Anticipating Heaven: It's Really Quite Special!

Do you lack a positive anticipation for Heaven? This may partly be because you just don't know enough about Heaven to look forward to it. In this message we will explore Heaven as really quite special... to say the least!!

Revelation 4,5:11
Matthew 5:16,5:45,5:48-6:1,6:9,7:11,7:21,10:32-33,14:19,3:16-17,18:10,5:12,5:34
1 Peter 3:22,1:4
Luke 23:43,1:19
Hebrews 9:23-24,10:34
Acts 7:48-49

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• Why are folks not sure they actually want to go to heaven?
• What does it mean that heaven is a place, and God is there in a special way?
• Why are the current representations of heaven often unhelpful?
• What do we learn from the anthill and the resort?
• How about the King's throne-room?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Colossians: Check Out Those People... Wow!!

Paul clearly tells us in Colossians that Christ will present the believers holy, blameless, and above reproach... how can that be? How can I be there?

Colossians 1:9-23,1:2,1:4,1:26
Ephesians 5:25-27,1:3-4
Habakkuk 1:13
Romans 8:33-34
Jude 1:24-25
Philippians 2:14-15
1 Peter 1:15-16

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• What are some of the amazing aspects of the fact that God wants to be reconciled with us?
• How are the saved people going to appear before God?
• Why will no one dare to question how these people can be holy, blameless and above reproach?
• What will these people feel like as they stand there?
• Will you be one of them?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Colossians: Why Me, Lord?

Why would anyone seek to reconcile with an enemy who hates them and wishes them harm? Why me, Lord? Paul is explaining to the Colossians God's amazing offer.

Colossians 1:19-22
Romans 5:9-10,8:7,8:31-32
2 Corinthians 5:18-21

This is the most wonderful scene that the universe will ever witness; a beseeching God, an imploring Savior, standing at the door of the sinner’s heart with eternal salvation in His hand, knocking for entrance and begging to be let in; the insulted Omnipotent Creator of the universe, beseeching a worm, whom an exercise of His will could sink in a moment to hell, and His justice be glorified in the act, to accept His pardoning mercy, and waiting year after year, in all longsuffering, for the sinner’s reconsideration of his obstinate refusals. Be astonished, O heaven, at God’s unutterable mercy, and be horribly afraid, O earth, at man’s indescribable wickedness. Here is the climax of God’s divine love, and man’s desperate depravity. John Angell James An Earnest Ministry

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How are people enemies of God?
• Why is it amazing that God even wants to be reconciled to us?
• What is so amazing about How God reconciled us to Himself?
• Why is it amazing that God pleads with us to be reconciled to Him?
• How beloved and safe are those who are reconciled?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Gospel in the Old Testament: Being Related to the God Who Saves

If you are the infinite, holy, great, immense, loving God... how do you reveal this to mere mortals. The answer is progressively, over time, and dramatically at times. In the Old Testament, Mount Sinai is one of those pivotal, powerful revelations of who God is. And it is important for us to grasp His message.

Exodus 19:1-20:21,14:11-12,16:2-3,17:3
1 Thessalonians 4:16
1 Corinthians 15:52
Proverbs 9:10
Job 28:28

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How does God answer the question: What are You like? In this text?
• Why did God reveal Himself in such scary ways on Mount Sinai?
• What were some of the reasons God gave the Ten Commandments?
• Why is the fear of God the beginning of wisdom?
• What are the advantages to those who understand how great God is?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Mark: Stay Back!... Come Near!

As we study Mark's description of the cross we realize that for centuries the Holy God, for our own safety, said "Stay Back"... now, through the cross, He says "Come Near"!

Mark 15:33-39
Hebrews 10:19-39
Matthew 27:45-54
Genesis 3:24
Exodus 19:12,19:21-25
Isaiah 6:5
Judges 13:22
Philippians 3:9

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How many ways did God say "Stay Back" in the Old Testament?
• Why did He say this?
• What was the significance of the curtain in the temple?
• What is the significance that the curtain was torn in two on the day Jesus was crucified?
• Why is God able to say "Come Near" now?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

2 Corinthians: Being in the World But Not of the World

It is complex at times to know how to live a holy life in this world. God calls us to be holy but what does that mean? How do I interact with this world and its people, ideas and technology? Should we break all contact like the Amish... is that the only way? But what did Jesus mean by being in the world but not of the world? Paul and the Corinthians were struggling with these issues as well and in our study of 2 Corinthians, we will learn from their experience and wisdom.

2 Corinthians 6

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God: Part 5

When one grasps the fact that God is holy in all that means it leads to a question: Why would such a God move to save us? And the answer to that question leads to wonder, love, and praise!

2 Samuel 7
Habakkuk 1:13
2 Corinthians 5:21
Hebrews 10:19-23

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What does it mean that God is holy?
• How does God look upon all sin, including our own?
• Why is it astounding that God moved to save us?
• How did David respond to God's goodness toward him, and what should we learn from that?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God: Part 4

God is Holy. Then He says... "Be holy for I am Holy". What does that mean for us? What is holiness?

