Posts with the category “the-fourth-wall”

Final ThoughtsThis month, we have been wanting you to realize that there is more to this world that what we see everyday. God has been working in the background, and sometimes the foreground throughout our whole lives and through the history of the world.In today’s reality it seems that we are stuck with the choices that come to us politically, with the ideologies that we encounter from culture, a...  Read More

2 Kings 520 But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said to himself, “My master should not have let this Aramean get away without accepting any of his gifts. As surely as the Lord lives, I will chase after him and get something from him.” 21 So Gehazi set off after Naaman.When Naaman saw Gehazi running after him, he climbed down from his chariot and went to meet him. “Is everything all ...  Read More

2 Kings 513 But his officers tried to reason with him and said, “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, ‘Go and wash and be cured!’” 14 So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him. And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a...  Read More

2 Kings 59 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 But Elisha sent a messenger out to him with this message: “Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of your leprosy.”11 But Naaman became angry and stalked away. “I thought he would certainly come out to meet me!” he said. “I expec...  Read More

2 Kings 54 So Naaman told the king what the young girl from Israel had said. 5 “Go and visit the prophet,” the king of Aram told him. “I will send a letter of introduction for you to take to the king of Israel.” So Naaman started out, carrying as gifts 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and ten sets of clothing. 6 The letter to the king of Israel said: “With this letter I present my servant...  Read More

2 Kings 51 The king of Aram had great admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories. But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy.2 At this time Aramean raiders had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman’s wife as a maid. 3 One day the girl said to her mis...  Read More

INTRODUCTIONThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion between you and the person you’re studying with, or your Connect Group.  Feel free to add, subtract, or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Holy Spirit to lead in all things.OPENING QUESTION(S)Have you ever had a moment that was hard to believe even with your own eyes?  Or someone told you about something so ...  Read More

2 Kings8 When the men with leprosy arrived at the edge of the camp, they went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine; and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and hid it. 9 Finally, they said to each other, “This is not right. This is a day of good news, and we aren’t sharing it with anyone! If we wait until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on, let’s...  Read More

2 Kings5 So at twilight they set out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they came to the edge of the camp, no one was there! 6 For the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses and the sounds of a great army approaching. “The king of Israel has hired the Hittites and Egyptians to attack us!” they cried to one another. 7 So they panick...  Read More

2 Kings3 Now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the entrance of the city gates. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?” they asked each other. 4 “We will starve if we stay here, but with the famine in the city, we will starve if we go back there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Aramean army. If they let us live, so much the better. But if they kill us, we would have died ...  Read More

2 Kings2 The officer assisting the king said to the man of God, “That couldn’t happen even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven!”But Elisha replied, “You will see it happen with your own eyes, but you won’t be able to eat any of it!”The officer working with the king couldn’t imagine that things could be so bad today and so good tomorrow. He couldn’t fathom how this turnaround could occur; perh...  Read More

2 Kings7:1 Elisha replied, “Listen to this message from the Lord! This is what the Lord says: By this time tomorrow in the markets of Samaria, six quarts of choice flour will cost only one piece of silver, and twelve quarts of barley grain will cost only one piece of silver.”So, Elisha predicts things will get better. It has to be hard to believe since things were so terrible at this point, and th...  Read More

2 Kings2 Kings 6:24 Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria. 25 As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver.26 One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him...  Read More

INTRODUCTIONThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion between you and the person you’re studying with, or your Connect Group.  Feel free to add, subtract, or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Holy Spirit to lead in all things.OPENING QUESTION(S)Have you ever witnessed a disagreement within the body of Christ that split that body, and/or, deeply hurt members of...  Read More

Acts 15-Jerusalem council28 “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: 29 You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”30 The messengers went at once to Antioch, where they called a general meeting o...  Read More

Acts 15-Jerusalem council22 Then the apostles and elders together with the whole church in Jerusalem chose delegates, and they sent them to Antioch of Syria with Paul and Barnabas to report on this decision. The men chosen were two of the church leaders—Judas (also called Barsabbas) and Silas. 23 This is the letter they took with them:“This letter is from the apostles and elders, your brothers in ...  Read More

Acts 15-Jerusalem Council12 Everyone listened quietly as Barnabas and Paul told about the miraculous signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.13 When they had finished, James stood and said, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Peter has told you about the time God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for himself. 15 And this conversion of Gentiles is exactly what the...  Read More

Acts 15-Jerusalem council6 So the apostles and elders met together to resolve this issue. 7 At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them as follows: “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. 8 God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by gi...  Read More

Acts 15-Jerusalem council      Acts 15:4 When they arrived in Jerusalem, Barnabas and Paul were welcomed by the whole church, including the apostles and elders. They reported everything God had done through them. 5 But then some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and insisted, “The Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the law of Moses.”They w...  Read More

INTRODUCTIONThe following is a guide to help facilitate discussion between you and the person you’re studying with, or your Connect Group.  Feel free to add, subtract, or change questions to fit the conversation, and pray for the Holy Spirit to lead in all things.OPENING QUESTION(S)The focus of this sermon series is seeing beyond the world we see, to recognize there is always more going on than me...  Read More

Whatever is right (Just) Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.Another word for “right” that is used often in translations is “whatever is Just.” So maybe we need to look into what it means to be Just. Justice ha...  Read More

Whatever is honorable.Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.Honor is the second concept that we are to look into when it comes to what we are to add to our lives. So what around you is honorable and how do you de...  Read More

Whatever is true. Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.So, what should we add to our lives? The above list is probably a great place to start, but let's break that list down a bit more. “Fix your thoughts on wha...  Read More

What we include. When Christians think about not conforming to this world, we usually go to those things that we need to exclude to not conform to what is happening in the world. We try to find those things that cause us to sin or that we think are sinful, and we exclude, or at least try to exclude, those things from our lives. We often go to the next step and assume everyone should exclude those ...  Read More

The Culture We See.  We live in an interesting culture. I am in London as I write this series guide. I am doing an evangelistic series at a church in Central London. London is a megacity that has meant so much to Western culture. But the reality is that the church in England and London is going through a very difficult time. Modern London culture, by and large, no longer has the imagination to bel...  Read More

Imagine . . .Imagine those moments when you are lying in bed, and you find yourself inundated with great and warm feelings about your faith. These are the moments that we find peace in our faith. These moments hook us into the idea and experience of faith. Admittedly, these moments are too few and too far between for many of us.Now, imagine a very different experience: Waking up at night feeling a...  Read More

There is an old trope in acting that the camera is the fourth wall. This convention imagines a wall between actors and their audience. While the audience can see through this “wall,” the convention assumes that the actors cannot.Every once in a while, you will see an actor look directly into the camera or at the audience, and they will speak through the Fourth Wall and break that convention. This ...  Read More