Mark: Plotters, Betrayer, Worshipper - Why Such Extreme Responses to Jesus?

Why did peoples' response to Jesus always seem so extreme? This passage from Mark highlights some extreme opposites. How do you respond to the person of Jesus Christ?

Deuteronomy 15:1-18
Mark 14:1-11
John 12:6

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How many responses to Jesus are there in this passage?
• Why are they so intense?
• Why did this woman waste all that money on Jesus?
• What does this teach us?
• Why did the leaders and Judas do what they did?
• What do all of them think about it now?
• How do you and I respond to Jesus?

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

The Question We Should Not Ask...The One We Should!

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Romans 12,8:31-32,8:15-17
1 Corinthians 4:3-5
Ephesians 1:4-5
Jeremiah 31:3
1 John 4:10
Galatians 2:20
John 10:27-30
Matthew 20:28

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

Luke: Like a Stubborn Mule

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Luke 11:5-10,18:1-8
James 1:2-4,5:10-11
Romans 5:3-4,8:25
Mark 13:13
2 Thessalonians 1:4
Hebrews 10:35-36,12:1

We know how uncommon and difficult a virtue is persistence in prayer; and in this our unbelief betrays itself, for unless our first requests are answered, we at once give up hope and also the practice of prayer.

In the parable Christ introduces a widow who gets what she wants from an unfair and cruel judge because she did not stop asking. The point of it is that God does not help His people immediately because in a sense He wants them to tire themselves out with praying.

How then shall the prayers of believers be unfruitful if only they persist in them? Therefore if we are weakened by boredom, if when we have done a little we give up, or if our fervor in prayer languishes because God seems to have deaf ears, let us still be convinced that success will be assured even if it is not yet seen. And in this confidence let us so wrestle against our impatience that a longer delay does not break our perseverance in prayer. John Calvin

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA