Parables // Prayer // The Key to Living an Overcoming Life

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Parables // Prayer // The Key to Living an Overcoming Life

August 18, 2024 • Luke 18:1–8, Proverbs 3:5–6, Joshua 1:9, 2 Thessalonians 3:3, 2 Corinthians 9:8

Parables // Prayer // The Key to Living an Overcoming Life

Luke 18:1-8 (NLT)

“One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. ‘There was a judge in a certain city,’ he said, ‘who neither feared God nor cared about people.’ A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’

Then the Lord said, ‘Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?’”

Prayer: The Key to Living an Overcoming Life

1. God uses prayer to guide you in confusing times.

Proverbs 3:5-6 (NIV)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight.”

2. Prayer helps you overcome the temptations that come in the midst of difficulties.

1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

3. Prayer will steady you in trouble.

Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Matthew 28:20 (ESV)

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

2 Thessalonians 3:3 (ESV)

“But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.”

Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

4. Prayer keeps you focused on God’s character.

Hebrews 6:10 (NLT)

“For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for him and how you have shown your love to him by caring for other believers, as you still do.”

Philippians 4:19 (NIV)

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

2 Corinthians 9:8 (NIV)

“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

2 Corinthians 9:10 (NIV)

“Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.”

Matthew 6:31-33 (NIV)

“do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Parables // The Parable of the Elder Brother

September 22, 2024 • Luke 15:25–32, Matthew 20:8–15

Parables // The Parable of the Elder Brother Luke 15:25-32 (NIV) ““Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”” Symptoms of “the elder brother syndrome” 1. Projects judgment towards others and God. 2. Inflated view of their own righteousness. 3. Misunderstanding of God’s grace. Matthew 20:8-15 (The Message) “’Call the workers and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first. Those hired at five o’clock came up and were each given a dollar.’ When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, ‘These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.’ [sound like the older brother?] He replied to the one speaking for the rest, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn’t we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the ones who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my money? Are you going to get stingy because I am so generous?’” The loving father’s message to the elder brother. 1. It’s not your works I cherish, it’s you. 2. All I have is yours. 3. I want you to enjoy my party.

Parables // Lost & Found

September 15, 2024 • Luke 15, Luke 19:10

Parables // Lost & Found Lost & Found Luke 15 The Lost Sheep The Lost Coin The Lost Son Two Kingdom attitudes to embrace. 1. Compassion 2. "For the Son of Man [Jesus] has come to save that which was lost." LUKE 19:10 (NKJV) Celebration "The Lost Sons” God seeks sinners and wants them to come to Him. God and all of heaven rejoice when a sinner turns to God. Do you need to up your practice of Compassion and Celebration?

Parables // Jesus Wants To Do A New Thing In Your Life

September 8, 2024 • Isaiah 61:3, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Hebrews 3:7–9, Luke 5:27–39, Psalm 34:8

Parables // Jesus Wants To Do A New Thing In Your Life Luke 5:27-39 (NIV) “Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow me,’ Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ They said to him, ‘John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.’ Jesus answered, ‘Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.’ He told them this parable: ‘No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” 1. Jesus came to give you a spirit of joy not burdensome sorrow. Psalm 34:8 (NIV) “Taste and see that the Lord is good;” Isaiah 61:3 (NIV) “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” 2. Jesus came to do something brand new in your life. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 3. Resisting what Jesus is doing will cause your life to get messy. Hebrews 3:7-9 (NIV) “So, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did.’”