1 Peter 1:13-19
Leviticus 11:44-45,19:2-3
2 Corinthians 7:1
Hebrews 12:14-17
Colossians 3:1-13
Romans 13:8
Micah 6:8
Titus 2:14

A Quick Comparison of Religion and the Gospel Tim Keller

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• Why does God want us to be holy?
• What does it mean to be holy?
• How do we become holy?
• Why is this NOT earning our salvation?
• Do we find holiness desireable?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God: Part 3

God is holy... separate and above us. He is to be treated as special... with deep reverence, worshipful respect, even fear. How does that work our in our lives personally and as a church? These practical applications of the holiness of God will be our focus.

Exodus 30:22-38,20:7
Romans 11:22,11:33
Leviticus 10:1-7
2 Samuel 6:1-15
1 Chronicles 15:11-15
Acts 5:1-14
1 Corinthians 11:17-34
Isaiah 57:15
Micah 6:8

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What does the Bible mean when it refers to God as both severe and good?
• How did God reveal to us that He should be treated as special?
• Why is this not God being egotistical but is right and good?
• What are ways in which people today disrespect God?
• How do we disrespect God?
• What is our hope of being welcomed by this God whom we have no right to approach on our own?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God: Part 2

God's holiness includes the idea of His moral purity. The moral excellence of God has huge implications for all people, and shines an amazing amount of light on the wonder of the cross and of salvation.

Luke 5:1-11
Matthew 8:20-22,8:27-29
Job 34:10
Habakkuk 1:13
Malachi 3:2
Hebrews 10:19-23
Isaiah 6:1-8
Revelation 6:15-17

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• What does it mean that God's holiness can be called His Moral Excellence?
• What was Isaiah's first impression when he saw God?
• Why does God get angry at little sins?
• Why does the holiness of God make sense of the cross?
• How does it make the cross and the benefits of the cross so glorious?
• How can we boldly approach a throne that Isaiah feared?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God: Part 1

The Holiness of God is such an important doctrine and reality to understand. It will help us all appreciate God's specialness and majesty as well as how wonderful it is that He has provided a way for mere creatures to come to Him and be adopted by Him.

Exodus 19:10-24,15:11,3:2-6,20:18-21,33:17-23
Psalm 50,104:1
1 Samuel 2:2
Hosea 11:9
Revelation 15:4
Judges 13:22

From this it already appears that it is not correct to think of holiness primarily as a moral or religious quality, as is generally done. Its fundamental idea is that of a position or relationship existing between God and some person or thing.

It is this holiness of God which Otto, in his important work on Das Heilige,... includes such ideas as "absolute unapproachability" and "absolute overpoweringness" or "aweful majesty". It awakens in a man a sense of absolute nothingness, a "creature-consciousness" or "creature-feeling" leading to absolute self-abasement.

...the response to it: "Mere awe, mere need of shelter from the 'tremendum', has here been elevated to the feeling that man in his 'profaneness' is not worthy to stand in the presence of the Holy One, and that his entire personal unworthiness might defile even holiness itself." Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• Why is it so important to understand God's Holiness?
• What significance is the fact that the basic idea of holiness is to separate?
• Why is God's holiness also understood as God's specialness and His aboveness?
• How did God teach these things to Moses and the people of Israel at the burning bush, at Mt. Sinai and when Moses saw God pass by?
• What are the implications of all of this for us?
• What will it be like to see God for the believer?
• For the unbeliever?
• For you?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

1 Peter: The Christian's Self-identity or Who Has the Right to Define Who You Are?

Who do you allow to define you? The world is always attempting to do this to the Christian. God alone has the right to define who we are and in this passage Peter says some amazing things about who Christians actually are. Listen to them...believe them... because only God has the right to define you!

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1 Peter 2:4-10,1:2-3,1:23,1:14-16,4:3-5,1:18-19
Matthew 21:33-46
Exodus 19:5-6
Isaiah 43:21

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• Who do you let define you?
• What happens to us when we let the world do it?
• Who alone has the right to define you?
• What has He said Christians are?
• Why is this important for us to grasp and how will it change our lives?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

1 Peter: Motivations to Holiness

God is Holy and He calls His children to be holy. What does it mean to be holy? What actually is holiness? And how does one become holy? These are the topics Peter covered in this message.

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Galatians 5:16-26
1 Peter 1:2-21,2:17
Romans 12:2
Micah 6:8
Philippians 2:14-15

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• How can we best not conform to the former lusts?
• What are these lusts that we struggle with now?
• What does it mean to be holy?
• How have we had wrong thoughts about holiness?
• How am I supposed to both love God and fear Him?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Death is Gain: We Will Be Changed

We are sinners, yet sin can't exist in Heaven. How? We will be changed on the inside.

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Romans 7:7,7:13-25
1 Corinthians 9:27
Revelation 21:6-8,21:27,22:12-15
1 John 3:1-3
Hebrews 12:14,12:22-23
Ephesians 1:4,5:7

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God

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Hebrews 12:1-14
Isaiah 6:3,5
Habakkuk 3:16
Job 40:4
Matthew 17:5
1 Peter 1:15-16

Ron Beil
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Overreaction???

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Genesis 3:1-19,9:5-6

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA