Mark: Keep Rowing and Trusting

What makes you scream like a little girl? Seeing a ghost? Facing a terrifying storm? Or something more routine like finding a mouse? Mark tells us the disciples screamed when they saw Jesus walking on the water. Where was their trust and why were their hearts hardened?

Mark 6:30-56,1:35
Matthew 6:6
John 20:29

We do not obey God properly and substantially unless we simply follow whatever He commands even though it conflicts with our ideas. God always has the best reason for His purpose, but He often hides it from us for a time so that we may learn not to be wise in ourselves but to depend entirely on His will. John Calvin

Now by going up the mountain He was seeking the possibility of praying free from all interruption. We know how easily warmth in prayer can be quenched or at least cooled by the least distractions. He wished to warn us by His example to be careful to use all the helps that will disengage our minds from the snares of the world, so that we may be carried up to heaven. The most important thing is solitude. Those who set themselves to pray with God as their only witness will be more watchful, will pour forth their hear into His bosom, will examine themselves more carefully, and, knowing that they have to do with God, will rise above themselves. John Calvin

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• Why did Jesus spend so much time in prayer?
• Why did He often get alone to pray?
• Why are the disciples described as having hard hearts?
• How should they have responded?
• In what ways do we respond to circumstances in life with hard hearts?
• How can we do it differently?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Death is Gain: Resurrected Bodies

When believers die and their souls go to heaven they are in paradise and yet look forward to an even more glorious day. That is the day Christ returns and they receive glorified bodies. What does that mean...glorified bodies? In this message we will examine the great change and future for the believer in Christ.

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Titus 2:13
John 5:24-29
Philippians 3:20-21
Romans 5:18-23
1 Corinthians 15:3-58
Matthew 13:41-43

He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine. C. S. Lewis

But God tells us that in heaven our bodies will be filled with energy. We will not know what weariness is. A new dynamism will possess us, new physical powers, so that the swiftest, strongest Olympic athlete would appear feeble in comparison with a believer in glory. Edward Donnelly

Try for a moment to imagine the sheer physical well-being of heaven. Just as the pains of hell are more excruciating than any conceivable on this earth, so are the pleasure of heaven infinitely more delightful than any we can presently imagine. Our bodies here are subject to the results of the Fall. Even the youngest and strongest do not know what real health is like. We have no idea of the exhilarating sense of well-being that will course through our veins in heaven. It will be physical pleasure of the most intense kind. Edward Donnelly

My dearest child, the true love of God strengthen you in virtue, you who are yet so young, and whom I must leave in this wicked, evil, perverse world. Oh, that it had pleased the Lord that I might have brought you up, but it seems that it is not the Lord's will...Be not ashamed of us; it is the way which the prophets and the apostles went. Your dear father demonstrated with his blood that it is the genuine faith, and I also hope to attest the same with my blood, though flesh and blood must remain on the stake, well knowing that we shall meet hereafter. Young mother from prison 1573

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA