Sunday we start a new sermon series from John 18 & 19: Passion – It Wasn’t the Nails. This series will take us all the way to Easter week covering the events of Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion and death. Over the last year I have been preaching through the Gospel of John and this series, together with the few weeks following Easter, will conclude our journey through that book.
This Sunday as we look at the arrest of Jesus in John 18, you will see an unusual confidence that Jesus has in the midst of a very stressful situation; his arrest and impending execution. A term that is used to describe the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion is “The Passion of the Christ.” Mel Gibson’s movie about the crucifixion has that very name. Why is this called “The Passion of the Christ?” The simple answer is because this is the very thing Jesus came to earth to do, and now that it has finally arrived, Jesus enters into it with great passion as he seeks to fulfill the will of the Father and mission he came for.
From a human perspective it would appear that the events of John 18 & 19 caught God and Jesus off guard. That they were surprised and ambushed by the enemy. That when Jesus was crucified, the nails and the hammer that drove them into his flesh were what put him and kept him on the cross. In this series we will see it wasn’t the nails that kept him there – it was his passion; a passion that is fueled by the love of God for all sinners throughout human history. Join me for this new sermon series as it conveyed the exciting conclusion to the Gospel of John.

This Sunday we will wrap up our six-week Kingdom Economics sermon series by considering the returns good stewardship brings. I remind you that stewardship is not just what we do with our financial resources, it is the stewardship of our lives that includes money as well as our time, our abilities and the relationships we invest in. As we conclude this series, I want you to see what the return for your investment is. The return is not seen in a growing bank account either for the individual or for the church, but the number of lives that are reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Every other philosophy about how to invest the resources of your life will always be based on how much of a return will come personally to you. That is not how Kingdom Economics works. Biblical stewardship is for the growth of God’s Kingdom through the number of lives reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ. In essence, Kingdom Economics calls us to invest for the benefit of others. However, there is a side story to Kingdom Economics we all need to see and consider. The greatest joy and blessing in life does not come from using our resources for our benefit and pleasure. The greatest joy for the believer comes from seeing what God will do to transform lives for eternity when we practice biblical stewardship.
This week I will invite you to make a commitment to practice biblical stewardship as taught throughout Kingdom Economics. Click the link below or use the paper forms at the Welcome Table after service to make your response.

To this point in our sermon series, Kingdom Economics, we have considered some general stewardship principles from scripture. This Sunday we are going to consider stewardship on a more personal level as it relates to the local church.
While there are many different denominations in Christendom who deal with finances very differently from each other, we are a Baptist church that functions in the congregational system of church operations. The ecclesiology (big word for how a church operates) of congregational churches is under the Lordship of Christ and through the activity of the church body. Our church operates as an autonomous, self-governing entity. The church members, led by the Holy Spirit, are the decision makers of our church, and when it comes to finances, we are responsible for the income and expenses of the church. The church members decide what the church budget should be to operate the church and therefore, it is the congregation of the church that we depend on to give generously so we can reach our budget goals for the ministry to be fulfilled. There are no outside streams of income to the church. This Sunday, look around at the people attending the same service as you and understand that it is by the generosity of those people, together with you, that our ministry is funded.
Sunday, I intend to share some of the ministry we can do because people like you, under the Lordship of Christ, give proportionally and systematically to this church. Through the offering and the acts of service by people in our church we are fulfilling an Act 1:8 strategy for mission: local to global. Most of our budget goes to the ministry we have right here on Pleasure Island and the surrounding area. We also share in ministry across our state and in missions all over our nation as we support the North American Mission Board. In obedience to Scripture, we are also engaged in supporting missions to the other nations of the world through the International Mission Board. At this time, we are especially focused on the Bengali people around the world, in south Asia and with the help of Russell Abraham in places like New York City. That kind of mission can only be accomplished with the generous financial support of the people that make up the congregation of this congregational church. Join me this Sunday as we lay a biblical foundation for our personal stewardship and the local church.