the breath of God (ruah). Do we really believe that God can bring the dead back to life?

This week is the final week of our sermon series "Where the Wild Things Are - How to Neighbor Well." John Mark will lead us through how important it is to greet one another well, and how this communicates the importance and value that each person has been created with. Plus, John Mark will share with us how to kiss well too.

In Matthew 25, Jesus says that those who welcomed the stranger have welcomed him. Those who love and care for those in need do it also for Jesus. As we explore what it means to be a good neighbor and how we can take steps to love and care for the people around us, we are given the challenge to look for the needs of the people around us and then to fill those needs. This week, we will seek to make ourselves available to the needs of our neighbors, asking them how we can be better neighbors by taking care of their needs.

John Mark begins a new sermon series where we will be discussing what it means to be a good neighbor. This week, John Mark reminds us of the story of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus teaches us that our neighbors are all around us, if only we will have eyes to see them and hearts moved with compassion to love them.

The 5th chapter of Ephesians continues Paul’s call to grow to maturity in Christ. This chapter describes how to do this by inhabiting, inaugurating, and introducing a new way of living in the world. In this new way, what the Gospel writers called the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God, the followers of Jesus imitate God by imitating Jesus. The followers of Jesus practice sacrificial love, living in the light and not darkness, and learning to submit to one another because ultimately we find our identity not in our status in the world, our standing before the gods, or anything else except for the love of God that we has been made known to us in Christ. We are dearly loved children of God (5:1), and Paul urges us to live as such.

In Ephesians 4, Paul begins to let us know what he has been building to in his letter. Verse 15 shows us what Paul’s desire is for the church: “to grow in every way into Christ.” That as followers and listeners to Jesus, we can and should become like Jesus. That we are called to become One with our God—the God we know as Father, Son, and Spirit. As we continue our study of the book of Ephesians, may we seek to grow into the likeness of Jesus, the one who shows us who our God is in the flesh.

This week, we continued our series studying the book of Ephesians. We read Ephesians 3 on Sunday, particularly emphasizing Ephesians 3:14-20.

The second sermon in a series on the book of Ephesians. Ephesians 2:1-22.

The beginning of a study in the book of Ephesians on following Christ.

At the end of Jesus’ ministry and time on earth, he invites and commissions his followers to share in the mission of God. He instructs them to spread the good news of what God is doing in the world—of hope, love, forgiveness, and restoration. He commands the disciples to go and make more disciples through baptism and teaching. And as the local church today, we too are given the opportunity to follow these commands of Jesus in this place and at this time. We seek to share good news with the world around us; to invite others into the way of following Jesus. We seek to be the family of God.

As the people of God, we are tasked with many different things. From advocating for truth and justice in the world to seeking to love our neighbors to raising children faithfully and with love. Among all of that, one of the core directives for Christians is to follow Jesus. To become disciples. One way we are able to do this is through mentorship and leadership within the Christian community, following men and women who faithfully follow God. As a family, we seek to mentor and learn from one another about how to follow this God in any and every arena of our lives.

As we continue our series on the church family, we look this week into the role the community of faith plays in the lives of youth and children. Children are precious and the impact the church can have now can last a lifetime. What can we learn from Scripture about ways this church family can encourage, develop, and nurture youth and children?