Redemption

An Unveiling Portrait – Ruth 2

/ pastorjasonmiller

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Further Application

  1.  How have you reacted during times of blessing and times of difficulty? Have you drawn closer to God or wandered from him? In difficult times, we can be tempted to blame God, become bitter, and back away. In times of blessing, we can be enticed to elevate our blessing to the point where our blessing becomes our source of gladness, and we can fail to be thankful for the One from whom all blessings flow. How can we keep close to God and display faithfulness during seasons of blessing and times of difficulty? How do we prepare during one season for the next?
  2. What virtues/characteristics do you esteem in your personal relationships (e.g. husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend)? Are these characteristics more informed/shaped by popular culture like television, movies, etc. or by the Bible? In what ways should you reconsider what you look for in your personal relationships?
  3. No one likes going through a breakup, especially the breakup of a marriage. Why is it important for your expectations of yourself and your mate to be shaped by the Bible, before you say, “I do”?
  4. But what happens if your mate does not live up to your expectations? Consider the truth that you will not always live up to the standard you have set for your mate or for yourself, just as you have not lived up to the standard set by God. But God showed you mercy and grace through Jesus. If you are both believers, you possess the Gospel. And because you possess the Gospel, you can likewise show mercy and grace to your mate. You can go beyond the law and extend grace. How can you make it your practice to go beyond the law and extend grace in your relationships?
  5. Have you ever considered yourself as a destitute outcast before you surrendered your life to Christ? How can you tell the story of Ruth to the people you know in such a way that you introduce Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of the destitute outcast?

Sermon Notes

Main Idea: In the lives of God’s people, there are no coincidences, only divine appointments. God has set today as a divine appointment for you to meet your kinsman redeemer, Jesus Christ.

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Choices, Choices, Choices (Part 2) – Ruth 1:8-22

/ pastorjasonmiller

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Further Application

  1. Do you most often find yourself trusting in the things that you can see, or trusting in God by faith? Why is it so tempting to give the weight of our faith to trusting in only what we can see? How can you prepare yourself to trust God no matter your circumstances?
  2. What are the gods of your past that you left behind when you surrendered your life to Jesus? How did they fail you in the past? How has God provided for you? How may you need to repent and turn away from the gods of your past and turn back to God?
  3. Have you ever suffered from bitter blindness, or are you suffering now? The only cure for bitterness is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is acceptable to discuss your bitterness with God; he already knows anyway. But when you discuss your bitterness with God, be willing to be healed and to see through God’s eyes according to his sovereignty and his plan and not your own. Ask for his mercy and grace to relieve you of your bitterness. Ask God to help you be satisfied with Christ, and not demand an answer that God may not yet be willing to reveal to you. Remember that, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
  4. How can you graciously and patiently help someone who is suffering from bitterness receive the Gospel of redemption?
  5. What do you need to give up to follow Jesus fully in faith so that he can take you where he wants?

Sermon Notes

Main Idea: Choose this day, by faith, to trust in the love and sovereignty of God and receive redemption through Jesus Christ.

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Choices, Choices, Choices (Part 1) – Ruth 1:1-7

/ pastorjasonmiller

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Further Application

  1. What are some of the choices you make each day and each week that have significant consequences for you personally and your family?
  2. Are there choices you have made in your past where you wish you would have chosen differently? If there are, consider the grace of Jesus, and this truth, “It’s time to depart from your Moab.” Confess those decisions of your past to him personally and as a family and ask him to help you make decisions that honor him from this day forward.
  3. Read Paul’s promise to the church in Colossians 1:9-12. For what does Paul say we should pray in verse 9? How does this prayer relate to the choices we make each day? What are the other fruits of praying verse 9 for yourself personally and your family as seen in verses 10-12?
  4. Prayer is essential to making good, God-glorifying, joy-generating choices. What are some other ways both personally and with others that will help you choose wisely? Consider reading Proverbs 11:14, 12:15, 19:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Psalm 19:7-14; 2 Timothy 3:16.

Sermon Notes

MIM: Your choices have consequences. Chose to follow Christ, trusting in the loving, wise sovereignty of God.

