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Right Start Radio is a ministry of the Grace Polaris Church of Columbus, Ohio, and was started over 40 years ago with Pastor Jim Custer producing and then delivering it to local radio stations. Today Right Start can be heard in Ohio, Northern Kentucky, Gainesville and New Plymouth, New Zealand. Right Start is an outreach ministry with a three-fold aim: 1) Stimulate an interest in understanding the Word of God among believers (Colossians 1:28). 2) Strengthen local churches by providing a teac ...
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Hey, didn't we have 7 names on the signup sheet for the men's fishing trip? I'm counting 8! As we move into an early Easter or Resurrection Sunday holiday, we'll look at an account that's well suited for the occasion. We're still tracking James, who's gone along on a fishing retreat with some of the guys. If you've read John's Gospel, you know the …
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What's the agenda for this meeting? The purpose of the transfiguration of Christ on the mountain was clear: to reveal to Peter, James and John the true nature of their Lord. It was a way to open their eyes to reality. But Jesus would gain something from this event, as well. That seems to be why Moses and Elijah were invited to the meeting. And thei…
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And then Jesus said something truly revolting. Cannibalism. Isn't that what the Lord was talking about? Only recently He was providing tasty fish sandwiches - and now He's telling us to eat His flesh and drink His blood? What in the world?! It would take an Israelite with a very strong stomach to even stick around to hear the explanation of that. A…
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Before the Mountain, was the Meal. Last week we looked at the Mount of Transfiguration experience for Peter, John, and especially James. But it will help us appreciate that event if we'll flip back a few pages, and see what was happening just before. Yes, we'll hear from our old and true friend, Context. And the context was a confrontation between …
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The Mount of Transfiguration changed everything for James - and for Jesus! As we try to gather any details we can about the life of James bar Zebedee, we climb with him up a mountain where the Lord will give him and two other disciples an unimaginable privilege - that of seeing His glory. And in many ways this was the beginning of the end. From tha…
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If you want to hear a word from Jesus, you might have to stop talking! We've begun to tag along with the Apostle James, John's brother. In the previous sermon we witnessed the call that James got from the Lord. That call certainly changed his life, but maybe not as much as the scene we'll study next: the Mount of Transfiguration. As usual, Peter st…
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Did Jesus have some kind of hypnotic power that drew people to follow Him? When we see the Lord walking by the sea and calling out to Peter and Andrew, and then to James and John, "Follow Me," and they just drop everything to follow Him, what's going on there? Did those men have a spontaneous realization about Him? Did He possess some personal magn…
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What was so great about James the Greater? James, the son of Zebedee, was not only part of the "inner circle" of disciples, he was the first Apostle to be martyred. That's a high honor. But today Pastor Jim will show us that we may have a lot in common with this man. He's not the author of the Epistle of James; that's the Lord's half-brother. So wh…
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Does my gift make God yawn - or worse? When we give our Father a present, we want Him to like it! And we want to avoid the example of Cain, with his offensive offering. The writer of Hebrews has said that God is not impressed with our good-doing and our law-keeping. Well, then, what does He take delight in, now that the key sacrifice has been made …
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Under Grace, what is the function of the Law? In a way, this question was bound to come up. It always arises when we try to think-through the full implications of the gospel. If, as we gladly proclaim, salvation comes by grace through faith in Jesus; and if we insist that "by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified," can't we be accused of…
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Was Jesus the "Passover Lamb," or a different beast altogether? The writer of Hebrews takes us beyond the easy comparison of Christ with the sacrifice made at Passover, and on to another sacrifice, another animal, another day. And this symbolism doesn't make some obscure theological point; the point is practical, and applies to us: We are to follow…
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Martin Luther wrote, "What comes by the works of the law is disgrace rather than grace." As pleased as we may be with our own accomplishments, to God they must seem like the scribbles of a child. Our puny efforts and flimsy trophies certainly won't give us anything to hold on to when things get rough. We'll see that clearly today, as we continue in…
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When things start shaking, hang on to something! When everything that we thought was solid starts to collapse around us, where can we go? What can we find in our created, shakable world, that intrudes from the unshakable Kingdom? Well, there's the Word of God - the revelation of and by Jesus. His words are our rock, our solid foundation. And there …
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How many laws do we need? No one knows how many laws we have in the United States. If we were to count Federal, State and local statutes, plus regulations, you and I would find ourselves buried under tens of thousands of laws. It makes the burden of the 600-plus Old Covenant laws seem light! But what kind of people would we have to be, to be govern…
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If God is going to remove everything can be shaken... and that means "created things"... and we are created things... where does that leave us? Christians were born into the original created order, but we've been born again into the New Creation. We're now members of the unshakable Kingdom! That is very good news, which Jim will unpack today. From …
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Is fire friend, or foe? Fire gives us barbecue, and heated homes, and the internal combustion engine. It also destroys homes. And lives. In the Bible, fire refines and purifies the sons of Levi, and it kills the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. Fire is a symbol of God's presence (the burning bush); of His guidance (the pillar of fire by night); and…
