Apr. 23, 2023

The god of Today

Confronting the Chaos Series 

April 22 & 23, 2023

Primary Text:  Ezekiel 28:1-2 

Last Week’s Teaching: Trusting the Truth – Part 2

1)  God-breathed

2 Timothy 3:16-17:  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 

DQ 1) What does it mean that “all Scripture is God-breathed”?

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2)  By the Spirit

2 Peter 1:20-21:  Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation.  For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 

DQ 2) How did the Holy Spirit guide and direct the writing of the Scriptures?

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DQ 3) How does the Holy Spirit work through the Scriptures today?

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This Week’s Teaching: 

1)  The Radical Self

Ezekiel 28:1-2:  The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says:"' In the pride of your heart you say, "I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas."  But you are a man and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god.

Jeremiah 16:19-21:  O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.  Do men make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods!"  “Therefore I will teach them-- this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.”

DQ 1) How do human beings make gods of themselves?  Why?

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2)  The Therapeutic Self

Proverbs 23:6-7 (NASB):  Do not eat the bread of a selfish man, or desire his delicacies; for as he thinks within himself, so he is. 

DQ 2) What is the “modern therapeutic self”?

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DQ 3) Define your “identity”.

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3)  The Sexual Self

Galatians 5:16, 19-21:  So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature….  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:13-18:  The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body….  Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?  Never!  Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."  But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.  Flee from sexual immorality.  All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.

DQ 4) How can sexual activity become the “identity” of an individual?

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DQ 5) Why does sexual sin have a powerful influence on people?

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