Feast and Follow with Knollwood

Love Your Neighbor

What is the first piece of information you want to know about a person? What is the first thing that you notice when you meet them? For those in sales, the most relevant thing about you is how much money you have, and they often tell by looking at your dress, particularly your shoes. For others, it's what kind of job you do, or whether or not you have kids, what color you are, or your denominational affiliation.

Collecting this information isn't necessarily a bad thing, but how you treat them based on what you think you now know about them might be. Do you assume once you've noticed their brand-new, brand-name shoes that these people are more valuable to know? Do you think that because you know where they are from you know what they are really like?

A Season for Everything

For this week, we are taking a break from James to look at Ecclesiastes 3 and see how everything has a season, each a gift. If you are interested in this topic, I would recommend the book, Everything is Never Enough by Bobby Jamieson. It is one of the better books I've read so far this year.  

Slow to Speak, Quick to Do

Is the Christian life something that happens to you or is it something that you are actively involved in? This isn't a trick question, but is meant to make you think. The answer of course is yes. Jesus comes and sovereignly resurrects your soul. He takes out your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh. You are then given the Holy Spirit to empower you for good works. As Voddie Bauchum once put it, "The gospel does not require obedience, it produces it.” After Paul tells us that we are saved by grace through faith (Eph.2:8-9), the very next verse tells us that we are saved for good works (v. 10). We are not floating through the Christian life but are actively involved in making decisions that reflect our new standing.

Our passage in James here is even more direct. Verse 22 tells us very plainly, "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." Good works here are not a suggestion. Without good works, our faith is self-deception. What sort of works is he talking about?

James offers to us a couple of areas to look at in our lives. They aren't exhaustive, but they are foundational. After covering our endurance under trial, James moves to the more everyday sort of concerns in the Christian life. The Christian life isn't just lived when the diagnosis of cancer comes in. It is lived in the moment right after someone says something stupid to you. And you'd like to finally give them what's been coming for years.

Let's get practical.

Church History 101: Lecture 6, Chalcedon

Today, we look at the Chalcedonian Definition, where the Church Fathers wrestled through the two natures and one person of Christ.  

Our Darkness, His Light

If God is the one who strengthens us through our trials, then does God bring us temptations to sin as well? Does God tempt? Today we look at James to see that God is not the bringer of temptation but life.

How to Get the Crown of Life

One of the amazing things about the up to the second news cycle today is how we can be aware of the wall to wall suffering in the world and yet still be surprised by our own. We are surprised by the big things, the diagnoses, the divorces, the deaths and the little things, insomnia, dead spark plugs, and that one red light that you always seem to catch. You would think given our constant stream of bad news we would know how to respond to hardship or at least expect it. Yet suffering always seem to catch us unexpectedly, flat-footed, and unprepared. Much of the time all we can do is sputter questions like "Why this, why now" and "What in the world am I supposed to do next?"

Maybe the reason why we are so surprised by our own suffering is we spend too much time on the other side of the internet, the social side, because we find the exact opposite of suffering: seeming endless highlight reals of other people's lives. Where that guy seemed like a real solid guy in real life, and then he got that car and became insufferable. Then when good things happen to us, we just as quickly run to the socials to perform the same insufferable brag. Trials come in many forms, and we could sure use some wisdom in how to deal with them.

Enter James chapter 1. James begins his letter with realistic expectations for life. He doesn't sit on the fence with "if you find yourself in trials," like he is unsure if you will ever experience this. He tells us what to do when we find ourselves in trials of various kinds. And it is exactly what we need.

James: The Steadfast Life

Today we begin our brand new series on the book of James! 

The Risen Savior

Today, as every Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of Christ! 

Good Friday

Today we contemplate the sufferings of Christ

Maundy Thursday Service

Today we look at Jesus announcing the new covenant!