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Do Christians have a sinister motive for supporting Israel? There are dark rumors, spread by ill-informed people, that believers in Jesus really don't have the Jews' best interests at heart - to put it mildly! Jim wanted to take a few minutes at the start of this sermon to put those rumors to rest, if possible. For the broadcast, this will make a s…
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The final warning of the Book of Hebrews. The New Covenant is immeasurably better than the Old Covenant. Our new High Priest and His sacrifice are improvements in every way. There's no good reason to back to the dead end, and the dead works, of the Law - so we've learned in the book of Hebrews. But! That makes our commitment to this New Way an even…
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Heaven is real, and we should act like it! Of course the idea of people floating around on clouds playing harps is ridiculous. But so is the popular notion that Heaven contains whatever makes you happy, as well as the view that it might be different for different people; "Heaven is a state of mind," to the fiction writers. No, Heaven is an actual a…
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Mount Sinai was touchable - but you were forbidden to touch it! Beginning at Hebrews 12:18 the writer contrasts 2 mountains - Sinai and Zion - obviously representing the 2 Covenants. And what a contrast it is! He seems to be piling on one last great metaphor to show the futility of the Old, and the fulfillment in the New. But there's more in this p…
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Does the message of grace make people careless? Sometimes it does. By chapter 12 the author of Hebrews has made his main point: It's absurd to go back to the Law and works-righteousness - a system that did not work. The Jewish Christians needed to go forward in faith. But, as we know, that can sometimes feel like there are no guardrails. The writer…
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Esau wanted a mulligan! We've all been there - realized that we not only made the wrong decision, but we made it for stupid and self-indulgent reasons. And now we're stuck with the consequences. Well, Jacob's brother Esau was the poster-boy for selling your destiny to serve your appetite, and living to regret it. Are there Esaus in the church? Is t…
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Some responsibilities are more important than others. A lot of people think of the Bible as one big rule book. They believe that, if they were to open it, they would find "Thou Shalt Nots" up and down every page. Well, there's a lot more to Scripture than that, as we've seen even in our study of the book of Hebrews. But there are some imperatives, …
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If my Father loves me, why is He allowing all of this to happen? Christians understand that we're not just bumping around in a cosmic pinball machine. God is working out a plan that includes us. It's especially important to remember that when we're victims of persecution, as the early Jewish Christians were. The letter addressed to them spelled out…
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If you're catching flak, you must be over the target! Darkness cannot abide light; the world hates those chosen out of the world... we have several warnings like that in the New Testament, that goodness will not be tolerated. So we'll be tempted to quit. We'll be coerced to compromise. And that's why the letter to the Hebrews exists. The author giv…
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Jesus could have come down from the Cross. "It wasn't the nails that held Him to the Cross." There's a gospel song about that; Billy Graham and others have made similar remarks. What kept Christ impaled on that wood hour after hour was His love for us. And His love for the Father. And His focus on the prize. If we want to fight the good fight, fini…
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"Is not the life of man upon earth a temptation, and that without intermission?" Those opening words from Augustine have us nodding our heads. We feel the pressure all around us, every day, to take a shortcut; to tell a bit less than the whole truth; to feed the flesh, and starve our spirit. Temptation without intermission. It's difficult to run a …
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God's promise will be delivered! We've learned that the book of Hebrews looks toward the future - as should we. Our sufferings here and now are not the permanent state of things. Yesterday we thought about the "joy" beyond the Cross that sustained Jesus: He will rule all. His enemies will be made His footstool. But there is more, and today Jim will…
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What was "the joy set before" Jesus? In Hebrews 12 we get this instruction: "...looking only at Jesus, the Originator and Completer of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross...." What joy is that? We could try to imagine what it would take to incentivize us to go through utter humiliation, rejection, pain, abandonment and death. Or…
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Miracles, victories, resurrection...torture? In Hebrews 11 we find one of the most abrupt pivots in all of literature. We're reading about the superstars of faith and their wonderful exploits, and suddenly - things take a very dark turn. How can the same faith, and the same God, give these very different results? Jim will pick it up with the story …
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Before King David and Christ Jesus, there had to be a call girl, Rahab! There's an old English saying, "He who has no fools, knaves, or beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning." Well, Jesus was conceived miraculously - and He still had shady ancestors! Don't look now, but there's a Gentile prostitute in the family line of Messiah, a…
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Who do you think you are? When we gaze at the heroes of faith, as we've been doing, we may hear a voice that sounds like us, saying: "Well, yes, but I'm no Moses. I'm no Abraham. I'm certainly not Christ! How can I have faith like them?" But if we continue reading Hebrews 11 we'll find a Canaanite prostitute. Suddenly the example is a little more d…
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Do we have a happy-verse-on-the-wall kind of faith, or a blood-on-the-doorframe kind? Not all of God's communications to us will be "positive," as some people classify things. But what if Moses hadn't taken seriously God's threat of the tenth plague in Egypt - the death of every firstborn not protected by the blood of a lamb? That took faith, too. …
