The Joshua Victor Theory

Sermon Notes: • Today: lesson in prayer, persistence/determination, justice, suffering, and the character of God.  • V. 1 Don’t surrender to discouragement or impatience! Have confidence to continually bring your prayers before God, knowing that He desires and invites them and has compassion. Christ is engaging with what is likely our common experience of frustration with regard to prayer: giving up prematurely. We are promised that we will face difficulty and crosses that will test our faith and persistence. Christ wants to build up our hearts, our resiliency, determination.  • “do not lose heart” Ephesians 3:13 “over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” • “do not lose heart” 2 Cor. 4:1, 16 in the ministry, or while our “outer self is wasting away”.  • Jesus tells various people to “take heart” when they were ill, when they needed forgiveness, when they were afraid because they didn’t recognize who Jesus was, or when they were to face tribul...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our OT text from Ezekiel 18 strikes on an issue that we often wrestle with today—our personal responsibility for sin, and the temptation to question God’s justice or fairness in how sin is punished. God spoke through Ezekiel during one of the darkest times for the Jews—when the kingdom of Judah and the city of Jerusalem were facing God’s judgment for their sin, and war and destruction from the armies of Babylon was pressing down on them. A popular saying was going around the nation: “ The fathers have eating eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge .” It meant that the children were suffering for the sins of their parents, not their own sins. In essence, it said God was being unjust because “you’ve got the wrong guy!” It was a victimization mentality that passed off the blame of guilt to someone else, and/or accused God of taking pleasure in punishing those who d...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The sermon text is Isaiah 42:1-7, the first of what are called the “Servant Songs” of Isaiah. The Servant Songs are a series of prophecies where God speaks about His chosen servant, who would bring redemption and God’s work upon the earth. They speak about the Messiah or the Christ, and the description is sometimes referred to as the “Suffering Servant,” because Isaiah prophecies in detail about His crucifixion. Today we’re going to look at how Jesus, the Suffering Servant brings justice to the earth. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. He Brings Forth Justice...Being on the receiving end of justice can produce a variety of responses. Are we getting what we justly deserve? Then justice might evoke resignation or a burdening sense of guilt. Maybe our “justice” is that we’ve made our own bed to lie in; we’ve dug our own pit, etc. Justice can mean the e...