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God’s Pursuing Grace

/ pastorjasonmiller

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Today, January 28, 2015, I am humbly stepping into a new endeavor that I pray will serve the church well for the glory of my Lord Jesus. While it is my purpose to fill this site with many resources to equip and encourage believers as they join Jesus in his mission to make disciples of all nations, I will begin with this post: God’s Pursuing Grace. This is a short story of how God’s ever-loving, never-ceasing pursuit of my soul brought me new life and a new identity in his Son Jesus Christ. To God be the glory, great things he has done…

I was born in small peach farming community in the foothills of South Carolina. There were two things you knew were going to happen every Sunday: you were going to eat at grandma’s house and you were going to go to church. As a five-year-old little boy I understood the preacher when he said Jesus was the way to heaven, and of course, I didn’t want to go to hell. So I walked an aisle, recited a prayer, was baptized, and proceeded to live an outwardly moral church life. But honestly, I never surrendered my life to him. God was my fail-safe, not my Lord.

I never surrendered my life to him.
God was my fail-safe, not my Lord.

Fairly often, I read my Bible, and I would talk to God. But one night as a high school senior, I actually listened perhaps for the first time. The Holy Spirit convicted me of my superficial Christian lifestyle. He called me to humbly admit my need and wholly submit to Jesus as master of my life and serve him in ministry. I sought council, but in my youthfulness and pride I stubbornly yielded to my own pursuits.

I continued to try to co-pilot my life for many years though knowing it was not God’s intended life for me. I had married my high school sweetheart and developed a successful career as a professional engineer, but my heart would ache that I had not surrendered to Christ’s call. Truth be known, I maintained a moral façade in public, but I was faking the Christian life. Privately, I was enslaved by sin and defeated by self-reliant perfectionism. I didn’t know the grace of God, and I didn’t know the power over sin that comes through the Holy Spirit when you surrender to Him. All those days of wrestling with sin in my own strength without the strength of God were no fun.

I was faking the Christian life…then I
experienced God delivered brokenness…

Then I experienced God delivered brokenness when my wife and I struggled through a lengthy season of infertility. My “perfect” plan was falling apart, and there was nothing I could do. After all the frustration and failures, after all the medical avenues to pregnancy were dead ends, I will not soon forget the specialist’s words to Megan and I, “Maybe kids just aren’t in the mix for you.” That hurt deeply. My plans, my world that I had crafted, came tumbling down leaving me nowhere to turn but to God for His mercy and grace. It was in this moment that, for the first time, I humbled myself wholly unto Him. I admitted my sinful greed and stubborn resistance. I surrendered everything that was left of my life to Jesus – my will and my plans to His will and His plans for my life. I am so thankful he answered my plea. I am so thankful for His ever-loving and never-ceasing pursuit.

God’s plan and his timing for my life and my family have been so much more than I could have ever imagined. Today, God has graciously blessed my beautiful wife and I with three wonderful children: Mollie, Caleb, and Abbey. But before the first new life was ever in Megan’s womb, I received a new life in Jesus Christ. Hallelujah for God’s faithfulness; that “it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.” (Phil 2:13)

Where sin did once abound so viciously, now grace super-abounds victoriously!

When I gave my life to God, I gave Him my grief. I gave Him my self-reliance. I gave Him my appetite for the debilitating sins on which I would binge. I gave Him my past, my present, and my future. What I gave Him would not bring a dollar at auction, but it’s what God wanted from me. And in exchange He gave me His priceless life. He gave me hope, and help, and a future. Jesus gave me Himself, and life in Him victoriously and abundantly. I’m still growing into the likeness of Jesus, and I am still not perfect. Not by a long shot. But where sin did once abound so viciously, now grace super-abounds victoriously! (Rom 5:20)

I want you to know that God wants your life too… all of it.

Has there been a time when you have surrendered your life to Jesus as your Lord and Savior? It’s time. It’s time to turn from your sin by confessing them to Jesus and trusting him for forgiveness. Then, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, follow Jesus and join him in his mission to free other slaves of sin and brokenness. Want to know more? I encourage you to watch this short video.

When you surrender your life to Jesus, the Bible tells us to make public what God is doing in your life. So I encourage you to share the great news of God’s work in your life with a trusted pastor or friend in a local church today.

May your humble faith in Jesus Christ open up the doors of heaven to you!