Wellington Church of Christ

Jesus said in John 10:10, ¹⁰…I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Jesus had many purposes under the umbrella of his ministry and one of those purposes was not only to make it possible for us to live again after we die, but also, to truly live while we are in the here and now, or as He put it, to have life abundantly.

Unless something happens to prevent it, the week of June 10-17, Rex, Tyler and I will be partnering with The Park Church of Christ of Tulsa, and going back to the Reserva Biologica Tawahka, the giant rainforest and biological reserve of southeastern Honduras.

And even though we can’t avoid death, because as of right now, there are 166,324 deaths that occur every day.  That’s 6,930 per hour, 116 per minute, and 1.93 per second, in case you were wondering.

In church history, there arises from time to time, seasons of persecution.  We’ll look this week at the very first season of church persecution that began in Jerusalem when the church was only weeks old.

The longer I preach, the more analogies I see everywhere I look, and especially in my own life. 

For instance, earlier this week I woke up with that dreaded super raw throat that I get when I suffer from drainage all night as I sleep.

I took medicine for three days to try to kick what was increasingly feeling like a sinus infection, and I progressively got worse, not better.

Do I dare ask?  How are your New Year’s resolutions coming along?  Did you make any to break?  Are you still going strong or have you already utterly failed?

There’s a consistent preaching method we see in the New Testament that many preachers have gotten away from these days. 

I don’t think it has a specific name, so I’ll call it, “Bad News First Preaching.”

As is our New Year tradition, let’s look at every Book of the Bible with 20 chapters and 23 verses and see what’s in there –

I truly believe that the greatest gift that can be shared with another person is the knowledge of Jesus.  That’s part of why it’s so exciting to me to be preaching on Christmas day this year.

But if Jesus is the greatest gift, what is the second greatest gift?