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People will tell you to "follow your heart." But that's what we always do. When you get right down to it, we're always living out what we believe (not what we say we believe, but what we truly believe); and we're always pursuing what we love. The question is, do we see the big reward way off in the distance, or have we decided that today's little p…
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Moses chose. If we have no free will, as some insist, what does the Bible mean that Moses "chose...to suffer affliction with the people of God?" In fact, the passage of Hebrews 11 that we'll study today shows that Moses made several bold decisions. The sermon is called, Faith is a Choice. But we'll begin with a few minutes on "current events" in li…
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How's your spizzerinktum level today? I learned a new word listening to this message. It isn't Greek or Hebrew, or even Yiddish. Spizzerinktum is an American word that means "vim, energy, an overmastering will to succeed." You can spell it almost any way you like, which is handy, and it can also mean a person who has this drive: "Are you, or have y…
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Are we hallucinating enough? If you see things that aren't there, that isn't good; we need to get you checked out. But what if you see things that really are there, though others can't see them? They'll probably say you're hallucinating - or worse. Faith will allow us to see all kinds of things that are there. And that will get us in trouble. As if…
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There's a surprise member in the Faith Hall of Fame! In Hebrews 11, alongside Moses and Abraham and Sarah and Jacob, did you expect to see Jesus? All of our other faith heroes are imperfect. All of them lived under the Old Covenant. What's the Lord doing in this group? Well, He, too had to endure - endure rejection and even death. We must count Him…
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How would you like your faith to be remembered? The saints of the Old Covenant didn't have any problem thinking about their death, or what would happen after it. In fact, some of them used that defining event to make a statement to the world. We think of a "Last Will and Testament" as a document about the disposal of our property. But it also gives…
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In our "instant gratification" culture, Christians need to be the counter-culture. We want one-minute rice, same-day delivery, and even a 90-day fiancée. Our society is surely the most impatient bunch ever to walk the earth. But, as you may have noticed, God is not in a hurry. And if we wish to follow Him, we'll have to learn patience - learn it, b…
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It took Sarah's faith -plus- Abraham's faith to get that miracle. The ladies are being honored in the sermon we began yesterday, Faithful Rocking Rules the World. We're finding that they are not minor players in the story that God is unfolding - not at all! Those big promises that God gave to Abraham? The ones that shaped history, and are still ech…
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If you see a very old lady in the checkout line with a cart full of diapers and baby food, that's just Sarah! The aged wife of Abraham, taking Lamaze classes - that's funny. She was the first to laugh, and we're still chuckling at God's sense of humor. Sarah's name appears in the list of the faithful in Hebrews 11, representing all the women who ad…
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If death is "Game Over," then God lied. "All these died in faith, not having received the promises," we read in Hebrews 11. So either the Almighty reneged on His word to His most devoted servants, or they weren't after their "best life now." The writer of Hebrews invites us to share in the adventure undertaken by Abraham and many others; to enter i…
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Noah believed that the Flood was coming, but he believed in something else, too: life after the flood! Noah is one of two men of faith we'll look at, today. The other is Father Abraham. His inner eyes saw even farther - beyond his own lifetime, and even past us! Noah was just trying to find a patch of dry dirt. Abraham was looking for a heavenly ci…
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I wanna know: Have you ever seen the rain? Noah had never seen rain - nor had anyone on earth up to his time. Water doesn't just fall out of the sky, you know! It's difficult to imagine the amount of faith it took, sustained over a century, to keep building that boat! And Noah's faith was caught by his family - unlike others we could mention. But b…
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There's something about shepherds. Before David became the leader of a nation, he was a leader of sheep. It was lowly herdsmen "abiding in the fields" who heard heaven's announcement of the Messiah's arrival. A shepherd has time to think and meditate on the words of God. And it's hard to develop a big ego, as a shepherd. The keeper-of-sheep Abel he…
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"Now, faith is..." - that sounds like we're going to get a definition, doesn't it? The King James reads: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But it's hard to understand what that could mean. More recent translations propose, "...the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Per…
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Would you like to be certified by God? Hebrews 11 gives us a list of Old Testament folks who received the divine seal of approval. And they all got that recognition the same way: by faith. That's not the "easy way," either, as all of them would testify! Since faith is an intangible quality, it helps to see examples of how it works in a human life. …
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"He who endures to the end shall be saved." Jesus was talking specifically about people at the very end, enduring some pretty horrific persecution. But there might be a general principle in that statement. I think we could agree that all of us will go through some rough times, and we'll have to come out on the other side with our faith intact. Toda…
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The devil gets very chatty with us in the desert. You've done the right thing, you've obeyed God - you've paid the price for that - and now you're waiting. It feels like you're in a dry wasteland. And just like Jesus' wilderness temptation, Satan is speaking. But where is God? The "Hebrews" addressed in the New Testament letter had the same problem…
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