There is a man in this story whose name is Mephibosheth which means “from the mouth of shame”. This man is lame on his feet. He was crippled by a fall that happened when he was five years old. His nurse picked him up to run with him and he fell and was made lame. Because he is crippled, he cannot work which means he cannot provide for himself and the Bible records that he lives in the house of Machir in a place called Lo-debar.

The Bible records all different kinds of praying. Public praying like Jesus did at the tomb of Lazarus before the crowd that had formed that day. Short prayers like “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. The blessing of food prayers that the Lord would pray before serving people bread. There are all manners of praying we do like sitting on the porch in the morning. Praying in the car on the way to work. Giving thanks for our food and asking God to bless it. Short prayers throughout the day for various reasons like someone asking us to pray for their needs. All of these are good and valid but the Lord Jesus repeatedly throughout the gospel books had a habit of withdrawing himself, finding a place to be alone and praying to the Father.

Last week we celebrated Resurrection Sunday and there were more people here than I can remember in a long while. I am blessed to work with several people who profess hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and the story was they same at all the assemblies they attend. More people than usual, packed houses, new faces and so on. The thought occurred to me that many people, maybe even most people in our part of the country, believe at least mentally that Jesus Christ arose from the dead. But it’s not the kind of belief that brings them back to the house of God the Sunday after. They may never really think anything of Christ until next year at this same time if we’re blessed to see it.

Text: 1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
This verse tells us that sin did not originate with Adam and Eve, but that it began long before them. This verse tells us that the devil is the father of sin because it started with him. Contrary to what some may believe, God did not create a devil. He created an angel that became the devil. The origin of sin is found in…

To give a little history so that we have context to the verses we just read, we are reading about Jacob and his family. Jacob had 2 wives that were sisters, 2 handmaidens that became his wives as well and twelve sons. The wife he cherished above all was Rachel and the son he had by her, Joseph, was the apple of his eye. Joseph was honest, upright and of good character. Jacob’s other sons were deeply flawed with deep-seated jealousy and deceitfulness. They were morally unstable and had violent tendencies. They despised Joseph because of Jacob’s love for him. Jacob gifted Joseph with a multi-colored coat that his brothers stripped off him before throwing him in a pit. They eventually sold him into slavery while deceiving their father into believing that Joseph had been destroyed by a wild beast.

John 18:28-19:9
This was the first and only time that Pilate and the Lord encountered each other face to face. The religious leaders and elders of the Jews brought Jesus bound to Pilate to be judged. Pilate didn’t want to deal with Jesus at all. He first told the Jews that brought him “Take ye him, and judge him according to your law” but they refused because they replied “It is not lawful for us to put any man to death” because they did not want to defile themselves before the Passover. Pilate comes back into the judgment hall and has a dialogue with Christ that makes him uncomfortable.

Outline Available Here

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1Timothy 1:18-20
Paul charges Timothy in the text, meaning he lays the responsibility upon him, according to the prophecies that came beforehand concerning him. The Spirit of God revealed things through the prophets of the early church that were to be both educational and an exhortation to help Timothy in the spiritual battles he would face. Paul’s charge was concerning two points to avoid a shipwreck of faith. He said, “holding faith, and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck”. Then he uses two examples, Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom we find out later had gone in the ditch doctrinally, saying that the resurrection had passed already. Their blasphemies had overthrown the faith of other saints, not in the Lord, but in the resurrection. Paul said he had delivered them to Satan, meaning that he had excommunicated them from the local church.

Outline Available Here